World Englishes Flashcards
Kandiah (1998)
New Englishes - Africa (e.g. Kenyan English) South Asia (e.g. Indian English) etc.
Older Englishes - North America (e.g. American English) GB (e.g. English English) etc.
(English Based) Pidgins, Creoles and Decreolized varieties - Papua New Guinea (e.g. Tok Pisin) USA (e.g. Hawaii English Creole) etc.
Canagarajah’s opinion on McArthur’s model
“There is nothing in the centre”
There is NO universal English language, nor a World Standard English (WSE)
Functionality and pragmatics are more relevant than WSE - people construct English as it suits their purposes in a given context
Trudgill (1999)
Standard English is a dialect.
It has a greater prestige than other dialects. It does not have an associated accent and isn’t completely geographically centred
Therefore, it is a purely social dialect.
Why is English a lingua Franca (ELF)?
It is the common language or mode of communication that enables people to understand one another regardless of their cultural and ethnical backgrounds.
Coleman
“Killer English” - English has hegemonic influence on the societies in which it is taught but this is due to the prestige and attraction of English and is not portrayed this way intentionally
Coleman admits that this inequality is inevitable in a capitalist economic system
How does Quality / Mutual intelligibility of the English language make people use it?
The reason that people learn English in the first place could be because they want to be successful in comparison to others
David Crystal on English as a common language
Suggests that a common language (I.e. English) is essential so that “an unfavoured linguistic heritage should not lead inevitably to disadvantage”
The two diasporas of English
First diaspora - Migrations to N America, Australia, NZ, South Africa
Second diaspora - Colonisation of Asia and Africa
Pidgin vs Creole
Pidgin - A simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have language in common. A pidgin doesn’t have ‘native speakers’ - it’s nobody’s first language
Creole - Originated from a pidgin that has become nativised. A Creole is often defined as a pidgin that has become the first language of a new generation of speakers
How did Pidgins formed
African slaves taken from different tribes couldn’t communicate with each other. This meant that they only knew the language of their oppressors. As a result of this, pidgins were created in order to communicate
How do creoles form
When a pidgin becomes the first language of the next generation, when it can no longer be called a pidgin, it becomes a Creole
Lambert, matched guise test (1960)
He asked English and French people to judge the people on various personality characteristics. (The exact same speaker spoke in English and French)
Results: Both English and French people gave more positive characteristics to English lang.
Schneider’s Dynamic Model of Postcolonial Englishes (Phase 1 - Foundation)
The introduction of English to a territory (e.g. invasion)
Language contact between English and indigenous people (b) contact between different dialects of English of the settlers eventually result in a stable dialect
Borrowings are limited to lexical items
Schneider’s Dynamic Model of Postcolonial Englishes (Phase 2 -Exonormative stabilisation)
the settler communities tend to stabilise politically under British rule.
Bilingualism increases amongst the indigenous population through education and increased contacts with English settlers.
Schneider’s Dynamic Model of Postcolonial Englishes (Phase 3 - Nativisation)
the stage at which a transition occurs as the English settler population starts to accept a new identity based on present and local realities, rather than sole allegiance to their ‘mother country’.
The indigenous people have stabilised a second language system which uses inter- language processes, code switching and features adopted from the settlers’ koiné English.
More neologisms
