World Englishes

Question 1

American English

Answer 1

• In BE, auxillary verb ‘do’ often used as a subsitutue for a verb when replying to a question BE:’i might do’ AE: ‘i might’
• Brits sometimes use the auxiliary verb ‘shall’ to express the future, in an interrogative, a BRit would say ‘shall we go now’ Americans would choose to say ‘should we go now’
• Americans use the -ed suffix for past tense lexis, dreamed/dreamt learned/learnt
• consuming English: Figures show that in 2014 the word ‘awesome’ appears 72 times per million words compared to ‘marvellous’, which has fallen in use from 155 times per million 20 years ago to only two times per million today.

Question 2

Chinese English

Answer 2

• Use of American English tied to succcess
• Huge enthusiasm for English, seen as language of opportunity, desire for American universities where students want to return to China with new skill/knowledge
• used as a lingua franca for business
• seen as language of the technology, therefore grown massively due to internet
• British English taught originally, switched to American as BE is outdated and old-fashioned

Question 3

South African English

Answer 3

• lexical diffrences, 10k different words to BE in SAE dictionary, concrete noun ‘robot’
• District 6: complicated political history where black residents wer eevicted, governement tried to impose afrikaan there, defiant residents continued to use English mixed with Afrikaan,
• Afrikaan grammar often mixed with British lexis-almost incomprehensible to outsiders
• hybrid language deliberate decisions to reflect their identity

Question 4

lingua franca

Answer 4

a language that is adopted as a common language between speakers whose native languages are different.

Question 5

Kachru’s 3 circles for the spread of English

Answer 5

Inner:UK,USA,AUS,NZ
Outer:Kenya,SA,India,Nigeria,Uganda
Expanding:Russia,Spain,Brazil,Japan

Variation between US and UK is called variation in inner circle standards

Question 6

Crystal’s future of English

Answer 6

• uniformity=all different strands of English lose original language and use one standardised version of English- loss of regional varities/identity and culture
• disintegration= different strands in expanding circle will continue to adapt and change and will become incomprehensible to one another
• bidialectalism=will continue to have 2 different strands of English and be able to choose which one to use according to context, regional or standard dialects