WORLD ENGLISHES

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Transcript WORLD ENGLISHES

By: Siti Khotimah Ulfah Nur Farida Tutla Ayuhana Shinta Kartika D.

Indriarti 2201410059 2201410054 2201410066 2201410056 2201410126

The most influential model is Kachru’s Three Circles of English. It also uses a circle analogy, placing each country in one of three circles as follows(with examples added in italicized brackets): The current sociolinguistic profile of English may be viewed in terms of three concentric circles … The Inner Circle refers to the traditional cultural and linguistic bases of English [e.g. Britain, USA, Australia]. The Outer Circle represents the institutionalized non-native varieties (ESL) in the regions that have passed through extended periods of colonization [e.g. Singapore, India, Nigeria] … The Expanding Circle includes the regions where the performance varieties of the language are used essentially in EFL contexts [e.g. China, Japan, Egypt].

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Some scholars have criticized aspects of the Three Circles model, particularly: it is historically and geographically based; it deals with countries rather than societies or individuals; and it fails to accommodate some places (such as Denmark and Argentina) that seem to be moving from Expanding-Circle to Outer-Circle status even though they have no colonial links with England or the United States (Jenkins 2009: 20–1). Furthermore, Kachru’s model does not allow for the possibility of the increasing number of speakers with English as their first language in places such as Singapore and India.

A fundamental principle in the study of World Englishes is that variation and change are natural and inevitable. As a consequence, linguistic features which differ from Standard English are not necessarily errors but may instead represent components of a New English.

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Mesthrie and Bhatt (2008) compare a selection of New Englishes and identify grammatical features which occur in many varieties but not in Standard English. They propose that New Englishes can be classified as either ‘deleters’ or ‘preservers’.

Deleters are varieties whose speakers commonly leave out grammatical elements, while preservers are those in which deletion is less common, with Singapore English offered as an example of a deleting variety and Black South African English as a preserver.

Their explanation for this distinction between deleters and preservers is influence from other languages, as it is ‘usually dependent on the characteristic syntax of the substrate languages’ .

Kortmann (2010) agrees that language contact and geography are important factors influencing language change and development, he argues that variety type is a better predictor of morphosyntactic change. He concludes that whether it is a highor low-contact Inner-Circle variety, an indigenized Outer-Circle variety, a pidgin or a creole is a better predictor of its morphosyntactic features than the part of the world where it is spoken.

- Although language contact has always been a key stimulus for linguistic change, not just with New Englishes but also in the historical development of English in Britain through contact with Scandinavian languages and French (Crystal 2004), a surprising number of shared features have been identified, both in New Englishes and in ELF. In fact, the large number of non-standard forms which are shared by many new varieties has led some scholars to propose that a number of vernacular universals (VUs) exist, as these cannot be solely due to influence from the speakers’ first languages.

some phonological features that seem to occur in a range of New Englishes: avoidance of dental fricatives, reduction of *

* One of the most common features of New Englishes is the tendency to avoid using /θ/ and /ð/. However, the sounds that are used in place of these dental fricatives vary.

* For example, in the word three, the /θ/ tend to be replaced with /t/ or /s/ *

* Word-final consonant clusters are commonly simplified in New Englishes, often involving the * omission of the final consonant, especially if it is a plosive. For example, in Singapore English, * first, world, ask and think may all be pronounced with the final consonant omitted even when * the next word begins with a vowel (Deterding 2007: 18).

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* Sometimes, this process is reinforced by the phonological shape of words that are borrowed from English into the local language. * For instance, Standard Malay has borrowed many words from English in which a final plosive is dropped if the word ends with a consonant cluster. Examples include lif (‘lift’), pos (‘post’), hos (‘host’), kos (‘cost’), arkitek (‘architect’), saintis (‘scientist’), setem (‘stamp’) and kem (‘camp’) and it is not surprising that this final consonant is also often omitted when the same words are pronounced in English. Indeed final consonant cluster reduction is common in Malaysian English and also Brunei English

* The omission of plosives from the end of word-final consonant clusters is also frequent in * Inner-Circle varieties. Cruttenden (2008: 303–4) offers a long list of phrases in RP (the variety * of British English that is usually adopted as the standard) from which /t/ or /d/ at the end of * the first word is omitted, including next day, raced back, last chance, first light, old man and loved flowers, and Guy (1980) shows that the phenomenon is particularly common among * speakers of vernacular Black English in the USA.

* While stress-based rhythm is often claimed to be the basis of English speech timing in most nner-Circle varieties, use of syllable-based rhythm is widely reported for New Englishes. In addition to Singapore English, other new varieties that have been observed to have a syllable-based rhythm include those of the Philippines, India, Nigeria East Africa, and Jamaica *

* British English can also sometimes have variable rhythm. For example, syllable-based rhythm can be found in a range of speech styles, including * baby talk, sarcastic utterances, many types of popular music, and some television commercials, * this kind of rhythm might one day become the * norm for all varieties of English. It seems, then, that this is another candidate for a feature * where New Englishes may be leading the way for the future evolution of English.

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Singapor e English

The use of the present tense in

narrating an event is particularly common when dealing with something that may still be true.

The time frame of an event has

been established.

then later on in the evening … er went to the UK funfair … at Jurong East … mmm … it was, it was interesting, but very expensive … erm the fun, the entrance fee is cheap, it’s only two dollars … I guess that’s cheap enough, but then the … the games and the rides are all very expensive.

Singapore English

the nature

of the verb

past tense

marking is most common for punctual verbs

* hit, speak, or give 

punctual verbs

that describe an action * like, know or want 

describe situation

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* * It is similar with the English of Brunei.

* The historic present is already sometimes used for narrating past events in order to create a sense of immediacy.

It is already a common strategy in many varieties of English, both Inner-Circle and new varieties.

* * Some distinctions between count and noncount nouns in Inner-Circle Englishes are rather idiosyncratic.

* New Englishes may be hastening the process of regularizing the language.

Example: Furniture and luggage  mass noun But it tends to be treated as countable in many New Englishes.

It happens in Africa and Asia.

 furnitures, equipments, staffs, fruits, and accommodations.

Singapor e English Nigerian English

• he think I want to listen to his story is it?

• You like that, isn’t it?

* Invariant tags also occur in various Inner-Circle Englishes.

* The use of invariant tags is a common simplification strategy that is being adopted in a wide range of different places.

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* In many New Englishes, the topic tends to be placed clearly out at the front of the sentence.

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Singapore English

So the whole process I need to break down for the different operators.

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Indian English

Those people, I telephoned yesterday only.

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Sailaja

This book, I will return tomorrow.

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Sometimes, topic fronting is followed by a resumptive pronoun.

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In Inner-Circle varieties, fronting is common in spoken language.

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It may become increasingly favoured and accepted as mainstream in World Englishes.

Resumptive Pronoun

Then, er, two of my sisters, they’re already married.

The boys they like to play outside even if it is cold.

Inner-Circle Varieties (spoken)

That leather coat, it looks really nice on you.

General trends in linguistic features

One characteristic of many shared features is

that they tend to simplify and/or regularize English.

Simplifying and regularizing innovations are ones that have a good chance of becoming adopted as standard when a language evolves.

Example of a sign on the door of a shop in Singapore

Stages in the development of New Englishes

Kachru (1992b: 56) suggested that New Englishes pass through three stages :

The first is marked by non-acceptance of the emerging variety, with locals preferring the colonial or relevant Inner-Circle variety. The second stage sees local and imported varieties existing side-by side . Finally, the local variety becomes accepted as the standard.

Five stages in the developmental cycle (Schneider 2007: 56)

Foundation Exonormative Stabilization Nativization Endonormative Stabilization Differentiation

In discussing the development of New Englishes, a distinction is often made between the spoken and the written codes.

It is sometimes suggested that, while spoken codes allow significant variation, the written code is more uniform.

For example : The Pakistani novelist Sidhwa writes:

We have to stretch the language to adapt it to alien thoughts and values which have no precedent of expression in English, subject the language to a pressure that distorts, or if you like, enlarges its scope and changes its shape … (Sidhwa 1996: 240)

* * Today, English acts as a lingua franca throughout the world, and recent debate concerns the validity of ELF as an object of linguistic study and also its relationship to World Englishes (Kirkpatrick 2008) * A lingua franca can be defined as ‘a language that is used for communication between different groups of people, each speaking a different language’ (Richards et al. 1985: 214). * While it is true that this describes the function rather than a specific variety, recent research into ELF has shown a remarkable number of features shared by ELF speakers and New Englishes.

* ELF is now the most common use of English in the world (Jenkins 2007), so a study of its linguistic features and the ways it allows people to achieve successful intercultural communication offers insights about international communication and also guidelines for English language teaching.

* Although ELF shares some grammatical and phonological features with New Englishes (Deterding and Kirkpatrick 2006), ELF speakers generally avoid the use of local lexis and idioms (Kirkpatrick 2007b).

* This is a key distinction between World Englishes and ELF, as one fundamental role of World Englishes lies in their ability to reflect local phenomena and cultural values, often through the use of borrowings from local languages.

* In contrast, this is avoided in ELF communication, where the fundamental role is to facilitate cross cultural communication.

* * New technology has had a big influence on the development of worldwide varieties of English.

* For example, words for parts of the car differ quite substantially between Britain and America * (e.g. windscreen/windshield; bonnet/hood; boot/trunk) * but words for parts of the computer tend not to vary so much * (e.g. keyboard; mouse; hard disk).

* new words and ways of expressing oneself that arise in one society can easily spread elsewhere * However, at the same time, each variety of English can develop its own idiosyncratic forms of expression, and new media such as email, electronic discussion forums, and blogging can facilitate the establishment of these local features within a society. * New technology therefore helps maintain a balance between global and local features in the development of World Englishes (Pennycook 2007) * there are various features common in worldwide blogs, including abbreviations (‘u’ for you; ‘lol’ for laughing out loud)

* * In this chapter, we outlined how the insights of Braj Kachru and other scholars into New Englishes have created fresh fields of study under the term World Englishes, and furthermore,we now see Englishes occurring as a plural term. * We showed that variation is normal and inevitable both within and between varieties of English and considered some of the motivations for this. * At the same time, we noted the remarkable number of linguistic features shared by New Englishes and how this phenomenon has given rise to a theory of vernacular universals.

* We also suggested that New Englishes go though comparable stages of development, and argued that English in its role as a lingua franca should be studied as part of the World Englishes paradigm. * Finally, we noted that emerging technologies enable new varieties to combine global and local features.