A resource book for students

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World EnglishesJennifer Jenkins

• A resource book for students

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C. Exploration

• Current debates in World Englishes

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C1 Postcolonial America and AfricaEnglish
Only in the US

• Increase in multi-ethnicity
• Growing population of ethnolinguistic minorities
• Reversal of policy for education in immigrants
  L1s
• Proposition 227 (1998)
• Obligatory immersion program
• Sink or swim
• Alienation from own first language and culture
• Social isolation
• Loss of cultural identity

C1
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English in Africa Nigeria A case of linguistic
imperialism?

• Bisong (1995)
• English has not displaced indigenous languages
• English only one factor in a multicultural
  society
• English used by African creative writers
  self-assertion, not victimisation
• Phillipsons response (1996)
• African languages marginalised in favour of
  English
• Promotion of English to de-emphasise ethnicity
• African literature in English not accessible for
  90 per cent of population
• Choice of English-medium education owing to
  neglect of state schools

C1
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C2 Creole developments in the UK and US London
Jamaican

• A combination of Jamaican Creole and a local form
  of non-standard English
• Powerful marker of group identity
• Shows grammatical, phonological and lexical
  features of Jamaican Creole
• Also shows features of London English which do
  not occur in Jamaican Creole

C2
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Ebonics

• Also known as Africa-American Vernacular English
  (AAVE)
• No agreement on how it developed
• Debate about its status and the approach to be
  taken in schools
• Oakland school board Ebonics regarded as valid
  linguistic system and as second language, used as
  language of instruction
• Strong reactions many opposed this approach,
  some were in favour

C2
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C3 Teaching and testing World Englishes
teaching English today

• Challenging the premise that NS is best teacher
• NS is expert informant, but not necessarily
  expert instructor (Widdowson 1994a)
• NNS teachers and students have shared experience
  of learning English ? asset (Seidlhofer 1999)
• but
• Authority of NS teacher still upheld in teaching
  materials
• NS teachers still sought most

C3
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Testing English today

• Students still measured against NS norms (also in
  international English tests)
• ? washback effect on classroom practices
• ? features which are standard in local (Outer
  and Expanding Circle) contexts but not in the
  Inner Circle are regarded as deviations and
  errors (Lowenberg 2000, 2002)
• ? rethinking of teaching and testing goals?

C3
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C4 Emerging sub-varietiesSinglish

• Singlish Colloquial Singapore English (CSE)
• Differs from Standard Singapore English (SSE)
• Not clear whether CSE and SSE are continuum or
  two distinct varieties (Deterding 2007)
• Fear that use of Singlish among children might
  affect literacy
• Main difference from Standard English is
  syntactic, lexis is dominated by English (Gupta
  1999)

C4
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Singlish

• Grammar
• Verb features e.g. past tense not marked, no
  present tense -s suffix, copula dropped to
  describe states
• Noun features e.g. non-count nouns treated as
  count, indefinite article dropped, relative
  clause with different word order and one
• Sentence structure e.g. subject dropping,
  conjunction dropping, use of pragmatic particles
  lah and ah

C4
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Singlish

• Pronunciation
• e.g. avoidance of th-sounds, less distinction
  between long and short vowels, rhythm very
  syllable-timed
• Lexis
• Borrowing from other Singaporean languages (e.g.
  Hokkien, Malay)
• Shifted meaning (e.g. stay for long-term
  residence)
• Conversion verbs to adjectives (e.g. blur
  confused), nouns to verbs
• Idiomatic forms peculiar to Singapore (e.g. love
  letters flaky, tube-shaped biscuits)

C4
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The politics of Singlish

• Speak Good English Movement (SGEM) (2000)
• Promotion of SSE
• Use of Singlish discouraged
• Concerns about international intelligibility ?
  economic imperative
• Sociolinguists (e.g. Schneider 2007) have
  different view concerns about falling standards
  are common in postcolonial contexts
• Rubdy (2001) Singlish is symbol of cultural
  identity
• Wee (2002) SGEM is an attempt to eliminate
  Singlish ? breach of linguistic human rights

C4
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Estuary English (EE)

• Rosewarne 1996
• Accent variety between Cockney and RP
• Pronunciation features
• Word final t replaced with glottal stop
• L-vocalisation
• Lengthening of final vowel sounds
• Dropping of yod in words like assume
• Syllabic consonants avoided by insertion of schwa
• th-fronting
• Might replace RP or be absorbed into RP (thus
  changing RP)

C4
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Estuary English (EE) a variety?

• Challenges to Rosewarnes account of EE
• Fails to take into account intraspeaker
  variation, i.e. adjusting accent to context
  (Maidment 1994)
• EE is StE with non-RP, London-influenced accent
  (Wells 1998)
• EE as inaccurate myth (Trudgill 2002) not a
  variety but a lower middle-class accent, unlikely
  to replace RP because not taught in schools
• Not a variety but a set of levelled accents or
  dialects (Kerswill 2007)
• A number of distinct accents, not a single and
  definable variety, is part of more general
  changes which are not exclusive to the British
  Isles (Przedlacka 2002)

C4
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C5 Standards across channels

• Differences between speech and writing
• Three approaches (Baron 2000)
• Opposition view
• Continuum view
• Cross-over view
• Continuum between typical speech and typical
  writing (Leech et al. 1982)

C5
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Grammar of spoken (British) English

• Carter and McCarthy 1995
• Features identified on the basis of CANCODE
  corpus
• Heads (or left dislocation)
• Tails (or reinforcement)
• Ellipsis
• Word order

C5
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E-discourse / emails

• Features of both speech and writing
• Email as speech by other means (Baron 2000)
• Differences in style depending on context,
  addressee, age, sex, L1
• e.g. features of texting especially used by young
  emailers
• Potential blurring of L1/L2, NS/NNS distinction
• ? Reflect on your own practices

C5
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C6 The nature of English as a lingua franca (ELF)

• ELF is used in contexts in which speakers with
  different L1s (mostly, but not exclusively, from
  Expanding Circle) need it as their means to
  communicate with each other
• ELF is an alternative to EFL rather than a
  replacement for it depends on speakers (or
  learners) individual needs and preferences

C6
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English as a lingua franca (ELF)
Kirkpatrick (2007b) adapted from Jenkins (2006c)
C6
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English as a lingua franca (ELF)

• ELF involves linguistic innovations that differ
  from ENL and which, in some cases, are shared by
  most ELF speakers.
• ELF involves the use of certain pragmatic
  communication strategies, particularly
  accommodation and code-switching. ELF forms
  crucially depend on the specific communication
  context.
• Descriptions of ELF that may lead to codification
  are drawn from communication involving proficient
  ELF speakers.

C6
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ELF features

• Lexicogrammar (Seidlhofer 2004)
• e.g. dropping third person s, interchangeable
  use of who and which, flexible use of articles,
  invariant tag questions, additional prepositions,
  frequent use of verbs with high semantic
  generality, heightened explicitness
• Collaborative behaviour in interaction
• e.g. supportive interruptions, positive minimal
  responses, repetition, completion of the
  interlocutors sentences
• Pronunciation

C6
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ELF features

• Pronunciation (Jenkins 2000)
• Lingua Franca Core (LFC)
• consonant sounds except th-sounds and dark l,
  vowel length contrasts, avoidance of consonant
  deletion at the beginnings of words, placement
  of nuclear stress
• Non-core features
• e.g. vowel quality, weak forms, assimilation,
  elision,word stress

C6
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ELF processes

• ELF features are the result of processes similar
  to the ones affecting ENL
• Additional factors in ELF
• language contact on a massive scale
• intercultural communication
• Acceleration of processes
• Attitudes towards ELF
• still scepticism/rejection among many linguists
  and ELT professionals

C6
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C7 Asian Englishes in the Outer and Expanding
Circles Indian English

• One of the two highest populations of English
  speakers
• British colonial history
• After independence in 1947 attempt to replace
  English by Hindi, but English remained
  associate official language
• Indian English identity, complementary
  relationship with indigenous languages
• Varietal characteristics
• Mixed acceptance of English as an Indian language

C7
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Hong Kong English

• Hong Kong British colony since 1842, special
  administrative region of China since 1997
• Hong Kong English
• Position as accepted variety is not secure
• British English still aspired to (also teaching
  model importing of NS teachers)
• Distinct lexical items
• At stage three in Schneiders (2003) five-stage
  model for the evolution of New Englishes
• Might be further influenced by Cantonese and
  Mandarin

C7
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China English

• A variety?
• Lexical, grammatical and phonological features
• Growing acceptance among the Chinese
• Growing importance
• Likely to become most common variety of English
  in Asia
• High number of speakers

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C8 Language killer or language promoter?
English as killer language

• Global spread of English as a cause for language
  death
• Some positions/beliefs associated with why
  languages become endangered
• Primitive technology equals primitive linguistic
  means
• Linguistic survival of the fittest (social
  Darwinism)
• Immigrants are encouraged to abandon their
  language
• Linguistic capital promise of economic
  advantages make a language worthy of acquisition
• Western school curricula in developing countries
  ? devaluation of traditional knowledge and
  culture

C8
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English-knowing bilingualism

• Important role in prevention of language death
• The de facto norm apart from monolingual Inner
  Circle English speakers
• Would be crucial for predominantly monolingual
  ENL societies to embrace this concept
• Becoming multilinguals
• Development of intercultural competence
• Acceptance of immigrant minorities
• Reversing the traditional hierarchy of Englishes

C8