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WORLD ENGLISHES SECTION A KEY TOPICS IN WORLD ENGLISHES THE HISTORICAL, SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CONTEXT In the period between the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603 and the later years of Queen Elizabeth II at the start of the twenty first century, the number of speakers of English increased from 5 to 7 million. Differently form its origins when English was a language spoken by only small group of mother-tongue, nowdays it is spoken in almost every country of the world, and for the majority of the cases we talk about speakers for whom English is not the first language. Currently, there are approximately 75 territories where English is spoken either as first language (L1), or a san official (i.e institutionalised) second language (L2) in fields such as government, law and education. The group of English speakers whose proficiency levels range from reasonable to bilingual competence was originally described as speakers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) to distinguish them from L2 speakers for whom English serves country-internal functions, that is, speakers of English as a Second Language (ESL). Since the mid of 1990s, however, it has become increasingly common to find the use of English as Lingua Franca (ELF) or as an Instrumental Language (EIL). The term ELF reflects the growing trend for English users (from for example Europe, China, ecc) to use English more frequently as a contact language among themselves rather than with native English speaker. The negative attitudes which persist today towards certain varieties of English have their roots in the past and, especially, in the two dispersals of English.

THE TWO DISPERSALS OF ENGLISH We can speak of the two dispersals of diasporas of English:

1. The first one involving the migration of around 25000 people from the south and east of England, so mother-tongue english speakers, to America and Australia, resulted in new mother-tongue varieties of English. The varieties of English spoken in modern North America and Australasia aren’t identical with the English of their earlier coloniser, but have altered in response to the changed and changing sociolinguistics contexts in which the migrants found themselves. Walter Relaigh’s expedition of 1584 to America was the earliest from the British Isles to the New World.

During the 17th century, English spread to southern parts of America and Caribbean as a result of the slave trade. James Cook discovered Australia in 1770, where a situation of dialect mixing developed. New Zeland was first settled by European traders in 1790s. South Africa was colonised by British in 1795. 2. The second diaspora involving the colonisation of Asia and Africa, led to the development of a number of second language varieties, often referred to as New Englishes. English in West Africa is linked to the slave trade and the development of pidgin and creole languages. East Africa’s relationship with England follows a different path: the countries (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, ecc) were extensively settled by British colonists from the 1850s. English was introduced to the sub-continent of South Asia during the second half of the 18th century. British influence in South-East Asia, East Asia and the South Pacific began in the late 18th century as a result of the expeditions of James Cook and others: this influence has provided one of the world’s best examples o fan English-based pidgin, Tok Pisin.

THE ORIGINS OF PIDGIN AND CREOLE LANGUAGES Definitions and development Leith identifies three types of English colony: 1. In the first type, exemplified by America and Australia, substantial settlement by first language speakers of English displaced the precolonial population. 2. In the second type, typified by Nigeria, sparser colonial settlements maintened the precolonial population in subjection and allowed a proportion of them access to learning English as a second or additional language. 3. The thurd type, exemplified by Caribbean islands, precolonial population was replaced by new labour from elsewhere, principally West Africa.

Until very recently, pidgins and creoles were regarded, especially by non-linguists, as inferior, bad languages. In the later years of the 20th century, linguists working in the field of second language acquisition began to realise what would be discovered about first and second language learning from the way pidgins and creoles developed; meanwhile linguists working in the field of sociolinguistics began to appreciate the extent to which these languages reflect and promote the lifestyles of their speakers. A pidgin is a language which no has native speakers, but it is a contact language, the product of a multilingual situation in which those who wish to communicate must find or improvise a simple language system that will enable them to do so. A pidgin arises in the first place to fulfil restricted communication needs between people who don’t share a common language. In the earlier stages of contac, communication tends to be restricted to basic transactions for which a small vocabulary is sufficient and in which there’s little need for grammatical redundancy. A creole is often defined as a pidgin that has become the first language of a new generation of speakers; it’s considered as a normal language. A creole arises when the children of pidgin speakers use their parents’ pidgin language as mothertongue. So, a creole has native speakers. Acquired as a first language, its vocabulary is more extensive and its grammar is more complex. Creolisation (the development of a pidgin into a creole) is a process which can occur at any point in a pidgin’s lifespan. A final stage occurs if the creole continues to move on in the direction of the standard dominant language, in other words, to become “decreolised”. The process of decreolisation occurs when a creole comes into extensive contact with the dominant language, as is the case for example with African American Vernacular English (AAVE). On the other hand, decreolisation occurs when among younger speakers signs of moving back towards the creole are shown, as is the case with the London Jamaican.

THEORIES OF ORIGIN Many theories have been advanced to explain how pidgin and creole languages arose in the first place. The earliest theory of pidgin origin was that of the “primitive native”, no longer taken seriously by the majority of the linguists. Most other theories can be divided intro three groups: 1. Monogenesis: made up of those linguists that believe pidgins have single origin; 2. Polygenesis: linguists believe that pidgins have indipendent origin;

3. Linguists who believe that pidgins derive from universal strategies;

THE INDIPENDENT PARALLEL DEVELOPMENT THEORY – POLYGENETIC According to this theory, pidgins and creoles arose and developed indipendently but developed in similiar ways because they shared a common linguistic ancestor (european languages and an indo european origin). In addition, both pidgins and creoles were formed in similiar social and physical conditions.

THE NAUTICAL JARGON THEORY – POLYGENETIC

THE THEORY OF MONOGENESIS AND RELEXIFICATION – MONOGETIC

THE BABY TALK THEORY – UNIVERSAL

A SYNTHESIS – UNIVERSAL

Although it’s not possible to prove this theory, given that is focused on mental properties, Todd provides substantial evidence in its support:

The fact that languages are simplified in similiar ways suggests that all languages have a simple

register, but that children swiftly move on from this register because of pressure to conform to the adult version of the language. Children of pidgin’s speakers, on the other hand, didn’t have this possibility, since there were no speakers of the non-simple register available to provide input. Hence, these children drew on their innate bioprogram (the genetic program for a language that all children are believed to be born with and which they adapt to the language they hear around ) to transform pidgin’s form into creoles. The strongest case for a synthesis approach is provided by Bickerton’s Language Bioprogram hypothesis (LBH), based on the development of Hawai’ian Creole.

WHO SPEAK ENGLISH TODAY? ENL, ESL AND EFL

Neverthless, it is difficult to classify speakers of English as belonging purely to one of the three categories.

English as a Second Language (ESL) refers to the language spoken in a large number of territories such as India, Bangladesh, Singapore, which were once colonised by the English. English as a Foreign Language (EFL) is the English of those for whom the language serves no purposes within their own countries. Historically, they learned the language in order to use it with its native speakers in the US and UK. The current number of EFL speakers is more difficult to assess, and much depends on the level of competence which is used to define such a speaker.

MODELS AND DESCRIPTIONS OF THE SPREAD OF ENGLISH The oldest model of the spread of English is that of Strevens. His world map of english was published in 1980 and shows a map of the world in which there a diagram demonstrating the way in which, since American English became a separate variety from British English, all subsequent Englishes have had affinities with either one or the other. Later, even Kachru, McArthur and Gorlach proposed circle models of English:

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Kachru’s Three circle model of Wrold Englishes, 1985-1988: the most useful and influential, it divides World Englishes into three concentric circles: The inner circle, the outer circle and the expending circle. These three circles represent the type of spread, tha patterns of acquisation and the functional al location of English in diverse cultural contexts. The English spoken in the innser circle is said to be norm-providing, that of the outer circle is norm-developing and that in the expanding circle is norm-dependent.

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McArthur’s Circle of World English, 1987: it has as its centre World standard English which doesn’t exist in an identifiable form at present. Outwards, it presents a band of regional varities including both standrd and standardising forms. Beyons these, there are those that McArthur describes as a crowded fringe of subvarities such ash Aborigenal English, Black English Vernacular (aka AAVE), Singapore English, Jamaican English and Gullah.

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Gorlach’s Circle model of English, 1988: it places International English at the centre, followed by regional standard Englishes (African, Antipodean, British Canadian, Us, Caribbean), then semi-sub regional standard English (Indian, Irish, Kenyan), the non standard Englishes (Jamaican English, Aborigenal English, Yorkshire) and finally pidgins and creoles (Cameroon Pidgin English and Tok Pisin).

The three circle model has been highely influential and contributed gratly to our understanding of the sociolinguistics realities of the spread of English. However, despite this influence, in the past few years a number of World Englishes scholars have identified limitations with the model in its current form, some of these related to recent changes in the use of English, while others concern any attempt at a three way categorisation of English uses and users. The main points that have been raised by by various scholars are:

Another more recent attempt to take account of developments in the spread of World englishes is that of Modiano. His model is the “The centripetal circles of International English” and has at its centre those who are proficient in International English. These speakers function well in crosscultural communication where English is the lingua franca.

Because of some comment related to his first model, Modiano created a new model, which shows at its centre EIL, comprhensible for the majority of native and competent non native speakers. His second circle consists of features which may become internationally common or may fall into obscurity. Finally, his out area consist of five groups (American English, British English, other majores varieties, local varieties, foreign varieties) each with features peculiar to their own speech community and which are unlikely to be understood by most members of the other groups.

Kachru explains the concept of nativeness with two variables: the range and the depth of a language in a society, i.e the domains in which a language is used and the degree of social penetration of the language. In other words, Kachru seems to be regerring to the use of English in a society, and Graddol to the proficiency level of speakers of English within the entire community of english speakers.

STANDARD LANGUAGE IDEOLOGY IN THE INNER CIRCLE Stanguage language and language standards Standard language and language standards are topic whci exite an immense amount of controversy both inside and outside the linguistic profession. Standard language is the term for that variety of a language which is considered to be the norm. A standard language is spokey by a minority of people, typically those occuping a position of power, and for this reason it’s considered a prestige variety. Hence, as Milroy says, “varieties of a language don’t have prestige in themselves, but they aquire prestige thei speakers have high prestige”. On the other hand, language standards are the prescriptive language rules which together constitute the standard and to which all the members of a language comunity are exposed and urged to conform during education, regardless of the local variety. Because of the language’s tendence to be dinamic, these rules change over time. Talking about the standardising process, we can classify four steps:

1. SELECTION : Selection is the most critical stage in the standardising process. It refers to the

way in which one variety rather than any other is chosen as the one which will developed as the standard language. Often, it’s an existing variety which already has political and economic currency. On the other hand, the process could involve the selecting of features from several varieties or even of a language variety that has no native speakers. Selection is a social and political process led by those in power which as a result reinforces and promotes their interests over those of speakers of other varieties. 2. CODIFICATION : Once selection has taken place, the variety chosen to represent the standard has to be fixed in grammar books and dictionaries in order that people who whish to use the language correctly have accesso t oits standard forms. 3. ELABORATION OF FUNCTION: The standard variety ha sto be capable of performing a wide range of institutional and literary functions. So, in thist stage new lexical items and new conventions are added and developed to fill any gaps. 4. ACCEPTANCE: Clearly, unless the relevant population accept the selected variety as their standard and, most probably, national language, all the process will be vain.

WHAT IS STANDARD ENGLISH? Standard English is a language variety not easy to identify, not only in terms of its worldwide use but also considerino its Inncer Circle context. Different definetions of Standar English have been proposed in the years, considering just British English or including all Inner Circle Englishes. Chronologically:

1. Standard English is the dialect of educated people of the British Isles. It’s the dialect

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normally used in writing, for teaching in schools and universities, heard in radio or television. Standard English is the variety of the English language which is normally employed in writing and generally spoken by educated speakers of the language. But it is also the variety of the language that students of English as a foreign or second language (EFL/ESL) are taught when receiving formal instructions. The term standard english refers to grammar and vocabulary (dialect) but not to pronunciation (accent). Standard English is that set of grammatical and lexical forms typically used in writing and speech by educated native speakers. It includes the use of colloquial and slang vocabulary, swera words and taboo expressions. The term Standard English is misleading for at least two reasons: I. It’s not the whole English; II. It doesn’t exist a pronunciation that could be labelled “standard”; Standard English of an english speaking country could be define as a minority variety which carries most prestige and is most widely understood.

6. Standard English is the medium of the upper and middle class to comunicate, not limited to

one accent but associeted, since the 19th century, with the accent that has been called Received Pronunciation (RP), and with the phrases “The Queen’s English”, “The King’s English”, “The Oxford’s English”. In these definitions, there is a general agreement that standard english is primarily a case of grammar and vocabulary, and that it is the variety promoted through the education system. It’s possible to define Standard English even by underlined what it is not. According to Trudgill:

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It’s not a language but only a variety of a given English; It’s not an accent: in Britain it is spoken by the 12-15% of the population, of whom 9-12% speak it with a regional accent; It’s not a unique style: it can be spoken in formal, neutral and formal styles. Examples

It’s not a register, given that a register is largely a matter of lexis in relation to subject matter (e.g, the register of medicine). It’s not a set of prescriptive rules.

Trudgill concludes that Standard English is a dialect that differs from the other dialects of English for his greater prestige, because it hasn’t an associeted accent and doesn’t form part of a geographical continuum: it is purely a social dialect.

NON STANDARD ENGLISH All the regional native speaker dialects of English together with all the New Englishes (standard and non standard) are known as non-standard english, with the implication of being inferior. Even educated Australian English belonged until recently to this category , only joing the ranks of standard english in the 1970s. Up to then, Australian English was evalueted in terms of its closeness to standard british english (known as the “colonial cringe”), with any distinctively Australian form being regarded as “bad english”. In the case of the non-standard native varieties, lack of acceptance, have connections with attitudes towards race in the US and class in the UK. Discussing about Standard American and British English, Milroy claims that the standard of popular perception is what is left behind when all the non-standard varieties spoken by disparaged persons are set aside. Outer Circle Englishes which have undergone standardisation process and codified their own standard (e.g, Standard Singapore and Indian English), are neverthless considered “non-standard” by outsiders and it is not un common even for their own speakers to regard the mas a second best in relation to the standard English of the Inner Circle.

In several parts of the world including a number of African-English-speaking countries, standardisation processes are currently underway and i twill be some time before local standards can be codified in home-grown grammars and dictionaries. There’s a belief for which New Englishes are supposed to be the result of a process known as fossilisation: in other words, the learning of English is said toh ave ceased (or fossilised) some way short of target-like competence, with the target being assumed to be either Standard British or Standard American English.

THE SPREAD OF ENGLISH AS AN INTERNATIONAL LINGUA FRANCA The second half of the 20th century has given an important influence on the way English is taught and spoken around the world. English has assumed the role of the world’s major International language and according to this role, the most serious issue to take into consideration is the need to ensure mutual intelligibility across International varieties of E...