2015-08-21
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l Who owns English? Not Britain anymore.English is beyond Britain and Europe. This fact resulted into a number of new notions and oppositions: Englishness, Anglocentrism, Britocentrism, Britishness, VS Europeanness of English.
l Initially British Lingaphone company offered courses of language. The term “British English” was non-existent. English was viewed as real stuff and smth fundamental/ Divergence became visible and audible when the first British colony in North America was set up in 1607 and became the first step towards English globalization. First Webster Dictionary in the 19th century brought spelling division between AmE and BrE
Lots of new terms like Franglaise = Frenglish, Germish = Denglish, Swedlish, Spanglish, Janglish = Japlish, Konglish, Portuguish are arguments un favour of English spread and language interference.
Modern concept of International English is a result of evolution. but the division between the members of the binary oppositions and tertiary oppositions become disputable:
l Standardisation & diversification
l Intellibility & practicality
l ENL – English as a native language (anglophone speakers)- L1
l ESL - English a the second language L2
l EFL - English a a foreign language L3
tripartite model
NB! 110 territories worldwide, ex-USSR is not mentioned
l EIL - English as International language
l EILTS- English as International language Testing System – standard for Commonwealth countries
New concepts relevant to English spread are:
l Neutrality VS cultural/ linguistic imperialism, new form of impact and expansion mitigate influence of the USA and Great Britain
l Appropriation, for example, International English in computer industries
New Englishes. Standards
l Metropolitan standards: The term would have once been applicable only to standard English of England.
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l Colonial standards: The colonial history of English has made it an important language in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa and Northern and Southern Rhodesia (now Zambia and Zimbabwe)./ The varieties spoken there are referred to in historical dialectology as ‘extraterritorial’ Englishes.
l Regional dialects: These are the varieties that may be distinguished on the basis of regional variation within metropolis and colony.
l Social dialects: identifiable varieties within a region along the lines of class and ethnicity may occur.
l In London there is the difference between Cockney of the working classes, Received pronunciation (RP) / ‘Estuary English’ (Rosewarne 1994).
l Pidgin Englishes: Pidgins are defined prototypically as rudimentary languages that have no native speakers, though they may subsequently gain in complexity.
l Creole Englishes: These languages are ‘mixed’ in the sense that typically their grammars and lexicons come from different sources
Latest research in World Englishes:
l Content analysis of WE
l Cultural-conceptual analysis of WE
l Politics of code-switching
l Core and periphery of WE
l Corpus –based exploration
l Education, language and the rights of the child
l American English as a medium of intercultural communication
l WE – response to globalization
l English in Japanese pop-music
l British attitude towards variability of English
l English is lingua franca in Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands
l Most popular terms to name the role and diversification of English are dialect, lingualect, variant, variation, variety of English
There have been lots of projects to simplify English and make it more available to millions of people:
