191 Chapter 1: An English-Speaking World (9-45) An English-Speaking World

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Chapter 1: An English-Speaking World (9-45)

An English-Speaking

World

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The Story of English

By Don L. F. Nilsen

Based on The Story of EnglishBy Robert McCrum, Robert MacNeil

and William Cran (Penguin, 2003)

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English, ESL or EFL is Spoken by about ½ of the People in the World ( about 2 Billion People) (McCrum

24/50)

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English as a Global Language

• ¾ of the World’s Mail• ½ of the World’s technical & scientific journals• ½ of all newspapers• 80 % of the information in computers• All International Air Pilots• All International Sea Captains• Many movies, songs, and much business• ½ of European business deals • 7 of the Largest TV Broadcasters (CBS, NBC, ABC,

BBC, CBC, CNN, C-Span)• TV Televangelism of Christianity (McCrum 10)

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Varieties of Global English, each with its Own Peculiar Flavor

• Deutschlish

• Franglish (la langue du Coca-Cola)

• Indian English

• Japlish (man-shon vs. mai-homu, basaburo, aisu-kurimu, mai-com [my computer])

• Russlish

• Spanglish (McNeal 10, 38-39)

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La Langue du Coca-Cola

• In France, – hot money capitaux fébariles– Jumbo jet gros porteur– Fast food prêt-à-manger

• In Canada, Loi 101 : – English billboards, posters and storefronts

are banned. Many students are not allowed to attend English-language schools. (McCrum 39-40)

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Competing Global Languages

• Arabic

• Russian (before the breakup of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe)

• Mandarin

• Spanish

• French

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Education Act of 1870: RP

• Cockney (Cock’s Egg)

• RP (Received Pronunciation)

• Posh (Portside Out Starboard Home)

• (McCrum 13-21)

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World War II (McCrum 23)

• GI Bases in England, Italy, France, Germany

• GI Language was vivid, profane & abbreviated:

Black Market

Blitz

Flak

Nylons

Pin-Up

R & R

Snafu

Yank

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Pin-Ups and Yank Magazine

• Every issue of Yank Magazine featured a pin-up to remind soldiers of the girls back home.

• A pin-up of Rita Hayworth is said to have been taped to Fat Boy, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

• Compare this with the movie Dr. Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

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Atomic-Bomb Words (McCrum 24)

Atomic Holocaust

Chain Reaction (cf. Vonnegut’s “Ice Nine”)

Fallout

Fireball

Fission

Fusion

Mushroom Cloud

Test Site

(NOTE: The possibility of nuclear proliferation was one of the causes of Postmodernism & Deconstructionism)

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Coca-Colonialism (McCrum 24)

Budweiser

Coca Cola

Gillette

Kellogg’s Cornflakes

Kellogg’s Rice Krispies

(“Snap Crackle and Pop” has to be translated into various languages)

Kodak

Maxwell House Coffee

Schlitz

Lucky Strike

Marlboro

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Korean and Vietnam Wars (McCrum 25-26)

Korean:

Brainwashing

Chopper (Helicopter)

Vietnam:

Defoliate

Domino Theory

Escalation

Firefight

Friendly Fire

Hawks & Doves

Vietnam:

Moratorium

Napalm

Pacification

Search and Destroy

The Silent Majority (ct. the Vocal Minority)

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David Ofgor, Attaché to the US Embassy in Phnom Penh:

• Talking to journalists:

• “You always write it’s bombing, bombing, bombing. It’s not bombing. It’s air support.” (McCrum 27)

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Regional Dialects (McCrum 27-29)

• Franklin D. Roosevelt (Eastern Money)• Harry Truman (Twangy Missouran)• Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon & Gerald

Ford (American Midwest)• Lyndon Johnson (Southern)• Ronald Reagan & Dan Rather (Network

Standard)• Kennedy Family (New England)• George W. Bush (Texas)

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Valley-Girl/Surfer-Dude:

Bitchin

Dude

For sure

Goady

Rad

To the max

Totally

Tubular

Gay Speech:

Gay

Out of the closet

Queer

Queen

Women’s Speech:

Ms.

Letter carrier

JOKE: Mannheim Germany Personheim Gerpersony

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Silicon Valley Words (California) (McCrum 30)

Artificial Intelligence

CD (Compact Disk)

DVD (Digital Video Disk)

Data Processing

Disk(ette)

Flash Drive

Hacker

Input

Interface

Jump Drive

Modem

On-Line

ROM (Read-Only Memory)

Software, Hardware, Wetware

Word Processor

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British vs. American Global English

• bird, bobby, bonnet, boot, drawing pins, flat, lift, lorry, mate, nappy, petrol, pram, sweets, torch, trunk call

• girl, cop, hood, trunk, thumb tacks, apartment, elevator, truck, buddy, diaper, gas, stroller, candy, flashlight, long-distance call

• colour/color, theater/theatre, tyre/tire• advertisement, laboratory, secretary

• (McCrum 32)

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!Disadvantages of English as a Global Language

• /š/ shoe, sugar, issue, mansion, mission, nation, suspicion, ocean, conscious, chaperon, schist, fuchsia, pshaw (spelled 13 ways).

• <sh> <ch> <ph> <th> <gh> • Full, reduced, zero grades of consonants• Long, Short, -r, schwa, and zero grades of

vowels• 15 different vowel phonemes• <c> <g> <q> <s> (/s/ /š/ /z/ /ž/) <x>

• (McCrum 42)

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!!Advantages of English as a Global Language

• Natural Gender, not Grammatical Gender

• Simplified Word Endings resulting in greater flexibility (N V, etc.)

• Teeming Vocabulary (80 % is not Anglo-Saxon) but rather: Arabic, Celtic, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Scandinavian, Spanish, etc. (McCrum 43)

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!!!Nilsen PowerPoints

• “Foreign Words in English”

• “Global English”

• Romance and Germanic Words in English”

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References:

Kachru, Braj B. Models of English for the Third World: White Man’s Linguistic Burden or Language Pragmatics?. New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 1991.

Kachru, Braj B. The Other Tongue: The Spread of English and Issues of Intelligibility. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1982.

McCrum, Robert, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil. The Story of English. New York, NY: Penguin, 1986. (source of map citations)

McCrum, Robert, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil. The Story of English: Third Revised Edition. New York, NY: Penguin, 2003. (source of text citations)