BY VIOLA KNOKE, NATALIE ROHR, SARAH KLOOS AND NINA RITZERFELD

MODULE VI

English in AfricaProf. R. HickeyWS 2010/11

English in the World

Table of Contents

1) English in variational contexts

2) Ideology and Constructs

3) World Englishes and globalization

Contact Linguistics and World Englishes

By Viola Knoke

ó world Englishes paradigm: associated with the work of Braj Kachru

ó says that English in countries like India or Nigeria has developed its own norms which make it appropriate to its cultural and educational contexts

ó the argument for the legitimation of the varieties and the recognition of their cultural value have made its mark in applied linguistics

Early contact history

ó many New Englishes: are compared to Standard British or US English, but these are not necessarily the relevant superstrate for New English study

(superstrate = language imposed upon a population by an invading people)

ó we have to keep in mind that...

ó 1) the standard English of the period of exploration, trade and colonialization was different from the standard English of today e.g.: the use of 'for to' with infinitives: „A Billet is a piece of Cleft Wood for to Burn.“

ó 2) the standard English of these days was not the only input in the formation of New Englishes, but there was less standard superstratal inputthe superstrate was also shaped by sailors, adventurers, hunters, schoolteachers and many more → varied input!

Sailors:

ó which features of New World Creoles may be attributable to this sociolect?

ó many of the sailors were not well educated

ó Ship English differed from the standard English in different areas (present-tense marking, forms of the verb 'be' and so on)

Settlers and Traders:

ó Jim Davy: in the field of lexis, features thought to be unique to parts of Africa have a long history in the UK

ó Mesthrie and West: survey of settler English of South Africa of the 1820s,these settlers who were leaving Britain for the colonies were largely of working-class origins

àfound a large amount of variation in settler speech in South Africa

àfound: omissions, non-standard morphosyntactic forms (e.g. double negation) and the dative of advantage („I'm gonna buy me a car.“)

àthe dative of advantage is stigmatized today, but it was once standard

à challenge to world Englishes studies: find out why some superstratal features stabilized in some territories and others did not

Missionaries

ó significant presence in most colonies, important as introducers of Western education and early recorders of indigenous languages

ó Cape Colony, South Africa: most of the first missionaries (came there in 1799) were continental Europeans with little knowledge of English or working-class L1 English speakers with little familiarity with the conventions of literacy and standard English

ó but: was not the case in all colonies, e.g. in India, most missionaries were better educated

àdespite the extreme variability, the missionaries' influence must have been considerable (were the ones who converted the locals to Christianity and introduced the use of English)

Soldiers

ó soldiers: were among the earliest teachers and propagators of English in the colonies

ó the role of soldiers as teachers and the status of colonial soldiers' English as a sociolect still have to be investigated

Teachers

ó British as well as local

ó important intermediary of the superstrate: Indian English itself (as one of the first colonies, India often supplied English teachers when new Asian colonies were established)

Varieties of World Englishes

Varieties of world Englishes

àuse of the term „Englishes“: emphasizes the autonomy and plurality of English languages worldwide, phrase „varieties of English“: suggests the heteronomy of such varieties to the common core of „English

Language varieties and varieties of English

ó term „varieties“ of English: also suggests that there is an English standardó Halliday, McIntosh and Strevens (1964): „English is

no longer the possession of the British, or even the British and the Americans, but... exists in an increasingly large number of different varieties […] ...it is no longer accepted by the majority that the English of England, with RP as its accent, are the only possible models of English to be set before the young.“

The Three Circles of Kachru

ó Kachru modeled English worldwide in terms of the „Three Circles of English“: the „Inner Circle“, the „Outer Circle“ and the „Expanding Circles“ (first published in 1985)

ó „Inner Circle“: societies where English is the „primary language“ (USA, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand)

ó „Outer Circle“: represents postcolonial Anglophonic contexts, a large speech community including Nigeria, Zambia, India and Singaporehere, English is typically only one of the community languages in these multilingual societies, English is often the „official“ language

but: Inner and Outer Circle not clearly demarcated from each other, have several shared characteristics

ó „Expanding Circle“: areas where English is an „international language“, societies learning English as a Foreign Language (e.g. China, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Korea...)

Kachru(1992)

Crystal(1995), McArthur(1992)

ó Kachru describes the „range“ and „depth“ of English in the Outer and Expanding Circles

ó „range“: functional repertoire of the language in domains like government, law, family, etc.

ó „depth“: uses of English available to people at different levels of society

ó critics: the model favors standard and „national“varieties, ignores „grey areas“ and simplifies discussion of linguistic diversity

ó critics often miss the fact that the Circles concept is meant to be a historical model that conceptualizes the chronology of the diasporic origins of world Englishes

The Inner-Circle Diaspora

First: spread of English throughout the British Isles to Wales, Scotland and Ireland

Wales:

*by the Acts of Union of 1536 and 1542, the English language gained preeminence in law and administration, promotion of English in education

*19th century: English spread very fast

Scotland:

ó after the Act of Union in 1603: decline in the use of Scots, 19th century: use of English spread

ó the establishment of Ulster plantation in 1607 introduced Scots English onto the islands

America:

ó earliest American colonies: Jamestown, Virginia, and Plymouth, Massachusetts

ó by the 19th century: debates on the autonomy of American English had begun

ó other diasporic varieties of the Inner Circle: Australian English, New Zealand English, South African English

The Outer Circle

ó Englishes and English-based creoles of the Caribbean and Asia: date from the mid-17th century (establishment of trading posts in India from the 17th century onwards)

ó colonies in East and West Africa were established later, from the 19th century onwards

ó 19th century: notions of the „triumph of the English speaking race“, the „Greater Britain“, „the true moral of America“ being „the vigour of the English race“ and a „thriving“ Australia came up

ó the non-settler colonies of Asia and Africa presented different circumstances: poverty, slavery, caste system...

ó some people thought that the spread of English would be necessary to solve the problems of these coloniesó but: in India, the development of policies was not so

much guided by the desire to promote English through linguistic imperialism but by the desire to run an empire „on the cheap“ó education and the spread of English was limited

because it was seen as dangerous

Differences between the Inner- and Outer-Circle Diasporas

ó Inner-Circle diaspora:

ó began in the 17th century, extended until the mid-19th

century

ó development of settler colonies in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand

ó spread of English and migration of many colonialists from Britain to these societies→ settlers established themselves as dominant populations and English as the mother tongue of most of the population

Outer-Circle diaspora:

ó indigenous languages survived, bilingual English-speaking populations came into being

ó English remained the language primarily of the colonial administration

ó settings for the spread of English: face-to-face interactions with sailors, traders, plantation owners

ó most rapid spread of English in the postcolonial era, rapid spread from the 1960s until the end of the century (many former Anglophone colonies adopted English for use in expanding educational systems during the postcolonial period)

ó Expanding-Circle regions: English has become the most widely taught foreign language

ó varieties of America, Australia and New Zealand have often been regarded as branches of a “Greater British”family of English dialects organically and naturalistically related to each other and the wider Germanic family

ó major achievement of world Englishes in the last 30 years: challenge the authority of Inner-Circle societies àhere, Kachru's Circles model has had a significant

ó impact:raised the awareness of dynamic varieties of English with growing populations of speakers and increasing vibrant media, literatures and popular cultures

ó the world Englishes paradigm is not static, but is constantly changing

ó even in the Inner-Circle societies, there are many languages spoken today, great racial and social mix that produces new patterns of language use

ó Outer-Circle regions: an increasing number of young people may grow up with part of their education in their parent's society and part in the UK or North America (e.g. high school or university) → are multilingual