Kirkpatrick 2007

Curtin University Library
World Englishes
Implications for international
communication and English
language teaching
ANDY KIRKPATRICK
Hong Kong Institute of Education
CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction 1
Part A: The Framework 5

Key sociolinguistic concepts 5
2 Key linguistic terms 16
3 Models of World Englishes 27
Part B: Variation and Varieties 39

4 Variation and impurity in British English 39
5 The powerful variety: American English 55
6 A younger 'cousin' and indigenous identity 69
7 Englishes of the subcontinent 85
8 Voices from Africa 101
g Englishes of South-East Asia - colonial descendants? 119
10 Emerging Englishes: Hong Kong and China 137
11 English as a lingua franca 155
Part C: Implications 171

12 Summary of key themes 171
13 Implications for English language teaching 184
Appendix -Transcripts of samples of varieties of English 198

References 231
Author index 249
Subject index 252
v
Acknowledgements
The author
A great many people have helped in the writing of this book, not least the many students I
have been privileged to teach. I would like to make particular mention of recent doctoral stu-
dents including Zi Adnan, James McLellan, David Prescott, Helen Singleton, Rusdi Taib,
Glenn Toh and Xu Zhichang. Their scholarship continues to be a great source of stimulation.
I also need to thank other friends who so generously offered their time and voices - Karen
Higgins, Marion Johnston, Thiru Kandiah, KC, KT, 'tope Omoniyi, Sivanes Phillipson and
Claudia Sullivan - and all the others whose voices are also recorded here, including Budi,
Dalvindar, Erlinda, Janet, Myint, Phan, Phuong, Setya, Shwe Oo, Tirote, Un and Yusniza.
I would also like to thank the Cambridge editorial team who have been such a pleasure to
work with, in particular Jane Walsh, Alison Sharpe, Clive Rumble, Michelle Simpson and
Sylvia Goulding.
The publishers
The author and publishers are grateful to the following for permission to reproduce copy-
right material. While every effort has been made, it has not always been possible to identify
the sources of all the material used, or to contact the copyright holders. If any omissions
are brought to our notice, we will be happy to include the appropriate acknowledgements
on reprinting.
Penguin Group (UK) for permission to use a number of small extracts taken from Crystal,
D. (2004) The Stories of English. Penguin Allen Lane, 2004. ©David Crystal, 2004.
Oxford University Press for permission to use a number of small extracts taken from
Birchfield, R. (1986) The English Language, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Multilingual Matters for permission to use the extracts on p35 and pp177-8 taken from
Phillipson; R. (1997) 'Realities and Myths of Linguistic Imperialism' Journal of Multilingual
and Multicultural Development, Vol 18: 3, 1997, pp238-48.
Leopard Magazine for permission to use the cartoon 'Councillor Swick' on p50 taken from
Issue No. 314, April 2005. Used by kind permission of Leopard Magazine.
viii
Acknowledgements ix
Mainstream Publishing for permission to use short quotes by Kynoch on p52, taken from
Kay, B. (1986) Scots: The Mither Tongue, Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing Co.
Cambridge University Press for permission to use the extract on p61 taken from McArthur,
T. (1998) The Shapes of English, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cambridge University Press for permission to use the extracts on pp85, 86 and 93: taken
from Mehrotra, R. R. (2003) 'A British Response to some Indian English Usages', English
Today, vol 19: 3, pp19-25.
Pearson Education for permission to use extracts on pp103, 109-11 and 116 taken from
Schmied, J. J. (1991) English in Africa: An Introduction. New York, Longman.
Ken Saro-Wiwa's estate for kind permission to use the extract on pp113-14 taken from Saro-
Wiwa, K. Sozaboy, © Ken Saro-Wiwa Literary Estate.
Dr James Mclellan for kind permission to use the quotes on pp127-8: The first quote post-
ing date 18/8/2001, Brudirect ("Have your Say") forum, http://www.bruneidirecthys.net/hys/
index.php, the second quote posting date 3/12/2001, Bruclass forum, http://www.bruclass.com/
(Asian Community).
Macquarie Dictionary for permission to use the table on p131, Gonzalez, A. 'The vowel and
consonant sounds of cultivated Philippine English'; p142, Butler, S. 'Five Criteria', taken
from Bautista, M. L. S. (ed.) (1997) English is an Asian Language: The Philippine Context,
Sidney, Australia: Macquarie Library Pty Ltd.
Blackwell Publishing for permission to use the adapted table on p145 taken from Adamson,
B. (2002) 'The historical role and status of the English Language in China', World Englishes
Vol2, No2.
Marc Xu Zhichang for kind permission to use the extracts on pp148-9 taken from the the-
sis by Zhichang Xu (2005) Chinese English: What is it and is it to become a regional variety
of English?, Perth, Australia: Curtin University.
Random House Group for permission to use the extract on pp150-51 Ha Jin (2000) In the
Pond, New York: Vintage.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation for permission to use the recording and the tran-
script on pp208-10 MacNamarra, I. 'Australia all over', first broadcast 7 March 2003 on ABC
Local Radio. Reproduced by permission of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and
ABC Online © 2003 ABC. All rights reserved. For the recording and transcript on p210
'Children of the Bush', interview with John Williamson, first broadcast on ABC Radio
National. Reproduced by permission of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and ABC
Online © 2007 ABC. All rights reserved;
Matthews Music Pty Ltd for permission to use the three lines of lyrics on p210 by
Williamson, J. (1986) 'True Blue'.© Emusic Pty Ltd (APRA). www.johnwilliamson.com.au.
x World Englishes: Implications for international communication and ELT
Yasmine Gooneratne for kind permission to use the poem on pp2n-12 'Menika', and for the
poem on pp212-14:'The Lizard's Cry', both from Gooneratne, Y. (1972) The Lizard's Cry and
Other Poems, published privately in Kandy, Sri Lanka.
Asia2000 Ltd. for permission to use the poem on p225 'Yellow flowers on a battlefield', by
Agnes Lam, for the poem on p226 'Hong Kong Riots, 1967', by Louise Ho, and for the poem
on p226 'End of an era', by Louise Ho.
Pieta O'Shaughnessy for permission to use the recording and transcript on pp215-17,
'Interview with a Soweto Flying Squad (SFS) Policeman. Interview on Curtin Radio, Curtin
University, Perth, Australia. Used by permission of Pieta O'Shaughnessy;
'tope Omoniyi for permission to use the recording and transcript of four poems on
pp217-20, 'Let them who have ears hear', 'I do not know anymore', 'Midwives or a deluge?'
and 'The Dogs of Baidoa' taken from Omoniyi, 'tope. (2001) Farting Presidents and Other
Poems, Lagos, Nigeria: Kraft Books Ltd.
Introduction
All over the world people in ever-increasing numbers are using more and more vari-
eties of English. English has now become the language of international communication.
Perhaps the most remarkable fact behind this increasing use of English is that the majority
of English speakers are now multilingual people who have learned English and who use
English to communicate with fellow multilinguals. There are many more speakers of World
Englishes and people who use English for international communication than there are
native speakers of it. This book will consider the implications for international communi-
cation and English language teaching of this extraordinary growth in the varieties of
English and in the numbers of English speakers.
Courses in World Englishes are becoming ever more popular and are seen, especially
among ELT practitioners and professionals, as relevant for those who plan to become
English language teachers. Indeed, one noted scholar has suggested that no TESOL devel-
opment course should be without a course in World Englishes (Gorlach, 1997). There are a
number of excellent introductory texts to World Englishes, of which Kachru's The Other
Tongue (1982/92) remains an outstanding example. McArthur's The English Languages
(1998) and his Oxford Guide to World Englishes (2002) provide extremely valuable back-
ground and reference materials. Gorlach (1991) and Schneider (1997) have both edited
series on World Englishes. Melchers' and Shaw's (2003) book World Englishes offers a use-
ful introduction, and Jenkins (2005) is an excellent resource that provides a summary of
current developments and key debates. There are also a number of texts that focus on one
variety of 'World English'. For example, Hong Kong University Press is currently publishing
a series on Englishes in Asia (Adamson, 2004; Stanlaw, 2004; Kachru, 2006).
This book differs from all the above in that it aims to describe selected varieties of
World Englishes and then discusses the implications of these varieties for English language
learning and teaching in specific contexts. In this way, the text describes selected varieties
of World Englishes for an audience of English language teachers and teacher trainers. It also
considers and compares international contexts in which English is used as a lingua franca.
In particular, the book hopes to be both relevant and useful to so-called non-native speak-
er teachers, who make up the overwhelming majority of English language teachers world-
wide (Braine, 1999). It stresses the importance and validates the roles and contributions of
multilingual and multicultural English language teachers who may be either speakers of a
nativised model of English, such as Singaporean, or non-native speaker teachers who
use English primarily as a lingua franca with fellow non-native speakers, as will the great
2 World Englishes: Implications for international communication and ELT
majority of their students. In this context it argues that native speaker and nativised vari-
eties of English have developed in comparable ways.
The book is aimed primarily at ELT professionals and trainee teachers undertaking
TESOL training throughout the world. It also aims to become an important text on World
Englishes for undergraduate and postgraduate students of World Englishes.
The book is divided into three sections. Part A (Chapters i-3) introduces readers to
relevant key sociolinguistic and linguistic concepts, and provides a brief background his-
tory of the development of World Englishes. Part A thus offers readers an introduction to
basic concepts that are developed throughout the book.
Part B (Chapters 4-11) provides a description of the linguistic features of selected vari-
eties of World Englishes, including examples from phonology, lexis, syntax, discourse and
pragmatic norms. Each chapter describes the socio-political features of the variety and typ-
ically includes the historical background leading to the development of that variety, its cur-
rent status, the attitudes that speakers of the variety and 'outsiders' have to the variety under
discussion, and its current roles and functions in the society vis-a-vis other languages spo-
ken in the community. Each of the chapters in Part B also provides spoken and written
examples of the relevant variety in real use, including, where appropriate, samples from lit-
erature written in the variety. Examples which are spoken or read by speakers of their respec-
tive varieties can be heard on the accompanying CD, allowing readers to listen to how these
different varieties actually sound in real life. Transcripts of the recordings are provided in the
appendix.
It would be impossible to include all the current varieties of English. I have chosen to
start with a description of three so-called native speaker varieties - British, American and
Australian - and then describe varieties from the Indian subcontinent, Africa and from East
and South-East Asia. As the reader will discover, all these varieties themselves represent a
range of different varieties, so that British English, for example, is actually a range of British
Englishes. I have also included a description of English when it is used as a lingua franca
and considered its role as a lingua franca in Europe.
Part C considers the controversies and debates associated with the emergence of new
varieties of English and their existence alongside more established varieties. Issues that are
covered here include the question of which model or variety of English is the most appro-
priate for which context. The relative roles of native and non-native speaker teachers are
considered and the recognition of the importance of multilingual and multicultural ELT
teachers is stressed.
Five key themes underpin the book:
(a) that variation is natural, normal and continuous - and that ELT professionals
must establish a tolerance and understanding of variation;
(b) that, while prejudice against varieties is likely to occur, these prejudices are sim-
ply that - prejudices;
(c) that the differences between all varieties, both native and nativised, are similar
and comparable;
Introduction 3
(d) that the specific teaching and learning contexts and the specific needs of the
learners in those contexts should determine the variety to be taught; and
(e) that multilingual non-native teachers represent ideal teachers in many ELT
contexts.
On having read the book, readers will understand that English has several different vari-
eties. They will know how these varieties differ linguistically and socio-culturally and how
each variety reflects the cultures of its speakers. They will also understand the roles played
by different varieties of English in different contexts and be aware of the tensions that can
exist between 'Anglo' and nativised varieties of English. They will be familiar with the
debates and controversies surrounding the spread of English and the development of
Englishes, especially as they relate to language teaching and international communication.
Why is such a text important? The model of English that should be used in classrooms
in outer (post-colonial) and expanding (EFL) circle countries (Kachru, i992a) has been a
subject of discussion for some time (Kachru, i992b, i995; Conrad, i996; Widdowson, i997;
Seidlhofer, 2001; Kirkpatrick, 2002a, 2006a). This debate has taken place alongside the dra-
matic increase in the pace of globalisation and the expanding role of English as an
International Language as well as the increased recognition of World Englishes and English
as a Lingua Franca (ELF). By World Englishes I mean those indigenous, nativised varieties
that have developed around the world and that reflect the cultural and pragmatic norms of
their speakers. A second phenomenon connected with the global use of English has been
the use of English as a lingua franca by people for whom English is not their first language.
In the southeast Asian region, a good example of this is the acceptance by the Association
of South-East Asian Nations that English is the de facto lingua franca of ASEAN. In lingua
franca contexts such as these, the question of which model of English should be taught is
one of heated debate. Issues of controversy that this book will consider include the rele-
vance or otherwise of native speaker models and cultures for English language teaching in
such contexts. As many learners of English worldwide are learning English to communicate
with fellow non-native speakers, the appropriateness of native speaker models and the cul-
tures associated with them needs to be questioned. In certain contexts, it may be that the
local or lingua franca model should be used as a classroom model and regional cultures -
at least the cultures of the learners - should constitute the curriculum. In short, the cur-
riculum should comprise the cultures of the people using the language for cross-cultural
communication rather than Anglo-American cultures. Of course, this is not to say that
native speaker models should be abandoned. There may be contexts in which a native
speaker model and culture is the most appropriate model for the learners. These issues are
explored in depth in Part C of the book.
Part A: The Framework
1 Key sociolinguistic concepts
Part A comprises three chapters. It provides an introduction to the terms used in the
book along with a brief discussion of any controversies that may surround the use of some
of these terms. Chapter 1 focuses on what I have, for ease of reference, called 'sociolinguis-
tic' concepts. I have chosen those concepts that I believe to be important to any debate
about World Englishes. I have called them 'sociolinguistic' to distinguish them from the
'linguistic' terms that are covered in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 provides an overview of the
theories behind World Englishes.
The terms and issues that I shall discuss in Chapter 1 are:
i.1 Native varieties vs nativised varieties vs lingua franca Englishes
i.2 The native speaker vs the non-native speaker
i.3 The functions of language and the 'identity-communication continuum'
i.4 Pidgins vs creoles vs varieties of English
1.5 Linguistic prejudice
1.1 Native varieties vs nativised varieties vs lingua franca Englishes
It is customary to distinguish between native and nativised varieties of English (cf.

McArthur, 1998). The 'traditional' varieties of British, American and Australian English are
said to be native varieties and spoken by native speakers. Nativised varieties are newer
varieties that have developed in places where English was not originally spoken and which
have been influenced by local languages and cultures. Whether speakers of nativised vari-
eties are native speakers or non-native speakers is debated and I discuss these terms below.
Here I point out that the distinction between native and nativised varieties of English can
5
be questioned. After all, other languages preceded English in England and the British vari-
eties of English have certainly been influenced by local languages and cultures. The same
can be said of American and Australian varieties of English. Other languages were spoken
in America and Australia before English arrived there and the Englishes that have developed
in both places have been influenced by local languages and cultures. I shall give specific
examples of the ways local cultures and languages have influenced their respective Englishes
throughout Part B.
The two criteria often used for classifying a variety of English as 'native' rather than
'nativised' are (a) that the native variety has been around for a long time and (b) that it has
influenced younger varieties of English in some way. Yet, it is not possible to find a sensible
definition of 'a long time', and, as we shall see, all languages routinely influence each other.
While it is quite true to say that British English has been around longer and has influenced
the development of American English, does this mean that British English is native and that
American is nativised? The two criteria identified above would suggest that American
English is a nativised variety, but most people would call American English a native variety.
We have the same argument for Australian English. This is younger than either British or
American English and has been influenced by both. Does this mean Australian English is a
nativised variety rather than a native variety? Once again, the criteria classify it as a
nativised variety while most people think of it as a native variety. Why?
A third criterion may have something to do with prejudice, and later in this chap-
ter I look at the concept of linguistic prejudice and give some examples of it. By 'native
English' people usually mean a variety of English spoken by a native speaker of English
and this speaker is usually thought of as being white. Thus British English and American
English would be considered as being 'native' Englishes, Malaysian and Indian Englishes
as being nativised. However, it is quite obvious that many people who are not white
speak British and American English. As we shall see in Chapters 4 and 5, this is extreme-
ly complex: there are 'black' varieties of both British and American English and many
people speak many varieties, both black and white. Firstly, all varieties of British and
American English - whether these be Cornish, Glaswegian, Southern American or
Urban Black - are varieties of English. Speakers cannot be disqualified from native
speaker status simply on the grounds of the variety they speak. Secondly, it is normal for
people to be able to speak more than one variety of English and many British and
American people, whether they be black or white or anything else, are able to speak more
than one variety of English.
A fourth criterion is also based on prejudice. This criterion suggests that a native vari-
ety of English is somehow superior to a nativised one. Some people feel that the older a
variety is, the better it is. Native varieties are older and thought to be 'purer' than nativised
varieties. The idea that varieties of British English are somehow purer than later varieties is
very difficult to support, however. Is Cornish English purer than American East Coast
English? In the context of varieties of English, age does not bring with it superiority. Nor
can we say that the older a variety, the purer it is. Even the earliest form of English had
mixed and many parents. Around the fifteenth century these parents produced a variety of
English that was a truly mongrel language, made up of a mixture of Latin, Greek, French,
Germanic and Anglo-Saxon forms.
If it is difficult to find rational criteria for classifying varieties of English as native; it is
easier to classify them as nativised. I suggest that the difference between varieties of English
can be explained by the fact that they are all nativised. By a nativised variety I therefore mean
a variety that has been influenced by the local cultures and languages of the people who have
developed the particular variety. Other terms for this phenomenon include acculturation
and indigenisation. A nativised, accultured or indigenised variety of English is thus one that
has been influenced by the local cultures in which it has developed. By this definition all
varieties of English that are spoken by an identifiable speech community are nativised. Thus,
varieties of British English are as nativised as varieties of Philippino English.
The distinction between native and nativised varieties can become important, how-
ever, in contexts where a so-called native variety, such as British or English, is set against a
so-called nativised variety, such as Malaysian English. In the context of English language
teaching, some people may argue that British English provides a better model than
Malaysian English because it represents 'proper' English. But it is important to remember
that both these varieties are nativised in the sense that they reflect their own cultures. The
Malaysian variety of English is different from the British variety precisely because it reflects
local cultures. The British variety is different from the Malaysian variety because it reflects
British culture. So, if people choose British English as the model, they are also, wittingly or
unwittingly, allowing British culture to seep into their learning of English.
I shall consider the issues surrounding the question of which variety to choose for
language teaching in specific contexts in Part C. But I want to stress here that there is no
need to worry if you feel that you speak a nativised variety and therefore the variety you
speak is somehow worse and less pure than the 'native' variety spoken by someone else. It
isn't. All varieties are nativised. By the same token, there is no justification in assuming
that the 'native' variety you speak is somehow better and purer than the nativised variety
spoken by someone else. It isn't. By the definition adopted here, you also speak a nativised
variety.
This leaves the definition of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). A lingua franca is the
common language used by people of different language backgrounds to communicate with
each other. Lingua francas can be used both within countries and internationally. In
Indonesia, the national language, Bahasa Indonesia, is used as a national lingua franca to
provide the many different peoples of Indonesia with a common language in which to
communicate with each other. In China, Mandarin or Putonghua, the 'common language',
is used as a lingua franca to allow speakers of different Chinese dialects to communicate
with each other. In countries of East Africa, where many different languages are spoken, Ki-
Swahili is used as the lingua franca or common language. In Part B of the book, I compare
the international use of ELF within the European Community and within the Association
of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). In both cases, people who are not born as English
speakers have learned English in order to be able to communicate with other people in
these communities. In the ASEAN community, therefore, a Thai and an Indonesian may
choose to communicate with each other using English as their lingua franca or common
language.
1.2 The native speaker vs the non-native speaker
Many scholars have attempted over many years to provide workable and rational dis-
tinctions between 'a native speaker' and 'a non-native speaker' and many others have argued
that it is impossible to provide workable and rational distinctions between these two terms
(Davies, 2003). Swales (1993) argues that it no longer makes any sense to differentiate
between native and non-native speakers. White and Genesee (1996) have provided evidence
to show that the linguistic ability of the near-native speaker is indistinguishable from
the linguistic ability of the native speaker. Medgyes, on the other hand, insists that 'the
native English speaker teacher and the non-native English speaker are two different species'
(1994: 27).
In the contexts of World Englishes, the real problem is caused by many people believ-
ing that native speakers are necessarily better at speaking English than non-native speakers,
and that native speakers are necessarily better at teaching English than non-native speak-
ers. In this book, I shall argue that neither of these beliefs can be supported.
Other terms are also used to try and capture the distinction between a native and a
non-native speaker. Examples include 'a mother tongue speaker', 'a first language speaker'
vs 'a second language speaker' vs 'a foreign language speaker'. Bloomfield (1933) defines a
native language as one learned on one's mother's knee, and claims that no one is perfectly
sure in a language that is acquired later. 'The first language a human being learns to speak
is his native language; he is a native speaker of this language' (1933: 43). This definition
equates a native speaker with a mother tongue speaker. Bloomfield's definition also assumes
that age is the critical factor in language learning and that native speakers provide the best
models, although he does say that, in rare instances, it is possible for a foreigner to speak as
well as a native. 'One learns to understand and speak a language by hearing and imitating
native speakers' (quoted in Hockett, 1970: 430).
The assumptions behind all these terms are that a person will speak the language they
learn first better than languages they learn later, and that a person who learns a language
later cannot spealc it as well as a person who has learned the language as their first language.
But it is clearly not necessarily true that the language a person learns first is the one they
will always be best at, as the examples below will show. The names given are pseudonyms.
Claire was born in Sicily and migrated to Australia when she was eight. As a child she
learned Sicilian as her first language/mother tongue and standard Italian as a second lan-
guage. When she arrived in Australia, she started to learn English. She is now 40 and has
been in Australia for more than 30 years. The language that she learned third, from the age
of eight, is the language that she is now best at. Her second-best language is Standard Italian
and her third is Sicilian. In other words, what was her first language and mother tongue is
now a language that she does not speak as well as the other languages she speaks. She is a
so-called native speaker of Sicilian but one who does not speak it well. She is a so-called
non-native speaker of English, but speaks it fluently. The language she speaks best is a lan-
guage that she only started to learn once she was eight. Claire is by no means an unusual
example. There are many people who have what I shall call a 'shifting L1'. Indeed in immi-
grant communities it is common. It is also common in multilingual societies, as the fol-
lowing example from Nigeria shows.
A Nigerian couple are both Yoruba speakers. They have two children, both of whom
are first language or mother tongue speakers of Yoruba. The family then moves to Northern
Nigeria, where the dominant language is Hausa. Although the parents speak Yoruba at
home, the children refuse to speak it, preferring to speak the Hausa that their school friends
all speak. Like many children everywhere, they do not want to appear to be different, but
want to fit in and identify with their peers at school. In addition, they learn to speak English
at school, the language of education. The children then grow up speaking both Hausa and
English better than they speak Yoruba. In describing their language level, does it make any
sense to say that these children are native speakers of Yoruba? Does it make any sense to say
they are non-native speakers of English?
Earlier I mentioned Indonesia as an example of a multilingual nation that has adopt-
ed the use of Bahasa Indonesia as its national language and lingua franca. There are literal-
ly millions of people in Indonesia who have grown up with a particular mother tongue, be
it Bugis or Javanese or Balinese, and then learned Bahasa Indonesia at school. They have
then travelled from their home villages into towns in different parts of Indonesia - for edu-
cation, for marriage or, most commonly, in search of work - and Bahasa Indonesia has
become the language that they are best at. They represent common examples of people with
shifting Lis.
A reason why all these terms now appear unsatisfactory may be that they were coined
by linguists who grew up in monolingual societies where both parents and the community
as a whole all spoke the same language. They assumed that these societies represented the
norm and that other languages were 'foreign' languages that you might need to learn if you
travelled overseas. Indeed, Bloomfield's work on language teaching (see Hockett, 1970:
426-38) was aimed at the teaching of foreign languages to the American military where
native speakers of these foreign languages, known as 'informants', were used alongside
American instructors. Interestingly, this model still operates in Japan, where native-speak-
ing Americans and others work with Japanese English language teachers in the classroom
in an attempt to get Japanese learners to produce American English.
In fact, however, monolingual societies are less common than multilingual societies,
where the concepts 'native' speaker and 'mother tongue' speaker make little sense as people
find it very difficult to answer the apparently simple question, 'What is your mother
tongue?' A good example of someone who found this question impossible to answer is Jane,
who grew up in Brunei, the daughter of two Chinese migrants. As a child she learned two
Chinese dialects (Hakka and Fuzhou, literally her mother tongue) from her parents,
Mandarin from a special Chinese school and family friends, and English and Malay at
school. She is now in her thirties and says that English is her best language, with Malay and
Mandarin vying for second place. She has forgotten most of her Fuzhou and Hakka.
Another problem with the term 'native speaker' crops up with bilingual children. Can,
for example, a bilingual child be a native speaker of two languages? Davies defines full bilin-
gualism as the acquisition of 'linguistic and communicative competence in two or more
languages' (1991: 98). But linguistic and communicative competence are both hard to
define. As Davies says, a native-speaking speaker of English from England may lack com-
municative competence in Australia. I would add that a native speaker of English who had
lived all his life in the south of England might lack communicative competence in the north
of England. I would also add that these speakers may not possess the rules of linguistic
competence in these situations either. English speakers brought up in London will not
know the linguistic rules of the Australian variety of English. There is no reason why they
should know the communicative and linguistic rules specific to the varieties of English that
are not their own.
For the purposes of this book, the terms 'native speaker' or 'mother tongue speaker'
are not precise enough to be helpful. Indeed, as they are often associated with relative com-
petence, they can be prejudicial. For example, government officials, owners of language
schools and students often say they want native speakers of English, as they feel these
people are better teachers and provide better models. As a result, untrained people can
potentially be employed as English language teachers ahead of well-trained and competent
local teachers solely on the grounds that they are native speakers.
In the context of World Englishes, therefore, these terms should be avoided. A pos-
sible option is to use the term 'Li' or 'first language', but in the sense of the language that
the speaker is most proficient in and not in the sense of the language that the speaker
learned first. Rampton (1990) has suggested the term 'expert user'. This is a useful term in
that expertise can be assigned to distinct categories. A person might be an expert speaker
but a poor writer, for example. In the context of language teaching, Cook (1999) has pro-
posed that we should use successful L2 learners rather than native speakers as models for
the L2 learner. I shall return to these notions of native speakers, non-native speakers and
expert users in Part C when I consider the implications of World Englishes for language
teaching and international communication.
1.3 The functions of language and the 'identity-communication continuum'
A recurrent point that will be made in this book is that people are normally able to
speak more than one variety of a language and will choose the variety they speak depend-
ing on the context in which they find themselves and the functions they want the variety
to perform. Language has three major functions. The first is communication - people use
language to communicate with one another. The second is identity - people use language
to signaLto other people who they are and what group(s) they belong to. The third, which
is closely related to identity, is culture - people use language to express their culture.
Each of these functions may require a different variety or register and these functions
may, at times, be at odds with each other. For example, the communicative function will
often require the diminishing of the identity function. Conversely, when identity is the
primary function of language use, the variety chosen by the speaker may not be intelligible
to speakers outside that particular group. As Crystal has pointed out, 'the two functions can
be seen as complementary, responding to different needs' (2003: 22). I shall give a number
of examples of this in Part B so here I will give only one. Let us imagine that an Australian
businessman travels to Singapore to talk to his counterparts there. It is likely that the major
function that he will want his language to fulfil is the communicative function. He will then
take care to edit out specific Australianisms from his speech and try to make his accent
sound less 'Australian', so that his Singaporean colleagues can understand what he says. Now
let us imagine that the Australian's mobile phone rings and it is his son calling from their
home in Australia. It is very likely that the identity and cultural functions of language will
become more important. This will mean that, when speaking to his son, the Australian
will use far more Australian-specific vocabulary and cultural references and that his accent
will immediately sound more Australian.
It is important to understand how these functions of language influence the type of
language we use. People who complain, for example, that Singaporeans who speak Singlish
do not speak proper English fail to understand that language serves these different func-
tions and that the variety of language spoken will differ depending on the function it is
serving. When Singaporeans are together and talking about something local that is cultur-
ally important to them - let's say food, for example - it is only natural that the variety of
English that they choose will be a broad, informal variety as it is this variety that is best at
signifying identity and culture. This does not mean that these Singaporeans can only speak
in this way;any more than it means an Australian or an American can only speak in a high-
ly_ localised variety of English. As soon as those Singaporeans travel overseas or meet with
people from different cultures in Singapore or move into a more formal setting, they will
need to use language for its communicative function. Thus the Singapore English they
speak will be of a more formal or educated variety.
The link between function and variety can be represented on a continuum representing
two of the functions of language, called the 'identity-communication continuum'
(Kirkpatrick, 2006c). I call one end of the continuum 'communication' because being intelli-
gible and getting your meaning across is the most important aspect of the communicative
function. More standard or educated varieties are likely to be better suited for communica-
tion. Broad, informal varieties or job- and class-specific registers are likely to be better suited
for signifying identity. Figure i (overleaf) shows how the continuum works.
We can see this continuum in another way. The fewer people who are involved in an act
of communication and the closer the social distance between them, the greater the identity
function of their speech will be. A good example of this is families, as they often speak a sort
of special language that can only be understood by other family members. On the other hand,
the more people who are involved and the greater the social distance between them,
the greater the intelligibility function of their speech will be in any act of communication.
An example of this might be an international conference. It becomes apparent that these
functions can provide a possible tension or contradiction between them. For example, using
a variety that advertises a person's identity might well mean using a variety that other people
Figure 1: The identity-communication continuum
Language function
Identity
1
Language variety
Communication
broad I basilectal varieties

l
educated I acrolectal varieties I registers
may not understand. This is common in all societies. Consider, for example, the language
teenagers use, or the language of people who are particularly proud to come from a certain
district, or belong to a certain profession. If they use these varieties with people outside their
group, they can be impossible to understand. Of course, this may be deliberate. Some
teenagers, for example, are keen to ensure that their variety is not understood by others.
To be successful, a variety of English will need to be able to fulfil each of these three
functions. This means that any variety of English itself comprises a number of varieties.
This may seem confusing, but it is important to understand that language variation is both
normal and natural. The idea that there is some form of fixed standard of a language that
everyone who speaks the language always uses in exactly the same way leads people to mis-
understand how language works in real life. At an individual level there is variation, as each
of us speaks our own language in our own ways. This explains why we can identify a friend
who is speaking on the phone even when we cannot see them. Their pronunciation and
accent is unique to them. At a functional level, we have seen how we choose a particular
variety of language depending on the function we want the variety to fulfil. At a contextual
level, we have seen how the situation will determine the variety or register of language we
use. There is a great difference between the language people use in formal situations and
the language they use in very informal situations. And consider how different the languages
of poetry, preaching, joking, lecturing and swearing are. Interactional and social factors can
determine why people use the variety or variation they do (Cheshire, 2003).
The different varieties of a language have been classified in various ways. For exam-
ple, Australian English has been classified on a continuum with a broad variety at one end
of the continuum and an educated or cultivated variety at the other. As shown in Figure I
above, the broad variety often serves the function of identity and the educated variety the
function of communication. The general variety of Australian English operates somewhere
along the middle of the continuum. Other languages - Singapore English is a good exam-
ple - have been similarly classified, but using the terms 'basilectal', 'mesolectal' and 'acrolec-
tal' (Platt and Weber, i980), corresponding to broad, general and educated respectively. In
this book we shall use the terms 'broad', 'general' and 'educated', and the terms 'informal'
and 'formal', rather than 'basilectal', 'mesolectal' and 'acrolectal', because the latter three
terms are often equated with 'bad', 'not so bad' and 'good'. For example, some people refer
disparagingly to the basilectal variety of Singapore English as Singlish. I describe Singapore
English in detail in Chapter 9, so here I will simply point out that Singlish is actually the
broad variety of Singapore English and, as I indicated above, is the appropriate variety to
use in the right context and for the right function.
So, not only do people usually speak more than one variety of a language, all language
is characterised by variation. I shall describe how this variation is realised in individual
varieties of English in Part B and discuss the implications of the existence of variation for
international communication and language teaching in Part C.
The reader will have noted the use of the term 'register' alongside the term 'variety'
above. Register is often associated with particular types of employment.. For example,
lawyers will use legal register when talking about the law and doctors may use medical
register when talking about medicine. In this context, register is an important marker of
professional identity.
1-4 Pidgins vs creoles vs varieties of Englishes
Pidgins are languages that are born after contact between at least two other languages.
As many pidgins developed during the period of empire and international trade, one of the
language 'parents' was frequently a European language such as French or English, and the
other language parent was the language of the people with whom the Europeans were trad-
ing or whom they were colonising. Usually one of the languages provided the majority of
vocabulary items and the other provided the grammatical structure. When pidgins become
learned as a mother tongue, they become known as creoles. I am not going to discuss pid-
gins and creoles and contact languages as such in this book in any depth. There are many
excellent books on the topic that the interested reader can refer to (see Holm, 1989, 2000;
Clyne, 2003). Here I want to suggest that varieties of English are not very different from
pidgins and creoles. I agree with Mufwene when he says 'native Englishes, indigenised
Englishes and English pidgins and creoles have all developed by the same kind of natural
restructuring processes' (2001: 113). I shall argue that ihe main difference between them is
simply one of degree. As I pointed out in i.1 above, all varieties of English have been
influenced by contact with other languages and have adopted vocabulary items from local
languages. For example, 'kangaroo', 'koala' and 'boomerang' are all words of Australian
English which have been taken from Australian Aboriginal languages. And, as we shall see
in Part B, the linguistic structures of varieties of English can be influenced by local lan-
guages. So it is hard to provide linguistic criteria that distinguish creoles from varieties of
English. Some people have suggested that intelligibility is one criterion for distinguishing
between a pidgin and a variety of English and, as I shall show in Chapter 3, Widdowson
(1997) argues that some varieties of English are actually different languages because they
are mutually unintelligible. But intelligibility is not a reliable criterion to use because
many broad varieties of English are incomprehensible to speakers of other varieties. This is
sometimes true of varieties of British English. The English spoken by the people of
Newcastle, for example, is notoriously hard for other English people to understand. I look
at different varieties of British English in Chapter 4. So, intelligibility is not a foolproof cri-
terion for distinguishing between a pidgin and a variety.
In Section i.1, I suggested prejudice as a possible explanation for making a distinc-
tion between native and nativised varieties of English. Prejudice is another possible reason
why some people distinguish creoles from varieties of English. As these languages had
developed from a mix of languages, pidgins and creoles were traditionally seen as inferi-
or languages and discriminated against in the same way that children of mixed marriages
have traditionally been discriminated against. Yet, we now know that all languages devel-
op as a result of contact with other languages and the only difference is the degree of con-
tact and influence. The description of specific varieties of English in Part B will provide
evidence that all varieties of English develop following similar processes and influences.
As I have argued above that prejudice plays an important role in the way people make
judgments about languages and varieties, I now discuss the notion of linguistic prejudice
in more depth.
1.5 Linguistic prejudice
However much we may protest, we are all likely to be linguistically prejudiced in some
way, positively or negatively. For example, research shows that speakers of so-called native
speaker varieties of English are prejudiced either for or against other native speaker vari-
eties of English. In what remains a seminal work, Giles and Powesland (1975) reviewed
research into linguistic prejudice and I review two of Giles' own studies into linguistic
prejudice below.
In the first study Giles investigated reactions of British school children to a variety of
English accents. Children listened to a variety of accents and made judgments about the
speakers. These accents included the educated accent known as Received Pronunciation or
RP, and a number of rural and urban accents, including the accent of Birmingham, a city
in the English Midlands. Giles discovered that people who spoke with a standard British
English RP accent were considered to be the most intelligent or competent and that those
who spoke with a Birmingham accent were considered to be the least intelligent. On the
other hand, he discovered that people thought that those who had accents similar to their
own, no matter whether these were rural or urban speakers, and sounded more like them-
selves were considered more honest and warmer.
A second piece of research studied people's responses to arguments given in different
varieties of English. Having ascertained the attitudes towards capital punishment of a selec-
tion of 17-year-olds, arguments against capital punishment were given to them. The argu-
ments w~re given as a written transcript and in four different accents. These accents were:
RP; Welsh (the variety of English spoken in Wales); Somerset (a mainly rural county -
province, state or prefecture - in the south-west of England); and the accent of Birmingham.
As we saw above, earlier research had shown that RP was considered the most prestigious of
these accents and Birmingham the least. In this study, the children considered that the
arguments given in RP were more intelligent than the arguments given in the regional
accents. However, they found the arguments given in regional accents were more persuasive,
as only regional voices 'were effective in producing a significant shift in subjects' attitudes;
the typescript and the RP guise did not' (i975: 94).
This is a fascinating result because it suggests that people can sound intelligent to
other people but not necessarily be effective or persuasive in their arguments. At the same
time, people who are not thought to be intelligent can be persuasive. Not even the most
famous are spared. In Chapter 5, I shall discuss this in the context of the United States and
here give just one example from the chapter. Before Bill Clinton became President of the
United States and was Governor of the State of Arkansas a reporter asked him:
'Governor Clinton, you attended Oxford University in England and Yale Law School in the
Ivy League, two of the finest institutions of learning in the world. So how come you still
talk like a hillbilly?'
(Lippi-Green, i997: 210-12)
You might stop to consider these findings in the light of your own experience. Which accent
in your country do people think shows intelligence? Are there some people who speak with
accents that are associated with a lack of education or sophistication?
If we think that one accent somehow sounds more or less intelligent than others, it
shows we are linguistically prejudiced. And, I'm afraid to say, we all are. The fact that prej-
udices change provides further evidence that the preference for particular varieties over
others is based on prejudice. If we take Britain as an example, there has recently been a
significant change in perception of which variety is valued. The prestige of RP has been
reduced, while the prestige associated with speaking a type of Black English has risen.
Twenty years ago, the position was precisely the reverse. Social and cultural change is the
main reason for this shift in preference and prestige.
We can see a similar trend internationally. Twenty years ago, British English was consid-
ered the prestige accent in China and the model that most students wanted to imitate. Today,
American English is the variety that the majority of students want to learn (Kirkpatrick and
Xu Xi, 2002). Tomorrow it may be a Chinese variety of English. We consider the implications
of these preferences and prejudices in detail in Parts B and C. Here I want to stress that we can -
not ignore prejudice as a fundamental cause for shaping our views about language. It is a
major cause for distinguishing between a native variety of English and a nativised one, for
thinking that one variety or accent of English is better than another and for thinking that pid-
gins and creoles are inferior in some way to other languages. In the context of World Englishes,
it is important to realise the role that prejudice can play in making judgments about different
varieties - and therefore about the personalities or intelligence of the speakers of those vari-
eties - and to try and ensure that any judgments we make can be supported rationally.
I shall come back to the issues I have discussed here in Parts B and C. In Chapter 2, I
move on to describe and define the key linguistic terms I shall be using in my description
of the World Englishes presented in Part B.
2 Key linguistic terms
In this chapter, I explain to those readers who may not be familiar with basic linguis-
tics the key linguistic terms I use in the book and give examples of the linguistic features I
will be describing. I take most of the examples from British English but supplement these
with examples from other varieties. These features will be considered under the separate
subheadings of
2.1 Phonology and pronunciation
2.2 Vocabulary
2.3 Morphology and syntax
2-4 Cultural conventions and schemas
2.1 Phonology and pronunciation
I shall first describe and give examples of consonant and vowel sounds and then move
on to consider stress patterns and timing. I shall use the symbols of the International
Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to indicate the consonant and vowel sounds, as the IPA is still the
most frequently used system in the majority of countries represented in this book. In this
section I also make reference to Received Pronunciation (RP) because, although RP is used
by a small minority of speakers of a certain variety of British English, it remains a common
target for learners of English. I shall argue later, however, that RP is actually both an unre-
alistic and inappropriate model of pronunciation for the vast majority of learners of
English.
All varieties of English are notorious for being difficult to pronounce. By this people
mean that it is often impossible to predict how a word will be pronounced by looking at the
way it is spelt. One has sympathy for learners when confronted with words like 'rough',
'though', 'thorough', 'through' and 'cough', as each of these 'ou' vowel sounds are pro-
nounced differently in Standard British English. And while different varieties of English
have different pronunciations, this mismatch between spelling and pronunciation exists in
all of them.
One major reason for this mismatch is that individual consonants and vowels can be
pronounced in different ways. It is important to remember that there is a distinction
between a consonant and a consonant sound and between a vowel and a vowel sound. For
example 'c' is a consonant of English but it can be pronounced in different ways. The 'c'
16
Key linguistic terms 17
consonant of the word 'cat' is actually pronounced !kl, but in mice it is pronounced Isl.
This means that there are more consonant sounds than there are consonants in English.
The 'g' consonants in 'George' and 'good' provide a further example of this. The consonant
sound of both the 'g' sounds in 'George' is /d3/, but in 'good' it is lg/.
If this .is true of consonants, it is much more true of vowels. A single vowel may have
a range of possible vowel sounds. Consider the vowel 'o' in the following words: 'pot', 'coke'
and 'bow' (incline the head or body in a show of respect). Each 'o' is pronounced quite
differently in Received Pronunciation or RP, to give /pnt/, /kouk/ and /bau/ respectively. To
make it more confusing, 'bow' as in 'bow and arrow' has the same vowel sound as 'coke',
/bou/. Also note that the apparently single vowel 'o' is pronounced as a diphthong in the
words 'coke' and 'bow'. A diphthong is a sound which moves or glides from one vowel
sound to another.
Varieties of English differ markedly from each other in the way they pronounce
words, especially vowels. In my variety of English, the word 'poor' is pronounced /p'J:/ and
the 'r' is not sounded, but in varieties of Scottish English (and others) the vowel sound is
pronounced as a diphthong and the 'r' is sounded to give /pu;;Jr/ And, as hinted at above, we
have to be careful in using the term 'Received Pronunciation'. RP was originally so-called
because it was the accent that children who were educated in private schools in Britain were
taught to use. This was at a time when localised accents or varieties of English were con-
sidered inferior. Today, however, RP no longer carries the prestige it once did, and many
more English people now proudly speak in localised accents. At the same time, the current
'non-localised accent' of British English has actually shifted away from the pronunciation
of original RP, which is now referred to as 'marked RP'. So, when I refer to RP here, I am
referring to an idealised or marked RP.
A well-known difference between RP and the broad variety of Australian English can
be seen in the pronunciation of the words 'main' and 'mine'. In RP these are pronounced
/mem/ and Imam/ respectively, while in broad Australian both sound more like /mam/. The
broad variety of Australian English more or less dispenses with the /er/ diphthong. These
examples show that there are significant differences in pronunciation even between so-
called native speaker varieties of English. A different pronunciation does not necessarily
mean a wrong pronunciation therefore.
In RP the word 'bath' is pronounced with a long 'a' as /ba:8/, while in many other vari-
eties it sounds more like /bce8/. This brings us to the sound that probably causes learners
of English more trouble than any other and that is the 'th' sound /8/ and its voiced partner
lo/. In RP, these sounds distinguish certain noun and verb pairs so we get the voiceless
nouns such as /bd:8/ (bath) and /mau8/ (mouth) and their voiced verbs Ibero/ (bathe) and
/mauo/ (mouth). RP also has the /8/ sound at the beginning of the words in 'thirty-three',
but not all varieties of English do. For example, Irish and certain varieties of American
English use sounds that are closer to a !ti in these words. RP has /o/ in a word like 'mother'
but in other varieties the fol sound is more like a /d/ sound. So I feel sorry for poor learn-
ers of English who spend hours of classroom time trying to master the RP sounds of /8/
and lo/, as these are difficult sounds to learn if they do not exist in your own language and,
it turns out, they are not used in many varieties of English anyway. I shall discuss the impli-
cations of World Englishes for language teaching in Part C, but here will mention a valu-
able book by Jenkins (2000) in which she considers which sounds of English are important
for non-native speakers to master and which they can happily ignore if they wish to be
intelligible to fellow non-native speakers of English. A useful term in this context is
'functional load'. This defines the relative meaning-load a sound may carry. For example, it
has been shown that the distinction between the two RP vowel sounds in 'hip' and 'heap'
[/hrp/ and /hi:p/ respectively] is important, as these two vowel sounds are the sole dis-
tinguishing features or difference between a large number of RP sounds. These sounds are
thus said to carry a high or heavy functional load, while the contrast between the vowel
sounds /u/ and /u:/ as in RP 'pull' and 'pool' do not carry such a high functional load. Again
we must be careful, because vowel sounds that carry high functional loads in, for example,
Standard American English may well carry a lower functional load in other varieties of
English.
The point I want to stress is that speaking and learning English does not necessarily
mean speaking and learning RP or Standard American. There are many varieties of English
and they all have their own characteristics, which include pronunciations that may be
specific to them. To reiterate a theme of this book, variation is natural, common and
normal.
There is no doubt that one cause of the differences in pronunciations of varieties
of English is the other languages that the speakers of those varieties speak. A first
language may influence the way a second language is pronounced. I shall describe these
influences in Part B and here just give some examples. The first example concerns
consonant clusters. The term 'consonant cluster' is used when two or more consonant
sounds occur side by side. The word 'skyscraper' has two consonant clusters. The first
are the !ski sounds at the beginning of the word and the second the /skr/ sounds in the
middle of the word. Incidentally, note how the two consonants 'k' and 'c' are both
pronounced !kl here. Consonant clusters do not exist in all languages. Many languages
are made up of sounds that follow a consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel (CVCV)
pattern. People who speak such languages may therefore slip in a vowel sound between
each consonant so that /sk/ becomes something like /s'Jk'J/ and /skr/ becomes /s'Jk'Jrn/.
This explains why the word 'strike', which has the three-consonant sound cluster 'str', is
pronounced something like /s'Jt'Jraik'J/ by Japanese speakers of English, as Japanese is a
CV language.
It is important to note that many varieties of English slip in an extra vowel, usually a
'schwa' /'J/in certain contexts. For example, these occur in Irish and Australian Englishes,
speakers of which may say the words 'film' and 'known' as /fil;:im/ and /nouw;:in/ respect-
ively, in,contrast to RP /film/and /noun/.
When consonant clusters occur at the ends of words, as often happens with English
past tense and plurals for example, it is possible that speakers of languages that do not have
consonant clusters will simplify the endings to a single consonant sound in their varieties
of English. Thus /wJ:kt/ (walked) may become /wJ:k/ (walk), or even /wn?/, with a glottal
stop as the final sound, and /buks/ (books) become /buk/ (book). Speakers of many native
varieties of English also do this, especially when a word ending in a consonant cluster is fol-
lowed by one that begins with a consonant sound, so that 'he walked to work' sounds like
/hiw;,:t;;iws:k/. I discuss further examples of what I shall call 'syntactic simplification' in the
section on syntax below, but it is important to bear in mind that a cause of syntactic
simplification may be phonological.
Another major influence upon the pronunciation of languages is whether they are
stress-timed or syllable-timed. Simply put, the difference between them is that, in sylla-
ble-timed languages, each syllable takes more or less the same amount of time to produce,
while in stress-timed languages, the number of stress points determines how long it
will take to say something. Thus in a syllable-timed language like French, the
greeting' Comment-allez vous?' will tend to apportion equal stress to each syllable. But in
a stress-timed language like Australian, the equivalent greeting, 'How are you going?' will
stress the 'go' sound of'going' and the other syllables will sound as though they have been
swallowed by the speaker. This means that syllable-timed languages are often easier for
learners of those languages to understand than stress-timed languages, because each syl-
lable gets an equal amount of time to be said, while in stress-timed languages, syllables
between stress points get shortened and vowels are often sounded as"schwas' in these con-
texts. It is important to stress, however, that these differences are not absolute and it is
safer to say that some languages are more stress-timed and some more syllable-timed
than others. Varieties of British and American English are more stress-timed than sylla-
ble-timed, although syllable-timing does occur in special circumstances in British
English, for example when people are using baby talk or showing irritation or sarcasm
(Crystal, i995).
The point to be made here is that speakers of syllable-timed languages will develop
Englishes that are characterised by syllable-timing. Malaysian and Singaporean Englishes
are good examples of this.
I shall conclude this small section on phonology by looking at word stress and the
way different varieties place different stress patterns on the same words. Look at these
two pronunciations of the word 'photographer': /fa 1togrnfa/ and /'foutougnefa/. The
first is the word pronounced in RP - the 1 mark signals that the main stress is on the fol-
lowing syllable - and the second is as it might be pronounced in standard Singaporean.
You can see significant differences in the ways this common word is pronounced in these
two varieties. In RP the first, third and fourth vowel sounds are shortened to a 'schwa',
which is characteristic of stress-timing. The Singaporean version, however, is more sylla-
ble-timed with each of the first three vowel sounds receiving the same amount of time
and thus giving completely different vowel sounds from the RP version. There is only one
vowel sound that is pronounced the same in both versions and that is the final 'schwa'.
The point I wish to make is that if two varieties can differ so radically over the pronun-
ciation of a common word like 'photographer', we can see how normal and common
variation is across varieties of English. We need to expect variation and not be worried
about it.
2.2 Vocabulary
A word in one variety of English may have a different meaning in another variety.
Different varieties of English also have words that are unique to them. This is hardly sur-
prising, as vocabulary provides ways of talking about things or concepts that are of partic-
ular importance to people of a particular culture. As an example of how a variety gives a
different or special meaning to a common word, let's take the main meaning of the word
'bush' in British and Australian Englishes. In British English, a bush is a short tree or col-
lection of plants, usually thickly covered with leaves or thorns. While it can also mean this
in Australian English, 'bush' in Australian English primarily refers to the countryside as
opposed to the towns. It conjures up an image of flat, rather desolate landscapes stretching
as far as the eye can see and beyond, a harsh land interspersed with small low-lying bushes
and scrubs. Another Australian term for this is 'the outback'. I shall further explore the
meaning of 'bush' in Australian English in Part B.
'Alphabet' is another example of how a word can have one meaning in one variety of
English but another meaning in another. In British English 'alphabet' refers to a system of
writing. Therefore speakers of British English will say that English uses the Latin alphabet
but Greek uses the Greek alphabet. In Singaporean English, however, 'alphabet' also means
a single letter of the alphabet. So a Singaporean may say 'English has twenty-six alphabets'.
In this context it is interesting to remember that the word 'alphabet' derives from the first
two letters (if I use British English) or alphabets (if I use Singaporean English) of the Greek
alphabet, alpha and beta.
There are literally hundreds of differences in the meanings of words in British and
American English. For example, the different words British and American speakers use to
describe parts of their cars could make you think they were talking about completely
different things. In American English cars have a trunk at the back and a hood at the front.
In British English, they have a boot at the back and a bonnet at the front. American cars
have stick shifts, British ones have gear levers. American cars have odometers and British
ones speedometers. And despite all this and despite the fact that they drive on different
sides of the road, American and British car manufacturers appear quite able to sell cars in
each other's countries.
Different varieties of English can also adapt words so that they suit the culture in
which they are used. As I shall argue in Part B, Australian culture values informality and this
gives rise to the shortening or clipping of common words in Australian English to give them
a special Australian or informal flavour. For example, a politician becomes a 'pollie', a jour-
nalist a 'journo' and a refugee a 'reffo'.
The vocabularies of varieties of English are enriched by words from local languages.
Englis~es need these words, as they refer to local cultural practices and traditions. They also
describe geographical features and the local flora and fauna. These local words are often
then adopted by other varieties of English. In the Australian context, the contribution to
Australian English made by Australian Aboriginal languages is immense. Perhaps the three
words that most evoke the image of Australia are kangaroo, koala and boomerang and these
all come from Aboriginal languages. These words have now become understood by speak-
ers of many other varieties of English.
All varieties of English will have borrowed words from local languages in this way to
describe local phenomena. So Malaysian English has sarong (a type of wrap-round skirt,
but one that is worn by both men and women), laksa (a spicy coconut-based noodle soup
dish) and kiasu (used to describe people who put their own interests ahead of everyone
else's).
The adoption of words from one language by another is a common phenomenon. It
is not necessary for there to be a local variety of English for this to happen, although when
a local variety of English does develop, these words will be part of it. For example, the
'English' words kimono, judo, sumo, karaoke, sushi, sashimi and sake are all originally
Japanese words. Many Japanese words that are currently common in many varieties of
English will obviously become part of a Japanese variety of English, as it develops. These
will be supplemented by many others.
To summarise, different varieties of English will adopt many different words from
local languages to describe local phenomena of one sort or another. They will also give
different meanings to familiar words and they will also alter familiar words so that they suit
the culture of their speakers. These different usages of vocabulary can cause misunder-
standing among people who speak different varieties of English, precisely because they
reflect local cultures and contexts. But without them, a variety of English could not survive.
Words provide a language or variety with its cultural foundation.
2-3 Morphology and syntax

The way people pronounce their variety of English and the wgrds they use are the two
m~ o~yj~us f~<l!~l1Jg§=Qf~~BJTY~ar!ety. However, varieties also differ in the way they use
gri!DJill<!t:· I shall provide many examples of these differences in Part B and here just con-
sider number and tense, and illustrate some differences in the way these are used. The way
English marks number and tense is through inflection of one sort or another. That is to say,
the form of the word changes to indicate either tense or number. So, in English we usually
make a plural of a noun by adding an '-s', so the plural of 'book' becomes 'books'. Tense is
a part of the inflectional system of English. The verb 'work' takes the past tense '-ed'
inflection to become 'worked'. While tense may appear an extremely complex topic, at its
simplest level it refers to the way languages signal time by changing the form of the verb. In
some languages, including Chinese, the form of the word does not change and there is no
inflection. The form of the word always stays the same. By definition, therefore, such lan-
guages do not have a tense system. Instead, they use different ways of signalling time. Often
they use adverbs of time such as 'yesterday' or 'next year' to show when the action being
described takes place.
In English, inflection can also change the part of speech of a word. For example, the
noun 'beauty' becomes the adjective 'beautiful' by adding an ending '-ful'. Similarly, 'beau-
ty' can be changed or inflected to give a verb 'beautify', and adverb 'beautifully'.
While, in general terms, we can say that English has tense and uses inflection, the use of
inflection in English has reduced slowly over centuries. For example, the inflectional system
of the present tense was more complex than today's. There was a second person singular
inflection '-est' and the third person singular inflection was '-eth'. There was also a second
person singular pronoun 'thou', so today's 'you make' was 'thou makest'. Both the second per-
son singular pronoun and the inflectional endings '-est' and '-eth' have disappeared from
most modern varieties of English. English has therefore slowly simplified its system of
inflection over the centuries. This is an example of diachronic change, or change that has
taken place over a long period of time, and suggests that a process of syntactic simplification
is taking place.
On the other hand, the variety of English spoken in Yorkshire, a county in the north-
west of England, still retains the more complex system of inflection and the use of 'thou' as
a second person singular pronoun. For example, 'Have you seen him?' becomes 'Hast thou
seen him?' Similarly, 'Where'st thou bin?' (Where hast thou been?) is the Yorkshire English
version of 'Where've you been?' (Where have you been?).
Another example of this diachronic change of syntactic simplification is that some
irregularities slowly get dropped. For example, the regular way of making the simple past
of a verb in English is to add the '-ed' inflection. But there are many irregular past tense
endings. There is 'ran' not 'runned' and 'sat' not 'sitted', to give just two examples. But, cen-
turies ago, the past tense of 'work' was also irregular. It was 'wrought'. This use still occurs
in the phrase 'wrought iron' which simply means 'worked iron'. While many irregular past
tense forms still exist, there is evidence that they have slowly been disappearing over time.
This will be further explored in Chapter 4.
Changes are still taking place at the moment and these are examples of synchronic
change. As a possible example of synchronic change, varieties of English that are develop-
ing among speakers whose own languages do not have tense or inflection might develop a
simpler system of tense and inflection than traditional Englishes. For example, we might
predict that such varieties of English would lose the '-s' present tense third person singular
inflection. In other words, in the same way that most varieties of English have dropped the
inflections '-est' and '-eth', so these varieties might drop the '-s' third person present tense
inflection but in a much shorter period of time. As I mentioned earlier, one cause of this
simplification might be phonological. Speakers simply find it hard to pronounce these
inflections when they occur as consonant clusters. In Part B, I shall use examples of syn-
tactic change in specific varieties of English to test the prediction that new varieties will
introduce synchronic changes relatively quickly and consider whether these synchronic
changes mirror and are of the same type as the slower diachronic changes.
There are also differences in the ways tenses are used across varieties. A common
difference between American English and British English is that, in certain contexts,
American speakers may use the simple past while British speakers will use the present per-
fect. For example, 'Have you bought that car yet?' is common in Standard British English,
but 'Did you buy that car yet?' is acceptable in Standard American English.
A common feature of Indian English is the use of the present continuous or progres-
sive in contexts where British English would use the present simple. So an Indian speaker
might say 'I am knowing very well ...' in a context where a British speaker might say 'I
know very well'. This is probably caused by influence from the Indian speaker's first lan-
guage, as 'the form of the present progressive tense in English is the same as the form of the
simple present tense in Punjabi, except for the order' (Jackson, 1981: 201).
2-4 Cultural conventions and schemas
There are a large number of terms that are used to describe the way language is used
in real situations. These include 'pragmatic norms', 'rhetorical structures', 'text structures',
'schema', 'scripts', 'discourse', 'cultural conventions', 'cultural norms' and so forth. I shall use
the terms 'cultural conventions' and 'schemas'. Cultural conventions are cultural routines.
For example, the way people greet and address each other can be considered a cultural con-
vention. These cultural conventions have fairly predictable sequences. That is to say they
follow a predictable schema. I shall also use the term 'schema' to refer to the way longer
pieces of extended discourse are constructed and sequenced.
The word 'schema' is itself an example of a word being adopted from one language by
another with a consequent change of meaning. In its general sense it now means something
like diagram or plan. It is also used as a special term in philosophy and psychology. The
English scholar Bartlett used it in a special sense to describe the way people remember things:
Schema refers to an active organisation of past reactions, or of past experiences, which
must always be supposed to be operating in any well-adapted organic response. That is,
whenever there is any order or regularity of behaviour, a particular response is possible only
because it is related to similar responses which have been serially organised, yet, which
operate, not simply as individual members coming one after another, but as a unitary mass.
(Bartlett, i932: 201)
Linguists have built on this meaning and divided schemas into content and formal
schemas, where formal schemas are the rhetorical structures of texts (Carrell and
Eisterhold, 1988).
There is also a sense of grammatical insecurity or indecision about what the plural of
'schema' is. It is originally a Greek word and, following Greek rules of number, its plural
would be schemata. However, the number rules for English say add an '-s' to form a plural.
So people are unsure whether the plural should be 'schemata' or 'schemas'. In my view, it
does not matter a great deal, but in the spirit of the nativisation of Englishes, I shall use
'schemas' as the plural form.
I shall now first consider two examples of cultural conventions, greeting and address-
ing, and then provide examples of schemas. The ways people greet each other in British,
American and Australian English respectively may differ in remarkable ways.
BrE How are you? Fine thanks.
AmE How are you doing? (Just) great (thanks).
AusE How are you going? Good thanks.
While there are many other ways of greeting, especially in informal situations in these
three varieties, it is interesting to note the significant differences in these 'standard' greet-
ings and responses. British English contents itself with a simple 'How are you?', while
American and Australian Englishes add a verb, 'doing' and 'going' respectively. The stan-
dard reply in British English is with the adjective 'fine' plus 'thanks'. Australian also uses an
adjective, but a different one, although we might expect an adverb given the inclusion of
the verb 'going'. These differences may cause misunderstanding when people move from
one culture to another and greetings may not be immediately recognised as such. For
example, British people who move to live in Australia can be confused by being asked
'How are you going?' by an Australian, as, in certain contexts, a sensible answer might well
be to say 'By bus'.
There are, of course, many other ways of greeting in all three varieties. The type of
greeting a person chooses will depend on context including the type of people involved and
the relationships between them. I just use this example to underline again how common
and normal variation is.
In certain Asian cultures it is customary to greet people by asking the equivalent
of 'Where are you going?' or 'Have you eaten?' Perhaps these cultural conventions will
be reflected in new varieties of English in Asia to produce 'Have you eaten?' as a normal
greeting.
As a second example I shall briefly describe forms of address in Australian academ-
ic culture and consider how these might differ from forms of address in American aca-
demic culture. Simply put, most Australian students will address their lecturers by their
first names. This is true even when a first year (or freshman in American English)
addresses a senior academic. It is not considered impolite for students to call his or her
lecturers by their first names as long as the lecturers themselves have indicated that this
is OK.
In American academic culture, on the other hand, it is normal for students to address
academic staff by title and family name. Thus, American students in Australia might feel
uncomfortable about addressing their lecturers by their first names even though they knew
this was acceptable in Australian culture, as this form of address would violate their own
American cultural norms. Li has termed this sense of discomfort felt by a speaker when
using language that is appropriate in one language or variety but that violates the rules in
the speaker's own language or variety 'pragmatic dissonance' (Li, 2002a: 559ff.).
These two examples show how cultural conventions differ and how these differences
are reflected in the respective varieties of English. In Part B, I shall provide more examples
of how cultural conventions are reflected in specific varieties of English and how differences
in these can lead to misunderstanding or a sense of pragmatic dissonance.
As an example of a schema, look at this excerpt of a conversation that took place
between an expatriate police officer and a Chinese police constable. It comes from data
collected as part of a survey into the communicative needs of the Hong Kong police in
which I was involved in the days when Hong Kong was a British colony. EO is the expatriate
(English) officer and CPC the Chinese poli:ce constable:
CPC: My mother is not well, sir.

EO: So?
CPC: She has to go into hospital.
EO: Well?
CPC: On Thursday, sir.
The interesting point is that, although the Chinese speaker is speaking excellent English,
the English officer appears not to understand him. Leaving aside the distinct possibility
that the English officer is being deliberately unhelpful, the reason for the misunder-
standing is that the Chinese speaker, while speaking standard English in terms of gram-
mar, is using Chinese cultural norms and these influence the schema he adopts. The
reason for his visit to see his boss is to obtain some leave in order to attend to his sick
mother. He is therefore making a request, and it is normal in a context such as this for a
Chinese to justify and explain the reasons for the request before actually making it.
Actually he is probably hoping that his boss will realise what he wants and offer this
before he has to ask for it. In British English, however, it would be more usual to start
with the request in this context and then give reasons if required. So, the 'English' request
schema would give:
CPC: Could I take a day off please?

EO: Why?
CPC: My mother is not well ...
Indeed this is the pattern that the English officer said he preferred and that he wanted peo-
ple to use when coming to see him. However, let me stress that I am not suggesting that
there is only one way of making a request in Chinese and English in this context and that
their respective ways of doing it are different. This is simply not the case, as variation is as
normal in discourse as it is in accent, vocabulary and grammar. The point I do want to draw
attention to is that a speaker's cultural background will influence their variety of English as
much as their linguistic background. Varieties of English reflect the cultural conventions
and norms of their speakers and these are mirrored in the schemas they use. So a Chinese
variety of English might prefer a request schema that placed reasons for a request before
the request itself.
The use of schemas ·that are appropriate in one culture but inappropriate or unusual
when transferred into another can lead to misunderstanding. In the example above, the
English officer became exasperated because he felt the Chinese speaker couldn't or would-
n't come to the point. He then made a judgment about the speaker's personality and felt
that he was too deferential. So the English officer made an incorrect judgment about the
Chinese speaker's personality based on the way the Chinese speaker was using English. The
Chinese speaker's transfer of a schema that was culturally appropriate to 'him led to him
being incorrectly judged by the English speaker. I shall consider further examples of this in
Part B.
Conclusion
In this chapter I have given examples of the ways varieties of English can differ. It is
clear that there is wide variation between varieties and, as we saw in Chapter i, there is also
variation within varieties. The most obvious differences between varieties are in pronunci-
ation and vocabulary, but there are also significant differences in syntax and grammar.
These differences are obvious and immediately noticeable and I will argue that they are
only likely to cause temporary misunderstandings.
More importantly, varieties reflect the cultures of their speakers and this is another
cause of difference between varieties, as the ways cultural norms are expressed thus differ
across varieties. This is why the way people present information may differ and why they
will use different schemas. Differences in schemas are much less obvious than differences
in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar and, as the example above shows, may lead to
misunderstanding or impatience. I will argue that variation in schemas may therefore lead
to more serious misunderstandings among speakers of different varieties of English than
differences in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar.
In the next chapter I shall discuss and compare different models of World Englishes.
3 Models of World Englishes
In this chapter I shall first describe and discuss the classifications or models of World
Englishes that have been proposed by certain scholars. These classifications attempt to
explain the differences in the ways English is used in different countries. I shall then sum-
marise the stages through which a new variety may proceed on its way to becoming an
established variety. These stages or developmental cycles are frequently linked to
classifications and models and it is sometimes hard to separate them. Finally, I shall con-
sider the ideological and political standpoints taken by different scholars, with a particular
emphasis on the debate over whether the speakers themselves choose to use English or
whether they have that choice thrust upon them.
3-1 Models
Perhaps the most common classification of Englishes, especially in the language

teaching world, has been to distinguish between English as a native language (ENL),
English as a second language (ESL) and English as a foreign language (EFL).
In this classification, ENL is spoken in countries where English is the primary lan-
guage of the great majority of the population. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, !he United
Kingdom and the United States are countries in which English is said to be spoken and used
as a native language.
In contrast, ESL is spoken in countries where English is an important and usually
official language, but not the main language of the country. These countries are typically
ex-colonies of the United Kingdom or the United States. Nigeria, India, Malaysia and the
Phffippfnes are examples of countries in which English is said to be spoken and used as a
second language.
The final classification of this model is EFL. EFL occurs in countries where English is
not actually used or spoken very much in the normal course of daily life. In these countries,
English is typically learned at school, but students have little opportunity to use English
outside the classroom and therefore little motivation to learn English. China, Indonesia,
Japan anclmany countries in the Middle East are countries in which English is said to oper-
ate as an EFL.
This ENL/ESL/EFL distinction has been helpful in certain contexts. There is no doubt,
for example, that the motivation to learn English is likely to be far greater in countries
where English plays an institutional or official role than in countries where students are
27
Conclusion
In this chapter I have given examples of the ways varieties of English can differ. It is
clear that there is wide variation between varieties and, as we saw in Chapter 1, there is also
variation within varieties. The most obvious differences between varieties are in pronunci-
ation and vocabulary, but there are also significant differences in syntax and grammar.
These differences are obvious and immediately noticeable and I will argue that they are
only likely to cause temporary misunderstandings.
More importantly, varieties reflect the cultures of their speakers and this is another
cause of difference between varieties, as the ways cultural norms are expressed thus differ
across varieties. This is why the way people present information may differ and why they
will use different schemas. Differences in schemas are much less obvious than differences
in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar and, as the example above shows, may lead to
misunderstanding or impatience. I will argue that variation in schemas may therefore lead
to more serious misunderstandings among speakers of different varieties of English than
differences in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar.
In the next chapter I shall discuss and compare different models of World Englishes.
3 Models of World Englishes
In this chapter I shall first describe and discuss the classifications or models of World
Englishes that have been proposed by certain scholars. These classifications attempt to
explain the differences in the ways English is used in different countries. I shall then sum-
marise the stages through which a new variety may proceed on its way to becoming an
established variety. These stages or developmental cycles are frequently linked to
classifications and models and it is sometimes hard to separate them. Finally, I shall con-
sider the ideological and political standpoints taken by different scholars, with a particular
emphasis on the debate over whether the speakers themselves choose to use English or
whether they have that choice thrust upon them.
3.1 Models
Perhaps the most common classification of Englishes, especially in the language

teaching world, has been to distinguish between English as a native language (ENL),
English as a second language (ESL) and English as a foreign language (EFL).
In this classification, ENL is spoken in countries where English is the primary lan-
guage of the great majority of the population. Australia, Canada, New Zealand,Jhe United
Kingdom and the United States are countries in which English is said to be spoken and used
as a native language.
In contrast, ESL is spoken in countries where English is an important and usually
official language, but not the main language of the country. These countries are typically
ex-colonies of the United Kingdom or the United States. l'!igeria, India, Malaysia and the
Philippines are examples of countries in which English is said to be spoken and used as a
second language.
The final classification of this model is EFL. EFL occurs in countries where English is
not actually used or spoken very much in the normal course of daily life. In these countries,
English is typically learned at school, but students have little opportunity to use English
outside the classroom and therefore little motivation to learn English. China, Indonesia,
Japan a11d many countries in the Middle East are countries in which English is said to oper-
ate as an EFL.
This ENL/ESL/EFL distinction has been helpful in certain contexts. There is no doubt,
for example, that the motivation to learn English is likely to be far greater in countries
where English plays an institutional or official role than in countries where students are
27
unlikely to hear any English outside the classroom or ever need to use it. This classification,
however, has shortcgmi11gs. One is that the term 'native language' is open to misunder-
standing. As speakers in ENL countries are described as native speakers, people feel that the
variety used is a standard variety that is spoken by all of the people. People then feel that
ENL is innately superior to ESL and EFL varieties and that it therefore represents a good
model of English for people in ESL and EFL countries to follow. In actual fact, however,
many different varieties of English are spoken in ENL countries. The idea that everyone
speaks the same 'standard model' is simply incorrect. Second, the suggestion to use ENL as
'the model' ignores the fact that such a model might be inappropriate in ESL countries
where the local variety would be a more acceptable model, as there are many fluent speak-
ers and expert users of that particular variety.
A second short~oming of the classification is that the spread of English also means
that it is more difficult to find countries that can be accurately classified as EFL countri_es.
As we shall see, English is playing an increasing role in EFL countries such as China and
Japan. The ESL vs EFL distinction ap2e:i4s, t9-pe more valid when applied to the contrast
CJ! ,-'A~"'-; 0- v
between city and countryside. City d~~!le~ in both ESL and EFL countries have far more
opportunity and need to use English than their rural co1::1_1:1~LI2arts. Furthermore, ESL vari-
eties are said to operate in countries that were once colonies of Britain or America, but, as
I shall show below, the type of colony has influenced the current roles of English in such
countries.
An alternative and influential classification has been put forward by Kachru (1985).
This is the 'three circles' model. You will note from the following quote that Kachru refers
to the ESL/EFL classification.
The current sociolinguistic profile of English may be viewed in terms of three concentric
circles ... The Inner Circle refers to the traditional cultural and linguistic bases of English.
The Outer Circle represents the institutionalised non-native varieties (ESL) in the regions
that have passed through extended periods of colonisation ... The Expanding Circle
includes the regions where the performance varieties of the language are used essen-
tially in EFL contexts.
Countries in the Inner Circle include the USA and the UK. Countries in the Outer Circle
include Bangladesh, Ghana and the Philippines. Countries listed as being in the Expanding
Circle include China, Egypt and Korea.
The great advantages of this model over the ENL/ESL/EFL one are, first, that it makes
English plural so that one English becomes many Englishes. Second, the model does not
suggest that one variety is any better, linguistically speaking, than any other. The spread of
English has resulted in the development of many Englishes and not the transplanting of one
model to other countries:'... English now has multicultural identities' (Kachru, i985: 357).
Kachru first proposed this classification in 1985 and it has occasioned great debate. I
shall consider the debate and the implications of the 'three circles' model for language teach-
ing and international communication in more detail in Part C. Here I shall just make two
Models of World Englishes 29
observations about the model. The first observation is about the use of the term 'colony' and
the second is about how expanding circle countries are increasing their use of English.
First, as Mufwene (2001) has elegantly argued, the type of colony a nation was has
influenced the way English developed there, although the developmental processes that
each variety went through were similar. Mufwene distinguishes between 'trade colonies',
'exploitation colonies' and 'settlement colonies' (2001: 8-9). Contact in trade colonies start-
ed with European traders and local people. This contact typically led to the development of
pidgins. The language varieties that the European traders spoke would have been non-
standard varieties. As these trade colonies became exploitation colonies, they came under
the administrative and political control of the respective European nation. Contact between
local and imported languages increased. In the case of many British colonies, for example,
the colonisers needed people who could speak English to help administer the colony. They
recruited these administrators from three main sources. First, they sent their own people to
act in senior positions. Second, they imported administrators from other colonies. Much of
the Burmese civil service of the time was staffed by Indian clerks, for example - indeed the
Burmese word for chair is 'kalathain' and this literally means 'foreigner-sit'. Foreigners to
the Burmese were Indians. Third, the colonisers trained locals as administrators and this
necessitated the establishment of special schools where English became the medium of
instruction. In such contexts, the variety of English developed through contact with local
and other languages and through contact with non-standard and 'school' varieties of
English.
In settlement colonies, on the other hand, there was less need to import administra-
tors from other colonies, as the colonisers provided the great majority of the settlers. These
settlers, however, brought with them a wide range of varieties. A difference between the
Englishes which developed in settlement as opposed to exploitation colonies is the rela-
tively small influence local languages had on the Englishes of the settlers. This is not to say
that there was no contact and no influence. In the settlement colony of Australia, for exam-
ple, local languages provided a wide range of culturally and geographically specific vocab-
ulary items. The comparative lack of contact with local languages, however, meant that
there was relatively little influence on the grammar and schemas of the variety as it devel-
oped. Interestingly, as I shall show in Part B, the grammatical and schematic influences of
local languages are reflected in the variety spoken by the indigenous people, Australian
Aboriginal English.
In short, in exploitation colonies such as India and Malaysia, the influence of local
languages and cultures was greater in the development of the local English varieties. In set-
tlement colonies such as Australia and New Zealand, the same influences were seen in the
development of the local variety of English, but to a lesser extent. The difference was in the
degree of influence rather than in the type of influence.
The second observation about Kachru's 'three circles' model is that it underestimated
the roles that English would come to play in Expanding Circle countries, although the term
'expanding circle' suggests that the roles of English would develop in these countries. If we
take China as an example of an expanding circle country, the increasing roles of English are
remarkable. Here I shall mention just three. First, it is now being used in education. The
number of people learning English in China is now greater than the combined populations
of the inner circle countries. In other words, there are more people learning English in
China than the combined populations of countries such as the United States, the United
Kingdom, Canada and Australia. Startling as this figure is, it is not as significant as the role
English is beginning to play in formal education. Several Chinese schools and universities
now offer courses through the medium of English. In other words, Chinese students are
now beginning to be able to study in English.
A second area in which English is playing an increasing role within China is as a lin-
gua franca. China's increase in international trade and contact means that English is
becoming the lingua franca of business and trade in China itself. Businessmen from Asia
conduct business meetings in China in English. Third, the increased use of computer tech-
nology has increased the use of English in computer mediated communication. This is not
restricted to international communication. Some Chinese are now choosing to use English
when sending emails to each other. I shall argue in Part B that the increased role of English
in this Expanding Circle country is leading to the development of a local Chinese variety of
English.
To return to the discussion of models, Gupta (1997: 147-58) has proposed a
classification system that divides English use into five different categories: 'monolingual
ancestral', such as in Britain and the USA; 'monolingual contact', such as in Jamaica; 'mono-
lingual scholastic', such as in India; 'multilingual contact', such as in Singapore; and 'multi-
lingual ancestral', such as in South Africa.
Other scholars, including Gorlach and Strevens have suggested other models. These
are well summarised in McArthur (1998), where he also describes his own 'Circle Model of
World English' (1998: 97). A particularly.useful summary of approaches to the study of
World Englishes is provided by Bglt9l1 (2003: 42-3).
There is a close link between these models ()f English and the developmental cycles of
these Englishes and I now turn to considering these.
3.2 Developmental cycles
As I mentioned in Chapter 1, there is a close relationship between the development of

pidgins and creoles and varieties of English. Here I shall focus solely on developmental
cycles as applied to varieties of English, although it should be stressed that these cycles are
often comparable to pidgin and creole developmental cycles.
Many scholars have suggested the phases or processes through which varieties of
English go. I shall not review all of these here, but consider three main proposals and refer
to others. The reader will note that scholars agree in many areas and that many of the phas-
es identified by one scholar mirror those of another. There are also a number of different
terms that refer to the same idea. For example the terms 'exonormative model', 'transport-
ed variety' and 'imported variety' refer to the English spoken by the settlers that arrived in
a particular country. It is called 'exonormative' because the model originates from outside
the place where it is spoken. This is contrasted with an 'endonormative model', that is, a
locally grown variety. 'Transported' or 'imported' varieties obviously refer to the varieties
spoken by the settlers, as opposed to the varieties spoken by the locals, which are referred
to as 'nativised' or 'indigenised' or 'acculturated'. I have argued in Chapter i that all varieties
are actually nativised in the sense that they all reflect the local cultures of their speakers.
This term is also used, however, to distinguish the local variety from the transported vari-
ety. The process through which an imported variety goes on its way to becoming a local
variety is variously referred to as 'nativisation', 'indigenisation', or a combination of 'decul-
turation' (of the imported variety, as it loses its original cultural roots) and 'acculturation'
(of the local variety, as it grows new cultural roots).
Kachru has suggested three phases through which 'non-native institutionalised
varieties of English seem to pass' (1992b: 56). The first phase is characterised by 'non-
recognition' of the local variety. At this stage the speakers of the local variety are prejudiced
against it and believe that some imported native speaker variety is superior and should be
the model for language learning in schools. They themselves will strive to speak the import-
ed, exonormative variety and sound like native speakers, while looking down upon those
who speak only the local variety.
The second phase sees the existence of the local and imported variety existing side by
side. The local variety is now used in a wide number of situations and for a wide range of
purposes but is still considered inferior to the imported model.
During the third phase, the local variety becomes recognised as the norm and
becomes socially accepted. The local variety becomes the model for language learning in
schools. In places where the local variety has become accepted, local people who continue
to speak the imported variety can be seen as outsiders or as behaving unnaturally in some
way.
Moag (1992: 233-52) studied the development of a particular variety- Fijian English-
and proposed a 'life cycle of non-native Englishes'. He identified five processes, four of
which are undergone by all varieties, and a fifth which may only be experienced by some.
The first process he called 'transportation'. This is when English arrives in a place where it
has not been spoken before and remains to stay. The second process, 'indigenisation', is a
relatively long phase during which the new variety of English starts to reflect the local cul-
ture and becomes different from the transported variety. The third process, the 'expansion
in use' phase, sees the new variety being used in an increasing number of situations and for
more and more purposes. This process is also marked by an increase in variation within the
local variety. The local variety becomes the local varieties. The fourth phase is marked by
the use of the local variety as a language learning model in school. During this phase, local
literature in the new variety will be written. Moag calls this fourth phase 'institutionalisa-
tion'. The fifth and final phase sees a decline in use. He suggests that the Philippines and
Malaysia are examples of countries where the increased official promotion of a local
language - Tagalog in the Philippines and Malay in Malaysia - results in a decline in the use
of the local variety of English. He wonders whether this decline in use might lead to the
eventual death of English in these countries, but there is no evidence of that happening. In
fact, in the Malaysian context, there has recently been an officially approved and promoted
increase in the uses of English.
A more recent and detailed theory for the development of new Englishes comes from
Schneider (2003a: 233-81). I call it a theory as Schneider hopes, albeit cautiously, that, 'in
principle, it should be possible to apply the model to most, ideally all of the Englishes
around the globe' (2003a: 256).
He agrees with Mufwene (2001) in arguing that 'postcolonial Englishes follow a fun-
damentally uniform developmental process' (2003a: 233). He identifies five phases in this
developmental cycle. The first phase he calls the 'foundation' phase. This is when English
begins to be used in a country where, previously, English was not spoken. This is typically
because English speakers settle in the country.
The second phase he calls 'exonormative stabilisation'. This means that the variety
spoken is closely modelled on the variety imported by the settlers. Schneider does dis-
tinguish, however, between the variety spoken by the settlers - which he calls the STL
strand - and the variety spoken by the local or indigenous people - which he calls the IDG
strand. Schneider argues that this phase sees the slow movement of the STL variety towards
the local variety and the beginning of the expansion of the IDG variety. He argues that
'what happens during this phase may not be unlike the early stages of some routes leading
to creolisation' (2003a: 246).
The third phase is the 'nativisation' phase and Schneider considers this to be the most
important and dynamic phase. It sees the establishment of a new identity with the coupling
of the imported STL and local IDG varieties. This phase 'results in the heaviest effects on
the restructuring of the English language itself' (2003a: 248), although the restructuring
occurs mostly at the level of vocabulary and grammar.
Phase four is the phase of 'endonormative stabilisation', which is when the new vari-
ety becomes gradually accepted as the local norm or model. At this stage the local variety
is used in a range of formal situations.
Schneider calls the fifth and final phase 'differentiation'. At this stage the new variety
has emerged and this new variety reflects local identity and culture. It is also at this stage
that more local varieties develop. For example, Schneider suggests that differences between
STL and IDG varieties resurface as markers of ethnic identity.
All three scholars have suggested developmental cycles that have their similarities.
These can be seen in Figure 2. Basically, the variety spoken by the settlers becomes changed
over time through contact with local languages and cultures. The new indigenous variety is
initially considered inferior to the original imported one, but gradually it becomes accept-
ed and the institutionalised. Once it is accepted and institutionalised, it then develops new
varieties.
All three scholars are really addressing the processes that occur in postcolonial societies.
But it is possible that new varieties are also developing in what Kachru termed 'expanding cir-
cle' countries, where, by definition, there has been no significant settlement of English speak-
ers. It would appear that, in certain circumstances, expanding circle countries can develop
their own Englishes without going through the first 'transportation' or 'foundation' phases.
Figure 2: Developmental cycles of new varieties of English
Scholar Phases
Kachru 1 non-recognition 2 co-existence oflocal 3 recognition

and imported varieties
Moag 1 transportation 2 indigenisation 3 expansion 4 institutionalisation 5 (decline)

in use
Schneider 1 foundation 2 exonormative 3 nativisation 4 endonormative 5 differentiation

stabilisation stabilisation
The great majority of non-Chinese English speakers in China, for example, are people from
the Asian region for whom English is not a first language but who use English in China as a
lingua franca. And, while an exonormative variety is promoted as a model by the Ministry of
Education, the sheer scale of the English language learning enterprise means that speakers of
exonormative inner-circle models are heard only by the tiniest fraction of Chinese learners
of English. The overwhelming majority of learners are being taught by Chinese teachers; and
those Chinese learners who are interacting in English with non-Chinese are, in the main,
interacting with people from other expanding-circle countries. As I shall argue in Part C, the
increasingly common phenomenon of local teachers + intranational lingua franca use is pro-
viding an alternative process for the development of new varieties of English.
A slightly different way of looking at the development of Englishes has been pro-
posed by Widdowson (1997, 2003). While agreeing that 'the very fact that English is an
international language means that no nation can have custody over it' (2003: 43),
Widdowson makes an important distinction between the spread of English and the dis-
tribution of English. He argues that English is not so much distributed as a set of estab-
lished encoded forms, unchanged into different domains of use, but rather that it is
spread, as a virtual language. He sees the two processes as being quite different.
'Distribution implies adoption and conformity. Spread implies adaptation and non-con-
formity' (1997: 140). Ghanaian and Nigerian Englishes are examples that have resulted
from the spread of English. What Ghanaians and Nigerians speak 'is another English, not
a variant but a different language' (1997: 141), and he argues that such varieties 'evolve into
autonomous languages ultimately to the point of mutual unintelligibility' (1997: 142). He
also argues that their developmental processes are different from the development of
regional varieties of English within England which are, he claims, 'variants of the same
language, alternative actualisations' (1997: 140). In contrast, varieties found in 'far flung
regions ... have sprung up in a relatively extempore and expedient way in response to the
immediate communicative needs of people in different communities with quite different
ancestors' (1997: 141).
Widdowson makes a clear distinction between the developmental processes in indi-

genised Englishes and other Englishes, and his position moves us to a debate on the nature
of the new varieties of English and whether they can rightfully be called Englishes or
whether they are, as is Widdowson's view, 'autonomous languages'.
Widdowson's position is broadly representative of the views of those who argue that
the development of different intranational varieties of English will necessarily result in a
range of mutually unintelligible languages, as, for example, French and Italian developed
from Latin. Following the distinction between a dialect and a register (Halliday et al., 1964),
Widdowson (2003) suggests that nativised local varieties of English can be considered as
dialects in that they are primarily concerned with distinct communities. These dialects are
'likely ... to evolve into separate species of language .. ., gradually becoming mutually
unintelligible' (2003: 53). In contrast, Widdowson argues that the varieties of English used
for specific purposes such as banking or commerce can be seen more as registers, that is
varieties of language that have developed to 'serve uses for language rather than users of it'
(2003: 54) (italics in original). Universally agreed registers of English will thus be used for
international communication and dialects will be used for local communication and the
expression of identity. As suggested by the 'identity-communication continuum', however,
I do not see the need to draw a distinction in this way. Rather, I agree with Mufwene and
Schneider that all varieties of English develop from similar stimuli and through similar
processes. All varieties must, on the one hand, reflect the cultural realities of their speakers
and, on the other, be adaptable enough to allow international communication. This is as
true of Nigerian English( es) as it is of Liverpudlian English.
In Chapter 4 I shall try and show that varieties of British English have developed, fol-
lowing exactly the same type of stimuli as have the new varieties in Ghana, Nigeria or
Singapore. An 'English' base has been influenced by contact with several other languages.
Kandiah has argued that, in a process he calls 'fulguration', new varieties of English create a
new system based on 'elements, structures and rules drawn from both English and from
one or more languages used in the environment' (1998: 99). I shall show in Chapter 4 that
this is precisely how English developed in England. Whether these varieties are mutually
intelligible or not depends more on the motivations of the speaker (the identity-commu-
nication continuum) and the listener's familiarity with the variety than it does on the lin-
guistic features of the variety itself. These differ, but they differ from each other in the same
ways, and familiarity with them brings quick understanding.
As pointed out by Kachru, Moag and Schneider, once a new variety of English is
established, internal or local variation begins to appear. Each variety of English is repre-
sented by a continuum of styles. Thus, as we saw earlier, Australian English has been
classified into three styles: cultivated, general and broad. Singaporean English has also been
classifi~d into three comparable styles: acrolectal, mesolectal and basilectal. The use of style
depends on a particular motivation. And, as I argued in Chapter 1, these motivations can
be placed along the identity-intelligibility continuum. In contexts where identity is
considered important to the speaker, such as in informal situations with peers, s/he is like-
ly to adopt a broader, more colloquial (or more basilectal) style. When the contexts require
intelligibility across more than one speech community, however, the identity motivation
will take second place to the intelligibility motivation. Speakers, whether they be Nigerian
or Liverpudlian, will choose the style to suit the occasion. In other words, all speakers of
English are capable of being intelligible (or uinintellgible) to speakers of other varieties if
they are so motivated.
Intelligibility is thus not a useful criterion for determining whether a variety has
become a different language. As I pointed out in Chapter 1, many varieties of British
English can be mutually unintelligible. This is especially the case if the motivation of the
speaker is to highlight his or her identity. I shall consider the issue of intelligibility in more
depth in Part C but here will quote Smith (1992). Smith has long argued that different vari-
eties do not necessarily equate with unintelligibility. In a well-known study conducted in
response to the frequently voiced concern over 'the possibility that speakers of different
varieties of English will soon become unintelligible to one another' (1992: 75), he argued
that this is a natural phenomenon and nothing to worry about. 'Our speech or writing in
English needs to be intelligible only to those with whom we wish to communicate in
English' (1992: 75). To this I would add that, following the 'identity-communication con-
tinuum', our speech or writing in English can be made intelligible to speakers of other vari-
eties of English.
In the final part of this chapter I shall briefly outline the main arguments for and
against the proposition that the spread of English is the result of a deliberate imperialist
policy, one that Phillipson in a well-known book of the same title (1992) has termed lin-
guistic imperialism or 'linguicism':
Linguicism can be intralingual and interlingual. It exists among and between speakers of
a language when one dialect is privileged as standard. Linguicism exists between speak-
ers of different languages in processes of resource allocation, vindication or vilification in
discourse of one language rather than another - English as the language of modernity
and progress, Cantonese as a mere dialect unsuited for a range of literate and societal
functions - (...)
(Phillipson, i997: 239)
This is relevant to the concept of World Englishes, as the linguistic imperialism argument
would seem to imply that a native-speaking model of English that reflected an Anglo-cul-
tural framework would supplant not only local varieties of English, but also other local lan-
guages.
3.3 English as an International Language or World Englishes?
The political debate over the spread of English centres around two questions: (1) is it
due to imperialism or linguicism; or (2) is it due to a genuine desire of people to learn
English because it has become so useful and because it can be adapted to suit the cultural
norms of the people who speak it? I return to this debate in more depth in Part C and here
simply provide an introduction to it. In a way, this is a debate about one English and many
Englishes. Those who see imperialism as the cause argue that it is British and, to an increas-
ingly greater extent, American English, that is being spread across the world. They argue
that British and American English necessarily bring with them Anglo-cultural norms and
that to learn this English means adopting British and American culture. As Rahman (1999)
has argued in the case of Pakistan, English 'acts by distancing people from most indigenous
cultural norms' (cited in Phillipson, 2002: 17).
There is little doubt that there are people and institutions who see the spread of
English as being both commercially and politically extremely important for their own
interests. An example of such an institution could be said to be the British Council. A major
task of the British Council is to give access to British culture across the world. What better
way to do this than to offer access to British English? Hence British Councils across the
world have established English language schools. These schools promote a British or native
speaker model and language teaching materials published by British publishing houses.
However, it is noteworthy that the British Council sees these schools as operating with an
overall purpose of building mutually beneficial relationships between people in the UK and
other countries.
There is also little doubt that the British government sees great advantage in the
spread of English, especially British English and especially in post-communist countries of
Eastern Europe and in countries such as China. A senior British politician, Gordon Brown,
was extolling the virtues of English in a trip to China he made in 2005.
There is also little doubt that certain varieties of English are considered superior in a
range of international contexts. Academic publications in the United States and Britain
favour articles written in Anglo varieties and which follow Anglo rhetorical styles. This has
led to scholars such as Swales (1997), Ammon (2000) and Kandiah (2001) to consider how
any possible prejudice against scholars who are either speakers of different varieties of
English or who are second language speakers of English can be addressed.
Phillipson's (1992) elegant argument for the linguistic imperialism thesis has won
many followers. Needless to say, however, there are many who disagree with his analysis and
who argue that, far from being forced upon people unwillingly, English has been actively
sought out by people throughout the world (Conrad, 1996; Davies, 1996; Li, 2002b; Brutt-
Griffler, 2002). In their view, people are making sensible and pragmatic choices; they are not
being coerced into learning English. And, far from English being a purveyor of Anglo-cul-
tural norms, the development of new varieties of English shows how English can be adapt-
ed by its speakers to reflect their cultural norms.
Kandiah (2001) sees both motivations in action and feels that there is an inherent con-
tradiction for people in postcolonial countries. On the one hand, people realise they need
to learn English as it is the international language. On the other, they fear that the need to
use English ip so many situations and for so many functions will threaten their own lan-
guages, cultures and ways of thinking. Yet, as Kachru and others have argued, local
Englishes reflect local cultures and ways of thinking. Second, many non-Anglo or non-
Western ways of thinking have received international attention through English. To take
just three examples from Chinese culture, traditional Chinese medicine, the writings on the
Art of War by Sun Zi and the tenets of Confucianism are now much better known in the
West than in the past, precisely because this Chinese cultural knowledge and these Chinese
ways of thinking have been disseminated through English. As Jacques (2005) has argued,
with the rise in power of India and China, American and Western values will be contested
as never before. It is highly likely that they will be contested through the medium of
English.
In closing this chapter, I want to introduce a conundrum that we face in an attempt
to standardise and classify World Englishes. We like models and norms. The conundrum
that we have to solve is that we are faced with many models all of which are characterised
by internal variation. This has been pointed out by Kachru in his call for a 'polymodel'
approach to replace a 'monomodel' approach (1992a: 66). A monomodel approach suppos-
es that English is homogenous, a single variety, it is 'English as an international language'.
In Kachru's view, this approach ignores the incontrovertible fact that English is actually
characterised by variety and variation. A polymodel approach, on the other hand, suppos-
es variability. Kachru lists three types: 'variability related to acquisition; variability related
to function; and variability related to the context of situation' (1992a: 66).
By examining the linguistic features of a range of Englishes and the sociocultural con-
texts in which they operate, I hope to show how the real situation is characterised by vari-
ation and variety and that we need to study 'global' English in specific places (Sonntag,
2003). While varieties of English go through similar linguistic and developmental process-
es, the current status and functions of those Englishes can differ markedly. For example, the
roles and functions of English differ markedly today even in Malaysia and Singapore, two
countries whose historical backgrounds are so closely related that one was actually part of
the other at one stage in the past. I now turn to the description and discussion of individ-
ual varieties of English.
SCOTLAND
e Manchester
ENGLAND
e Birmingham
Part B: Variation and Varieties
4 Variation and impurity in British English
In Part A I discussed a number of key linguistic and sociolinguistic concepts that will
underpin the description of the varieties of English in Part B. I also summarised theories
of World Englishes and their development so that these could be used to compare the
developmental processes that the varieties of Englishes described in Part B go through. In
this chapter I shall give a brief summary of the historical development of English in
England and focus on demonstrating and exemplifying its variation and 'impurity'. I shall
provide examples of variation over the ages and illustrate how the language has changed
over time and give examples of how present-day varieties of English in England differ from
each other. In the final part of the chapter I shall outline the history of the development of
English in Scotland and give some examples of varieties of Scots English, concentrating on
a variety currently spoken in the northeast of Scotland.
4.1 Old English and Middle English

There is no evidence to support the popular myth that English suddenly appeared as
a pure language untouched by others. As Crystal has pointed out, 'The notion of purity was
as mythical then as it is now' (2004: 19). The truth is that English has been influenced by
contact with a range of languages over many hundreds of years. It is a member of the Indo-
European language family and a very simplified version of its family tree is given in Figure 3
(overleaf).
The development of the English spoken in England today has had four stages. The
dates given below are only approximate dates. While linguistic change is constant, it is also
gradual, so it is impossible to say that one version of English suddenly developed into
another on a particular date:
39
Figure 3: The English language family tree

Sanskrit
t
Greek
t
Latin
Modern In do-European Languages
t
Germanic
(English/German/Dutch etc.)
Stage 1: Old English (OE), from 450 to 1150;

Stage 2: Middle English (ME), from 1150 to 1450;
Stage 3: Early Modern English (EME), from 1450 to 1750; and
Stage 4: Modern English (ModE), from about 1750.
These dates also approximate key events in the history of English. From around the mid-
dle of the fifth century AD, tribes from different parts of Europe - the Jutes, Angles and
Saxons - arrived in England. They spoke a wide range of Germanic dialects. Four OE
dialects have been recognised, namely West Saxon, Kentish, Mercian and Northumbrian,
but Crystal argues that 'in reality there must have been many more' (2004: 34). It is impor-
tant to note that, by the time these Germanic tribes arrived in England, their languages
had already had some 400 years of contact with Latin, so the varieties they spoke will have
been influenced by this Latin contact.
Variation was evident in the varieties of the dialects spoken by these early settlers to
Britain. The following examples of different vocabulary come from Crystal (2004: 47):
ModE Anglian OE West Saxon OE

bell clucge bell
feed a Ian fedan
loss los lor
border fa es fnaed
The next several hundred years saw the arrival of the Scandinavian tribes, the adoption of
Christianity, the Norman invasion of 1066 and Caxton publishing the first book in 1476,
Variation and impurity in British English 41
after Gutenberg's invention of the printing press in c. 1450. 1 All of these represented major
influences on variation and change in English.
One major syntactic change that took place over time and created an important
difference between Old English and Modern English is that, compared with Old English,
Modern English has relatively few inflections. For example, the inflectional system of nouns
in OE had nominative (subject), accusative (object), genitive (possessive), dative (agent)
and number inflections. The declension of the OE masculine noun 'stan' (stone) below is
taken from Blake (1996: 65):
Case Singular Plural

nominative stan stanas
accusative stan stanas
genitive stanes stana
dative stane stanum
Today, we basically retain inflections for number on nouns, usually by adding the suffix '-s',
although the Old English suffix of '-en' remains in some 'irregular' plurals, as in 'children'
and 'oxen'. Gender and case markings have all but disappeared. The marking of the gender
of nouns disappeared by the thirteenth century (Williams, 1975). The accusative and geni-
tive are now restricted to 'whom' and the possessive 's', although there is evidence that the
possessive apostrophe is dropping out of use, as is 'whom', except, perhaps, in formal
writing.
The inflectional system on verbs was also more complex in OE. In OE, as in ModE,
there were two ways of marking past tense, the strong forms and the weak forms. The strong
forms marked past tense by changing the internal vowel. Examples of strong forms were:
rfdan - rad (ride/rode)

findan -fand (find/found)
beran - baer (bear/bore)
sprecan spraec (speak/spoke)
(Blake, 1996: 67-8)
The weak forms marked past tense by adding a suffix. Examples include:
endian - endode - endod (end/ended/ended)

cysson - cyssede (kiss/kissed)
cepan - cepte- ceped (keep/kept/kept)
(Blake, 1996: 69)
Over time, the strong forms have lost out to the weak forms (for example OE 'rap' was the
past tense of 'rip an', but this has been replaced today by 'reaped') so that today nearly all new
1
In Europe; the Chinese had invented printing several centuries earlier, during the Southern Song Dynasty
(1127-1279).
verbs take '-ed' as their past tense marker (Burchfield, 1985: 43). This is interesting because
this trend is also observable in new varieties of English (NVE). In other words, the tendency
for new varieties of English to favour regular '-ed' past tense endings simply mirrors a his-
torical pattern. However, as is always the case, it is not quite as neat and simple as that. Many
verbs had both weak and strong form past tense endings and in some cases the strong forms
have won out. For example, 'raught' was common for the past tense for 'reach' until about
1650 (Lass, 1999: 174), and 'teached' and 'catched' were both possible alternatives for 'taught'
and 'caught' until well into the eighteenth century (Lass, 1999: 194). 'Wrought' was the past
tense of 'work' and survives today as an adjective, as in 'wrought (i.e. 'worked') iron'.
Nevertheless most verbs moved to the weak class and the inflectional system of the verb
became gradually more simplified so that 'many forms of the verb became indistinguishable'
(Blake, 1996: 151). In short, the highly inflected English of OE has become, over time, a
language with only a few inflections. The reasons for the loss of inflection by the Middle
English period is instructive, as it provides a clue as to why new varieties of English are also
following this pattern. Fisher (1992) mentions two possible causes, namely phonology and
pidginisation. With regard to the pronunciation system or phonology of OE, OE's initial stress
was important 'as it must have contributed to the neutralisation of vowel qualities in
inflectional endings and their almost total subsequent demise' (1992: 207). Phonology is also a
cause of the dropping of certain past tense endings in NVEs, especially when they occur as part
of consonant clusters. Thus 'walked' becomes something like 'walk' in certain varieties of spo-
ken English. The second cause Fisher mentions stems from contact with Scandinavian lan-
guages after England had been invaded by Vikings. This contact between OE and Scandinavian
languages 'led to a process of pidginisation, with a concomitant loss of morphological struc-
ture' (1992: 207). This reduction in inflections is given additional impetus after contact with
French. It is further evidence that 'traditional' English followed developmental processes that
are comparable with the developmental processes of new varieties of English.
A change associated with the simplification of the inflectional system has been the
move from a relatively free to a relatively fixed word order. The presence of inflections
means that word order can be much more flexible. Burchfield (1985: 157) gives the follow-
ing example of this. The Modern English sentences 'the king betrayed the queen' and 'the
queen betrayed the king' have fundamentally different meanings. In OE, however, the sen-
tences 'seo cwen beswac pone cyning' and 'pone cyning beswac seo cwen' mean the same-
thing ('the queen betrayed the king'), despite their quite different word order, as the subject
and object of the sentences are indicated through inflections.
Latin has influenced English at different periods. As pointed out earlier, the Germanic
languages that we now call English had had 400 years of contact with Latin before their
speakers even arrived in England. The second phase of Latin influence occurred with the
adoption of Christianity. This saw Latin words entering the language and these words
becoming nativised, so 'papdom' (today 'papacy') developed from 'papa' plus the OE suffix
'-dom', which survives today in words such as 'kingdom'.
As Fisher pointed out above, Scandinavian languages also provided a major influence
on OE. In addition to influencing the syntax of OE, these languages also supplied many
words. A very common word of Norse origin is' husbonda', householder or husband. These
examples come from Crystal:
Norse OE Mod E
log lagu law
utlagi utlaga outlaw
vrang wrang wrong
(Crystal, 2004: 177)
After the influences and consequent changes to English brought about by contact with
Latin and Scandinavian languages, a third major influence was felt from 1066 when the
Normans invaded from France and conquered England. For around the next 300 years the
official language of Britain was French and French words routinely replaced OE words. The
examples below are taken from Burchfield:
OE French
earn uncle
milts mercy
sige victory
stow place
(Burchfield, 1985: 15)
Thousands of French words entered English during the time of the Normans. Today we use
English and French pairs in many expressions, possibly without realising their different
origins. The following pairs have the OE word mentioned first and the French one second:
will and testament
keep and maintain
breaking and entering
final and conclusive
(Crystal, 2004: 153)
English also developed different words of similar meanings from different languages as this
table of OE, French and Latin words shows. The dates in brackets after each word give an
approximate date of their entry into English:
OE French Latin
ask (885) question (1470) interrogate (1483)
fast (888) firm (1340) secure (1533)
rise (1000) mount (1362) ascend (1382)
(Crystal, 2004: 188)
These several influences mean that there are words in English that might look the
same, but actually have quite different linguistic origins. For example, the 'boil' that
you lance comes from Old English but what you do to water in a kettle comes from
French.
The French influence was not limited to vocabulary, but was evident in syntax too.
French left an indelible mark on Anglo-Saxon by 'drastically simplifying its ... syntax,
modifying its spelling and vastly enlarging and enriching its vocabulary' (Murison, 1979: 6).
4.2 From Middle English
The period of Middle English was a period in which variation was at its greatest. It is
the dialect phase 'par excellence' of English (Strang, 1970: 224). Consider these alternative
spellings of the word 'knight' for example, bearing in mind that 'knight' would have been a
key word during this time:
knight, knighte, knyght, knyghte, knith, knizt, knyzt, knyzte, knict, kincth, cnipte, cniht
(Crystal, 2004: 211)
By 1400 the amount of variation presented cumulative difficulty in writing between

literate people. Note this occurred with the rise of the importance of English, as English
started to gain ascendancy over French as the language of the English court at this time
(Richardson, 1984). It was also the time of the so-called Great Vowel Shift, when the pro-
nunciation of vowels altered significantly. The extent of this shift in pronunciation can be
seen by comparing how the great English writer Chaucer would have pronounced the fol-
lowing sentence in his lifetime - he died in 1400 - with the way I might pronounce it
today: ·
'way doe sah it's teem to gaw noo' (we do say it's time to go now) /widuseutstarmt9gounau/
(Crystal, 2004: 252),
Middle English was, above all, a dialect age and 'for a glorious 300 years, people could write
as they wanted to, and nobody would say they were wrong' (Crystal, 2004: 195). It was also
the time when many of the OE inflections dropped out of common usage, but when the
progressive form emerged (I am going) along with a range of auxiliaries (I have seen, does
she know, I didn't go, they can ask) (Crystal, 2004: 250).
Not everyone was happy with this variation and linguistic prejudices were voiced.
York, a city in the north of England, was the earliest town to be publicly berated by a
Southerner for its 'bad' accent. Ranulph Higden writes in the 1350s:
'all the speech of the Northumbrians, especially at York, is so harsh, piercing and grating,
and formless, that we Southern men can hardly understand such speech'
(cited in Crystal, 2004: 216)
The period 1475-76 was a further period of great change. The introduction of printing into
England by Caxton in 1476 meant that reading and writing became popular and not pas-
times restricted to the educated elite. But even after Caxton there remained a great deal of
variation. The Renaissance brought many new words from Latin and Greek and this start-
ed to upset people. Sir John Cheke, writing in 1557, is often quoted as an example of some-
one who felt that the language was sliding into anarchy:
'I am of the opinion that our own tung should be written cleane and pure, unmixt and
unmangled with borrowings of other tunges.'
(cited in Crystal 2004:292)
Underlining the dangers of pedantry, 'opinion', 'pure', 'unmixed' and 'unmangled' are them-
selves words of French or Latin origin.
That variation and change have always been a natural and normal phenomenon is
underlined by this quotation from Burchfield:
The patterns of accidence and syntax of a language wax and wane from generation to
generation, and seem always to meet the daily needs of the tribes, families, or groups
using them.
(Burchfield, 1985: 32)
4.3 Examples of change (1476-1776)
Unless otherwise indicated, the following examples come from Burchfield (1985). It
should be noted that many varieties of English have retained some of these features.
(i) The initial /fn/ of OE becomes /sn/ so 'fnesen' becomes 'sneeze'.
(ii) The !ti in words like 'listen', 'castle' and 'whistle' has become silent, but it
remains optional in words like 'chestnut' and 'often'. The /r/ before a
consonant in final position has also become silent in the many non-rhotic
varieties of English in words such as 'beard', 'scared' and 'part'.
(iii) Most nouns lose their '-en' plural inflection. Instead plural is marked
by'-s'.
(iv) The changes associated with the second person pronouns give a good example
of how significant the changes were:
OE
thou (singular nominative), thee (accusative)
ye (plural nominative), you (accusative)
When talking to people, 'thou' (sing) and 'you' (pl) were used.
13th c
'you' had become singular.
16th c
'thou' and 'you' were playing the tu-vous role, where 'tu' indicates friendship and
intimacy and 'vous' social distance and formality, as well as singular and plural.
17th c
'thou' disappears from standard English.
(Crystal, 2004: 307ff.)
(v) The third person present simple inflection changes. In 1620, Mayflower settlers
to the United States all said 'he runs, he lives', but their parents probably said 'he
runneth, he liveth'.
(vi) Up to 1776, negation continued to be cumulative and not self-cancelling as this

1576 example shows: 'they should not need no more to feare him than his
shadowe' (Burchfield, 1985: 32).
These examples of continual change show that Caxton and printing did not produce a
'standard' language. Further evidence of this can be gleaned from the views of people at the
time. In 1605, a Richard Verstegan said that when people from different parts of England
met, 'they are not able to understand what the others say, notwithstanding they call it
English that they speak' (Crystal, 2004: 346).
It is perhaps not surprising then that, at the time when people were increasingly
beginning to show concern about the wide range in variation, we see the appearance of the
first dictionaries and grammars. Below is a list of the most important of these, together
with their dates of publication.
• The first English grammar was William Bullokar's Pamphlet for Grammar,
published in 1586.
• The first English dictionary was A Table Alphabetical by Robert Cawdrey,
published in 1604.
• 1674 saw the publication of the first dialect dictionary. This was John Ray's A
Collection of English Words, not Generally Used, with their Signification and
Original.
• The Irish satirist Johnathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels, was keen to
establish a standard and in 1712 he published his Proposal for Correcting,
Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue.
• Samuel Johnson's dictionary was published in 1755· In the preface he wrote that
he found our speech 'copious without order, and energetick without rules ...
there was perplexity to be disentangled, and confusion to be regulated ...' (cited
in Crystal, 2004: 365). In the context oflanguage teaching, given the amount of
time English language teachers spend on drilling the difference between
countable and uncountable nouns in English, it is instructive to note that
Johnson's dictionary treats 'information' as a countable noun, as he gives the
plural form as 'informations'.
• John Walker published his Critical Pronunciation Dictionary in 1791. In it he was
critical of a habit that will be familiar to many people today:
'A still worse habit ... prevails, chiefly among the people of London, that of sinking the h
at the beginning of words where it ought to be sounded, and of sounding it, either where
it is not seen, or where it ought to be sunk'
(cited in Crystal, 2004: 411)
He is complaining that some people do not pronounce the 'h' sounds in certain
words, so 'heart' becomes 'eart', but do sound them in others where they do not
occur, so 'arm' becomes 'harm'. The fact that people still do this shows that
prescriptive rules tend to be unsuccessful.
• Lindley Murray's English grammar was published in 1795 and became the most
famous prescriptive grammar of its day. Nevertheless, the poet Keats wrote in a
letter in 1819, 'I should not of written' (Crystal, 2004: 464). This is the type of
'error' that upsets today's prescriptivists, but is one that is becoming increasingly
common and occurs in the dialogues of contemporary novels. It is possible that
this replacement of 'have' by 'of' will become accepted in the relatively near future.
One might have expected that the publication of all these manuals would have led to some
form of stability and a decrease in variation and change. However, change continued and
below I list some examples of change in British English that have taken place since 1776, the
date of American independence. Unless otherwise indicated, the following examples come
from Burchfield (1985: 4off). Note that we are not dealing with American English here; that
will be the topic of the next chapter.
4-4 Examples of change (since 1776)
As with the examples of earlier changes, it should be noted that many varieties of
English have retained some of these features:
(i) /n/ - /ng/ so 'huntin' becomes 'hunting', although 'huntin' remains common.
(ii) Initial /h/ in words of French origin was silent until about 1830 and then we get
'herb' /'hospital' /'hotel'.
(iii) 'Lost' /'cloth' /'cross' (/'J:/ etc.,) becomes /n/ etc.
(iv) Four-syllable words have two main models, as in the words 'matrimony' and
'monotony' and this is unstable in some words. For example, there is 'contro-
versy' over the pronunciation of 'controversy'.
(v) New verb forms and the use of the passive develop. These were not available
before 1800. For example, we first see forms such as: 'we were having: 'he is
having to give up ...: 'he has been known to ... '.
From these examples and the account above, it is clear that the development of English is
characterised by variation and change. Changes routinely occurred in pronunciation,
vocabulary and syntax, and a major cause of these changes was contact with other lan-
guages. From considering change over time, some examples of linguistic differences
between varieties spoken in England today are provided in the next section.
4.5 Variation in contemporary England
While there is some debate over the number of major varieties of English spoken in
England today, there is no debate that varieties continue to exist. Ellis (1890) identified six
major dialects, which he then subdivided into forty-two districts (Ihalainen, 1994).
Ihalainen (1994: 252ff.) also shows that Viereck, writing in 1986, identifies seven major
dialect areas of England, namely the north, the northwest, the county of Lincolnshire, East
Anglia, the Midlands, the extreme southeast and the southwest. Trudgill distinguishes
between traditional (rural) dialects and modern (urban) dialects and lists 13 of the former
and 12 of the latter (Ihalainen, 1994: 252-9).
There is not space here to consider many distinctive features of so many varieties, but
'the northern subject rule' (Ihalainen, 1994: 221) is of particular interest to people involved
in the study of World Englishes. This rule says that plural present tense verbs take '-s' unless
they are immediately preceded by a personal pronoun subject. The examples Ihalainen
gives are: 'they peel them and boils them', and 'birds sings'. He contrasts this rule with
southern usage where '-s' is affixed after a personal pronoun subject to give 'they peels and
boils them'. He also gives a fascinating list of the ways different varieties mark the present
tense. These include:
The North (following the subject rule provided above):
'He makes them I they make them I farmers makes them.'
Northwest Midlands:
'He makes them I they maken them I farmers maken them.'
East Anglia:
'He make them I they make them I farmers make them.'
The South:
'He makes them I they makes them I farmers makes them.'
(Ihalainen, i994: 228)
English teachers may be startled (or possibly relieved) to see this wide variation in the
marking of the present tense. Many may regret that the East Anglian variety of English did
not become the standard one. Examples of further variation from other British varieties are
provided by Burchfield (1994a: 9). These include the double modal in Scots, 'he'll can get it',
and the 'do + be' construction of Irish English, 'these pancakes do be gorgeous'. Some of
these features will be seen in other varieties of English, including American. Two features
of Welsh English that appear in some of the English varieties of East Asia are the 'isn't it'
all-purpose tag question and a preference for topic-comment sentence constructions as in
'coal, they're getting out mostly'.
I now turn to consider the development of varieties of English in Scotland and pro-
vide examples from one such variety, the Buchan Doric, spoken in the northeast around the
city of Aberdeen.
4.6 Scottish,English and variation in Scotland
Scots developed from the variety spoken in the north of England (Northumbria)
from the seventh century (McArthur, 1998). The north of Northumbria eventually became
part of Scotland, while the south remained part of England and the varieties diverged.
The 'golden age' of Scots is considered to be the century between 1460 and 1560. It was a full
national language and 'as distinct from English as Portuguese is from Spanish ...'
(Murison, 1979: 9). As McClure puts it 'the flourishing cultural life of a small but confident
kingdom was reflected in an exuberant development of Scots' (1994: 31). This was the final
period of the alliance with France against England, a period during which Scots gained
French words that English did not have, including the word for the quintessentially Scottish
New Year's Eve celebration, 'hogmanay'.
Thus, while the Scots variety was influenced by the same languages as its southern
counterparts (Latin, Scandinavian and French), it was influenced by them to different
degrees. Apart from the additional influence French had until the Reformation of 1560, the
influence of Scandinavian languages on Scots has been greater than it has on other varieties
of English. For example the Scandinavian word quine refers to girls in general in certain
varieties of Scottish English, but has the specific meaning of 'queen' in other varieties of
English. From 1560, the increasing political power of England over Scotland led to the
southern varieties of English reasserting great influence on Scots. The Union of 1707 saw the
Scottish legislature move to London and English became the official language, both spoken
and written (Murison, 1979). The increased influence of English is viewed with distaste by
many. Standard English is not only a lingua franca, it is 'the chief influence at present dis-
rupting the status and make-up of regional dialects ...'(Mcintosh, 1952: 31). However, all is
not lost. In the words of one scholar, despite the Anglicisation of Scottish speech over recent
centuries, there is still 'a vast amount of Scots material current in everyday spoken usage ...
as well as in our literary and oral tradition generally' (Aitken, 1979: 116). -
Readers will note that Scots is described as a variety of English, but this begs the ques-
tion: is Scots a variety of English or is it a separate language? Here it will be treated as a vari-
ety of English, although some will argue that its political status demands that it be called a
language in its own right. However, this is a political not a linguistic argument and here we
are dealing with linguistic criteria for the classification of languages, so we shall call it a
variety or, more correctly, a range of varieties.
There are several varieties of Modern English spoken in England today, but how many
varieties of Scottish English are there? Kay (1988) identifies seven dialects of Scots, namely
Southern, South, West and East Central, Northern, Highland and Insular. The examples
below are from the Northern dialect, which is also called the Doric or Buchan Doric. The
Buchan Doric is spoken around and north of Aberdeen in the northeast of Scotland.
According to Fenton, 'The speech of the Northeast is one of the best preserved in Scotland,
still flexible enough to adapt to modern times' (2005: 1). The Doric is still widely used and,
importantly, written. For example, The Leopard magazine, which is edited and published in
northeast Scotland, regularly carries articles about the Doric and articles that are written in
it. It also includes a cartoon, 'Councillor Swick', that is written in the Doric.
[Note that swick means 'swindle'.]
Swick: Clear the table, Mary. Let the dog see the rabbit. OK, boys, careful with it. Put it
down there beside the wife. I'm much obliged to you both. I would offer you a beer but I
Clear the table, Mary. Let the dog see the Fit's the idea? We've You're /ookin at the future there, Mary. That is my new PC. Weel, it's nae
rabbit. OK, boys, careful wi't. Pit it down got a TV already. An exactly new. It wis surplus toe requirements in the Council's Finance
there aside the wife, I'm much obliged tae ye. it canna bide there. department, cos the boys there were gettin fed up withe auld een -
I wid offer ye a beer, but I ken you're drivin, It's jist something weel, it could only play solitaire, an they winted mair variety, ken?
Dave, an it widna be fair tae you if I gied mair for me toe dust. Weel, they've got a new state-of-the-art, all-singin, all-dancin model
een tae Ronnie. Far did it come fae? noo. At this very moment, tae while away the borin oors in the cash room,
they are surf in the net, loo kin for a game o pontoon wi somebody on
Christmas Island.
But gettin back tae this little Ye see, ye can hae ower much Ken fit you are, Mary? Ye're
baby, darlin. Using this PC communication - the mair ye a dinosaur. Look let's get
you could send an e-mail tae hiv, the mair chance there is this thing plugged in an I'll
yer little brither Henry in o haein rows. So as far as I'm gie ye a demonstration. I
his posh office in New York, concerned, ye can keep yer jist hope it works aa richt.
an ye could get a reply personal computer. ye can I hope it wisna damaged
fae him by tea-time. keep yer e-mail. fan it fell aff the back o
know (ken) you're driving, Dave, and it wouldn't be fair to you if I gave (gied) one to
Ronnie.
Mary: What's (fit's) the idea? We've got a TV already. And it can't stay (bide) there. It's just
something more for me to dust. Where (far) did it come from (fae)?
Swick: You're looking at the future there, Mary. That is my new PC. Well, it's not exactly
new. It was surplus to requirements in the Council's finance department, because the
boys there were getting fed up with the old one (withe au/d een)-well, it could only play
solitaire, and they wanted more variety, you see (ken)? Well, they got a new state of the
art, all singing, all dancing model now (noo). At this very moment, to while away the bor-
ing hours (oars) in the cash room, they are surfing the net, looking for a game of pontoon
with somebody on Christmas Island.
Swick: But getting back to this little baby, darling. Using this PC you could send an email
to your little brother Henry in his posh office in New York and you could get a reply from
(fae) him.by tea-time.
Mary: I don't want {I'm nae wintin) a reply from him by tea-time. See this. To heck with your
PC - I've got a PC (post card) of my own and I'm writing it to Henry now. Look, it's a lovely
view of the Bridge (Brig) of Dee (a river), with all the traffic going (gan) over it, and Boots
and Currys (both well-known shops} in the foreground. It's really attractive. This is my year
to send a PC.to Henry and I'll get one back from him next year. That's the best kind of com-
munication. After all the years that Henry's been in America, we're still very close.
Mary: You see, you can have too much communication - the more you have, the more
chance (chunce) there is of having (haein) rows. So, as far as I'm concerned, you can keep
your personal computer, you can keep your email.
Swick: Know what (ken fit) you are, Mary? You're a dinosaur. Look let's get this thing
plugged in and I'll give you a demonstration. I just hope it works all right (aa richt}. I hope
it wasn't damaged when (fan) it fell off the back of the lorry (/arry).
Yet, the Doric is much more than a cartoon language. In the February 2005 edition of The
Leopard, the following articles contained substantial sections written in Doric:
'Spik o The Place' (Speak of the Place) by Norman Harper

'Toonser' (The Townsman) by Bill Mackie
'Buchan Wirds and Wyes O' Daein' (Buchan Words and Ways of Doing) by Sandy Fenton.
Below I give some further examples of the Doric. This one is taken from Buchan Claik, a
glossary of Doric words and phrases compiled by Peter Buchan and David Toulmin (1989).
This excerpt provides a context to describe the meaning of the word 'marless', a non-match-
ing pair (as of shoes and socks):
The farmer's son who had to go to school wearing his mother's shoes while his own were
being repaired, remarked,
'Ye've nivver haen tae dee that, hiv ye? Ging tae the skweel wi yer mither's sheen on? I wis
near greeting aboot it in front o aa the ither loons, and then I saw anither lad wi his mither's
sheen on, and then I didna feel sae bad. At least my mither's sheen werna marless'.
(Buchan and Toulmin, 1989: 87)
The pronunciation of this variety is obviously distinctive. In addition there is significant

variation in vocabulary. The above extract could be 'translated' as:
You've never had to do that, have you? Go to school with your mother's shoes on? I was
close to crying about it in front of all the other boys, and then I saw another lad with his
mother's shoes on, and then I did not feel so bad. At least my mother's shoes were a
matching pair (were not matchless).
A common grammatical feature of this and other varieties of Scottish English is the '-it'
suffix as a past tense ending. The example below comes from Fenton (2005: 23) and the past
tense suffixes are highlighted in bold. Notice also the use of the past simple here in the first
sentence, where in 'standard' British English the present perfect would be used. Note also
the use of If/ for /w/ in 'wh' -words:
'I aye Ii kit tae rake a boot ither fook's places. It's just winnerfae fit ye can learn. Eence fin I
wis hame frae Cambridge I bikit over tae see a freen o mine .. .'
I have always liked to look around other people's places. It's just wonderful what you can
learn. Once when I was home from Cambridge I biked over to see a friend of mine ...
And the memorable opening line of a short story by Kynoch (199J: 12):
'Nyaakit as when the howdie skelpit his doup .. .'
Naked as when the midwife slapped his bottom ...
This short story describes a boyhood incident in the life of a local millionaire, called
Geordie Peerie. He grew up in a poor home that had only two rooms. If people wanted to
wash, they had to use the sink. Geordie has just started to wash. The rest of the opening
paragraph continues:
'. .. Geordie hid ae leg in ower the sink an ae fit in the nammel basin, fin, o a suddenty,
there wis a chappin at the door. Fit a fleg a got. Niver myn, he thocht, he widna hae tae
ging tae the door. His mither wis ben the hoose. She wid awa tae the door; an wi him in
the state he wis in, she widna tak onybody in. He haird her opening the door. "Och, it's
yersel, Mr McKillop." {The meenister!) "Come awa in!"'
Geordie had a leg in over the sink and a foot in the enamel basin, when, suddenly, there
was a knocking at the door. What a fright he got. But never mind, he thought, he would
not have to go to the door. His mother was inside the house. She would go (away) to the
door; and with him in the state he was in, she would not let anybody in. He heard her
opening the door. "Oh, it's you, Mr McKillop." {The Presbyterian Minister!) "Come in!"
The whole story is in the Appendix and is also recorded on the accompanying CD along
with a poem written in the Doric. (For a selection of written and spoken Doric texts, see
McClure, 2002.)
Despite their rich history and cultural basis, varieties of Scottish English are still
looked down upon by some people, often by the speakers of those varieties themselves.
Speakers of other varieties of English in many parts of the world will, I suspect, be only too
familiar with the prejudices voiced by the people quoted here. I hope they may take some
comfort in the knowledge that prejudice is expressed against old varieties of English as well
as new ones. As Kay points out, 'The myth of Scots as a debased form of English often pre-
vails' (1988: 22) and that therefore,
One of the most debilitating phenomena of Scottish society is the false notion that to get
on you have to get out.
(Kay, 1988: 14)
In other words, you have to learn standard English at the expense of your own variety.
People report that children were 'skelpit', or hit, if they used their home language to the
teacher, as this was considered a sign of insolence, in spite of the fact that they started
school with no other language. Kay even suggests that this led to Scots children deciding
education was not for them, 'the omnipotent standard of having one correct way of speak-
ing colours our society's attitude and results in false value judgements about people' (Kay,
1988: 16). Kay also reports a specific instance of prejudice against the Doric itself. It is
important to note that prejudice often comes from speakers of the variety:
'Five of our former pupils have lost their places in offices, under a youth training scheme,
because they either could not or would not attempt to speak standard English on the
phone. If you allow the use of Doric by your pupils in your (class) room, you could be a con-
tributor to what can only be described as a sorry state of affairs.'
(Kay, 1988: 17)
Kay sums up the difficulty of maintaining one's own variety by quoting the Scottish poet
Hugh MacDiarmid:
'Tae be yersel and tae mak that worth bein
Nae harder job tae mortals has been gien.'
(Kay, 1988: 20)
To be yourself and make that worth being

No harder job to mortals has been given.
4.7 Conclusion
This has been the briefest of introductions to variations occurring in British English
since AD 500. My main aim in this chapter has been to show that both variation and change
have been common and normal in the development of English in England. I have also
shown that there continue to be many different varieties of English spoken in both England
and Scotland and have given some examples from these. I hope that these show that the vari-
ations that occur in other varieties of English are not at all strange, nor are they reflective of
deviation or error. In closing, it is helpful to consider these quotes from Burchfield:
Stability of meaning is rare in any language.
No construction is everlastingly stable, no cherished rule remains unbroken.

(1985: 157-8)
At any given period linguistic conservatives regard selected parts of the pronunciation
system as necessary ingredients of social superiority or acceptability ... other social
groups ... because of a different line of inheritance display different, and therefore
potentially threatening, modes of speech. In the slow turning of the centuries the rivalry
of such competing systems produces an alternation of socially triumphant variants.
(1985: 139)
In short, all language is characterised by variation and change. No language is pure. Varieties
will develop to serve the needs of their speakers no matter how many rules or obstacles pre-
scriptive grammarians or linguistic bureaucrats will put in their way. Rather than worrying
about variation and change, we should rejoice in the cultural and linguistic diversity they
represent. I hope to celebrate that diversity in the remaining chapters of Part B.
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5 The powerful variety: American English
5.1 The development of American English
American English is, without doubt, the most influential and powerful variety of
English in the world today. There are many reasons for this. First, the United States is, at
present, the most powerful nation on earth and such power always brings with it influence.
Indeed, the distinction between a dialect and a language has frequently been made by ref-
erence to power. As has been said, 'A language is a dialect with an army'. Second, America's
political influence is extended through American popular culture, in particular through the
international reach of American films (movies, of course) and music. As Kahane has point-
ed out, 'The internationally dominant position of a culture results in a forceful expansion
of its language .... the expansion of language contributes ... to the prestige of the culture
behind it' (Kahane, 1992: 232). Third, the international prominence of American English is
closely associated with the extraordinarily quick development of communications technol-
ogy. Microsoft is owned by an American, Bill Gates. This means a computer's default set-
ting for language is American English, although of course this can be changed to suit one's
own circumstances. In short, the increased influence of American English is caused by
political power and the resultant diffusion of American culture and media, technological
advance and the rapid development of communications technology.
But while American English is now the most influential variety of English, it was not
always so. In this chapter I shall outline the development of American English and focus on
two key issues. The first is that, in the beginning, the variety was derided by many. As will
become increasingly clear through the course of this book, this is a fate that befalls almost
all new varieties of English in the early stages of their development. The second focus of the
chapter will now be familiar to readers, as the naturalness of variation is a primary focus of
the book. It should be no surprise then to learn that American English is characterised by
variety. There are too many varieties of American English to be able to describe here and so
I shall focus on just two: African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and white Southern
American English (SAE). First, however I shall briefly consider the development of
American English, attitudes to it and ways in which the idealised standard variety, here
called General American, differs from 'standard' British English.
The first official English-speaking group to visit the Americas arrived in 1497 under
the leadership of John Cabot (Dillard, 1992: 1), but perhaps the best-known English-
speaking immigrants to America were the English Puritans who arrived on the Mayflower,
55
in 1621. There followed several waves of migration to America. While many of these
migrants were from Britain, it must not be forgotten that many were also from other coun-
tries in Europe and many were imported as slaves from African countries during the peri-
od of the infamous slave trade. This meant that America provided a contact point for
English and many other languages, both European and African. Dillard (1992) points out
that, in 1644, 18 different languages were spoken on Manhattan Island (now part of New
York) alone. Two further factors made the linguistic situation even more complex. The first
was that the migrants from Britain brought with them many different varieties of British
English and, as we saw in the previous chapter, these varied significantly from each other
and included the varieties of the poorly educated. By and large, it is not the powerful and
rich who migrate, it is the oppressed and the poor who do. The second factor was that the
indigenous American population spoke several different American languages. The presence
of so many languages gave rise to American Indian Pidgin English (AIPE) and AIPE was an
important lingua franca in the days of early settlement and also during the move west
across the United States. Dillard gives an 1886 example of this type of frontier pidgin:
'Wild turkey hard to kill. Indian break some stick, turkey stop one second, say maybe lnjin,
lnjin be good hunter he got shot. White-tailed deer, he hear some little noise way off-say
lnjin -W-u-zz he gone, lnjin no get one shot.'
(Dillard, 1992: 145)
It was not this type of pidgin, however, that people were referring to when deriding the new
English of America, but rather the varieties spoken by the settlers, as the comments below
illustrate. Samuel Johnson, the author of Johnson's Dictionary mentioned in the previous
chapter, described the 'American dialect' as 'a tract of corruption' (Burchfield, 1985: 36). A
few years later, a Scot, John Witherspoon, who had arrived in America in 1769 to become
the President of Princeton University, thundered in despair:
'I have heard in this country in the senate, at the bar, and from the pulpit ... errors in
grammar, improprieties and vulgarisms which hardly any person of the same class in
point of rank and literature would have fallen into in Great Britain'.
(Mencken, 1965: 5)
Mencken (1965: 32) also quotes a more recent example of prejudice against American
English. An English politician in 1930, emerging from having seen an American film, com-
plained, 'The words and accent were perfectly disgusting, and there can be no doubt that
such films are an evil influence on our language'. There can be no doubt, by 'our language'
the English politician was referring to British English. Such prejudices remain today.
When America achieved independence from Britain in 1776, an American academic,
Noah Webster, ?aw that political independence provided an opportunity for linguistic inde-
pendence and compiled the famous 'Webster's' dictionary. Among other things, he attempt-
ed to rationalise English and to make it more systematic. He proposed new spellings, some
of which have now become standard American spellings. Examples included the dropping
of what he felt were unnecessary vowels to give 'flavor', 'armor', 'smolder', 'anemic', 'catalog'
The powerful variety: American English 57
and 'program' as opposed to the British 'flavour', 'armour', 'smoulder', 'anaemic', 'catalogue'
and 'programme', spellings influenced by contact with European languages. Webster cer-
tainly made the stomach complaint 'diarrhoea', if not easier to cure, at least easier to spell,
'diarrhea'. However, he was not entirely successful in these attempts, as spellings with
'unnecessary' vowels such as 'feather' and 'definite' stubbornly remained (Crystal, 2004:
423). Webster's attempt to establish independence for American English was not welcomed
by all Americans, and he was attacked by many. One wrote, sarcastically, 'If the Connecticut
lexicographer considers the retaining of the English language as a badge of slavery, let him
not give us a Babylonish dialect in its stead, but adopt, at once, the language of the aborig-
ines' (Mencken, 1965: 12).
Along with Webster, Mencken, from whose work many of the above quotes are
taken, is perhaps the name most associated with the promotion of the American lan-
guage. As he pointed out, American English has long since become accepted by its speak-
ers because the American people have 'shown an increasing inclination to throw off their
old subservience to English precept and example' (1965: vi). Mencken himself admits
that in the early editions of his work, The American Language, he felt that it would
increasingly diverge from British English. By 1965, he had changed his mind. In the edi-
tion of the book that year he proposed that, far from diverging from British English,
American English had 'begun to drag English with it' (1965: vi). In other words, he
argued that American English was now influencing British English. This was causing the
varieties to converge rather than diverge because of increasing American influence and
the sheer numbers of those who speak American varieties of English, compared with
those who speak British varieties of English. In statements that are remarkably preju-
diced for a linguist, Mencken leaves the reader in little doubt as to which variety he feels
is the superior. 'The absurdities of standard English (i.e. RP and Oxford English) are
denounced by every English philologian' and 'the American believes, and on very plau-
sible grounds, that American is better on all counts - clearer, more rational, and above
all, more charming' (1965: 608-9).
Kahane (1992: 213) suggests four influences that caused American English to break
from British English:
1. A decline in Anglophilia - in other words a decline in respect for 'things' English.
2. The standardisation of informal speech - this is essentially the consequence of
adopting democratic principles and a general levelling of society.
3. The levelling of social dialects - in other words, no single dialect was associated
with prestige.
4. The integration of foreign elements - in particular, influence from the languages
of African and European immigrants.
America has certainly seen a levelling of social class, especially when compared to Britain,
and, in the early days of settlement, a particular dialect was not necessarily associated with
prestige. It will be demonstrated later that this does not mean that prejudice against accent
and variety is absent in contemporary America.
Kahane's second and third influences can be seen as a consequence of democratisa-

tion. Democratisation often pushes the vernacular or low form of a variety into becoming
the standard accepted form. This shift towards the acceptance of the vernacular explains
why, in England today, RP is now only spoken by about 3 per cent of people, while other
varieties have become more popular.
What are some of the differences between the standard British and American dialects?
As with all varieties, the most noticeable difference between them is in their different pro-
nunciations. One difference is that the /j/ glide after certain consonants does not occur in
American English. Thus a 'duke' is a /dju:k/ in conservative RP, but is a /du:k/ in American
English, although /d3u:k I is also common in Britain. Stress patterns on words also differ.
A British 'laboratory' has four syllables with the main stress on the second, an American
'laboratory' has five syllables with more or less equal stress on each. 'Extraordinary' has four
syllables with the main stress on the second syllable in British English, but six syllables and
main stresses on the first and third syllables in American English. 'Fertile' is / 1fa:tad/ in
1
British English and / fa:t;~l/ in American. Similarly, a 'missile' is a / 1m1sad/ in British and a
/ m1s~l/ in American. The American pronunciations are not necessarily newer than the
1
British ones. For example, the American pronunciations of 'fertile' and 'missile' retain the
original English pronunciations of these two words.
There are also many differences in vocabulary. To return to and extend the examples
given in Chapter 2, when the British and Americans talk about cars and driving, you would
think they were talking about completely different things. In England, cars have bonnets,
boots, gear levers, number plates, tyres and windscreens. In America, they have hoods,
trunks, stick shifts, license plates, tires and windshields. In England, drivers stop at pedes-
trian or zebra crossings and at traffic lights. They go round roundabouts and avoid driving
on the pavement. They drive on motorways and ring roads, they pull off at junctions and
pull up on the hard shoulder. In America, drivers stop at crosswalks and stop lights. They
go round traffic circles and avoid driving on the sidewalk. They drive on interstates and
beltways and exit at exits and pull off at pull offs.
There are also grammatical differences. In certain contexts, an American can use the
past simple tense when a British speaker would use the present perfect. For example, 'Did
you buy your car yet?' is possible in American English but, in British English, a speaker
would say 'Have you bought your car yet?'
Differences also exist in the way people speak to each other. For example, when greet-
ing and leave taking the British may say 'How are you?' and 'Goodbye', while Americans may
say 'How are you doing?' and 'Have a nice day'.
5.2 Variation in American Englishes
Although there are differences between the standard languages, the variation increas-
es further when regional and social varieties are considered. Mencken called his book The
American Language but there are, in fact, a number of varieties of American English that
differ markedly from one another. The manner in which they differ has been the subject of
much controversy. In particular the differences between African American Vernacular

English test (AAVEs) and White American English Vernacular(s) (WAEVs) have been
explained by two competing theories. The first theory is the colonial lag theory. This argues
that WAEVs developed by preserving or introducing features from varieties of British
English. The colonial lag theory, however, is now largely discredited (Dillard, 1992;
Mufwene, 2001). Dillard explains the initial popularity of the colonial lag theory, at least
among some White Americans, by suggesting that 'there was perhaps a need, no longer felt,
to legitimise American English by proving that we used little or nothing that had not been
previously used in England' (1992: 228). The second theory is the language contact theory.
This argues that AAVEs differ from WAEVs because they developed from the contact of
English with other languages, primarily African languages. Today the language contact the-
ory is the more accepted theory and Mufwene (2001) persuasively argues that what he calls
African American English test (AAEs) and WAEVs developed as a result of language con-
tact and that the differences between them can be explained by a number of variables,
including the different typological features of African and European languages. For exam-
ple, he suggests that the tonal nature of many African languages may have influenced the
rhythms and intonation patterns of AAEs, and that the different linguistic features of
African and European languages allowed different features to be selected into AAEs and
WAEVs respectively. In short, Mufwene's position is that 'virtually the same language con-
tact equation and the same selection principles applied in the formation of AAEs and
WAEVs' (1991: 103). Dillard draws a similar conclusion saying that language contact theory
is the theory most supported by the data (1992: 228).
In the context of AAVE and Southern American English, the two varieties which will
be considered in some detail later in the chapter, Mufwene makes a similar point. In point-
ing out that both varieties have clearly influenced each other, he notes that the similarities
between them can be explained by some 200 years of common history and regular interac-
tion between the speakers. The differences resulted from 'the widespread institutionalisa-
tion of segregation in the late nineteenth century' (2003: 64).
American varieties of English have been subject to further, more recent stimuli. Three
specific forces for change can be identified, namely accelerating metropolitanisation,
increasing migration, both domestic and foreign, and expanding ethnic diversity (Tillery,
Bailey and Wikle, 2004: 228). The figures provided by the authors are startling (2004:
229ff.): In 1860, 80 per cent of the American population lived in rural communities. Now
80 per cent live in 280 metropolitan areas. Today there is evidence of the divergence
between rural and metropolitan varieties in many states. 'Urbanisation has been the cata-
lyst for widespread change in Southern American English over the last 125 years' (2004:
244). The authors further report that, between World War I and 1970, 15 million white
southerners and 5 million black southerners moved to the North. This flow has now
reversed with many people heading for the southern sunbelt. Major cities throughout the
country are also affected. The population growth of the major cities of Los Angeles,
Houston, Dallas, San Diego, Miami and New York City is entirely accounted for by foreign
immigration. This means that much, and in some cases the majority, of the population are
not native to the community. This, in turn, means that the varieties of English spoken in
these communities are likely to undergo significant change. Urban varieties 'show "observ-
able" language change in progress', while rural varieties, especially those spoken in relative-
ly isolated areas, are likely to be more stable (Dubois and Horvath, 2003: 202).
In the early years of colonial settlement, diversity was characteristic. Each settlement
developed different varieties, and for an excellent account of this the reader is referred to
Dillard (1992). There are now four major dialect regions in the United States, namely the
Inland North, the South, the West and the Midland (Labov, Ash and Boberg, 2005). There are
also other dialect areas. For example, a city such as New York itself houses a range of dialects
including Brooklynese and Black American. Labov et al. also show that many cities have
developed their own dialects - Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Cincinatti, Indianapolis,
St Louis and Kansas City all have distinct dialectal features. As indicated earlier, I am unable
here to describe all these, but will provide examples from two varieties of American English:
African American Vernacular English (AAVE), the variety spoken, as its name suggests, by
many Black Americans, especially those living in cities, and Southern American English
(SAE), the variety spoken by many White Americans across the South of the country.
Before proceeding, it is important to note that a variety of different acronyms and
terms are used to describe certain varieties of American English. For example, the variety
spoken by Black Americans has been variously described as Black English Vernacular
(BEV), African English Vernacular (AEV), African American English (AAE), African
American Vernacular English (AAVE) and Ebonics. 'Ebonics' was a term originally created
to indicate that Black American English was actually a variety of African languages rather
than a variety of English (Green, 2002), but this analysis is not widely accepted (cf.
Mufwene, 2001). I shall refer to this variety as AAVE, unless citing an author who uses a
different label. Similarly, 'standard' American has been referred to as Standard American
English (SAE), White American English Vernaculars(s) (WAEV), General American (GA)
and Mainstream US English (MUSE). I shall refer to this variety as GA, unless citing an
author who uses a different label. In this chapter I use SAE to refer to Southern American
English as spoken by the white population.
5.3 African American Vernacular English (AAVE)
It was suggested above that, in the early days, no one American accent or variety was
considered to be more prestigious than another, but that this has changed in more recent
times. A prime example of a current American variety that attracts negative prejudice is
AAVE. Lippi-Green (1997) argues that a speaker of AAVE is likely to be pigeon-holed as
being capable of only certain types of work. For example, an AAVE speaker can be success-
ful in the sports and entertainment industries but not in others. She quotes a school admin-
istrator betraying this prejudice:
'An African-American accent would be more acceptable in a physical education teacher
for example than it would in a teacher of speech.'
(1997: 122)
As is common among speakers of certain varieties around the world, speakers of the par-
ticular variety are among those most prejudiced against it.
'It cannot be denied that some of the most scornful and negative criticism of AAVE speak-
ers comes from other African Americans.'
(1997: 200)
These prejudices came to the fore in the controversy that erupted over the decision by
Oakland, California, to classify AAVE or Ebonics as the second official language in schools
there. The following two reports encapsulate the opposing views. The first appeared in the
International Herald Tribune of 24-25 December 1996 and the second is in a letter to the
New York Times of 26 December by a John Templeton. Both are here adapted and reprint-
ed from McArthur:
'The Reverend Jesse Jackson said Sunday that the school board in Oakland, California, was
both foolish and insulting to black students throughout the United States when it
declared that many of its black students speak a language distinct from traditional
English .... "It's teaching down to our children" ... Mr Jackson said the Oakland school
board had become a laughingstock, and he urged its members to reverse their decision.'
'Those like the Rev Jesse Jackson who seek the quick headline will find themselves out of
step with the legitimate demands for cutting edge education.'
(McArthur, 1998: 218)
The question of whether to and/or how to legitimise the home varieties or languages of
children in the school has, of course, been a matter of debate and controversy for centuries.
The previous chapter noted that the use of the Doric was banned in Scottish schools and
I'm sure many readers whose first language happens not to be the mainstream school lan-
guage will identify with the debate. Lippi-Green argues that everyone should have the right
to be heard in their variety and that this is as much a right as being treated equally on the
basis of religion and colour (1997: 241). I consider this issue in some detail in Part C when
I consider which model of English should be taught in which contexts.
Clearly, questions of identity and power along with cultural and stylistic issues are at
least as important as linguistic ones in any discussion of AAVE. AAVE can be seen as sym-
bolic of black resistance to the cultural mainstream. Kretzschmar quotes McDavid:
'As urbanisation and its consequent segregation led to the development of new speech
communities, the evolution of [African American English] came to be closely bound to the
establishment of cultural identity and bonds of solidarity. If some educators regard it as
dysfunctional in an academic context, its speakers clearly regard it as an asset within
their culture.'
(Kretzschmar, 1997: 315)
It is in this context of cultural identity that the Black American writer and poet June Jordan
has compiled a list of guidelines for the writing of Black English that includes 19 'rules'. I
include these below. She developed these from the writing of her students and included
them in her collection of essays On Call (Jordan, 1985: 131-2):
I. Minimal number of words for every idea.

2. Clarity.
3. Eliminate the use of the verb 'to be' whenever possible.
4. Use 'be' or 'been' only when you want to describe a chronic, ongoing state of
things.
5. Zero copula (eliminate the verb 'to be' whenever it would combine with other
verbs).
6. Eliminate 'do'.
7. Try to formulate really positive ideas by using emphatic negative structures.
8. Use double or triple negatives for dramatic emphasis.
9. Never use the -ed suffix to indicate the past tense of a verb (if this is used in
'standard' English).
10. Only use the third person singular, present, indicative.
11. Observe a minimal inflection of verbs.
12. Never use an apostrophe ('s) construction. (The possessive case scarcely ever
appears in Black English.)
13. If the modifier indicates plurality, then the noun remains in the singular case.
14. Listen for or invent special Black English forms of the past tense ('losted' etc.).
15. Do not hesitate to play with words, even invent them.
16. Stay in the present tense unless you want to underscore the past tense.
17. Never use the suffix -ly form of an adverb.
18. Never use the indefinite article 'an'.
19. Invariant syntax: it is possible to formulate an imperative, interrogative, and
declarative with the same syntax.
While these guidelines are aimed at allowing Black writers to capture a distinctive Black
identity as writers, it is important to note that many of the rules seem to capture the rules
of the historical development of English, many of which will be illustrated in these chap-
ters, especially with regard to the overall simplification of the inflectional system. This
simplification of the inflectional system is part of the natural development of Englishes and
is thus a common feature of many varieties of English.
Before looking at specific examples of AAVE, some words of caution are important
here. While many scholars suggest that there are striking similarities between varieties of
AAVE and that it has developed 'as a sort of national dialect that transcends regional Anglo
dialects' (Tillery, Bailey and Wikle, 2004: 243), there is some social and regional variation
(Lippi-Green, 1997). 'Regionality, rurality and cultural identity are all significant in assess-
ing the past and present development of AAVE' (Wolfram, 2003: 126). As with all other vari-
eties of English, AAVE has changed over time. Thus, in the context of inflection
simplification, for example, Poplack and Tagliamonte (1991) have convincingly demon-
strated that present tense '-s' inflection to mark third person singular was once an integral
part of Black English grammar. It was variable, but it was not random and was likely to have
been a prestige marker. Yet Cukor-Avila has shown that the use of the verbal '-s' inflection
was once unsystematic in the 'typical' speech of black inhabitants in Springville, Texas, in
the period between 1920and1940. She gives the following example (2003: 98). The instances
of '-s' usage and non-usage are bolded.
'S: What's her, what's her name that cooks them? She a real young girl. She bring 'em in
every morn in'. An' they, an' they sells 'em, an' they sells 'em for that girl there in that store.'
This example also illustrates features of AAVE that are still in use. For example, there is no
need for the copula 'is' in 'she a real young girl', and note the deletion of the /d/ in the con-
sonant cluster 'and'.
The use of present tense '-s' provides an interesting synopsis of language change, as
Cukor-Avila has shown (1997). In her study of the speec~ community in Springville, Texas,
she shows that the gradual loss of this verbal '-s' marker occurred over three stages. It is now
used only 17 per cent of the time by the post-1970 generation, and the more urban influence
there is, the less the frequency of verbal '-s' use. What is of particular interest, however, is
the linguistic environment in which '-s' was used and the order in which these uses have
disappeared among the AAVE speakers of Springville. As Cukor-Avila notes,'... it initially
disappears from the first singular, next in the third plural, and lastly in the third singular'
(1997: 304). In other words, this '-s' inflection occurred in instances of present tense first
singular ('I cooks for him') and with the present tense third plural ('they fools with 'em').
This use of plural '-s' also occurs in the speech of white Southerners as will be shown below.
Cukor-Avila also provides an example of it occurring in first plural ('we does all that stuff)
(1997: 297-8). These uses bring to mind the variation in the use of this '-s' inflection noted
in contemporary dialects of English in England in the preceding chapter. Increasingly, how-
ever, urban AAVE speakers appear to be following Jordan's eleventh 'rule', which is to
observe minimal inflection.
Jordan's fourth 'rule' says that 'be' should only be used to describe a chronic, ongo-
ing state of things. In her detailed and thorough description of AAVE, Green (2002) sup-
ports this in showing that the verbal marker 'be' signals habitual occurrence. Green also
reports that multiple negation is possible, as expressed in Jordan's 'rule' no. 8. The follow-
ing example demonstrates the use of habitual 'be' and multiple negation in the same
sentence:
'If you don't do nothing but farm work, your social security don't be nothing.'
If you only do farm work, then your social security isn't usually very much.
(Green, 2002: 77)
Other examples show this habitual use of 'be':

'They be waking up too early' (they usually wake up too early) and
'Those shoes be too expensive' (those shoes are usually too expensive)
(Green, 2002: 25)
While the use of'be' as a copula is rare compared with its use in General American, it often
occurs with the first person singular pronoun (Tm') and the neutral third person singular
pronoun ('it's'). Its use is obligatory in the past tense 'was', but 'was' is used for both singu-
lar and plural subjects (Green, 2002: 38).
Occasionally 'be' can also be used with an '-s' inflection, and Green argues that this
verbal' -s' inflection is possibly a redundant habitual marker, as in the example:
'Well, that's the way it bes' (Well, that's the way it usually is)
(Green, 2002: 101)
Bernstein (2003: 117) notes this use in the speech of white Southerners, as in 'sometimes it
bes like that', and argues that this derives from Scots-Irish influence.
What is certain is that AAVE possesses a complex and systematic grammar, which
differs from General American in significant ways, but which shares some features with
other varieties of English. It also possesses distinct lexical items and phonological features.
Many of the lexical items come, as would be expected, from other languages, particularly
African ones. For example:
Item Meaning Language

tote carry Bantu (tota)
goober peanut Bantu (nguba)
gumbo spicy stew Bantu
bogus fake Hausa (boko)
dig like, appreciate Wolof (deg)
AAVE also creates a distinctive vocabulary by according different meanings to words com-
monly found in GA. Here I just provide two examples (Green, 2002: 22-3). The first demon-
strates the use of the verb 'mash' to mean 'press', as in 'mash the accelerator' to mean press the
accelerator as hard as possible. This use now occurs in other varieties. For example, 'mash the
pedal' to mean 'drive as fast as you can' has become part of colloquial Australian English. The
second lexical example concerns the use of the verb 'stay'. This has a range of meanings. It can
mean 'live', as in 'I stay in Robertson Road'. This meaning also occurs in Singaporean English,
among others. But in AAVE it can also carry a habitual meaning, as in 'he stay in the air' and
'he stay hungry', which mean 'he is always flying' and 'he is always hungry'.
A third source of AAVE vocabulary comes from slang and creativity. For example,
Green lists the following different terms for money:
greens, bills, dividends, benjis, cabbage, cheese, cream, duckets, franklins, paper, scrila,
bucks, dead presidents, dime, knot and dough
(Green,2002: 29-30)
These three sources of vocabulary - namely borrowing from other languages, extending or
limiting meanings of known words and creativity - are common sources for vocabulary in
all varieties of English.
AAVE also has a wide range of distinctive phonological features. These include
the non-use of consonant clusters, especially in final position. An example of this was
provided earlier with the use of 'an' for 'and'. Other examples include 'wes' for 'west' and
'boyfren' for 'boyfriend'. As is the case with many varieties, the sounds /8/ and Joi do not
occur so that 'the', 'this' and 'that' become 'de' and 'dis' and 'dat', and 'nothing' and 'south'
are sounded 'nufing' and 'souf'.
5.4 Southern American English (SAE)
Southern American English has occasioned more debate and research than probably
any other variety. Several hundred works on the phonology of Southern English have been
published (Thomas, 2003) and Southern English is 'a laboratory on the workings of lan-
guage ...'(Thomas, 2003: 166).
The South is an area that is not easy to define, either geographically or culturally. It
comprises the states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia,
Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana (Wolfram, 2003). It is not sur-
prising, given this geographical spread, that SAE cannot be considered a single variety.
Algeo (2003) notes four major hierarchical levels of SAE: coastal; interior; delta; and south
midland. These four levels can themselves be further classified to give a total of 18 sub-vari-
eties. Here, I shall describe features of SAE that can be considered common to most, if not
all, of these sub-varieties.
SAE has developed in response to three major influences. The first is an 'English core',
the second and third are Scots-Irish and African languages respectively (Algeo, 2003: 9-12).
The phonological feature most associated with Southern English is the so-called
'southern drawl'. This is realised by the prolongation of certain vowel sounds and the
'breaking of vowels and diphthongs into triphthongs' (Thomas, 2003: 156). For example,
'there' can be pronounced /oaj~/ and 'bad' /b~eEd/ (2003: 157). Upgliding diphthongs
occur in 'pass', 'bath' and 'after' to give the vowel sound /~E/ or /~y/ (2003: 163).
Another distinctive characteristic of Southern English is the merging of the vowel
sounds /I/ and /e/ as in the words 'pin' and 'pen' (Bailey, 1997: 255). This distinctive south-
ern drawl excites prejudice in some people, as illustrated in the following quotes, taken
from Lippi-Green (1997). The first demonstrates the speaker's surprise that someone who
spoke with a southern drawl might be intelligent and the second, first quoted in Chapter 1,
that a highly educated person - a one-time President of the United States - could speak
with a southern drawl:
' ... Beneath that deceptive North Carolina drawl, there's a crisp intelligence.'
'Governor Clinton, you attended Oxford University in England and Yale Law School in the
Ivy League, two of the finest institutions of learning in the world. So how come you still
talk like a hillbilly?'
(Lippi-Green, i997: 210-12)
These quotes show that people who speak with the southern drawl may be considered ill-
educated. The quotes were about men's speech, however. The third quote below is from a
woman, herself a speaker of the southern drawl, expressing frustration that her accent
means that listeners do not take her seriously:
'Instead of listening to what you're saying, they're passing the phone around the office
saying, "Listen to this little honey from South Carolina."'
Interestingly, the speaker who exemplifies General American on the CD is from the State of
Main.e in the northeast of the States and she also cites a similar prejudice as the motivation
that led her to lose her original Maine accent. The different type of prejudice to the south-
ern drawl if the speaker is a woman is also evident in the next quote. The speaker is a
woman who sells mailing lists over the phone. She is describing the effect her southern
drawl has on men:
'It's hilarious how these businessmen turn to gravy when they hear it. I get some of the
most callous, and I start talkin'to them in a mellow southern drawl, I slow their heart rate
down and I can sell them a list in a heartbeat.'
(Johnstone, 2003: 203)
As we can see from this quote, attitudes towards the southern drawl and 'style' are not always
negative. Southerners are thought to have 'elaborate civility' (Johnstone, 2003: 192) and to be
more polite, more eloquent and less direct than their northern compatriots.
To turn to the syntax of SAE, below is a list of distinctive features of Southern English
syntax noted in the speech of Texan Southern English speakers. These examples are drawn
from Bailey (1997: 259-60). Once again the rich variation within and across varieties of
English is apparent:
Feature Example
a-verb-ing he left a-running
plural verb-s folks sits there
perfective 'done' she's done left
you-all,yall we saw yall
fixin'to I'm fixin' to eat
multiple modals we might can make it
past simple 'dove' they dove in
past simple 'drug' he drug it
Of these features, three are considered to be 'among the most salient features of southern
grammar' (Bernstein, 2003: 117 ). They are 'you-all' or 'yall', multiple modals and 'fixin' to', of
which 'no feature has been more closely associated with southern speech than the use of
yall' (Bernstein, 2003: 107). Bernstein argues that its popularity stems partly from a need in
English to find a plural pronoun for 'you'. She reports that, in the northern states, the term
'you guys' is fulfilling this role, and can be used to refer to women as well as men. As an
example of a multiple modal, Bernstein gives 'might could' which means something like
'maybe I could'. and is used by Southerners 'to express a degree of uncertainty and polite-
ness (2003: 109). Its origin is Scots (see Chapter 4).
The third feature 'fixin' to' means 'about to' as in 'I was just fixin' to leave' (2003: 114).
The action has to be imminent so that it would be inappropriate in the sentence 'I was fixin'
to travel to Canada in ten years' time'.
A sample of the accent associated with Southern American English is on the CD along
with samples of General American and AAVE. The tapescripts and notes appear in the
Appendix.
Conclusion
In this chapter I have provided a brief insight into the variation between selected
American varieties and into the linguistic complexity of the United States. I shall conclude
by emphasising that the increasing metropolitanisation of America is causing significant
and rapid change to varieties of American English. Cities are developing distinctive vari-
eties, but the phenomenon of increasing migration and immigration to the cities makes for
an extremely complex situation. This may mean that the notion of a variety of General
American is becoming ever more an idealisation than a reality. Kretzschmar has proposed
that, far from being an easily identifiable model, the American national standard is a vari-
ety 'with a minimum of features connected with any one regional or social group' (1997:
319) and that it is this that will compete with English RP in the international marketplace.
In the following chapters and in Part C, I shall argue that, in certain contexts, local and
regional varieties of English have at least an equal right to compete with British and
American standards in the international marketplace for English.
Australia
NORTHERN
TERRITORY
QUEENSLAND
WESTERN
AUSTRALIA
SOUTH
AUSTRALIA
NEW
Perth
SOUTH WALES
e.Sydney
Canberra f
f:'-/-AUSTRALIAN
J CAPITAL
,, M e lb ~urne/
, ~,.,,,,,_,.,r"'"'
~
~~.,-~,r·/·
.•-~'>· · TERRITORY
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) r
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6 A younger 'cousin' and indigenous identity
In this chapter Australian varieties of Standard English are described and consid-
ered. Standard Australian English (SAE) - not to be confused with the Southern
American English of the previous chapter - itself comprises a continuum of varieties. I
shall briefly consider its history, and then describe a selection of the distinctive features
of Australian English at the levels of pronunciation, vocabulary and syntax, and look at
the ways in which these differ from Standard British English. I shall also examine how
Australian identity and cultural values are reflected in Australian speech styles and prag-
matic norms. I shall then follow a similar process in describing Australian Aboriginal
English (AAE) but use SAE as a point of comparison. In the discussion on Australian
Aboriginal English, some of its features will be described and then its role as a language
of communication and as a lingua franca will be compared with its role as a marker of
Aboriginal identity.
As variation in English is both natural and normal, people are commonly able to
speak a continuum of varieties. Furthermore, while some of the differences between vari-
eties are unique to a particular variety, many other differences can be found in more than
one variety. The choice of which variety to speak is usually determined by the audience the
speakers are communicating with, and the extent to which the speakers wish to promote or
play down their identity. In this context, I also discuss the 'identity-communication con-
tinuum' introduced in Chapter 1.
6.1 SAE: History and prejudices
Although the variety of Australian English has been developing for more than 200
years, it is only relatively recently that Australian English has been regarded as an accept-
able standard variety. In 1920, the Director of Education in New South Wales was urging
teachers to stop the use of Australian English in the classroom. In a telling note on the rela-
tionship between language and identity, he said:
'It is sad to reflect that other people are able to recognise Australians by their speech.'
(Delbridge, 1999: 260)
Concerns that Australian English was somehow inferior were voiced frequently and over a
long period of time. Gorlach quotes an 1829 source, when Australia comprised a number of
British colonies:
69
'Bearing in mind that our lowest class brought with it a peculiar language and is con-
stantly supplied with fresh corruption, you will understand why pure English is not, and
is not likely to become, the language of the colony.'
(Gorlach, 1991: 147)
These prejudices were not confined to people from the mother country, England. An
American linguist, William Churchill, wrote in 1911:
'... the fact remains that the common speech of the Commonwealth of Australia repre-
sents the most brutal maltreatment that has ever been inflicted upon the mother tongue
of the great English speaking nations.'
(Gorlach, 1991: 147)
These comments recall the prejudices voiced against regional varieties of English in
England, Scotland and the United States and they serve as a reminder that all varieties of
English, whether they be native speaker or non-native speaker, are subject to prejudice,
often from the speakers of the varieties themselves. It was only as recently as 1940 that
Australian English had a champion (Delbridge, 1999): Arthur Mitchell, an Australian uni-
versity lecturer. Returning home after having studied linguistics in London, Mitchell start-
ed to promote the notion that Australian English should be adopted as a national standard,
arguing that Australian pronunciation should not be regarded as a corrupt derivation but
as an acceptable norm. But his views received a hostile reception and only when Mitchell
became Chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) in 1952 did the ABC
start to accept Australian English. Later, Delbridge worked with Mitchell on the national
survey into Australian pronunciation, which resulted in the description of the pronuncia-
tion of Australian English along a broad-general-cultivated continuum. This research led
to three major publications that helped Australian English become established as a stan-
dard (Delbridge, 1999):
A Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms (John Wilkes, 1978);

The Macquarie Dictionary (Arthur Delbridge et al., 1981); and
The Australian National Dictionary (William Ransom, 1988).
Note how recent these publications are - it was more than 200 years after the British first
arrived in Australia that The Macquarie Dictionary was published.
What features of Australian English are distinctive and different? As with all varieties,
the most obvious differences lie in the area of pronunciation and vocabulary, although
there are some grammatical and cultural differences as well.
6.2 Pronunciation
'Australian English has been described along a continuum that ranges from 'broad' to
'general' to 'cultivated~ This is similar to the ways that linguists have characterised other
varieties. For example, as will be discussed in Chapter 9, Platt and Weber (1980) have
A younger 'cousin' and indigenous identity 71
classified Singaporean English as ranging along a continuum from basilectal, mesolectal

and acrolectal, or low, middle and high levels.
rParticularly in broad Australian, the pronunciation of the diphthongs is distinctive_,
(Bernard, 1988).IFor example, one well-noted feature of Australian English pronunciation
is that many Australians, especially when speaking broad or general Australian, do not ·
make a great distinction between the diphthongs /ai/ and /ei/. This is most commonly
mimicked and mocked by speakers of other varieties who like to greet Australians with the
typical Australian greeting /gudai mait/ ('Good day mate')JThis reduction of two diph-
thong sounds into one can lead to occasional misunderstandings between speakers of
different varieties. For example, when I first arrived in Australia, I was mistakenly taken by
a taxi driver to Main Street rather than Mine Street, which is where I had actually asked to
be taken. Both 'main' and 'mine' are pronounced in a similar way in broad varieties of
Australian English.
Another feature of Australian English is the frequent presence of an epenthetic 'schwa'
vowel sound before final nasals in words such as 'film' and 'known', to give 'filem' and
'knowen'. This feature also occurs in other varieties, in Irish English, for example.
A further distinctive feature of Australian pronunciation is the use of a rising intona-
tion. This has been called 'Australian questioning intonation' or AQI (Guy and Vonwiller,
1989). The term is a little confusing, as the use of this risingAQI does not signal a question.
Instead, it is often used with statements and functions in the same way as tag questions and
expressions such as 'OK?' It thus expresses a speaker's request for confirmation that the lis-
tener is attending to and understanding and/or that he or she can continue with the speak-
ing turn. Guy and Vonwiller give this example. The speaker is a teenage girl. The italics
indicate where AQI is used.
(1) 'Oh, occasionally Mrs L_ used to blow up* kids when they hadn't done anything. And
once, a girl and I were walking down the stairs, and she touched a doorknob or some-
thing, 'cause she didn't realise what was wrong with it. And it fell off and she got the cane
for breaking it. And I know very well she hadn't broken it. And I tried to tell the teacher.
The teacher was really mean you know.'
*to blow up - a colloquial expression, to get very angry with or to tell off
The example below of a young man describing where he lives was recorded from the radio. 1
(2) 'Little place called Cran brook, about 80 ks north of Albany'
The use of AQI can cause misunderstanding among speakers of different varieties of
English, as this example will show. When I was living in Singapore and before I had become
familiar with Australian speech styles, I was introduced to an Australian man. He put his
1 The recordings in this chapter were all taken from broadcasts by the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC)
on 7 March 2003.
hand out and said, using AQI, David Peebles. I took his use of AQI to signal a question, so
I assumed he was checking to see if I was called David Peebles. So I replied, 'No, I'm Andy
Kirkpatrick'. He looked surprised and corrected me saying, 'No, I'm David Peebles'. He was,
of course, simply introducing himself.
An Australian commentator's recent view of the use of the rising inflection associat-
ed with AQI provides evidence that some Australians remain prejudiced against Australian
English:
'Elocution would be worth the trouble if it did nothing more than exterminate the rising
inflection. Unknown in this country until the 1970s, great numbers of Australians these
days turn all their sentences into questions with this fiendish contrivance.'
(Watson, 2003: i57)
6.3 Vocabulary
All varieties of English contain vocabulary items that are unique to their variety. The
speakers of these varieties need to find ways of describing a range of phenomena and con-
cepts that exist only in their own natural environment or culture. The local variety of
English is therefore likely to borrow words from indigenous languages, as they will
already have words for the phenomena that English is now required to describe or to refer
to. Although these are commonly words for plants and animals, they can also refer to cul-
tural concepts. Australian English has borrowed hundreds, if not thousands, of words
from local Aboriginal languages. Probably the three words that are most commonly asso-
ciated with Australia are 'kangaroo', 'koala' and 'boomerang'. These are all Aboriginal
words. 'Kangaroo' comes from the Guugu Yimidhirr language of Northern Queensland.
Both 'koala' and 'boomerang' come from the Dharuk language, originally spoken around
the Sydney area. Dixon, Ramson and Thomas (1990) have collected Australian Aboriginal
words in English and explained their origin and meaning. Some of their examples
include:
Corroboree: a dance ceremony (from Dharuk)
Galah: a parrot, also used metaphorically for a stupid person (from Yuwaalaray)
Humpy: a temporary dwelling (from Yagara)
Koori: an Aboriginal person (from Awabakal)
Yabbie: a type of crayfish (from Wemba-wemba)
A second way in which a variety develops new words is to take words that exist in English
but to use them in a different way in order to reflect the uniqueness of the local culture. In
the case of Austr~alian English the word 'bush' is an extremely good example of this. 'Bush'
is a very important concept to Australians and is part of people's psyche. 'The bush' refers
to pretty well all Australia, except for the towns. 'To go bush' means to go into the country-
side or even disappear into it in order to lose contact with urban civilisation. Butler (2002)
demonstrates its comparative importance to Australian culture by listing the number of
entries under the word 'bush' in three major dictionaries, The Macquarie Dictionary
(Australian), The Random House Dictionary (American) and The New Oxford Dictionary
(British). The Macquarie has 97 listings, the Random House 54 and the New Oxford a mere
37, many of which are actually examples of Australian English.
Australian composites with 'bush' include 'bush ballad' (a ballad that tells about life
in the bush), 'bush carpenter' (a rough, amateur carpenter), 'bushcraft' (the ability to live
in the bush), 'bushranger' (a bandit or outlaw), 'bush tucker' (simple, country food) and
'bushwhacker' (someone who lives in the bush). The importance of this concept of bush is
well captured in an excerpt from an interview with the Australian folk singer John
Williamson. This is on the accompanying CD and the tapescript is in the Appendix.
Here are two examples recorded from the radio of the word 'bush' being used in its
unique Australian sense:
(3) 'Lived in the bush, worked in the bush, wrote about the bush.'
(4) I: ... How are you Craig? What What's your story?
C: I come from Cooma, a truck driver ah during the week and got a bit of a block up
the back of Adaminaby.
I: Bit of a block?
C: Yeah, bit of a bush block.
C is explaining that he has a piece of land in the countryside just outside the town of
Adaminaby.
Below are examples of two words, 'huge' and 'top', being used in a special Australian
sense. In describing a country show, on radio, the speaker says:
(5) 'We had a huge day yesterday.'
This does not mean it was very big, but means that the show was a great success.
In the next example, the interviewer is admiring the hat of the person he is talking to.
He is not describing a particular type of hat. Notice also the common colloquial use in
broad Australian of the word 'buggered' to mean ruined or falling apart:
(6) I: That's a top hat, that one.
M: Ah, it's about buggered now.
I: That's why I say it's a top one, it's great.
M: Yeah, they just get comfortable and you've got to throw 'em away.
These examples and further excerpts from the conversations are provided on the accompa-
nying CD. The full tapescripts are in the Appendix.
In its adoption of new vocabulary items from local languages and its adaptation of the
meanings of words that are common in other varieties of English to suit a local context,
Australian English is operating in the same way as all varieties do. Each variety of English
will contain vocabulary items that either are unique to that variety and which have often
been borrowed from local indigenous languages, or are English words that contain special
meanings when used in that variety.
The way speakers use vocabulary items can also tell us something about their cultur-
al values. When speaking the broad and general varieties of Australian English, many speak-
ers like to shorten nouns and add diminutive suffixes to them. This clipping is a sign of
informality, a key Australian cultural value. Examples of nouns that are shortened or
clipped in this way include:
arvo: afternoon
Aussie: an Australian
barbie: barbecue
cozzie: swimming costume
journo: journalist
pollie: politician
This also commonly happens with people's first names. Basil will almost certainly be called
'Bazza' by his friends. This process is also applied to surnames and family names (Poynton,
1989), so someone with the family name Simpson may be called 'Simmo' by their friends.
The names of sports stars also often undergo this process, so that Damien Martyn becomes
'Marta', David Campese becomes 'Campo', John Newcombe becomes 'Newk' and Alex
Jesaulenko becomes 'Jezza'.
6-4 Syntax
Gorlach (1991) mentions two distinctive features of Australian grammar. One is the
use of the third person female pronoun in circumstances where speakers of other varieties
might use the impersonal pronoun. For example, Australians may say'she'll be right' mean-
ing 'it'll be (all) right'. Here is an example of this use recorded from the radio:
(7) A: ... and thank Sophie

B: yeah she'll be right
A: she'll be right ... good on ya
Here 'she'll be right' does not refer to Sophie but the speakers are merely reassuring one
another that everything will be all right.
The second feature Gorlach mentions is the use of 'but' as a sentence ending in
speech. The example he provides is 'I'll finish her this arvo, but' (1991: 161). The function of
this 'but' is hard to define, but it seems to act as an informal marker of emphasis. It is more
commonly used in. the eastern states of Australia, where it is also often preceded by 'though',
so we might hear 'She'll be right though but', which means that the speaker is emphasising
that everything will be all right.
The following examples of Australian English come from the radio. It is common,
especially in the broad and general varieties of Australian English, to use the adjective
'good' in places where speakers of Standard British English would use the adverb 'well':
(8) 'He does not play as good as before.'

The example (9) below was ui:tered by a happy football supporter while he was watching
his team. It illustrates a distinctive use of the 'third conditional'. Speakers of other varieties,
including Standard British would use the past perfect in the 'if' clause of this conditional
sentence. 'If you had said to me that ... , I'd have (I would have) ...'
(g) 'If you had have said to me (AQI) that by the twenty second minute mark we'd be up
by two goals, I'd have laughed at you, fair dinkum.'
This 'had have' use is becoming common among speakers of general and broad Australian
English. Other recently heard examples include: 'If Fevola had have run a further few
metres', 'He could have slipped it across ifhe had have made the tackle', 'If you had have said
.. .','If he had have been, he would have .. : and 'If he hadn't have gone there ...' It is, of
course, possible that this use of 'have' is, in fact, the speaker saying 'of'. Because the pro-
nunciation in context of 'have' and 'of' can be the same, speakers mishear 'have' as 'of', as
the poet Keats did (see Chapter 4). In this case, however, it looks like a 'new' third condi-
tional form, as it is hard to know where else the construction 'had have' could have come
from. The football supporter above also uses the quintessential Australian phrase 'fair
dinkum'. This means something like 'no joking'. Some people have suggested that it came
into Australian English from the Chinese goldminers who were working in Australia in the
middle of the nineteenth century and that it comes from the Chinese word for gold 'jin'.
'Fair dinkum' originally meant 'real gold', they claim. Sadly for romantics who love this
kind of exotic explanation for the meaning of words,' "dinkum" meaning "work" and "fair
dinkum" meaning "fair play" were both used in some English dialects in the nineteenth
century' (Ransom, i987: 38).
Another common grammatical feature of Australian English is the use of 'what' in a
relative clause in circumstances where it is not required in certain other varieties. This use
is also common in cultivated Australian English, as in this example from John Howard, who
became the Prime Minister of Australia in i997:
(10) 'Prices are lower than what they have been.'
A second example of this use of 'what' also provides a common example of the use of 'less'
when speakers of Standard British English would. probably use 'fewer'. Again, however, this
use of 'less' is becoming increasingly common in many varieties of English:
(11) 'The chief is saying that we may have to run on less resources than what we have
before.'
The use of 'less resources' in the above example raises a key question for classroom teach-
ers of English. When can we say that something is a mistake and thus correct it, and when
can we say that this is an acceptable feature of the variety? This, I think, is a hard ques-
tion to answer and will be discussed further in Part C. The usual answer is to say that it
is acceptable usage when it becomes systematic. But how do we know when a usage
becomes systematic? After all, we have seen that it was some 200 years before even the
vocabulary of SAE became codified in The Macquarie Dictionary. And even here we must
remember that presence in the dictionary does not mean a word's use is systematic across
the variety, only that it occurs. The dynamic nature of language also means that usage
changes, so that we would expect each new edition of any dictionary of any language or
variety to contain examples of new usage. We must also remember that even fluent speak-
ers frequently make mistakes, especially when they are speaking spontaneously. Thus,
when someone says 'it's just the tip of the icing', speakers of the variety notice that this is
odd, even if they don't immediately see that it is a mistake caused by the speaker blend-
ing the two common expressions 'it's just the tip of the iceberg' and 'it's the icing on the
cake'.
The above examples from phonology, vocabulary and grammar all serve to remind us
that variation within and between varieties is normal and standard. Both native and non-
native varieties all behave in the same way. As we shall see later, this has extremely impor-
tant implications for language teaching and learning.
6.5 SAE cultural conventions and pragmatic norms

~
Probably the most difficult cultural convention for foreigners and speakers of other
varieties of English to get used to concerns Australian terms of address. Australians tend
to address each other by their first name, although there are exceptions to this rule which
are considered below. The age, gender or status of the people is not the most important
consideration. So, it is not considered impolite for university students to call their lectur-
ers by their first names as long as the lecturers themselves have indicated that this is
acceptable. In the same way, lecturers will commonly call their students by their first
names.
Students from other cultures can find this a very difficult thing to do. In response to
the request from their lecturer, 'Please call me Bill', many students may feel very uncomfort-
able. As Li, who is himself a university professor at the City University in Hong Kong, has
said:
For many Asian learners who are accustomed to patterns of interaction characterised by
deference and respect, such an invitation may not be readily accepted without the ESL
learner undergoing some identity crisis.
(Li, 20ow: 580)
When speaking about the way he himself operates in cross-cultural settings, Li says that he
finds it difficult to address a teacher-turned-colleague by his or her first name:
In my own case, having been exposed to both Chinese and Western norms which may be
broadly characterised by opposing ideological positions on two ends of a continuum -
hierarchical vs egalitarian - I often have to undergo a mental struggle in the intercultur-
al workplace before settling on a particular choice .... I constantly feel that following one
set of norms entails violating another.
(Li, 2002a: 581)
In the context of naming and address conventions at university, however, this is not simply
an 'Asian' vs 'Western' divide. American students studying in Australia report the same sense
of discomfort in addressing their lecturers by their first names. In the United States, stu-
dents, even postgraduate students, routinely address their lecturers by their title and their
last name. So, it will be 'Professor Wilson' or 'Doctor Wilson', not 'Bill' or 'Jane', as in
Australia.
Why do foreign students feel so uncomfortable at addressing their lecturers by their
first name? There may be several reasons, but the main one is that students misinterpret the
use of the first name by automatically comparing it to the ways of naming in their own cul-
tures, where calling people by their first name signals closeness and equal status. It is impor-
tant to point out, then, that addressing someone by their first name in Australian culture
does not necessarily signal closeness or equal status. What it does signal is the value
Australians attach to informality and this is expressed in the common use of first names.
This means, therefore, that in formal settings, Australians may use titles and family names
as terms of address.
Linked to terms of address are ways of greeting and it should be no surprise to learn
that Australian ways of greeting differ from those in other varieties of English. If you have
taught or learned English from a textbook, you have probably taught or been taught a
greeting convention something like this:
A: Hello, how are you?
B: I'm fine thank you. And you?
A: Fine thanks.
In the previous chapter, I suggested that in the United States 'How are you doing?' is a like-
ly common greeting. Australians, on the other hand, may say:
___...-··
A: Good day, how are you going, mate?
B: Good thanks.
Note, therefore, that Australians are more likely to say 'How are you going?' rather than
simply saying 'How are you?' In the same way that 'How are you?' is not a question about
your health but a greeting, so 'How are you going?' is not a question about your means of
transport. So, while 'by bus' would be a perfectly grammatically correct response, it would
be pragmatically incorrect. Note also the Australian preference for using the adjective
'good', used here both before 'day' and in the reply. Finally, the use of the word 'mate' is
extremely common in Australian English. It can be used between people, especially men,
even if they are strangers.
Needless to say, there is variation in greeting too. Here are greetings recorded off the
radio:
(12) 'How's things Bruce?'
Note also the use of the singular copula verb 'is' with the plural noun ('things'), a com-
mon feature of many varieties of English.
(13) 'Good day, this is XXX, hello.'

(14) A: Good morning XXX
B: Good morning XXX
A: How are ya?
B: Oh, good.
The examples above all remind us that there are important cultural distinctions between
English native speaker societies and that these cultural differences are reflected in the
different speech styles of different native speaker varieties of English. Once again we have
evidence that variation is natural and normal. All varieties will differ at all the different lev-
els, at the levels of phonology, lexis, syntax and discourse. Cultural differences will also be
reflected in different cultural and pragmatic norms.
6.6 Roles and status
English is the national language of Australia and plays a role in every walk of life. But
the roles for the broad and cultivated varieties can differ. We noted above how long it took
for Australian English to be accepted within Australia. In particular, it was not until the
middle of the twentieth century and nearly 200 years after the English arrived in Australia
that the Australian Broadcasting Commission accepted Australian English. Today, broad-
casters who speak the cultivated variety will be heard on programmes talking about 'seri-
ous' matters. For example, most newsreaders and hosts of current affairs and highbrow arts
programmes are likely to speak the cultivated variety. In contrast, however, sports com-
mentators, especially if they report quintessentially Australian sports such as Australian
rules football, will use the broad or general variety.
The majority of Australian English speakers can use all three varieties. 'Most
Australians have the ability to upgrade at will some distance in the spectrum in the direc-
tion of cultivated when it seems appropriate under certain social conditions' (Bernard,
1988: 22). The context will determine which variety to use. In general terms we can say that
the more people want to express their Australian identity, the more likely they are to use a
broad or informal variety. This is a perfectly normal and natural strategy and one that is
used by speakers of all varieties. However, there is a general feeling (see Gorlach, 1991: 161)
that Australians are moving towards a more frequent use of the general pronunciation at
the expense of both the broad and cultivated.
I now turn to a discussion of these themes in the context of Australian Aboriginal
English (AAE) with a particular focus on comparing AAE's role as an intra-Aboriginal lin-
gua franca, and thus as a language of Aboriginal identity, and its role as a lingua franca
between Aboriginal and what I shall call migrant (i.e. all other) Australians, and thus as a
language of communication. As discussed in Chapter 1, this tension between identity and
communication is always evident when considering the roles of varieties of English. To
what extent is English needed for communication? To what extent is English needed to
express identity and to talk about and explain cultural values? To what extent is English
needed to construct knowledge in a culturally appropriate and distinctive way?
6.7 Australian Aboriginal English: Background
It has been estimated that, when the British, that is Captain Cook and his fleet, arrived
in Australia in 1770, there were some 250 Aboriginal languages (Dixon, 1993). Dixon stress-
es that these were languages and not dialects. He distinguishes language from dialect on the
criterion of mutual intelligibility. Mutually intelligible 'languages' would thus be classified
as dialects, according to Dixon. In other words, Aboriginal Australia was a richly multilin-
gual and multicultural society possessing 250 mutually unintelligible languages. It is this
very richness, however, which has contributed to the current relative linguistic poverty.
Many Aboriginal languages had a small number of speakers and have since died out. Dixon
estimates that, today, no more than 20 are currently being learned by Aboriginal children,
although Mackay (1996) estimates that about a third of the original 250 are still spoken
today, albeit with many having a very small number of speakers. A key cause of this lin-
guistic death was the arrival of English. The multilingual nature of Aboriginal society
meant that a single Aboriginal language was unlikely to assume.the role of the language of
communication among all Aboriginal Australians. Ironically, this role has been assumed by
English in the form of AAE. AAE has become the lingua franca between Aboriginal groups
themselves. In this intra-Aboriginal lingua franca role, English has been extremely success-
ful. Harkins (2000) notes that Aboriginal English is now the primary form of communica-
tion for Australian Aboriginals.
The role that AAE plays as a lingua franca among Aboriginal people means that AAE
must also provide its speakers with Aboriginal identity. It can be predicted, therefore, that
Aboriginal English will be characterised by the transfer of pragmatic and cultural norms
from Aboriginal languages and, as shown below, this expectation is met.
What is Australian Aboriginal English? Harkins provides this definition:
AAE is an indigenised variety of English in the sense that it was adopted, however invol-
untarily, by an indigenous population for whom it is now the primary language of inter-
nal and wider communication, and has undergone changes at all levels of language
structure to become a distinct dialect with a unique set of linguistic features.
(Harkins, 2000: 61)
And while Aboriginal English is still in contact with diverse Aboriginal languages, includ-
ing creoles, 'the degree of homogeneity across the several varieties that have been most
thoroughly described is quite remarkable' (2000: 61). This relative homogeneity is also
commented on by Malcolm et al., who find 'confirmation of remarkable similarities in
Aboriginal English across Australia' (1999: 7), and that 'Aboriginal English has become a
very significant marker of identity for indigenous Australians' (1999: 8).
6.8 Syntax of AAE
Many of the syntactic features of AAE have been transferred from Aboriginal
languages. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that many of these features occur in other
varieties of English. Harkins (2000) gives the following examples; I have provided a 'stan-
dard' alternative in brackets after each:
• double subjects:
(15) 'My mother, she came from down there.' (My mother came from down there.)
• multiple negative marking:

(16) 'They didn' give us nothing.' (They did not give us anything.)
• noun phrase ellipsis:

(17) 'We went with Christine, with bus, to get aIla wild bananas, and come
back Tricking Yard .. .'
(We went with Christine by bus to get bananas and we came back to the Tricking
Yard ...)
The transfer of grammatical features from Aboriginal languages into AAE has also been
demonstrated by Koch (2000 ). In a study of the influence of the Australian Aboriginal lan-
guage Kaytetye on a variety of AAE known as Central Australian Aboriginal English
(CAAE), Koch (2000) has shown that many of the differences between CAAE and SAE are
due to the influence of grammatical meanings that are encoded in the indigenous lan-
guages of Central Australia. For example, the use in CAAE of a marker '-gether' indicates
kinship terms such as 'father and child'. In CAAE, therefore, 'father-gether' means father
and child, 'mother-gether' means mother and child, 'brother-gether' means elder and
younger brother or sister and 'sister-gether' means elder sister and younger brother or sis-
ter (Koch, 2000: 44).
Koch provides many other examples and (18) below shows the use of the CAAE
preposition 'belonginto'. Note that the verb ending '-em' in 'callem' is a transitivity mark-
er, also transferred from Kaytetye:
(18) 'Mangwe. That's proper Kaytetye, mangwe. That pussycat belonginto - name
belonginto you fella. We callem mangwe.'
Mangwe is the proper Kaytetye word. The word pussycat is your (i.e. English speaker's)
word. We call it mangwe.
(Koch, 2000: 47)
There is no doubt, then, that Aboriginal English is characterised by the transfer of linguis-
tic features from Aboriginal languages. The transfer of pragmatic norms can also be
identified.
6.9 AAE cultural conventions and pragmatic norms
An early pioneer into research into pragmatic transfer has been Eades (1991). While it
is true to say that Aboriginal society remains multicultural and multilingual, there are a
number of shared cultural traits that identify Aboriginal cultures. In her study on the com-
municative strategies of Aboriginal English, Eades shows that many of these strategies can
be traced to the communicative strategies of Aboriginal languages. These include what

Eades calls an indirectness in Aboriginal English where Aboriginal people avoid making
direct requests and prefer to ask a type of 'trigger' question in order to obtain information.
For example, a typical Aboriginal way of asking for a ride into town is to say 'You going to
town?' or 'What time are you leaving?' (1991: 88). Related to this is a typical Aboriginal
response to direct questions. Speakers of Aboriginal English may not respond at all to a
direct request, but provide what has been called the 'yes of gratuitous concurrence' (Eades,
1991: 92). This is used as a strategy for accommodating the directness of interacting with
white, or migrant, Australians. This 'yes' lets the speaker know that the listener is attending
to what is being said, but it does not mean that the speaker agrees with what is being said,
and, in this way appears very similar to the Japanese use of 'hai' and back channels or
'aizuchi' (Lo Castro, 1987).
The normal way of eliciting substantial information is to present information, and
there is no obligation to respond to either direct or indirect requests for information. If the
other person does choose to respond, it may be minutes, hours or even days before the
desired information is supplied. All this leads to communicative clashes in settings such as
schoolrooms and courts of law. A specific example of this is provided by Cooke (1995) in
his report on an inquest that was investigating the shooting of an Aboriginal man. There
was an interpreter in the court whose task it was to translate what the Aboriginal witness
said.
He points out that 'It became clear ... that, while counsel showed themselves to be
masters of the language games of court, some were quite inept at basic communication
with Aboriginal people' (1995: 59). Most importantly, the speech style associated with cross-
examination with its reliance on direct questions that follow on one after the other in rapid
succession coupled with the counsel's right to interrupt the witness 'tends to be considered
highly offensive and inflammatory in any Aboriginal social context' (1995: 87).
Cooke provides some examples of where Aboriginal speech styles are transferred into
English and how these created misunderstanding. The following excerpt provides a nice
example:
(19) Counsel: But the old man didn't go into the boat, did he?
Aboriginal witness: Yes.
Counsel: I beg your pardon?
Witness: Yes.
Interpreter: He's affiming that he did not go into the boat.
Here the English-speaking counsel is obviously expecting the reply 'no' rather than 'yes'.
What the Aboriginal speaker is doing is transferring an Aboriginal speech style into
English. In Aboriginal languages, the reply 'yes' would mean 'yes, you are right. The old man
did not get into the boat'. In Standard English, however, 'yes' means 'yes, the old man did
go into the boat'.
It was also apparent that the complexity and importance of Aboriginal kinship rela-
tionships were not fully understood or appreciated, as this extract from the trial shows:
(20) Counsel: What relation was he to you?

(The Aboriginal witness told the interpreter 'mara/kur'.)
Interpreter: The word is maralkur but I have to interpret that word, as there's no
direct translation. Are you ready for the translation?
Coroner: Yes.
Interpreter: Maternal grandmother's brother's son.
Coroner: There's a name for that isn't there? I haven't worked it out yet.
(Cooke, i995)
A further example of an Aboriginal cultural norm concerns a tolerance for silence, and its
reflection in the speech styles in AAE. In Aboriginal culture, Harkins writes: 'Silence is often
a sign of comfortable deepening of communication, of preparation for a seriously consid-
ered response' (2000: 74). Silence is also the appropriate response when one does not have
the authority to speak about a matter and it is accepted 'as a valid response to a question or
attempt to elicit information' (2000: 74). Silence is thus tolerated in Aboriginal culture.
While it may seem odd to include 'silence' in a discussion of the speech styles, its tolerance
in Aboriginal English serves to show how different cultures are reflected in different ways
in different varieties of English.
, AAE continues to thrive as the lingua franca of a growing Aboriginal population. The
linguistic features reflect social and cultural meanings and themes for the speakers in ways
that make this unique English functional for them as both product and instrument of cul-
tural survival. In order to be accepted by the Aboriginal community as a marker of
Aboriginal identity, it is essential that AAE reflects the cultural and pragmatic norms of
Aboriginal languages. Only in this way can it ever possibly become an accepted lingua fran-
ca for Aboriginal Australia. To quote Darlene Oxenham in Collard et al.: 'So it's a cultural
marker but also a political statement. This is who we are. This is our language' (2000: 96).
Two major functions of language are communication and identity. To refer back to
the 'identity-communication continuum' described in Chapter 1. Australian Aboriginal
English (AAE) and the broad variety of Standard Australian English (SAE) can be placed at
the identity end of the continuum, the general variety of SAE can be placed somewhere in
the middle and the cultivated variety of SAE at the communication end. In the context of
Language function
~ ~
Identity 1
Language variety
Communication
l
Broad SAE/AAE
~ i
General SAE
~ l
Cultivated SAE
World Englishes and the teaching of English, we need to decide where on this continuum
we want our classroom model to be. How important is it for 'our' English to be an identi-
ty marker and how important is it to help us communicate internationally? Discussing
these questions will help us determine which variety of which model we might then choose.
6.10 Conclusion
In this chapter I have looked at varieties of English in Australia and have described
features of various varieties of Standard Australian English and compared them with other
varieties. I have also described features of Australian Aboriginal English and compared
those with SAE. Again this illustrates how normal and natural variation is. Varieties of
English are influenced by indigenous languages in a number of ways and are able to reflect
the different cultural and pragmatic norms of their speakers. Some varieties of English may
be more focused on identity, while others may be more focused on communication. In the
next chapter I look further at how varieties of English fulfil the functions of language. In
particular, I shall consider how Indian and Sri Lankan English not only fulfil the pragmat-
ic functions of language, but consider the extent to which they are able to fulfil the math-
etic functions of language. In contrast to the pragmatic uses of language that demand
responses and represent a way of participating in a situation, the mathetic uses of language
do not demand a response but represent a way of learning and arise out of the personal and
heuristic functions of language (Halliday, i978: 54-6).
The Indian Sub-Continent
SRI LANKA
7 Englishes of the subcontinent
7.1 A network of varieties
The following seven extracts (A-G) are examples of just some of the many different
varieties of English spoken in South Asia, ranging from an informal 'pidgin-like' oral vari-
ety to a formal literary variety. A Sri Lankan poem is also included later. Apart from the
poem, I have presented the texts together at the beginning of the chapter to give the read-
er a feel for this rich variation, but I repeat each one in turn when I discuss them. I also
explain the Indian language words italicised in these texts.
A 'Hellow sir! Some rickshaw, some bazaar market, some two rupees, some go and come
back. Some silk, some sari, some Ganges. I rickshaw driver. Somebody some friend com-
ing here Varanasi I help you.'
(rickshaw driver touting for business; Mehrotra, 2000: 49)
B 'Happy that British time that very happy madam. Now no (laughter) ... on that time
very nice. British time. Money is controlled time. Now rice is at a 1 kilo - 2.50. That time
get 1 rupee 8 kilo. British time ... lot of money that is all cheaper. Take eh ones any
clothes take 10 rupees you get 1shirt1 pant. Now 1shirt1 pant you take 100 rupees - no.'
(sample of'Butler' English; Hosali, 2005: 36)
C 'Two rival groups are out to have fun ... you know generally indulge in dhamal and
pass time. So, what do they do? Pick on a bechaara bakra who has entered college.'
(from a teenage journal; D'Souza, 2001: 152)
D 'And if he says ki I want the mat/ab dowry sort of thing.'

(from a conversation; Valentine, 1991: 331) ·
E 'She bent her head to receive her mother-in-law's blessing. "Sat Sri Akal''.
"Sat Sri Akal," replied Sabhrai lightly touching Champa k's shoulder.
"Sat Sri Akal," said Sher Singh.
"Live in plenty, live a long age," replied Sabhrai taking her son's hand and kissing it.
"Sleep well".'
(from I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale by Khushwant Singh, quoted in Kachru, 199ia: 301)
F 'Years ago, a slender sapling from a foreign field was grafted by "pale hands" on the
mighty and many-branched Indian banyan tree. It has kept growing vigorously and now
85
an organic part of its parent tree, it has spread its own probing roots into the brown soil
below. Its young leaves rustle energetically in the strong winds that blow from the west-
ern horizon, but the sunshine that warms it and the rain that cools it are from Indian
skies; and it continues to draw its vital sap from "this earth, this realm," this India.'
(Naik and Narayan, 2004: 253)
Now follows a discussion of each example.

A 'Hellow sir! Some rickshaw, some bazaar market, some two rupees, some go and come
back. Some silk, some sari, some Ganges. I rickshaw driver. Somebody some friend com-
ing here Varanasi I help you.'
(rickshaw driver touting for business; Mehrotra, 2000: 49)
'X is a sample of what Mehrotra has classified as Pidgin Indian English. He makes this
classification based on criteria including that it is a sample of a reduced and simplified lan-
guage, that it is no one's mother tongue, that its use is restricted to a trade or occupation
and that it is shaped by more than one language. Of these criteria the fact that it is no one's
mother tongue does not distinguish it from any other variety, and being 'reduced and
simplified' is, as discussed in Chapter 1, a criticism often made about new or dialectal vari-
eties of English and one that is often based on prejudice rather than linguistic evidence. As
for being shaped by more than one language, I have argued in Chapter 4 and elsewhere in
this book that traditional English itself has been shaped by more than one language. Its use
only for trade purposes means that it could be classified as a register, except that the speak-
er is only able to speak this variety, and the term 'register' usually refers to a variety spoken
in a certain profession such as the legal or medical profession and its users are assumed to
be able to speak a range of other varieties of the language. But however it is classified, it
clearly represents an informal variety spoken by a poorly educated person.
B 'Happy that British time that very happy madam. Now no (laughter) ... on that time
very nice. British time. Money is controlled time. Now rice is at a 1 kilo - 2.50. That time
get 1 rupee 8 kilo. British time ... lot of money that is all cheaper. Take eh ones any
clothes take 10 rupees you get 1shirt1 pant. Now 1shirt1 pant you take 100 rupees - no'.
(sample of'Butler' English; Hosali, 2005: 36)
The variety exemplified in 'B' above is commonly referred to as 'Butler' English (Hosali,
2005), and originates from the 'variety spoken by native servants when communicating
with their English speaking masters' (Hosali, 2005: 34). It is still spoken today by domestic
and other servants (hotel and club staff, for example) and is classified as 'pidgin-like' by
Hosali.
C 'Two rival groups are out to have fun ... you know generally indulge in dhamal and
pass time. So, what do they do? Pick on a bechaara bakra who has entered college.'
(from a teenage journal; D'Souza, 2001: 152)
'C' is taken from a teenage journal and shows the presence of local language, in this case
Hindi, which gives it its 'Indian' flavour. Dhamal is a Sanskrit word that traditionally meant
Englishes of the subcontinent 87
a type of Sufi trance dance and now just means a type of dance. Bechaara bakra means 'a
poor goat' in Hindi (D'Souza, 2001: 152).
D 'And if he says ki I want the mat/ab dowry sort of thing.'

(from a conversation; Valentine, 1991: 331)
'D' also shows the use of Hindi words, but in this conversation the Hindi words that have
been transferred into English are discourse markers rather than cognates. Ki is a comple-
mentiser and, in this context, matlab is acting as a pause or hesitation marker (Valentine,
1991).
E 'She bent her head to receive her mother-in-law's blessing. "Sat Sri Akal".
"Sat Sri Akal," replied Sabhrai lightly touching Champa k's shoulder.
"Sat Sri Akal," said Sher Singh.
"Live in plenty, live a long age," replied Sabhrai taking her son's hand and kissing it.
"Sleep well".'
(from I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale by Khushwant Singh, quoted in Kachru, 199ia: 301)
Text 'E' is an excerpt from the novel I Shall Not Hear The Nightingale by the Sikh author
Khushwant Singh. The 'Indianness' of this extract stems from the author's use of traditional
Sikh greetings. 'Sat Sri Akal' (which means 'God is truth') is a formulaic greeting or farewell.
In her analysis of this piece, Kachru (199ia) points out that the exchange suggests that the
mother-in-law is cool towards her daughter-in-law precisely because they exchange only
these formulaic greetings. This piece reflects local cultures - a 'foreign' reader unfamiliar
with Indian cultures would probably not receive this message of coolness between the two
women.
A foreigner might, however, perceive the coolness evident in this second extract from
Khushwant Singh's writings (Kachru, 199ia: 302):
"'This is only your kindness. I will do the best I can," said Buta Singh.
The visitors also got up and slipped their feet back into their shoes. "When shall we
present ourselves?"
"Come and see me sometime tomorrow- at the law courts."
"Sardar Sahib," spoke another. "We have pinned all our hopes on you. You do this for us
and we will sing your praise the rest of our lives."
"We will remain ever grateful," exclaimed the others.
"Accaji Namastey ... some water or something?" asked Buta Singh mechanically and,
without waiting for a reply, dismissed them: "Namastey."
"This is like our own home. We would ask for anything we want. Sat Sri Akal."'
As Kachru (199ia) explains, the participants are of equal rank, although Buta Singh has
power over the others here in that they are asking him for a favour. As is correct in plural-
istic India, the Sikh participant uses the Hindi farewell (Accaji Namastey) while the Hindi
participants use the Sikh farewell (Sat Sri Aka[). As with Text 'E' above, however, this cor-
rect use of formulaic greetings actually suggests a coolness between the parties, as does the
use of the superficially warm but formulaic expressions of warmth and closeness ('This is
like our own home. We would ask for anything we want.') While this cultural reading might
be missed by a foreign reader, the coolness is more transparent in the mechanical way that
Buta Singh offers his guests a glass of water and then promptly dismisses them without
allowing them the chance to accept. Both these excerpts from Kushwant Singh's writings are
obviously 'Indian' and reflect Indian cultural norms.
F 'Years ago, a slender sapling from a foreign field was grafted by "pale hands" on the
mighty and many-branched Indian banyan tree. It has kept growing vigorously and now
an organic part of its parent tree, it has spread its own probing roots into the brown soil
below. Its young leaves rustle energetically in the strong winds that blow from the west-
ern horizon, but the sunshine that warms it and the rain that cools it are from Indian
skies; and it continues to draw its vital sap from "this earth, this realm," this India.'
(Naik and Narayan 2004: 253)
Excerpt 'F' is the final passage of Naik and Narayan's book on Indian English literature
(2004). This type of style can be considered Indian, a style that might be described as ornate
or flowery. Its extended use of metaphor and its 'bookishness' (Kachru, i983: 41) give it this
flavour. As illustrated in the two further examples from their book below, the authors also
make frequent use of what Kachru has termed 'phrase-mongering' - his examples include
the phrase 'Himalayan blunder' (1983: 40). In the example below, the authors are summing
up the current political situation in India and use the splendidly portentous phrase, 'thun-
derous Jeremiad':
Nevertheless, the overall situation in India today does not warrant a thunderous
Jeremiad.
(2004: 15)
In the second example, the authors are defending the writer who chooses to write in Indian
English. It is replete with 'phrase-mongering':
The regional writer need not debunk his Indian English brother as a rootless wretch, a
bastard booby, fattened British butter or a 'bat on the banyan bough'.
(2004: 253)
The final text, 'G', is a poem called The Cobra:

G Your great hood was like a flag
hung up there
in the village.
Endlessly the people came to Weragoda -
watch'ed you (your eyes like braziers),
standing somewhat afar.
They stood before you in obeisance. Death,
the powers of the paramitas, took you to heaven
however.
The sky, vertical, is where you are now

shadowing the sun, curling round and round my mind.
They whisper death-stories -
but it was only my woman Dunkiriniya,
the very lamp of my heart,
that died.
This poem is by one of Sri Lanka's finest poets, Lakdasa Wikkramasinha, and it is one of
the poems that you can hear read by the Sri Lankan scholar Thim Kandiah on the accom-
panying CD. Paramitas are the disciplines Buddhists are expected to observe on their way
to Nirvana. Wikkramasinha died tragically young and despite writing all his six volumes
of poetry in English apparently hated himself for writing in English. In this and the fol-
lowing chapters of this part of the book, the ability of indigenous varieties of English to
reflect and represent the cultures of the authors writing in English will be a frequent topic
of discussion. I think it is fair to say that, overall, the majority of such writers feel that
English can be adapted to reflect their own cultures, but there are some who are vehe-
mently adamant that it cannot and others who, accepting that English can be nativised, are
angry that they feel they have to write in English rather than in a local language.
Wikkramasinha is perhaps the angriest of them all, as this excerpt from his artistic mani-
festo shows:
'I have come to realise that I am writing the language of the most despicable and loath-
some people on earth: I have no wish to extend its life and range, enrich its totality. To
write in English is a form of cultural treason. I have had for the future to think of a way of
circumventing this treason. I propose to do this by making my writing entirely immoral-
ist and destructive'.
(cited in Canagarajah, 1994: 375)
These views and those expressed in Excerpt 'F' could hardly be more different.
7.2 Background
The excerpts of different varieties of South Asian English quoted above serve to
support the truism that South Asian English in general and Indian English in particular
is a 'network of varieties', that include regional and occupational varieties as well as stan-
dard Indian English (Hosali, 2005: 34). One reason for this 'network of varieties' is that
the linguistic situation in India is extraordinarily complex. Mehrotra (1998) describes
India as a baffling mosaic of multilingualism. He reports that the 1961 census of India
identified 1652 mother tongues, 67 of which are used as media of instruction in schools
(Biswas, 2004). The Indian constitution lists the following 18 languages as the major lan-
guages of India: Assamese, Bengali, Gujerati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani,
Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Panjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu
and Urdu.
Hindi is the official language, yet the constitution is actually written in English, and
English is classified as an 'associate official language'. But, as the excerpts above illustrate,
English is also used in a wide range of domains, ranging from informal through to formal.
It is used by people of all classes, from the poorly educated to the middle and upper class
elites, although it must be stressed that the majority of the population of more than one
billion do not speak it at all. English in India operates thus in public and private domains
and its functions include instrumental, regulative, interpersonal and ideational (Kandiah,
1991). To explain how it is that English has maintained this position in India, a brief sum-
mary of the history of English in India is needed.
The date commonly given to mark the coming of English to India is 31 December
1600. This was the date on which Queen Elizabeth I of England gave a monopoly on trade
with India to a group of English merchants (Ferguson, 1996). The missionaries soon fol-
lowed, especially after 1659, when they were allowed to use the ships of the East India
Company (Kachru, 1983). However, their work was restricted until the beginning of the
nineteenth century when a resolution was passed in the British House of Commons in 1813
that resolved to promote 'useful knowledge' and 'religious and moral improvement' among
the 'native inhabitants of India' (Kachru, 1983: 20 ).
Shortly later, the famous Macaulay Minute of 1835 was passed. Macaulay's objective
was to form a 'class who may be interpreters between us and the millions we govern - a class
of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinion, in morals and in
intellect' (Kachru, 1983: 22). This Minute officially institutionalised English in India
(Kachru, 1996) and led to the establishment of the English-medium universities of
Mumbay, Calcutta and Madras. The link between government and trade can be seen here,
as these were the cities where the British East India Company had established key presences
(Mehrotra, 1998).
At the time, however, the policy of favouring English and using it in education was not
universally popular. Two groups appeared that became known as the 'Anglicists' (those who
favoured the promotion of English, especially in education) and the 'Orientalists' (those
who favoured the promotion of local languages). A similar debate between comparable
groups can be seen in many places today and will be discussed in later chapters. The debate
in India between these two groups has remained constant and heated over the centuries, but,
by and large, the Anglicists have tended to retain the upper hand, as can be seen in the
Official Languages Act of 1967. This legalised the use of English and established it as an asso-
ciate official language to be used with Hindi 'for all official purposes of the Union, for
Parliament and for communications between the Union and the States' (Ferguson, 1996: 31).
In order to enhance 'national unity and facile [sic] intra-state, inter-state and inter-
national communication' the government has adopted the 'three language formula'
(Biswas, 2004: 107). This formula requires that children in Hindi-speaking areas should
learn Hindi, English and one other Indian language at school, while children in non-Hindi-
spealdng areas should learn their mother tongue, Hindi and English. In practice, however,
this formula has not been uniformly successful. States have been given the freedom to
introduce the third language at any time and this has meant that the results are extremely
mixed. It is probably true to say that the Indian film industry, 'Bollywood', is as instrumen-
tal in making Hindi known to people outside Hindi-speaking areas as schools. Otherwise,
English is preferred to Hindi among speakers of the Dravidian languages of the south.
Hindi is spoken only in the north and is a member of a different language family. Not sur-
prisingly perhaps, Hindi-speaking states are sometimes uncommitted to the teaching of a
second Indian language with the result that many Hindi speakers speak only Hindi and
English with any degree of fluency (Saghal, 1991).
States also have the power to decide which language(s) will be official languages and
which will be studied as first, second or third languages. Thus English is the first, official
language of Nagaland and an associate official language of Manipur, Meghalaya and
Mizoram (Naik and Narayan, 2004). It is studied as a first language in Arunachal Prasad
and Mizoram, as a second language in Kerala and West Bengal and as a third language in
Bihar and Punjab (Biswas, 2004).
A major reason why English has retained its position is that it is the only language in
India that is spoken or used across the entire country and it is therefore an obvious choice
as a neutral link language or lingua franca. D'Souza goes as far to say that English is, 'per-
haps, along with Hindi, the only true Indian language' (2001: 150).
7-3 Sri Lanka
The situation in Sri Lanka, the island nation off the south of India, presents similari-
ties and differences. One similarity is that it was the missionaries who started the teaching
of English. It was not until the 1830s that the government started to promote education in
English (Kachru, 1983), with the Colebrook-Cameron Commission recommending that
'education should be held out to the natives so that they may in time qualify themselves for
holding some of the higher appointments' (Raheem and Ratwatte, 2004: 93). In 1832, some
640 private and 236 missionary schools were using English as a medium of instruction,
while only the 97 state schools were teaching in the mother tongue. The culmination of
British educational policy came with the establishment of the English-medium University
of Ceylon in 1942 (Fernando, 1996). By the time of Ceylon's independence and renaming
as Sri Lanka in 1948, however, the situation had radically changed, as only 7 per cent of
the total school population were in private or missionary schools and 93 per cent were in
state schools using a mother tongue as a medium of instruction (Raheem and Ratwatte,
2004).
A major difference between India and Sri Lanka helps explain this. Sri Lanka is far less
complex linguistically than India, as there are only two major languages spoken there: the
language of the majority, Sinhala, and the language of the minority, Tamil. The majority are
thus able to define the national identity of Sri Lanka through the use of Sinhala and the reli-
gion of the majority of Sinhalese, Buddhism (Kandiah, 1991). Thus, shortly after the estab-
lishment of Sri Lankan independence in 1948, a Sinhala-only policy was introduced and this
led to the rise of a new national bourgeoisie occupying positions that had previously been
held by the English-speaking elite (Raheem and Ratwatte, 2004). It has been claimed that
this new Sinhala-speaking elite had no desire to promote English, as the promotion of
English might lead to a new English-speaking elite that could threaten their own status
(Kandiah, 1991).
Nevertheless, as Raheem and Ratwatte (2004) point out, English retained its position
in certain domains of Sri Lankan life. It continued to be the medium of instruction in uni-
versity faculties of science, medicine and engineering. Its international importance meant
that certain government ministries, Trade and Tourism, for example, elected to retain
English.
It also operates as a lingua franca or bridge language between the Sinhala majority and
the Tamil minority, for, while some Tamil speakers know Sinhala, few Sinhala speakers
know Tamil. Its role as a link language was officially recognised in 1987, and in 1995 it was
proclaimed a national language. It has since been introduced from grades 1 to 3 in schools,
'not as a subject but in the form of bilingual teaching where primary teachers are encour-
aged to use vocabulary items from English and the mother tongue' (Raheem and Ratwatte,
2004: 103). However, at the time of writing, given limited resources, there are insufficient
primary teachers with enough knowledge of English to implement this policy in more than
a piecemeal way. But it is important to note that, the views of Wikkramasinha notwith-
standing, the younger generation of Sri Lankans are more likely to see English as a language
of modern life, technology and youth culture, than as a language of colonial control. Code
mixing is common and a Sri Lankan variety of English is emerging, which has led scholars
such as Parakrama (1995) and Canagarajah (2000) to urge for the acceptance of a wider
range of norms than those traditionally associated with the educated elite. In the next part
of the chapter a selection of the linguistic features of Indian and Sri Lankan Englishes will
be described.
7-4 Linguistic features of South Asian Englishes
7-4-1 Phonology
As was noted above, Indian English operates across a wide range of domains, regions
and functions. The phonological examples below represent the pronunciation of Standard
Indian English, although, given the number of languages spoken in India, there are obvi-
ously regional variations in its pronunciation. Indian English (IE) is rhotic, that is to say /r/
is pronounced in post-vocalic environments, so that the 'r' in 'part' and in 'poor' will be
sounded.
Please note that, while I use RP sounds as a point of comparison, this is the only rea-
son for using them. All new varieties of English need to be described in their own right. The
sounds of the new varieties are the correct sounds for those varieties. The IE sounds here
are taken from Nihalani et al. (2004).
The RP diphthongs in 'coat' and 'day' are pronounced as monophthongs in IE to give
/ko:t/ and /de:/ respectively and the RP central vowels /3:/, fa/ and /A/ are all pronounced
/G/ in IE. The RP vowel sounds in 'cot' and 'caught' are pronounced /kot/ and /ko:t/ respec-
tively in IE.
As far as consonant sounds are concerned, in some varieties of standard IE, both /v/
and /w/ can be pronounced /vi. Both !ti and /d/ can be pronounced as retroflex sounds and
/8/ and lo/ as plosives.
7-4-2 Lexis
In an experiment to discover whether words or expressions of Indian English were
understood by speakers of British English, Mehrotra (2003) chose 20 such words. A
selection of ten of these is included below. The relevant words and expressions are itali-
cised and their actual meanings are given at the end of the chapter. Some of these words
derive from local languages and others display a different semantic range in Indian
English.
1. Her face-cut is very impressive.

2. The students want some important questions from their teacher.
3. I came here in a tempo.
4. He speaks chaste Hindi.
5. Fifty students have applied for freeship this year.
6. The sportsmen are given 5% weightage.
7. Mr Bajej is the whole sole in this factory.
8. This is a match box.
9. Please finish the beer bottle and then we can go.
10. I hope he will do the needful for us.
Influence of the local languages also leads to what Kachru (1983: 38) has called 'hybridisa-
tion', whereby a local word and an English word combine to form a word or expression of
Indian English. Examples Kachru gives include 'lathi charge' ('lathi' means baton) and
'tiffin carrier' ('tiffin' means lunch or meal and has now become part of many varieties of
English, as indeed have countless other Indian words, 'bungalow', 'mango', 'pyjamas', 'junk',
'curry' and 'verandah' to name just a few). Suffixes from local languages can also be attached
to English words to give 'policewala', 'goondaism' and 'patelship', for example. Direct trans-
lations from local languages create new words and collocations so that from Hindi we get
'on this her flower-bed, her seven children were born' (marriage bed) and from the Sri
Lankan language Sinhala we get 'to buy and give' and to 'break rest'.
In Excerpt 'E' above, the Sikh term for greeting was used. Similar terms can be
translated (Kachru, 1983: 132) so that other greetings in Indian English can be 'bow my
forehead' and 'bless my hovel with the good dust of your feet', while forms of
address include 'cherisher of the poor' and 'mother of my daughter'. This use of trans-
lation goes well beyond greetings and address. 'Thou shalt write from an inkwell
of gold' and 'you goose-faced minion' provide an example of flattery and cursing
respectively.
Excerpt 'C' above provides further examples of the transfer of Hindi words and phras-
es into English and Excerpt 'D' of the transfer of Hindi discourse markers. Valentine also
illustrates the transfer of the Hindi tags 'no' and 'nuh' into English, as in these two
examples:
'If the child shows little interest in something there is a lot of encouragement from the
home, from the institution, from the government, no?'
'I think you're to that view, nuh?'
(Valentine, 1991: 332).
7-4·3 Syntax
Kachru (1983) identifies three features of Indian English that are shared with many
other varieties. The first is the distinctive use or non-use of articles, the second is the redu-
plication of words and the third is 'yes-no confusion' - also seen in Australian Aborigine
English - as in the exchange below:
A: You have no objection?
B: Yes. (I have no objection)
Further features Indian English shares with other varieties include interrogative word order
in indirect questions as in 'tell me where can you meet us' and the use of invariant tag ques-
tions as in 'you know it isn't it?', 'he is coming isn't it?', and 'you went there yesterday isn't
it?' (Srivastava and Sharma, 1991: 197-9).
In the next chapter a more complete list of syntactic features that are shared by many
varieties of English is given and possible explanations for these similarities are considered
in Part C of the book.
Perhaps the syntactic feature most associated with Indian English is the use of the pres-
ent continuous in contexts where other varieties would use the simple present. This use is
particularly remarkable with verbs of sense and knowing and stative verbs, as these do not
take the present continuous in the same contexts. Examples of Indian English use include:
'They were knowing the names.'
'Shammi must be knowing my sister.'
'We are having our house in Thana.'
'You must be having a lot of friends of your own age.'
'And what ideas are you having about the descriptive paper?'
'You're not being audible.'
'There is a matter being before the supreme court now.'
(examples all drawn from the ICE corpus oflndian English, de Ersson, 2005)
This use of the present continuous is usually explained as being caused by direct transfer
from Indian languages (Jackson, 1981). It is also important to stress that what Indians are
marking here is not so much the progressive as the continuative, so that the sentence 'I am
knowing him for 20 years', not only means that I have known him for 20 years, but that I
shall continue to know him in the future.
7-4-4 Cultural conventions

Culturally distinctive uses of greetings, farewells, curses and flattery have been
exemplified above, so I will not repeat them here. In a series of studies on request strategies
in Indian English, Sridhar (1991) draws the following conclusions:
i. Indian English speakers use direct questions and 'desiderative' statements (I

want/I need etc.) more frequently than speakers of British English and use
indirect questions less frequently.
2. The request strategies of Indian English speakers are transferred from local
languages.
3. A British form in an Indian context may carry a different meaning. For example,
the use of 'will you' might be seen as abrupt or even rude in a British context but
not so in an Indian one.
4. There is variety among the request strategies of Indian English speakers.
The findings from this type of research are of particular significance when it comes to the
teaching of English, for it would clearly be unwise to teach British request strategies in
Indian contexts, as these might well be culturally inappropriate. Questions of this type will
be considered in detail in Part C of the book, but it is worth underlining here Kandiah's
belief (1991) that members oflocal speech communities should be the ones who define the
norms for those communities. Many speakers of Indian and Sri Lankan English use
English habitually and for a wide variety of functions. They are therefore native speakers
of their variety and it is they who should have the right to decide what is correct and what
is not. This plea is echoed by D'Souza, when she says 'it is for the community to argue
about and decide on (standards), rather than have them imposed from outside' (2001: 158).
The 'Indianness' of Indian English is further explored below in the context of creative
writing.
7-5 Indian literature in English
As previously mentioned, the contrasting views presented in Excerpt 'F' above and by
the Sri Lankan poet Wikkramasinha represent two extremes. While Wikkramasinha's views
find some support, as can be seen from the quotes provided below, the majority of South
Asian writers agree that English is now a language of South Asia and that it can be adapt-
ed to suit Indian cultures and tastes.
The author Raja Rao, writing in the foreword to his seminal and iconic piece
Kanthapura published in 1963, said, 'English is not really an alien language to us ... our
method of expression has to be a dialect which will some day prove to be as distinctive and
colourful as the Irish or the American' (cited in Crystal, 1997: 135). Rao continued, 'We shall
have English with us and amongst us, and not as our guest or friend, but as one of our own,
of our castes, our creed, our sect and of our tradition' (quoted in Srivastava and Sharma,
1991: 190 ), and he warns, 'We cannot write like the English. We should not. We can only
write as Indians' (1991: 205).
Ruchira Mukerjee, author of Toad in my Garden (Picador: 1998), suggests that Rao's
prediction has been fulfilled:
'There are many people writing in English in India and at last people are beginning to
think in English. Many are writing with a great flow and flair, which proves that English
is no more a foreign language but a part of our psyche.'
(cited in D'Souza, 2001: 148)
In a way that foreshadows the views of the Nigerian novelist Wole Soyinka and which will
be considered in the next chapter, D'Souza herself argues that English has been Indianised
by being 'borrowed, transcreated, recreated, stretched, extended, contorted perhaps' (2001:
150).
The well-known Indian novelist Anita Desai agrees. Indian life is an amalgam of many
languages, cultures and civilisations that form 'one very compactly woven whole' (1996:
221). She has found English 'flexible, elastic, resilient, capable of taking on whatever tones,
rhythms and colours I choose' (1996: 222).
Similar views can be heard in Pakistan. The novelist Sidhwa writes:
English ... is no longer the monopoly of the British. We the excolonised have subjugated
the language, beaten it on its head and made it ours.
(Sidhwa, 1996: 231)
Importantly, Sidhwa is careful to distinguish between British writers of South Asian origin
who have lived most of their lives in Britain and who represent a new breed of British
writer, and people like herself, novelists 'who use English as a Pakistani vernacular' (1996:
239):
We have to stretch the language to adapt it to alien thoughts and values which have no
precedent of expression in English, subject the language to a pressure that distorts, or if
you like, enlarges its scope and changes its shape ...
(1996: 240)
The above authors all agree that English can be adapted to suit and reflect Indian
culture. As South Asians, they can write in English to express South Asian experience.
They extol the creative and flexible qualities of English. A different tone can, however,
be discerned in the writings of another Sri Lankan poet, Yasmine Gooneratne, a selec-
tion of whose poems are read by Thiru Kandiah on the accompanying CD. Gooneratne
feels:
'There is still a deep-seated resentment in countries such as India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka,
perhaps in Africa, too, but certainly in regions that possess an ancient and written litera-
ture, and a creative literary tradition of their own - against English, which was the prin-
cipal tool used by their nineteenth century rulers in the process of their deracination.'
(cited in Bailey, 1996: 40)
It is perhaps significant that the two people to express strong antagonism towards the
use of English are both from Sri Lanka, a place where English has had a very different his-
tory from its history in India. It is important to consider the possibility that, while writ-
ers can adapt English to reflect their own cultural backgrounds, many may, at the same
time, feel a resentment that they feel obliged to use English as a medium in which to
write, and through which they need to gain or disseminate learning.
This resentment can become particularly evident in the field of academic writing,
where the empirical-scientific knowledge paradigm and the need for 'Anglo' rhetorical
styles can greatly disadvantage those unfamiliar with both. In the context of Sri Lanka,
Fernando (1996) points out that Sri Lankan dialectic developed to serve a metaphysi-
cal-religious knowledge paradigm. Traditionally, Sri Lankans valued metaphysical and
religious knowledge, closely associated with Buddhism, as there was a need to seek spiri-
tual truths to help people cope with the transient nature oflife. This has been replaced by
what she calls a Western need to seek empirical truths to improve people's material well-
being (1996: 209) and that this requires a scientific-technological paradigm. Traditional
wisdom, it has been claimed, is now no longer valued on the one hand and, on the other,
provides no models in terms of the scientific-technological paradigm (see also
Canagarajah, 2005). As a result, Sri Lankan university students and academics have to
learn and depend on Western models in order to gain 'knowledge'. Kachru makes a com-
parable point in relation to the Indian tradition. Hindi inherited the Sanskrit tradition
and 'all the literary conceits and poetic conventions of Sanskrit are found in Hindi too'
(1991b: 230). Hindi also adopted, through its Urdu 'cousin', Perso-Arabic traditions.
However, there is no tradition of rhetoric in Hindi or any other modern Indian language,
if rhetoric is defined as 'conventions of writing effectively for various purposes' (1991b:
230 ). As the Sanskrit tradition suggests that Indians think in non-linear patterns and in a
'circle or spiral of continuously developing potentialities' (1991b: 231), the implication is
that Indian students and academics have to learn an Anglo-American style of rhetoric
and thinking.
This, according to Fernando, disadvantages Indians and Sri Lankans in two major
ways. First, their own traditional knowledge paradigms have become devalued. Second,
they have to master a new knowledge paradigm and its attendant rhetorical style in order
to obtain currently valued knowledge. This in turn means that the flow and dissemination
of knowledge can potentially become dangerously one-way, moving from the 'Anglo' cen-
tre to the periphery. While acknowledging the inherent danger and injustice in this, it is
possible that, in the same way that English has been adapted to reflect local cultural expe-
rience, it can be similarly shaped to disseminate local and traditional knowledge back to the
Anglo centre and thus encourage a multidirectional flow of knowledge. The extraordinary
increase in interest in the United States and elsewhere in the traditional Indian practice of
yoga and in the traditional Sri Lankan practice of ayurvedic medicine may give some cause
for optimism that traditional knowledge will not be lost, but rather spread to a wider
audience. The related question of whether that knowledge necessarily becomes altered
when reframed in English needs to be researched.
7.6 Conclusion
This chapter has demonstrated the extraordinary range of varieties and functions of
Indian English. A brief comparison between the history of English in India and Sri Lanka
has been made. Given the range and functions of English, particularly in India, it can be
sensibly argued that many speakers of Indian and Sri Lankan English are native speakers of
those varieties and that they should therefore determine the norms of those varieties.
Furthermore the rich output of Indian English literature - Naik and Narayan (2004)
review the works of no fewer than 56 authors who have published in the two decades
between i980 and 2000 - is firm evidence that English has become a South Asian language.
The next chapter considers similar questions in the African context.
Meanings of Indian English words and expressions from page 93:
1. Her face-cut is very impressive. (profile)

2. The students want some important questions from their teacher. (relevant, questions
likely to come up in the exam)
3. I came here in a tempo. (a 3-wheeled vehicle)
4. He speaks chaste Hindi. (pure)
5. Fifty students have applied for freeship this year. (tuition-free place)
6. The sportsmen are given 5% weightage. (weighting, in other words people good at
sport~ might get an extra 5% on their exam results)
7. Mr Bajej is the whole sole in this factory. (the boss, the man in charge)
8. This is a match box. (an empty box)
9. Please finish the beer bottle and then we can go. (bottle of beer)
10. I hope he will do the needful for us. (do what is necessary)
Africa
SIERRA
LEONE
LESOTHO
8 Voices from Africa
Africa is a richly diverse continent that is made up of 54 different nation states. It is one
of the most multilingual regions in the world with speakers of more than 1,300 languages.
Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the world's most complex linguistic areas (Wolf, 2001: 7) and
African nations are typically highly multilingual. To take the countries that will be consid-
ered in this chapter as examples, more than 300 languages are spoken in Nigeria and there
are n official languages in South Africa. Some 50 languages are spoken in Ghana and the lin-
guistic complexity of Cameroon is heightened, as two European languages, French and
English, are both co-official languages. It is essential to bear this linguistic complexity and
diversity in mind in a discussion of English in Africa. Each nation presents its own unique
sociolinguistic environment. Schmied underlines this complexity, 'The position of the
English language in the different African nation-states is complex and varies considerably'
(Schmied, 1991: 33).
Nevertheless, the Englishes of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa are often classified
into three distinct groups: East African English, spoken in Kenya and Tanzania, for exam-
ple; Southern African English, spoken in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana, for
example; and West African English, spoken in Cameroon, Ghana and Nigeria, for exam-
ple. As this chapter will illustrate, the roles and varieties of English in these countries differ
greatly, despite a number of linguistic similarities. It is also important to stress that, while
English is spoken in many African countries, only an educated minority speak and use
English. The great majority of Africans speak African languages and, if they speak English,
it is as a form of pidgin English. The educated minority are likely to speak at least three
languages: a European lingua franca, primarily English or French; an African lingua fran-
ca; and a local African language. The respective roles of a European lingua franca, an
African lingua franca and local languages is a question of great debate in most African
countries.
The focus of this chapter will be on the Englishes of Nigeria and South Africa, with
examples of other African Englishes provided for comparison. In addition to the lin-
guistic features of these Englishes, the role of English in these countries, especially in
regard to education, will also be discussed. Underlying the whole discussion will be
the question of whether African Englishes can successfully reflect and represent African
cultures while at the same time remaining viable as media for international
communication.
101
8.1 Englishes in Nigeria
Nigeria is one of six West African states that have English as an official language. The
others are Cameroon, Ghana, Liberia, the Republic of the Gambia and Sierra Leone. This
can be explained by the colonial history of these countries and the previous role of English
there as a colonial language. As has been the case in many parts of the world, when these
countries attained independence, they elected not to dispense with the language of the
colonial powers. English has been the most enduring legacy of British colonial power in
Africa and one major reason for this is that it operates as an internally neutral lingua fran-
ca in these multilingual countries. In Nigeria's case, this was important. While several hun-
dred indigenous languages are spoken in Nigeria, there are three local languages that have
a very large number of speakers. These are Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba, all of which are spoken
by about 20 per cent of the large population of some 110 million people. While these three
languages serve as lingua francas, they are regionally distributed, with Hausa being spoken
in the north, Igbo in the east and Yoruba in the west. On independence in 1960, in an
attempt to avoid privileging any of these regions, the Nigerian capital was built at Abuja,
precisely because it was not in a place where any of the three major local languages were
spoken.
The history of English in Nigeria differs between the north and the south, partly
because colonial administration came late to Nigeria. Although the British set up a trading
post in Lagos in 1860, Nigeria did not officially become a colony until 1914. The colonial
administration set up schools in the north and brought in English teachers from England
who were speakers of RP. In contrast, the English teachers in the south had traditionally
been missionaries and their main concern was the teaching of the gospel rather than of
Standard English (Schmied, 1991). This has led to differences in the Englishes of North and
South Nigeria and in attitudes towards different varieties of English. The Lagos elite in the
west still prefers RP while others promote standard Nigerian English - although much
debate continues over this, as will be illustrated below.
In fact, four varieties of Nigerian English have been identified (Bamgbose, 1982:
100-101) and these can be classified along the now familiar identity-communication con-
tinuum, with V1 and V2 at the identity end and V3 and V4 at the communication end. The
varieties are:
Variety 1: This is a pidgin English and marked by a wholesale transfer of

phonological I syntactic and lexical features from local languages. This is consid-
ered neither socially acceptable nor internationally intelligible, but it is worth not-
ing that 40 per cent of the population of about 110 million use some form of pidgin
English.
Variety 2: The syntax is similar to standard English (usually this means British
English) but it remains strongly marked by phonological and lexical peculiarities. It
is socially acceptable but has low international intelligibility. Variety 2 is spoken by
75 per cent of those who do speak English.
Voices from Africa 103
Variety 3: This is close to standard British English but with some distinct
phonetic/lexical features. This is seen as socially acceptable and internationally intel-
ligible. This variety is spoken only by 10 per cent of the population, but is probably
what most people mean when they refer to standard Nigerian English. This is the
variety most commonly taught in schools. Bamgbose argues, 'the features [of Variety
3] cut across different first-language backgrounds and no amount of drilling or stig-
matisation is going to lead to their abandonment' (1982: 105).
Variety 4: This variety is modelled on standard British English and still favoured by
the elite. There is, however, some dispute over the social acceptability of this variety.
Banjo claims that this variety is 'socially unacceptable' and 'spoken only by a handful
of Nigerians born or brought up in England' (cited in Bamgbose, 1982: 101), while
Todd and Hancock (1986: 305) claim that RP remains a prestigious accent. Jowitt
(1994) supports Todd and Hancock over this issue in saying that the promoters of RP
and a British standard have been more influential than promoters of a local standard.
As in many places, the debate over the existence and acceptability of a local, indi-
genised English has been fervent. Schmied (1991: 175) quotes Jibril's (1987) summary of the
debate. I give an edited version here:
Perhaps the most controversial issue in English Language Studies in Nigeria is that of
Nigerian English. Scholars such as Banjo, Adetugbo, Adesanoye and Odum uh affirm the
existence of Nigerian English ... Nigerian English has developed distinct phonetic,
phonological, lexical and syntactic characteristics which are quite stable and which can-
not be regarded as deviations from a native norm which Nigerians do not, in any case,
aspire to approximate ...
More recently, Bamgbose has suggested that, while Nigerian English had British origins, 'it
has now assumed Nigerian garb and acquired some American influences (1996: 370 ).
However, other scholars, such as Oji, urge that 'The death knell of Nigerian English should
be sounded loud and clear as it has never existed, does not exist now ...' (cited in Schmied,
1991: 175).
Despite Oji's protestations, it is difficult to argue that Nigerian English does not exist.
Todd and Hancock (1986: 305) follow Bamgbose in suggesting that English in Nigeria is a
cluster of subvarieties that include:
(i) Pidgin English

(ii) Mother-tongue-influenced English
(iii) The Indian-influenced English of many teachers and traders
(iv) Standard Nigerian English
(v) Expatriate mother-tongue English
What are some of the characteristic linguistic features of Nigerian English? Below, exam-
ples from phonology, lexis, syntax and 'culture' are given. It should be noted that Nigerian
language experts see an urgent need to codify Nigerian English (Bamgbose, 1996) and that
these examples are subject to change. A more complete list of features that are common to
many varieties of English in Africa is given in Section 8.5.1 below.
8.2 Linguistic features
8.2.1 Phonological features

As is the case with almost all African varieties of English, Nigerian English is non-
rhotic in that post-vocalic /r/ is not sounded. Nigerian English does not make a meaning
distinction with vowel length, so that minimal pairs such as /I/ and /i:/ are not discrimi-
nated. Certain diphthongs (as in the RP sounds 'bay' and 'go') are pronounced as monoph-
thongs. Consonant clusters are not sounded and either one consonant is dropped or an
epenthetic vowel is inserted between the consonants of the cluster to give 'lis' for 'list' and
'arrang-i-ment' for 'arrangement' respectively (Todd and Hancock, 1986: 306).
8.2.2 Lexical features

Bamiro (1994: 51-64) gives the following examples of words that have developed spe-
cial meanings in Nigerian English. The prevalence of certain makes of car is reflected in the
language. A 'Belgian' refers to a second-hand car, as these are most often imported from
Belgium. The presence of Citroen and Volkswagen cars has led to the creative and witty
coining of the new words 'footroen' and 'footwagen'. 'They had to do part of the journey by
footroen' simply means they had to walk some of the way. Other coinages include 'ricobay
hair' (a popular Nigerian hairstyle), 'white-white' (the white shirts worn by schoolchildren)
and 'watchnight', which means something like staying up through the night to celebrate
New Year's Eve or some other festival.
Ellipsis is common so that 'he is a mental' means 'he is a mental patient'. 'Next
Saturday is environmental' means 'next Saturday is Environmental Day', and 'my brother is
an army' means that he is a soldier. The word class can also change so that 'my friend would
like to become a navy' means 'my friend would like to become a naval officer'.
'Clipping', common also in Australian English, is frequent. 'Perms' in the following
example is a short or clipped form of 'permutations': 'We would not have wasted our time
running after perms'.
Translation equivalents abound. 'To paste' means to 'brush one's teeth with tooth-
paste' as does 'to wash mouth'. So a mother might say to her child 'go and paste right now'
or exclaim 'he has not even washed his mouth'. Other examples of loan translations that
Bamiro provides include 'long throat' to mean a greedy or avaricious person, 'wrapper' to
mean a wrap-round skirt, as in 'she rinsed her wrapper', and to 'buy the market' to mean
'buy goods', as in 'these menials began to buy the market'.
A nice ~xample of how local culture and traditions can create new words is illustrat-
ed by the words 'enstool' and 'enskin'. These clearly derive from the word 'enthrone', but as
some tribes install their chief on a stool and others clothe him in an animal skin, the words
'enstool' and 'enskin' have been created. These words also occur in Ghanaian English
(Ahulu, 1994).
Direct borrowings from local languages also appear as lexical items in Nigerian
English. To give just two examples, 'wahala' (trouble) and 'wayo' (tricks) come from Yoruba
and Hausa respectively.
To move briefly from Nigeria to another West African country, the lexis of
Cameroon English (CE) is of particular interest to students of World Englishes because
of the co-existence of CE with French, as well as local languages. Wolf (2001: 25off.) gives
these examples of how the spelling and meaning of CE words are influenced by French.
Note, for example, how standard English 'gue' becomes 'que' in words like 'fatigue' and
'argue' in CE.
Cameroon English French Standard English

acadmigue academigue
adjustement ajustement
fatigue fatigue
argue argue
scolarise scolariser (to provide with schooling)
Wolf also gives examples of idiomatic borrowings from French, so that 'chaud(e)', literally
'hot', means a lover, and 'cops', which is derived from 'copain' (friend) means a friend.
8.2.3 Syntax
Many of the syntactic features of Nigerian English can be found in other varieties of
African English and, as a collection of these common features is provided later in the chap-
ter, here I simply include some examples of Nigerian Pidgin English (NPE) along with their
translations into a more standard variety. It should be stressed that these do not represent
examples of standard Nigerian English, although some of the phonological features of this
can be detected:
'Wen yo mama rich hie yestade, a de chop' (When your mother arrived, I was eating)
'A si am las mont, I stil de krai' (I saw him last month. He was still crying)
'Monkey de work, baboon dey chop' (Monkeys work, baboons eat)
(http://members.aol.com/AfriPalava2/Pidgin.html)
The following NPE jingle, kindly provided by the Nigerian scholar and poet Tope Omoniyi,
refers to banking fraud in Nigeria. You can hear Omoniyi reading a selection of his own
poems on the accompanying CD. The standard version is also by Omoniyi.
'Katakata dey inside we country There's disruption in our country

419 bank fraud Advance free fraud
Import racket o Smuggling
All this yanmayanma tin All these ignoble practices
Dey spoil our name o Stain our name
Document falsification Document falsification
Wuruwuru to di answer Non-transparent processes
Import mago mago Import fraud

no bi to dey make awufu money It's not getting easy money
Na im be prosperity That makes prosperity
0 ya make we clean am o OK, let's clean up our act
0 ya make e beta' OK, let things improve
8.2.4 Cultural conventions

A common example of how cultural norms influence lexical choices involves kinship
terms. A Nigerian might address his brother as 'son of my mother'. In Nigerian English the
term for an older male sibling is 'senior brother', not the 'elder brother' of British English.
This is a very important distinction, as elder brothers in Nigerian cultures have far greater
responsibility for and power over their younger siblings than in British culture. So should
Nigerian children be taught to say that 'elder brother' is correct, while 'senior brother' is
incorrect? Clearly not, as 'senior brother' is the more culturally appropriate term. Cultures
differ and, in this instance, the role of brothers differs across cultures and this is reflected
in the kinship terms for them. Thus 'elder brother' is the appropriate term in English cul-
ture, but 'senior brother' is the appropriate term in Nigerian culture.
Methods of greeting are also culturally determined. Dare (1999) points out that peo-
ple in Yoruba culture greet each other effusively and warmly and greetings differ according
to context and the status, relationship and profession of the people involved. He wishes to
see this 'Yorubaness' retained in Nigerian English, especially when the English is being used
as a lingua franca between fellow Africans.
8.3 Englishes in South Africa
English has had a longer official link with South Africa than with Nigeria. The British
occupied 'Cape Colony' in 1795. Lord Somerset, the Governor of the colony, recruited large
numbers of schoolmasters from Britain to ensure that English established a firm hold there
(Lass, 2002). This was part of an official policy of Anglicisation that sought to replace the
language of the previous colonisers, Dutch, with English in all spheres of public life
(Kamwangamalu, 2002). It mandated the use of English in all official documents. Not sur-
prisingly, this policy upset the Dutch settlers and lingering resentment against the down-
grading of Dutch was one of the reasons for the Boer wars of 1899-1902, won by the British.
In 1910, the Union of South Africa was established and English and Dutch (replaced by
the name of Afrikaans in 1925) were made official languages, although English remained
more important, especially in education (Kamwangamalu, 2002). However, things changed
in 1948, the year that saw the start of the Afrikanerisation of South Africa. Perhaps the most
significant pol~cy to ensure this was the infamous 1953 Bantu Education Act which marked
an attempt by the apartheid government to reassert the importance of Afrikaans in public
life (Kamwangamalu, 2002). It entrenched mother-tongue instruction for blacks in the early
years of education and greatly increased the role of Afrikaans in secondary schools. Blacks
saw the policy as an attempt to create a semi-literate workforce and reinforce apartheid, and
so opposed it vehemently (de Klerk and Gough, 2002). Their opposition to the policy led to
the Soweto uprising of i976, after which schools were allowed to choose their own medium
of instruction after the first four years of primary school. English re-emerged as the over-
whelming choice (de Klerk and Gough, 2002). It is important to note, therefore, that English
is, perhaps surprisingly, seen as a language of liberation by many black South Africans while
Afrikaans is seen as the language of colonial oppression and apartheid.
The Republic of South Africa was established in 1961 and Afrikaans and English
remained the only two official languages. The situation remained unchanged until the
establishment of the new South Africa in 1994 under the inaugural presidency of Nelson
Mandela. The 1994 constitution granted official status to 11 languages, English and
Afrikaans along with nine African languages (Ndbele, Pedi, Sotho, Swati, Tsonga, Tswana,
Venda, Xhosa and Zulu).
In common with other African countries, several varieties of English are spoken in
South Africa. A major difference, however, is that English is the first language of some 3.5
million people out of a total population of about 41 million. The 11 speakers are made up
of 1.7 million whites, I million Indians and more than half a million people of mixed race.
These LI speakers speak different varieties of English, however, and among the varieties
spoken in South Africa are White South African English (WSAE), Indian South African
English (ISAE) and Coloured (or mixed-race) South African English (CSAE). In common
with all regional varieties of English, these comprise a sociolinguistic continuum from stan-
dardised to vernacular. WSAE has been described as operating on a continuum of 'conser-
vative-respectable-extreme' mirroring the terms 'cultivated-general-broad' given to the
Australian continuum that was considered in Chapter 6. Lass is uncomfortable with the
South African terms which he continues to use for convenience sake 'if with a slight shud-
der' (2002: no) and classifies them in the following way:
Conservative: used by the 'first families', the upper and middle classes and 'serious' news
readers. This variety reflects RP influence.
Respectable: this is the local standard and used by lecturers, teachers and professionals.
Extreme: this is used by people of lower economic status and has much in common with
second-language Afrikaans English.
On the accompanying CD there is a recording of a speaker of WSAE.
8-4 Linguistic features of ISAE
Mesthrie (2002: 339-55) provides a description of Indian South African English

(ISAE). This is of particular interest, as it is a variety that has shifted over time from being
a second language to a first language. The first Indian migrants to South Africa arrived in
i86o and very few of them knew any English at all. Over time, however, English gradually
became an L1 so that by the i96os and i97os, 'English became the first language of a
majority of Indian schoolchildren' (2002: 340). ISAE has remained a distinct variety for
several reasons. First, the apartheid policy that lasted from i948 until the early i99os kept
Indian children away from L1 speakers of English descent. Second, ISAE, while sharing
some similarities with Indian English, is also distinct from it, primarily because it operates
across the sociolinguistic continuum so that it has a very colloquial form as well as a more
educated form. Mesthrie describes this continuum using the terms 'acrolect', 'mesolect' and
'basilect' and shows that educated speakers can switch between these as and when appro-
priate. He quotes a husband, himself an English teacher, answering his wife's question
about whether he has bought some cheese in a basilectal or perhaps mesolectal variety. His
answer displays topicalisation and a use of 'lot' for 'a lot of':
Wife: You bought cheese, Farouk?
Husband: No, but a lot butter I bought.
(2002: 343)
Other examples typical of the basilectal variety that he gives (2002: 343-54) include:
'He came there isn't?' ('isn't' as invariant tag question. Note the lack of 'it' in this invari-
ant tag. Many varieties use 'isn't it' as an invariant tag in these contexts.)
'I finish eat' (I've finished eating)
'Do you know what is roti?' and 'I don't know when is plane going to land?' (unchanged
word order in indirect questions)
'He's got too much of money'
'I like children must learn our mother tongue' (I'd like our children to ...)
'Though I visit very often to Durban, but I don't like it.' (parallel conjunctions)
'But it'll come, but too late.' (the use of 'double conjunctions' to add emphasis)
The use of distinctive aspect markers 'an' stay' and 'an' left'. For example:
'We'll fright an' stay.' (We used to be afraid for a long while.)
'We whacked him an' left him'. (We beat him up completely.)
Mesthrie concludes by saying that the differences ISAE exhibit 'are much greater than those
exhibited by other new Englishes' (2002: 354). However, while the use of the aspect mark-
ers 'an' stay' and 'an' left' indeed appear distinct, the other features can be found in the
informal dialects of other varieties, where 'unusual' ways of marking aspect can also be
found. In any event, none of the examples he gives of ISAE appears as distinctive as certain
older varieties of English such as the Doric that was described in Chapter 4.
8.5 Linguistic features of BSAE and African Englishes
The most widely spoken variety of English in South African is, as one would expect,
Black South African English (BSAE). Seven million blacks 'have a command of English as
another language' (de Klerk and Gough, 2002: 356) and, according to de Klerk and Gough,
BSAE is increasingly viewed as a variety in its own right and its prestige is rising. They are
keen to point out that, despite this, BSAE currently offers no automatic access to power,
although they feel that 'the prospects are very good for greater acceptance of variability in
educational contexts and in business' (1002: 371).
The linguistic features of BSAE are in many respects similar to those of other African
Englishes. There is no distinction between certain short and long vowel sounds, between /I/
and /i:/, for example. It is non-rhotic and leans towards syllable- rather than stress-timing.
More distinctively, the vowel sounds in the words 'strut', 'bath' and 'palm' are all pro-
nounced as /a/ and those in 'trap', 'dress' and 'nurse' as /e/.
De Klerk and Gough (1002: 362-3) provide a list of 23 distinctive grammatical fea-
tures but, as these are similar to features of other varieties of African English, I shall not
list them here (a list is provided in 8.5.1 below). Also in common with other varieties of
English, local languages provide a large number of words. In discourse, there is a prefer-
ence for indirectness and the preservation of face. Chick (1002) suggests that this has
influenced the speaking styles of white South Africans. As an example he notes that there
has been an increase in compliment deflection in the new South Africa and explains this
by saying that whites wish to avoid 'the implication associated with the acceptance of com-
pliments, namely that they are superior to their interlocutors' (1002: 265), but he cautions
that blacks remain far more likely to ignore or reinterpret compliments than either whites
or Indians.
In a country that has eleven official languages code-mixing is common. This example
from Gough (n.d.) mixes three languages: Zulu is given in normal type, English in italics
and Afrikaans in bold:
'I-Chiefs isidle nge-referee's optional time, otherwise ngabe ihambe sleg. Maar why benga
stopi this system ye-injury time?'
Chiefs (a local soccer team) have won owing to the referee's optional time, otherwise
they could have lost. But why is this system of injury time not phased out?
Code-mixing is common in all multilingual societies and is considered in more detail in

Chapter 9.
To conclude this section I give Schmied's list of general tendencies in African
Englishes (1991: 58ff.). Some of these features have been described above as features of
Nigerian or South African English.
8.5.1 Common linguistic features of African Englishes

Pronunciation
(i) Fricatives tend to be avoided.

(ii) Length differences in vowels are levelled and not used to distinguish meaning.
(iii) The central vowels /A/, fa:/ and /'J/ as in 'but', 'bird' and 'about' become more
open as in hi, /'J/, and /a/.
(iv) Diphthongs tend to become monophthongs, so that /e1/ and /'Ju/ become /el
and /o/ respectively.
(v) Consonant clusters either drop consonants or insert vowels to split them.
Grammar
(i) Inflectional endings are not always added to the verb but general, regular and
unmarked forms are used instead.
(ii) Complex tenses, such as the past perfect and certain conditionals, tend to be
avoided.
(iii) The use of verb+ing constructions is extended to all verbs to give examples
such as 'I am having your book' and 'I was not liking the food in the
hotel'.
(iv) Phrasal and prepositional verbs are used differently, for example, 'I will pick
you at 8 o'clock tonight'.
(v) Verb complementation varies freely to give phrases such as 'allow him go' and
'they made him to clean the whole yard'.
(vi) Noun phrases are not always marked for number and case or are treated
differently, to give 'informations', 'a cattle', 'an advice'.
(vii) Relative pronouns ('whom', 'whose') are avoided to give 'adult education
which its main purpose is to help adults ...'.
(viii) The use of plural is overgeneralised ('luggages', 'advices').
(ix) Articles and determiners are often omitted ('I am going to post office').
(x) Pronouns are not always distinguished by gender.
(xi) Adjectives may be used as adverbs to give 'I can obtain the food easy'.
(xii) Pronoun copying is common ('many of the fish, they have different colours').
(xiii) Negative yes/no questions are confirmed by responding to the form of the
question so that the answer to 'he isn't good?' becomes 'yes (he isn't)'.
(xiv) There are invariant question tags, for example 'isn't it?' and 'you wanted to
leave for Nairobi, not so?'
(xv) The interrogative word order is retained in indirect speech to give 'I cannot
tell you what is the matter'.
(xvi) There is freer word order so that 'in my family, we are many' becomes
common.
It is remarkable how many of these features are also common in other varieties of English.
With regard to the similarities in pronunciation, Schmied (1989) points out that, with 20
vowel sounds and 24 consonant sounds, RP is complex compared with many other lan-
guages and he Eredicted that learners would have particular trouble with the differentiation
and variation of vowel lengths. New varieties of English appear to solve these problems by
doing away with them, along with problems associated with inflectional endings and
consonant clusters. It should always be remembered that a tendency towards simplification
is evident in the development of 'traditional' English, as illustrated in Chapter 4.
In the final two parts of this chapter I shall consider these two questions:
1. Can English adequately represent African cultures?
2. What linguistic choices do governments have?
8.6 Can English adequately represent African cultures?
This is an extremely complex issue. Mazrui (1973) has argued that English played an
important role in the Pan-African movement. He is careful to distinguish between 'Pan-
Negroism', whose loyalties were 'ethnocentric', and 'Pan-Africanism', whose loyalties were
'intracontinental' (1973: 62). He notes that 'the towering figures of the 1945 Fifth Pan-
African conference were overwhelmingly English speakers' (1973: 63) and this allowed the
future President of Ghana, Nkrumah, to argue that it was the first Pan-African conference
that promoted African, rather than black, nationalism. The link between nationalism, trib-
alism and English is also complex. 'Learning English was a detribalising process. If one
found an African who had mastered the English language, that African had, almost by
definition, ceased to be a full tribesman' (Mazrui, 1973: 66). In Mazrui's mind, however, this
was not necessarily negative, as he concludes that English 'helped to detribalise the African's
mind and to give it a national dimension' (1973: 70).
In the previous chapter, many Indian scholars and writers argued forcefully that
English had become an Indian language in which they could write about Indian cultures.
A useful way of exploring this question in the context of Africa, therefore, would be to con-
sider the views of African writers and novelists to see whether they feel that English can be
used to express Africanness. As might be expected, writers are not unanimous about this,
although it is fair to say that the majority support writing in English about African culture
and identity. In this brief summary of their views I shall start with the case for the prose-
cution - those that feel that Africans should write only in African languages.
In 1959, the Congress of Negro Writers and Artists resolved, among other things, that
African countries should not adopt European languages as national languages and that a
Pan-African language be chosen for promotion. English was felt to be elitist and the cause
of cultural alienation, of 'psychological amputation' (Schmied, 1991: 119). The African lan-
guage chosen by the congress was the East African lingua franca, Swahili. Perhaps one rea-
son why its promotion has not, in fact, extended much beyond the countries of its original
usage - the countries of East Africa such as Tanzania and Kenya - is precisely because it is
not a Pan-African language. Perhaps the best-known proponent of writing in local lan-
guages and opponent of writing in English is the Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o
(1986/2005). Ngugi originally wrote in his native Gikuyu and reports that, when he was at
school, children who used Gikuyu near the school were given the cane and forced to wear
a placard round their necks with a sign that read 'I am a donkey' or 'I am stupid'. At the
same time, success in English was essential for children who wanted to proceed up the
education ladder. A pass in English was a prerequisite to academic advancement. Policies
of this type, that forbade the use of the children's vernacular in the school playground or
the school itself, may seem outdated and unjust now, but they were common. It is worth
remembering that children who spoke the Doric in their schools in Scotland were 'skelpit'
for so doing. It may not be surprising that Ngugi's experience in a colonial school system
has created a writer who insists that African writers should write in an African language.
He feels so strongly about this that he is dismissive of those writers who have chosen to
write in English. Of one such, the Nigerian Chinua Achebe, he writes 'it is the final tri-
umph of a system of domination when the dominated start singing its virtues' (2005: 176).
One feels that Achebe would argue strongly against the accusation that writing in
English represented singing the virtues of the colonising power. His defence would be that
English is an African language and that writing in adapted African forms of English can be
both a powerful means of literary expression and a powerful medium for expressing rebel-
lion (Schmied, 1991). Achebe (1975/2005) accepts English as an historical fact and he makes
the point that, if sub-Saharan Africa has a 'national' language, then that language is English,
as English is spoken in more countries than any other language. He also says that 'while he
would love to learn and appreciate many African languages, it is simply impossible to do so'
(2005: 170). The African writer should therefore 'aim at fashioning out an English which is
at once universal and able to carry his personal experience' (2005: 171). In an oft-quoted
passage (cf. Bokamba, 1982: 94), Achebe presents two versions of the same story, one writ-
ten in an African variety of English and the other in 'Standard' English to show that the
African version conveys something essentially African. The opening lines of the two ver-
sions, with the African' version first, are:
'I want one of my sons to join these people and be my eyes there.'
'I am sending you as a representative among those people.'
Two other lines are:

'The world is like a Mask, dancing. If you want to see it, you will not stand in one place.'
'One has to move with the times or else one is left behind.'
While Achebe promotes the use of an African variety of English and deliberately deviates
from standard English and adopts African idioms, he by and large avoids literal word-for-
word translations of African vernaculars. Baikolo has concluded after a study of his work
that Achebe's 'syntax and phrases spring spontaneously from the Igbo heart without devi-
ating much from current English usage', and he praises Achebe's 'felicitous transliteration
of Igbo ideas' (1995: 393).
Other African writers have gone further in their adaptation of English to reflect the
vernacular style of a local language. The Nigerian writer Amos Tutuola derives his writing
style from the Yoruba oral tradition and, as a result, has been accused by some critics as
being semi-literate in English, as his English is 'Yorubised' (Desai, 1993: 6). But the example
below seems to capture an innate Africanness, without being 'semi-literate' in any way:
'Now as the father of the lady first asked me for my name and I told him my name was
"Father of gods who could do anything in this world".'
(Desai, 1993: 6)
Gabriel Okara is another writer who attempts to translate a vernacular syntax into
English, trying to keep as close as possible to vernacular expressions, and who feels that
'African ideas, philosophy, folk-lore and imagery should be translated almost literally'
(Desai, 1993: 7). The excerpt below (Bokamba, 1982: 93) illustrates Okara's attempt to cap-
ture his native Ijaw syntax, in particular its word order and its fondness for reduplication,
in an African English:
'When Okolo came to know himself, he was lying on a floor, on a cold cold floor lying. He
opened his eyes to see but nothing he say, nothing he saw, for the darkness was evil dark-
ness and the outside night was black black night.'
This raises the question of just how far a writer should go in order to adapt English to local
vernaculars. The answer to this, I think, depends on the expected readership. The more
local the intended readership, the more 'African' the English can be. And, of course, if the
intended readership comprises only speakers of the same language and this is one con-
trolled by the writer, then the writer will write in the local language. This recalls the now
familiar identity-communication continuum. But this is not to say that African writers
must abandon African English if they wish to reach a global audience. Achebe's fellow
Nigerian Wole Soyinka, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, has argued
that 'when we borrow an alien language ... we must stretch it, impact and compact it, frag-
ment and reassemble it .. .' (Schmied, 1991: 126). And, in the view of the present author,
Okara's attempt to represent the essence of his vernacular in an African English is extreme-
ly successful. It is full of menace and mystery. The use of the vernacular also captures the
essence of a culture even at a more mundane level. Kachru (1983: 222) quotes Okara's use of
the Ijaw expression 'may we live to see ourselves again tomorrow' as an example of a
nativised English. This carries a real feeling of the local culture which would be complete-
ly lost were Okara to write what would appear in comparison to be a very tame 'goodnight'.
One of the most famous experiments in writing in a uniquely African style is the novel
by Ken Saro-Wiwa, Sozaboy: A Novel in Rotten English. Saro-Wiwa was a Nigerian activist
and member of the Ogoni people who was executed by the Nigerian government in 1995· In
the author's note to the novel, Saro-Wiwa explains that Sozaboy (soldier boy) was 'the result
of my fascination with the adaptability of the English language and my closely observing the
speech and writings of a certain segment of Nigerian society' (1985). The book opens:
Although, everybody in Dukana was happy at first. All the nine villages were dancing and
we were eating plenty maize with pear and knacking tory under the moon. Because the
work on the farms have finished and the yams were growing well well. And because the
old bad government have dead, and the new government of soza and police have come.
[knacking tory means swapping stories; soza means soldiers]
Soon, however, things start to deteriorate:

Radio begin dey ha/a as 'e never hala before. Big big grammar. Long long words.
Every time.
Before before, the grammar was not plenty and everybody was happy. But now grammar
began to be plenty and people were not happy. As grammar plenty, na so trouble plenty.
And as trouble plenty, na so plenty people were dying.'
[hala: literally 'holler' and thus broadcast. Significantly, grammar comes to mean govern-
ment regulations.]
To what extent can English represent African concepts and ways of knowing, the functions
that were discussed in the previous chapter on Indian and Sri Lankan ways of knowing?
Oladipo believes that they can, and that African world views can be interpreted in lan-
guages other than the indigenous ones which constitute the original media of their expres-
sion, but that great care must be taken to ensure that alien idioms reflect 'the
institutionalised intentions, objectives and practices which inform their supposed African
equivalents' (1995: 405).
So, can English be adapted so that it can adequately reflect Africanness? While some
African writers argue strongly that it cannot and that English remains a tool of postcolo-
nial domination, the majority feel comfortable writing in an African form of English and
feel that it represents an appropriate medium for African literature and ideas. The general
feeling is that English can be Africanised and adapted. Desai is in no doubt: 'English today
is as much of an African language as it is a British or American one' (1993: 10 ).
8.7 What linguistic choices do governments have?
Governments are constantly attempting to find the right balance between English and
other languages, whether they be regional or local - and not only in Africa. In the context
of Anglophone Africa, questions that need to be asked include:
(i) What role(s) should African languages play in society and education?
(ii) What role(s) should English play in society and education?
(iii) How should one balance the mix of languages - should one use one or more of
the local languages, a local language and English, or just English?
(iv) If English is to be taught in schools, which variety of English should be taught?
Schmied (1989) usefully summarises the possible contradictions and tensions inherent in
making these choices. If a mother tongue is chosen, this will be seen as restrictive by many
stakeholders. First, many parents may want their children educated through English as
they feel that this will give their children the best chance of a good education and self-
advancement. Second, parents whose mother tongue is not the one chosen as the medium of
education will Qaturally be upset. In Africa this is a major issue. What local language( s) should
be used as the media of education in Nigeria where hundreds of languages are spoken? And
would not insisting on one or two local languages as media of instruction lead to national dis-
unity in multilingual nations? In South Africa everyone has the right to be educated through
their language of choice, although this is significantly tempered by the addition of the words
'where practicable'. Titlestad (1998) reports that, in practice, this means that there have to be
at least 45 children at any level who wish for a certain language of instruction.
If English is chosen as the medium of education, on the other hand, then the govern-
ment can be charged with setting an elitist agenda and of damaging, undermining and
devaluing indigenous languages. Then there is the question of which variety of English to
choose. If an exonormative model is chosen, the government can be charged with extend-
ing the cultural domination of previous colonial powers. If a local variety is chosen, the
government can be charged with promoting education in an internationally unviable or
unintelligible variety of English. Titlestad (1998) takes this to the extreme by saying that
choosing an indigenous variety of English for South African schools would help complete
the agenda of the 1953 apartheid government's Bantu Education Act 'by unfitting South
Africa from benefiting from the knowledge that English can confer' (1998: 36).
In terms of balance between languages, governments can introduce English as a medi-
um of instruction early on in primary school or just make it a subject for study at primary
school and introduce it as a medium of instruction at secondary, or even tertiary level. Or
they can require that certain 'science' subjects be taught in English and that 'humanities'
subjects be taught in the local language(s).
These are crucial decisions, as there is a definite danger in the over-promotion of
English at the expense of local languages, as the experience of Zambia shows. In Zambia,
English was introduced as the sole medium of instruction in all primary schools in 1964
and local languages were taught only as subjects. This policy has since been severely criti-
cised for damaging local languages and making them seem inferior to English, the 'source
of all knowledge' (Schmied, 1989: 107).
As well as these political questions, there are a range of pedagogical issues to be con-
sidered. Which is better for a child's cognitive development: to be taught in one or two lan-
guages? Which is better for a child's feeling of self worth and self esteem: to be taught in the
language of home or in a language representative of a different culture?
There are also practical considerations. Are there enough proficient and trained teach-
ers to teach in English if this is the decision that is made? It can occur that governments have
ruled that an exonormative variety of English be the classroom model and then expect poor-
ly trained second-language speakers of English whose own variety of English is the local vari-
ety, or whose level of proficiency is low, to teach it. The result can be an English classroom
where the English lesson is characterised by a teacher laboriously translating an English text
into a local language and by frequent code-mixing. This is particularly common in rural and
poorer schools, of which there are many, and where resources are extremely limited.
Education can stir high emotions. If the wrong choices, or choices that the majority
disagree with, are made, opposition, even violent opposition, as in the Soweto uprising of
1976, can be expected. In Sudan, when Arabic, the mother tongue of more than 50 per cent
of the population, replaced English as the official language, civil wars ensued (Awoniyi, 1995).
What, then, is the answer? In 1953 a British government document suggested that
English was important for Africans for three main reasons, namely: to act as a lingua fran-
ca; to provide a medium for technical knowledge; and to be a means of contact with world
thought (Schmied, 1991: 18). At the time many Africans petitioned for English to be used as
early as possible in schools and a dispute arose, similar to the one that began in India in the
nineteenth century between the 'Anglicists' and the 'Orientalists' that we reviewed in
Chapter 7. Now some so-called 'Anglicists' have moved, in one sense at least, to the
Orientalist way of thinking by arguing for a local indigenous variety of English.
There is no easy answer and no answer that will be generally suitable. Each country
has to take decisions based on its own specific situation. I consider the issue of the choice
of 'which English' in the final part of this book, but, in the context of Africa, my view is that
the adoption of an African variety of English is the choice that is both most viable and most
appropriate in both Nigeria and South Africa. African Englishes can represent African cul-
tures and thought, while at the same time maintaining international intelligibility. The
choice of an African variety of English also undermines the arguments of those who see the
choice of English as tantamount to continuing to submit to the cultural domination of
'English'. However, I shall end this chapter with a quote that cautions against officially
imposing English in inappropriate contexts. The quote describes the problems that have
derived from making English the official language in Botswana's parliament. This is espe-
cially significant because, if any institution should allow the use of the common language
of its people, it is a democratic parliament:
In Parliament the official means for conducting the official business and debates is
English. The practice is a strain on the verbal competence of most members of parlia-
ment, who have not had a high standard of education. To some the use of English is a real
impediment to meaningful communication and hinders their contribution to parliamen-
tary debates. The result is that most parliamentarians make up for their lack of profi-
ciency by supporting the evening parliamentary review programme, entitled 'Dikgangtsa
Palamente', which is conducted in Setswana. In this programme parliamentarians fight to
be allotted time to say to the nation what was communicated inadequately in English
during the debates.
(Schmied, i991: 25)
g Englishes of South-East Asia .... colonial
descendants?
South-East Asia covers a wide geographical area in which several culturally and lin-
guistically distinct countries are found. These include the countries of the Association of
South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), an organisation which was founded in 1967. ASEAN
now comprises the following ten countries, listed here in alphabetical order:
Brunei Cambodia Indonesia Laos Malaysia

Myanmar The Philippines Singapore Thailand Vietnam
In this chapter, the situation with regard to the Englishes of Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei
and the Philippines will be described. In Chapter 11, the role of English as an international
lingua franca will be considered with a specific focus on its role in ASEAN. In other words,
these two chapters are closely connected, with the first considering the established outer
circle Englishes of Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore, and the second consid-
ering the expanding circle Englishes of the remaining six ASEAN countries and the use of
English as a lingua franca in ASEAN as a whole.
9.1 Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei
In 1826 the British established the colony of the 'Straits Settlements' which comprised
the major trading posts of Singapore; Malacca, a town on the west coast of peninsular
Malaysia; and the island of Penang, off the northwest coast of Malaysia. Predictably, this is
where the British established the first English medium schools. The school in Penang was
founded in 1816, the one in Singapore in 1823 and the one in Malacca in 1826.
The colonial government both encouraged and imported migrant labour to harvest
the country's two great natural resources, tin and rubber. In the second half of the nine-
teenth century, a 'massive influx of Chinese' arrived to work in the tin mines and workers
from southern India were recruited to work on the rubber plantations (Hashim, 2002: 77).
Malaysia and Singapore have shared much of their colonial history and, after inde-
pendence, were for a short time both part of the Federation of Malaysia, until Singapore's
decision to withdraw in 1965. Despite sharing so much colonial history, what is of particu-
lar interest is the difference in the roles English has played and continues to play in each
country.
At the time of independence in 1957, English and Malay were the official languages of
the new Malaysia, but the new government was keen to improve the standing of the Malay
119
population and started to give precedence to the Malay language, Bahasa Malaysia. This was
one reason that led to Singapore separating from the Federation of Malaysia in 1965. This
difference in attitude to the respective roles of English and Malay can partly be explained
by considering the population make-up of the countries. Both Singapore and Malaysia are
multicultural and multilingual societies and, in the main, share the same mix of languages
and cultures. However, there is a significant difference in the proportional make-up of the
populations in each country. The current population of Malaysia is about 20 million.
Malays and other indigenous peoples constitute about 60 per cent of this number, with the
Chinese (30 per cent), South Asian (8 per cent) making up most of the remainder (Hashim,
2002). In Singapore, on the other hand, the Chinese make up the great majority of the pop-
ulation, while the Malay and South Indian populations form small minorities.
Although the ethnic Malays constitute the largest group in Malaysia, the Malaysian
Chinese traditionally held the economic power in the country. On independence, the
Malaysian government desired to improve the lot of the ethnic Malays and chose to do so
by adopting policies of what might be called 'positive discrimination'. One such policy was
the National Language Act, introduced in 1967. It decreed that education, from primary
through to tertiary, would, in the main, move to a Malay medium, although certain pri-
mary schools could teach in either Tamil or Chinese. All English-medium schools were to
be phased out, a process that was completed by the middle of the 1980s. English was :q.o
longer a requirement for tertiary education.
The politician most associated with this Malaysianisation policy was Dr Mahathir
Mohamed, the Prime Minister from 1981 to 2003. One consequence of the policy to phase
out English-medium education was that many tens of thousands of Malaysians, especially
the ethnic Chinese, went overseas to English-speaking countries to pursue their education
there. Universities in the English-speaking world have done particularly well out of this, as
these students all pay international fees and have thus provided the universities with
extremely welcome additional funding.
Towards the end of his period of power, Dr Mahathir and others in the government
began to show concern at the apparently declining levels of English proficiency and the
importance of English is again being stressed. For example, all students wanting to enter
Malaysian universities must now pass the so-called Malaysian University English Test
(MUET).
Recently it has been estimated (McArthur, 2002) that some 20 per cent of the popu-
lation of Malaysia understand English and some 25 per cent of those who live in urban areas
use it 'for some purposes in everyday life' (2002: 335). It remains a language of prestige and
is important in the domains of government, business and the professions (David, 2000).
The history of English in Singapore and its roles today are quite different. By 1947,
some 32 per cent of Singaporean school students were studying in English-medium
schools. The others were studying in Chinese-, Malay- or Tamil-medium schools. While it
might be expected that a country with a large ethnically Chinese majority would promote
Chinese-medium schools, the success of the Chinese Communist Party with the establish-
ment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 caused the Singaporean government to view
Englishes of South-East Asia - colonial descendants? 121
Chinese-medium education as a possible breeding ground for young communists. Thus the
Chinese-medium university was closed. In this context it should be remembered that there
was a virtual civil war taking place in Malaysia and Singapore - the coyly termed
'Emergency' - and the main antagonists were ethnic Chinese under the leadership of Chen
Ping, who was branded a communist first by the colonial and then by the national govern-
ment. The upheavals that took place in China in the i95os and 1960s, culminating in the
Cultural Revolution, simply added to this suspicion of Chinese-medium education, espe-
cially as the communists seemed to be taking hold in neighbouring Indonesia.
Since 1987, English has virtually been the sole medium of education in Singapore at
all levels - 'virtually' because there are a small number of special schools for gifted students
that teach through Chinese and English media. So, although English, Mandarin Chinese,
Malay and Tamil remain the four national languages of Singapore, the language policy
requires all its people to speak English and their own mother tongue. It is a bilingual lan-
guage policy of 'English + i'.
While the government has been suspicious of Chinese-medium education, it has
encouraged the learning of Mandarin Chinese by Singaporean Chinese, the majority of
whom are mother tongue speakers of the dialect of Fujien Province, Hokkien. The 'Speak
Mandarin' campaign of the early i98os has proved remarkably successful, especially in so
far as most young ethnically Chinese Singaporeans now fluently converse in Mandarin. But,
as I discovered when I was teaching in Singapore in the early i98os, the success of this cam-
paign has led to unexpected results, not all of them welcome. Before the Speak Mandarin
campaign, the school-ground lingua franca was a colloquial form of English and/or a form
of pidgin Malay. The students all spoke these languages, whatever their ethnic background.
After the start of the Speak Mandarin campaign, however, Mandarin quickly became the
lingua franca of the ethnically Chinese students, but it was an exclusive lingua franca, as the
ethnically Malay and South Asian students did not understand it. This has led to an unfore-
seen linguistic division between the majority ethnic Chinese and the rest of the population.
The importance of English as the language of Singaporean identity has therefore been
heightened further.
A second consequence of the 'English + i' policy has been the emergence of many stu-
dents who are not perfectly literate in either English or their'+ i' language. In terms of read-
ing and writing many students far prefer to use English for two major reasons. First, its
script takes less time to learn than the Chinese script. Second, there is a far wider range of
writing in English and across different media, including computer-mediated scripts, than
in Chinese and certainly more than texts available in Malay and Tamil. This has meant that
many students are proficient in the spoken forms of their'+ i' language but are not ade-
quately literate in it. The problem will be familiar to many teachers working in countries
that wish to implement a bilingual educational policy of 'English + i'. The issue will be
revisited in the next chapter in the context of Hong Kong, where the policy is for students
not only to be able to write in both Chinese and English but to be able to speak three lan -
guages: English and the mutually unintelligible Chinese 'dialects' of Cantonese and
Mandarin, or putonghua.
The situation in Brunei is different again. A British Protectorate from 1888 until 1984,
when it gained full independence, except for the period of Japanese occupation during
World War Two, Brunei had earlier been given the chance to join the Federation of Malaysia
but elected not to do so (Mclellan, 2005). The country has a very small population of only
about 300,000 people, the majority of whom are Brunei Malays. Its national ideology pro-
motes the philosophy of a Malay Islamic Monarchy (Melayu Islam Beraja) (McLellan, 2005:
15). Brunei Malay is a distinct variety of Malay and students are also expected to learn·stan-
dard Malay. With regard to English, the government introduced a bilingual education pol-
icy in 1985 which promotes the use of both standard Malay and English, but in different
domains. Malay is the medium of instruction in the first years of primary school; in later
primary and throughout secondary school Malay and English both act as media of instruc-
tion, with Malay being used to teach 'humanities' type subjects and English used to teach
'science' type subjects (Jones, 1996). There is only one university, the University of Brunei,
where the medium of instruction is primarily English.
Despite these differences in the history and roles of English in the respective coun-
tries, the Englishes of Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore share many linguistic features. A
selection of these is exemplified below.
9.2 Linguistic features
The English of Singapore and Malaysia has commonly been described in terms of a lectal
continuum (Platt and Weber, 1980) which ranges from basilect, through mesolect to acrolect.
This can be contrasted with the continuum described for Australian English, operating from
r broad through general to cultivated (Delbridge, 1999, and see Chapter 6).As I have explained in
earlier chapters, I prefer to use terms such as 'cultivated', 'general' and 'broad', as these do not sug-
gest a creole continuum, as this, in turn, suggests that the acrolect is somehow closer to a stan-
dard and thus 'better' than the basilect. The avoidance of judgmental terms is particularly
important in countries where it can be argued that there are many speakers of the respective
varieties of English who are native speakers of it, learning it either as a mother tongue or from a
very early age and using it across a range of public and private domains and with one another.
Le Page (1984) has similarly argued that the use of a linear continuum from basilect
to acrolect is not appropriate for Singapore and he proposes instead a 'multidimensional
one' (1984: 121). It is perhaps helpful to see these continua as being measures of relative for-
mality (Gupta, 1988), with the broad or basilectal stage representing the most informal end.
The use of the broad, or basilectal, variety can thus be the most appropriate variety to use
in certain contexts. Colloquial varieties are appropriate in colloquial contexts.
Unless otherwise stated, the linguistic features described below represent the variety
spoken by well-educated people in relatively formal contexts.
9.2.1 Phonology
The information here draws heavily on Brown and Deterding (2005: 7-14).
Singaporean English does not distinguish between pairs of vowels that are distinct
phonemes in RP. Thus in the pairs of vowel sounds /I/ and /i:/, /a:/ and /A/, /J:/ and /o/,
/u:/ and /u/, both vowels are short and pronounced more or less the same, so that, for
example, the vowel sounds in 'scenic' are pronounced the same as in /srmk/. The two
vowels /el and /a;:,/ are pronounced as le/, and the diphthong /er/ can be pronounced as a
monophthong le/.
With regard to consonant sounds, the pairs /p/ and /b/, !ti and /d/, !kl and /g/, /tJ/
and /d3/, If/ and /v/, /8/ and fol, Isl and /z/ and /s/ and /3/ may be pronounced the same,
especially when in final position. The notorious dental fricatives are pronounced /ti and
!di in initial position and often !fl and /v/ in final position.
Singaporean English also displays a tendency towards syllable-timing. At the level of
the word, Singaporean English may either give each syllable equal stress, or when one syl-
lable is stressed, the stress may be on a different syllable from that stressed in RP. In the fol-
lowing examples, the syllables of 'polytechnic' receive equal stress, while the primary stress
of'Europe' is on the second syllable (Brown and Deterding, 2005: 10):
No, I was from the polytechnic.

Europe
A difference between Malaysian and Singaporean English is that Singaporean English is
non-rhotic, but Malaysian speakers sound post-vocalic Ir/ in certain contexts.
In terms of its international intelligibility, relatively formal Singaporean English has
proved to be extremely intelligible to speakers of other varieties of English and to people
for whom English is not a first language. In a recent study (Kirkpatrick and Saunders,
2005), samples of educated male and female Singaporean speech were played to groups of
students studying at a large university in Australia. The groups included first-language
speakers of Australian, American and British Englishes and first-language speakers of sev-
eral other languages including Norwegian, Hebrew, Chinese, Arabic and Afrikaans. The
groups listened only once to each sample and were asked to answer comprehension ques-
tions on it. They were also asked to say whether they thought the speakers were intelligent
and whether they would like to meet them. The great majority had very little difficulty
understanding the speakers and, interestingly, based their answers to whether they thought
the speakers were intelligent or interesting/likeable on the basis of what they had said rather
than on the 'accent' of the speakers. The only people who found it difficult to understand
what was being said were listeners whose own proficiency in English was weak, despite
being currently enrolled in an Australian university.
9.2.2 Lexis
As one would expect, borrowings from local languages are common. This example of
a Malay phrase comes from Lowenberg (1991: 367):
'The residents will repair the roofs on a gotong-royong basis.' (gotong-royong means
some form of communal co-operation)
A second example comes from Hashim (2002: 83):

'The corruption case as highlighted under the Road Transport Department's /esen terbang
is one ....' (/esen terbang literarally means 'flying licence' and refers to illegal licences)
Other borrowings from Malay include makan (food), kecil makan (little food, thus a snack,
and note that the Malay word order is makan kecil), adat (traditional law), kampong (tra-
ditional Malay village), bomoh (a traditional Malay medicine man), amok (crazy) and
barang (luggage, bits and pieces). Hybrids are frequent, so 'amok' combines with 'run' to
give 'to run amok', which means to become uncontrollable with panic or anger. A 'dadah
addict' is a drug addict.
Some Malay words have seen a shift in their semantic range on transfer into English.
Lowenberg (1991) provides these two examples. The first concerns the word bumiputra, a
key word in Malay politics. It literally means 'son of the soil', but has now come to refer to
ethnic Malays, so the semantic range has been narrowed. The second shows the opposite
tendency, as the semantic range of the word rakyat has been broadened from its original
meaning of ethnic rural Malays to the Malaysian people in general.
Semantic shift is also evident when English words become part of Bruneian English
and or Brunei Malay. For example the word 'confident' (konfiden) has only negative con-
notations and means over-confident or arrogant. In the same way, 'proud' has only nega-
tive connotations and is a translation equivalent of the Malay word sombong, which means
haughty (McLellan, 2005: 39).
Semantic shift is also evident in English words. If you offer to send someone to the
airport, you are offering to accompany them there. In informal contexts, people 'on and off
the light' or 'open and close it'. A 'crocodile' refers to a womaniser and derives from a Malay
use of the Malay word for crocodile (buaya). And Singaporeans constantly enquire of for-
eigners, 'Can you take spicy food'?
Semantic shift also occurs in certain ordinate and superordinate nouns. For example
'Christian' is a superordinate term in British English and refers to all followers of the
Christian religion, no matter to which branch or sect of it they belong. In Singaporean
English, 'Christian' specifically refers to Protestants (Deterding, 2000). Similarly, 'alphabet'
in English refers to the whole system of letters while in Singaporean English it refers to any
one of them. Thus, in Singaporean English, the word 'alphabet' is made up of 8 alphabets.
The different cultural and ethnic mix of the population can be seen from the way
different religions refer to special prayer days in English, as the two examples below show:
'9th Moon 24th Day' (female Chinese Buddhist)
'The 6th day prayers will be held at Wada Gurdwara Sahib on 2nd September 2000
between 3Pm and 5pm' (male Punjabi Sikh)

(David and Yong, 2002: i72)
9.2.3 Grammar
In common with many other varieties of English, articles are used in fewer environ -
ments. While this is a frequent feature in colloquial Singaporean English, as in 'you have
ti~',
pelt-6r not?' (McArthur, 2002), it is also apparent in written texts. Gupta (1988) provides
these example~, '
\ /--'!
~
'Mortality rate is high', and 'General Secretary is William Wan'

(1988: 42)
Gupta also reports a tendency to use infinitive verb phrases in contexts where a gerund
might be used. For example:
'I have great pleasure to report on .. .'.and 'I take pride to announce .. .'
(1988: 41)
Other common features found in both formal and informal varieties include differences in
preposition usage and the shift of uncountable nouns to countables. Examples of the latter
include 'chalks, luggages, sceneries, and slangs' (1988: 42). It is perhaps worthwhile rem-
embering, however, that 'information' is listed as a countable nOJi:ll in Samuel Johnson's
I ./
dictionary (see Chapter 4). The invariant tag quesj:ipns 'is ''-it?' and 'isn't it?' are
common, especially in more informal contexts and 'alrJ~dy' can act as an aspect marker
as in 'my father already pass away', and 'you finish makan already' (Platt, Weber and Ho,
1984: 71).
A further common grammatical feature of these Englishes concerns the marking of
past tense forms. In a fascinating study, Platt (1991) showed that there were considerable
differences in the frequency of past tense marking and that these depended on three sepa-
rate variables. The first was the comparative level of education the speaker had received -
the more educated the speakers, the more frequently they marked for past tense. The sec-
ond variable was the phonetic environment in which the past tense marker occurred. Verbs
that formed their past tense with a consonant cluster had the lowest degree of past tense
marking. Thus a verb like 'walk' whose past tense in standard British English is marked with
the consonant cluster /kt/ would not include the final /t/ sound.
The third variable depended on whether the action being described was a single action
or one that was iterative or habitual. Platt found that when the speaker was describing a sin-
gle action (for example, 'I left for Hong Kong last night'), the past tense was marked over 90
per cent of the time. But when the speaker was describing a habitual action (for example,
'Whenever he leaves the lights on I got angry') the past tense was never marked. This sup-
ported the findings Bickerton (1981) reported in his study on Guyanese Creole (GC) and
Hawaiian Creole English (HCE). He showed that the past tense is marked more frequently
for single or 'punctual' events, and far less frequently for habitual or 'non-punctual' events.
Examples (translated into English) of non-punctual events include the past continuous
('while we were paddling') and the past habitual ('he kept telling me') (1981: 29).
Variety Punctual past tense marking Non-punctual past tense marking

GC 38% 12%
HCE 53% 7%
I have argued that the major cause of change is due to contact with other languages, but, if
this is the case, how can the many shared features be explained? Crane (1994) pointed out
that the simplification of inflections for tense occurred not just in the varieties of English
where the mother tongues of speakers had no tense inflection, but also in varieties of
English where the mother tongues of the speakers did inflect for tense. He therefore pro-
posed that the similarities across varieties are due to a 'pan-linguistic grammatical sim-
plification process' (1994: 358). It may be that both theories - language contact and
'pan-simplification' - can be accommodated by suggesting that many of the local languages
that have influenced English themselves share many grammatical features. Theories of uni-
versal grammar may help shed light on this. For example, a feature of Singaporean English
that appears to be caused by influence from local languages is 'subjec;t droPPi!1J{ This not
only occurs in informal settings but also in formal written texts (Deterding, 2000). This
looks likely to be caused by direct influence from Chinese languages as these are, unlike
English, 'pro-drop' languages that allow for no noun to be in subject position. For example,
the Modern Standard Chinese for 'it's raining' is xia yu (literally 'down rain'). British
English is a non-pro-drop language and thus requires a noun in subject position in order
for it to be grammatically acceptable. So a dummy subject has to be brought in to give the
grammatically acceptable 'it's raining'.
The headline below from the Singapore Straits Times newspaper provides an interest-
ing example of this 'pro-drop' feature of Singaporean English (Deterding, 2000):
'Hurt girlfriend with lighted butt'
As Singaporean English is a pro-drop language, this is grammatically acceptable and the

Singaporean reader automatically provides a subject, probably something like 'Boyfriend'
here so that the headline means 'her boyfriend hurt his girlfriend with a lighted (cigarette)
butt'. In British English, however, subject dropping is not possible. The headline will be
interpreted as a subject noun phrase and the reader will need to provide a predicate for the
sentence. This necessarily completely alters the meaning of the sentence. 'Hurt girlfriend
with lighted butt (subject) jumped into bath to put herself out (predicate)' becomes a
grammatically acceptable sentence of British English.
Second, the preference in Singaporean English for paratactic over hypotactic con-
structions may stem from differences in the parameter setting of universal grammar, as this
occurs in many varieties of English, including African. Thus the Chinese stylistic preference
for parallel conjunctions (Kirkpatrick, 1995) can be seen in the written English of many
Singaporeans so that sentences like the following are common:
'Though it may not be a direct translation, but it is more acceptable in English.'
(Deterding, 2000: 206)
The use of certain particles in Singaporean English (such as 'lah' in the examples below),
however, looks to be a direct transfer from local languages, rather than from a different
parameter in the universal grammar of the local languages. This particle use is therefore
specific to the Englishes of Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei:
'I didn't buy the dress lah'
'For Chinese New Year, we makejam tarts, jelly, love-letters, all lah'
(Platt, Weber and Ho, 1984: 57/63)
'But still, try lah'

(Hashim, 2002: 88)
In sum, features that are shared by many new varieties of English can be explained by the
transfer of parameter settings in universal grammar. Features that are specific to one vari-
ety can be explained by the transfer of a language-specific feature into the new variety.
9.2-4 Code-mixing
In multilingual countries code-mixing (the use of more than one language or variety
intra-sententially, i.e. in the same utterance or sentence) and code-switching (the use of
different languages or varieties inter-sententially) is common and natural.
Despite its frequency, or perhaps because of it, some scholars and self-appointed
guardians of linguistic morality view both code-mixing and code-switching as a sign of lin-
guistic poverty or deficiency and rail against it. Code-mixed English Malay has been given the
negative term bahasa rojak. Rojak is a type of Indonesian mixed salad dish, so bahasa rojak
means mixed language. Its use is frequently condemned in the local media (Mclellan,
2005: 45).
One reason for assuming that a code-mixed variety is in some way inferior to a
'pure' one is that is has been commonly assumed that code-mixed texts are formed with
one language providing the grammatical framework and the second providing lexical
items. This has been challenged in a recent study of language use in a Brunei internet dis-
cussion forum (Mclellan, 2005). Mclellan has shown that code-mixing is systematic and
that code-mixed and code-switched texts, far from being deficient, are linguistically
extremely sophisticated. He has also convincingly argued that many of the code-mixed
texts show a more or less equal amount of grammar and lexis from both languages. In
order to be able to produce texts such as the examples below the user must be fluent in
both English and Malay and also know how to combine them to create a third code. The
first example contains more English, the second more Malay. The Malay components are
italicised. The 2 after barang signifies a plural marker barang barang, many items of lug-
gage or 'stuff:
'Frankly speaking, baiktahjangan dibali barang 2yg kena auction atu, bukannya apa, if we
buy them, in a way, we are helping those who have used buit ketani for their personal
interest to pay for their debts. Mana tia yang dulu the famous 7 org atu. Inda kedengaran.
Has the trial started? It's so sad, isn't it, how our beloved country jadi cemani.'
'As for me, Bruclass ani my mind opener wa/aupun ada masanya idea atu inda sehati
dengan contributors. I have also been proud meliat idea-idea yang diusu/kan menun-
jukkan anak2 Berunai ani pintar dan befikiran. Mungkin cara penyampaian seseorang atu
berbeda and ada mesanya tunggang tebalik, panjang (like me) and payah kan dicompre-
hend, but at the end of the day it's one opportunity untuk diorang meluahkan isihati demi
kepentingan Negara. Samada diterima atau inda atu terserah/ah.'
(McLellan, 2005: 270)
In his study, McLellan found that texts of this type co-existed with monolingual Malay and
monolingual English texts. He has proposed that these code-mixed texts constitute a sys-
tematic third code or variety and suggests that the relation between Malay, English and
code-mixed texts of the type exemplified above is 'complimentary, perhaps even as inter-
dependent' (2005: 177).
Hashim (1002: 86) illustrates a different type of code-switching with this excerpt from
a short story, 'Everything's arranged', by the Malaysian writer Siew Yue Killingsley. In the
excerpt below, the author code-switches between English of different levels of formality.
This type of code-switching is common in all varieties of English. The more colloquial vari-
ety is in italics:
'Sitting in the lounge, watching the distracting and excited girls rushing by with packed
cases, longing to go home to some decent food, Rukumani asked Devanayagam, 'This
time you think you can write or not? Can send to Amy's house what. My mother likes her
mother. I can easily go there to get your letters. But I think better you don't put my name
outside. Can just put "Miss Amy Wong''. She knows your writing and won't open.'
The above excerpts and examples show that, while the roles of English in the three coun-
tries differ, English is used in a wide variety of domains and by different types of people in
all three. The importance of identity is common, however. In the context of Malaysia,
Hashim argues that the features of Malaysian English are important in 'establishing ...
national identity' (1002: 92). In the context of Brunei, Ramly, Othman and McLellan con-
clude that Bruneians 'would like to echo the claim that they have some control over English
but that English has no control whatsoever over them' (1002: 105).
But it is, of course, not quite as simple as that. As earlier chapters have illustrated, in
any multilingual and multicultural society, there will always be intense argument over the
role of specific languages. In a recent study on the relationship between language and iden-
tity, Lee (1004) investigated how the acquisition of English had influenced the identities of
three well-educated Malaysian women of different ethnic backgrounds. She found that
there was wide difference of opinion between the three. The Malaysian Tamil subject
asserted that it was essential for her to know Tamil in order to appreciate her cultural her-
itage. The Straits Chinese subject felt that languages were 'just assets in one's repertoire of
skills and the more one knows the better' (1004: 117). The third subject, an ethnic Chinese
who speaks Hainanese and Cantonese, but not Mandarin, deliberately chose to speak
English at all times when in the presence of Mandarin-speaking Chinese. This was because
she had been criticised at times in the past for not being fully Chinese, because she could
not speak Mandarin. She herself felt that one did not necessarily have to speak Chinese to
be Chinese. Lee concludes that there are no right and wrong answers and as educators 'we
must teach tolerance and the right to agree or disagree ... at the same time we must be
aware of the dangers of ethnocentrism and we must teach an appreciation of our cultural
diversity and empathy for others ... no matter what tongue we speak, alien or mother'
(2004: 124).
This complexity can also be seen in the development of Malaysian literature in
English. Quayum (2003) points out that, with the 1967 National Language Act and subse-
quent amendments to it, English and writing in English fell out of favour. The Act raised
the status of Bahasa Malaysia, and Sastera Melayu or Malay literature, because of its sym-
biotic relationship with the language, became the national literature, while literatures in
other languages, including English, 'were but Kesusasteraan sukuan or sectional literatures'
(2003: xvii). Writers who wrote in English moved to write only in Malay. One such,
Mohammed Haji Salleh, recalling the view of the Sri Lankan poet Wikkramasinha, men-
tioned in Chapter 7, is quoted by Quayum as asking, 'should I lick the hand that strangles
my language and culture?' (2003: xv).
With the importance of English for national development again recognised, attitudes
to English are changing and 'the earlier hostilities towards the language, fresh from the
memories of colonial oppression and exploitation, have slowly eased and subsided'
(Quayum, 2003: xviii).
Two examples of Malaysian poetry in English, one by Mohammed Haji Salleh him-
self, are included on the accompanying CD. In the next section, the situation in the
Philippines is considered.
9.3 The Philippines
The linguistic background and colonial history of the Philippines provides an illumi-
nating example of the development of a new variety of English. The Philippines is made up
of a population of some 72 million people who together speak some 85 Malayo-Polynesian
languages and live on some 7,000 islands. The country was named after Philip II of Spain,
and it was a colony of Spain from 1521 until it came under American rule in 1895. Like the
Cameroon, therefore, which was colonised by both the French and the English, the
Philippines has experienced two colonial masters. This particular combination of colonial
influence has been described as combining 'monarchical Catholic Spain' with a republican
'quasi-imperial United States' (McArthur, 2002: 344).
Within three years of coming under American control, seven schools were opened in
Manila by the American military and 'public education ... was an essential component of
military strategy ... and throughout the American colonial period, English was systemat-
ically promoted as the language that would "civilise" the Filipinos' (Martin, 2002: 201-2).
In 1901, six years after the beginning of American rule, English-medium education
was introduced, with English being the medium of instruction for all schools (Gonzalez,
1997). In 1935 the Philippines became a self-governing commonwealth and received inde-
pendence in 1946. At the time of independence its colonial history was evident in the estab-
lishment of both English and Spanish as national languages, along with the local language
Tagalog (Filipino).
Foreshadowing the bilingual policy introduced into Brunei in 1985, the government of
the Philippines introduced a similar policy of bilingual education in 1974· English became
a school subject at primary level and a medium of instruction for science and maths at sec-
ondary level. Bautista summarises this by saying Filipino was for 'culture-loaded' subjects
and English for 'culture-free' ones (2004: 4).
The increase in the numbers of Filipinos claiming to speak English shows that the
education policies have been successful. In 1901, English was spoken only by a very few, but
by the 1980 census, 64.5 per cent of the population claimed to be able to speak English
(Gonzalez, 1997: 29). Despite this, Thompson has argued that the future of English is bleak
as, on the one hand, it is no longer regarded as useful for socio-economic advancement and,
on the other, 'once an intellectual version of Filipino is accepted for a wide variety of
scientific, technical and professional purposes, English will die out except among a select
few' (2003: 265). However, this view is not shared by Filipino scholars. Garcia (1997) feels
that translations of scholarship into Filipino would be far too costly and time-consuming.
This is an important point and is relevant to other languages, as it would simply be impos-
sible to translate all the articles currently published in English in academic journals.
Decisions about which journals and which articles to translate would have to be made. She
also disagrees with Thompson's claims that English is not important for socio-economic
advancement. Her view is that English remains the preferred language, not only in science
and technology, but also in government, business, commerce and industry, and that it is
still the language of socio-economic mobility and advancement. Gonzalez (1997) argues
along similar lines and predicts that demand for English will not only continue but actual-
ly increase for two reasons. First, Filipino academics will have to continue to rely on
American sources for their scholarship. Second, as English is so useful for the export of
human resources and as so many Filipinos work overseas as contract workers, there is a
great demand for English 'especially at the lower socio-economic levels' (1997: 36). A third
possible reason for the increased use of English in the Philippines is the role that English
plays as a lingua franca in ASEAN and this will be described and explored in Chapter 11.
Gonzalez (1997: 39) concludes that the 'revivification' of English will be represented by
Filipino English which will be marked by an attenuated phonological system, 'Filipinisms'
and local collocational rules, and a fully restructured system of tense, aspect and articles
(1997: 36). The next section of the chapter describes a selection of these features.
9-4 Linguistic features of Philippine English
9-4·1 Phonology
Gonzalez has claimed that the first language of speakers of Philippine English (PE) is
'almost always recognisable, even among the elite' (1991: 324). He is referring to being able
to identify the first language of PE speakers from their accent. He also points out that
'almost from the beginning, Filipinos learned English from Filipinos and the seeds of what
we now call Philippine English began' (1997: 26-7). As will be seen in the next chapter,
phonological variation is even more evident in the case of Chinese speakers of English.
Nevertheless, certain phonological features have been identified for Philippine English,
many of which occur in other varieties.
As McArthur (2002: 344ff.) notes, PE is rhotic and has a tendency towards syllable-
timing. He describes its intonation as 'singsong' -like. There is no phonemic distinction
between the /I/ and /i:/ or between /u/ and /u:/ and the diphthong /ou/ is sounded as /'J:/.
The following tables of the vowel and consonant sounds of cultivated Philippine
English are taken from Gonzalez (1997: 32-3).
The vowel and consonant sounds of cultivated Philippine English
u
(I) (U)
(;:i)
ey (o)
e 0
(re) a
p t c k
b d g
(<!>) s s h
(o) (z) (z) m
n
I
m n ng
I
r
w y
9-4.2 Lexis
As would be expected, the vocabulary of Philippine English derives from a range of
phenomena including semantic and part-of-speech shift, loan translations, coinages and
creative innovations, compounds and hybrids. Unless otherwise indicated, the examples
below come from Bautista (1997b: 49-72).
The adoption of certain brand names to refer to the articles in general is one example
of semantic shift. For example 'pampers' refers to disposable nappies in general and 'col-
gate' to toothpaste. A similar process can be seen in other varieties of English where
'hoover' has come to refer to all vacuum cleaners and 'xerox' to all photocopying machines.
Part-of-speech shifts can be seen in the following examples:
'Sorry I'm late, it was so traffic'

'Why are you so high-blood again? What's upsetting you?'
Examples of new coinages are 'carnapper' (car thief), 'holdupper' (thief) and 'cockfighter'
(someone who raises cocks for cockfighting). Compounds include 'captain ball' (team
captain), 'green joke' (for blue joke - possibly a yellow joke in Chinese English), and
'phonepal'. Hybrids - where a compound is formed of words from different languages - are
common: 'buco juice' (the juice of a young coconut), 'pulot boy' (a tennis ball boy) and
'common tao' (an ordinary Filipino). Words for local items of flora and fauna, food and
culture naturally occur in Philippine English. This example comes from Butler (1997: 119)
and represents an excerpt from the novel View From the Middle by Asuncion David
Maramba:
'What have operated in our lives - negative values like a never-ending utang na loob (debt
of gratitude) etc., or positive values like kasipagan, katapatan (industry, honesty) etc., or
are they two sides of the same coin, now up, now down, like cara y cruz (heads or tails).'
9-4·3 Grammar
Gonzalez (1997: 39) was quoted above as saying that Philippine English is restructur-
ing the tense and aspect systems. Certain tenses are thus used in distinctive contexts
(McArthur, 2002). For example, PE speakers use the present perfect where other varieties
would use the past simple, so that a PE speaker might say 'I have seen her yesterday'. For
example:
'In a recent Senate hearing probing questionable conduct, former President Estrada has
claimed it was .. .'
(Pankratz, 2004: So)
The past perfect is often used where others might use a present perfect or past simple:
'Have some pupils tell they class what they had observed'
(Pena, i997: 92)
' ... Sen. Francis Pangilinan had already started sponsoring the proposed ... Act'
(Pankratz, 2004: So)
A second example is the PE use of the present continuous to refer to habitual actions as in
the sentence 'he is going to school regularly'.
Word order can also be distinctive as Philippine English favours a 'verb - adverb -
object' sequence as in the examples 'let the pupils read part by part the selection .. : and
'interpret orally the selection'. The interrogative order is retained in imperatives as in 'ask
what are boys fond of playing' (Pena, 1997: 91).
In her investigation into distinctive features of PE, Bautista (2005) identified three
potential candidates. She then analysed corpora collected by the International Corpus of
English (ICE) to see if these features occurred in other varieties of English.
The first feature she looked at was the PE speaker use of 'one of the +N (singular)'
phrase as in the sentence 'That's one of the related problem we will also be discussing'.
However, she discovered that this usage is also common in other varieties of English and
that it is actually more frequent in Hong Kong, Indian and Singaporean Englishes than in
PE.
The second 'typical' feature of PE she investigated was the use of the word 'majority'
without a preceding article, as in 'But a survey done by Pulse Asia shows majority of their
respondents want President Estrada to keep his post'. Again, however, she found that this usage
occurs more frequently in Indian English and, importantly, that it only occurs 30 per cent of
the time in PE. In other words PE speakers use an article with 'majority' 70 per cent of the
time.
The final feature she investigated was the distinctive PE use of 'wherein' as in the fol-
lowing two examples:
'This practice is still being done in several universities in the US okay wherein they have a
quota for different racial groups'
'Yes one potential danger if you have fall-outs from the volcanic eruption is you get a very
irritating skin disease wherein you have Ii.. a freckle-like uh spots.'
This usage of 'wherein' did prove to be distinctive and was far more frequently used in PE
than in any other variety, especially in spoken PE. Only Indian English was found to use
'wherein' more than very occasionally, but its use was nowhere near as frequent as in PE.
Bautista suggests that this distinctive use of 'wherein' in PE might be parallel to the use of
the Filipino particle na. This is commonly transferred to PE:
'And I don't like her reasoning na she doesn't wanna pay me because it's not her priority
because I have money.'
Bautista's study illustrates the value in using large corpora, like those collected by ICE, in iden-
tifying distinctive and/or shared features of varieties, as it allows researchers to analyse the use
of specific features across a wide range of varieties of English and allows researchers to iden-
tify which features are shared across several varieties and which may be specific to just one.
Such studies can therefore help determine which features are shared across varieties - and thus
possibly caused by their transfer from parameter settings in universal grammar - and which
features are specific and thus possibly caused by their transfer from just one language.
9.5 Literature in PE
The Philippines already had a flourishing literature by the time the Americans
arrived. Despite the existence of literature in the native languages, however, it was not
taught in the colonial classroom as colonial policy was not to teach local languages in the
schools. English remained the sole language of public schools until 1940 and the literary
canon taught in the schools was exclusively colonial or 'Anglo' and included Longfellow,
Lincoln, Emerson, Defoe and Shakespeare (Martin, 2002: 203).
This led to an appreciation of 'Western' writing and a rejection of traditional Filipino
fine writing. Martin cites the Filipino Head of the Department of English of a major
Philippine university writing in 1936:
' ... in writing there are certain qualities of the English language which are difficult of
assimilation in an Oriental country like ours; for whereas the best English writing
demands the crispness, sharpness, severity and economy of expression, the Oriental man-
ner of speaking and writing calls always for wordiness, ornate language, a "fine writing"
- all these being very suggestive of pleonasm and surplusage.'
(Martin, 2002: 210)
Some Filipino writers currently writing in English appear to feel that the English they write
in must be correct in this sense of being crisp, sharp and economical. In a writers' forum
held in 1993 (Bautista, 1997a: 163-76), several of the participants pointed out that they chose
not to write 'Filipinisms'. One of the participants, Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo, suggested that
a possible reason for this was that many Filipino writers were teachers and they were thus
conscious of correct classroom English (Bautista, 1997a: 170 ). Other writers took a different
stance. Gemino Abad argued that the English he used was distinctively Filipino, saying,
'English is ours. We have colonised it too' (Bautista, 1997a: 170 ). In similar vein, F. Sionil Jose
recalled a discussion with an American editor in which the editor asked if there was any-
thing Jose would like him to do. 'And I said, you can correct my grammar and correct any-
thing, but don't make me less a Filipino' (Bautista, 1997a: 168). But it is hard to understand
how 'correcting' the 'grammar' and 'everything' would result in anything other than mak-
ing the author 'less a Filipino'.
These conflicting views are instructive, as they illustrate that, even in a country that
has an established variety of English, there is still hesitation about seeing it as a worthy
medium for literature. This serves as a reminder that, along with the complexity over the
possible causes of the linguistic features of varieties of English, the extentto which these
varieties are considered acceptable and appropriate by their own speakers is as varied as the
socio-cultural and linguistic contexts in which they have developed.
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I
1o Emerging Englishes: Hong Kong and China
Introduction
While China and Hong KQpg are today part of the same country under China's 'One
Country, Two Systems' policy,i'the history and roles of English in both places have been
quite distinct, especially during the period between 1842 and 1997 when Hong Kong was a
British colonyJin this chapter, I shall briefly outline the history of English in Hong Kong
and then China, and compare the roles that English has played and is playing there.
Linguistic features of Hong Kong English (HKE) and Chinese English (CE) will be
described and the extent to which they can be considered varieties of English in their own
right will be discussed. Finally, predictions about the future of HKE and CE will be made.
10.1 English in Hong Kong
Hong Kong became a British colony in 1842 at the conclusion of the first Opium War,
fought between Britain and China. The 1842 Treaty of Nanjing was signed at the end of the
war and also opened up the Chinese cities of Amoy (Xiamen), Canton (Guangdong),
Fuzhou, Ningbo and Shanghai, as these cities became the so-called treaty ports in which the
British and other Western nations could conduct trade.
British traders had, in fact, been trading in Canton from the beginning of the nine-
teenth century. Bolton (2003) explains that there were three different groups of English-
speaking traders involved. The first group were employees of the East India Company, at
the time the most powerful trading company in the world. The second group were traders
who had their main offices in England and Scotland and later established very successful
trading companies, such as Jardine Mathieson. The third group comprised American
traders.
r
'These traders communicated with the Chinese in a form of Chinese pidgin English.
One reason for the development of this pidgin was that, in the early days, the Chinese
foi}(lg the teaching of Chinese to foreigners and only allowed a certain group of Chine~~
- the middlemen or compradores - to interact with the foreigners. This pidgin English
was considered something less than a proper language. Bolton (2003: 159) cites a
European trader as calling it an 'uncouth and ridiculous jargon'. Nevertheless, it remained
the primary means of communication between the two sides for several decades. The
following examples of this 'Canton jargon' come from Morrison's 1834 glossary and are
137
taken from Bolton (2003: 154ff.). Some of these terms, fan kwei, for example, are still
common:
Canton jargon Meaning

can do? will it do?
chop-chop very quickly
chow-chow food, to eat
cow-cow to be noisy and angry; an uproar
fan kwei foreign devil
nex' day or tomorrow nex' day the day after tomorrow
pidgeon (pidgin) from 'business'
that no makee good pidgeon the thing is ill done
The first schools established in Hong Kong were missionary schooJ§"'1St Paul's College (1851)
was the first and, in 1862, the government-run Central School was established. This later
became Queen's College. Although these schools were run by a combination of missionaries
and the government, their curricula appear to have been enlightened. Many of the mission-
aries were 'orientalists' and students of Chinese philosophy and culture. As Bolton argues, the
reason why Chinese language and culture were taught in most mission schools was because
many of the largely Protestant educators who set up the first missionary schools had 'a pro-
foundly orientalist interest not only in the Mandarin language but also the dialects of South
China' (2003: 84). Missionaries were responsible for many early translations of the Chinese
Classics and also compiled the first dictionaries. The mission schools thus taught Chinese
language and literature and, in most, the students were taught through Chinese (Boyle, 1997).
The first principal of Central School, Frederic Stewart, emphasised that 'schools should be
secular and should give strong support first to Chinese education' (Pennycook, 1998: 109).
Pennycook goes on to say that Stewart held remarkably liberal views on education, but argues
that his policies, 'although apparently based on liberal educational ideals, suited the colonial
administration better than the more extreme Anglicist or Orientalist policies advocated by
others' (1998: 112). To view Stewart's educational policies solely as promoting colonial ideals
seems a little harsh. Indeed, Pennycook contradicts his own argument, as he has earlier point-
ed out that the Governor of Hong Kong, Hennessy, had been shocked to discover how few of
the boys in Hong Kong schools spoke English well and asked for Stewart's policies to be
altered so that English would be promoted. In the event, little change took place so that a later
Governor, William Robinson (1891-8), was equally shocked to find 'that after fifty-five years
of British rule, the vast majority of Chinese in Hong Kong should remain so little anglicised'
(Boyle, 1997: q3). It was only in 1894 that Central School moved to English as a medium of
instruction along with a name change to Queen's College (Boyle, 1997).
Key events and dates in the role of English in Hong Kong before its return to Chinese
rule in 1997 include the establishment of the English-medium University of Hong Kong in
1912. This remained the sole university until the establishment of the Chinese-medium
Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1963. By offering a Chinese-medium university, the
government hoped to increase the number of students electing to enter Chinese-medium
Emerging Englishes: Hong Kong and China 139
secondary schools. However, as there was an English entrance exam, it transpired that stu-
dents from English-medium schools were more successful in gaining entry even to the
Chinese University. As a result, the number of Chinese-medium schools actually declined
in the years immediately after 1963 (Boyle, 1997).
It was not until the Official Languages Ordinance of 1974 that Chinese was made a co-
official language with English in all domains, except for law. The Ordinance did not define
Chinese, but it was taken to mean spoken Cantonese (Johnson, 1994). However, English
secondary schools remained the overwhelming choice for parents. The 1982 Llewellyn
report into education, authored by education experts from Britain, the USA, Australia and
Germany, recommended a shift to mother-tongue education in the early years of schooling
'accompanied by formal teaching of English as a first foreign language' (Bolton, 2003: 91).
This resulted in a series of further reports published by the Education Commission in
which the use of Cantonese as a medium of instruction was strongly recommended. As,
however, the government eventually left the medium-of-instruction decision to school
principals, the great majority of secondary schools remained English-medium. Many class-
es were characterised by lessons taught in mixed Cantonese-English code.
Despite the 1990 Education Commission's view that the ideal proportion of Chinese-
medium to English-medium schools was 70:30, the actual figures showed that while over
90 per cent of students were indeed in Chinese-medium primary schools, over 90 per cent
were in English-medium secondary schools (Johnson, 1994). A great number of these
English-medium schools, however, remained so only in name. Although the textbooks and
exams were in English, much of the actual teaching was done in Cantonese and a great deal
of class time was spent in translating English textbooks into Chinese. Instruction was actu-
ally in mixed code or Cantonese and followed a 'textual explanation approach' (Luke and
Richards, 1982: 50 ). I myself observed a number of such classes when I was teaching in Hong
Kong in the late 1970s.
Jus1it months before Hong Kong's return to Chinese rule, the colonial government
moved from its position of allowing principals to decide which medium of instruction
would be used in their schools and decreed that only 100 secondary schools, out of a total
of some 460, would be allowed to continue to use English as medium of instruction. The
remainder would teach in Cantonese. This, predictably enough, was met with public oppo-
sition and, as a result, the government slightly increased the number of English-medium
secondary schools to 114. Bolton (2000) has suggested that this sudden decision to decree
mother-tongue education after so many years of a laissez-faire attitude was primarily aimed
at preserving Cantonese against its bigger Chinese official 'brother', Putonghua. This shift
was also designed to help implement the new language policy of 1995, which was 'to devel-
op a civil service which is biliterate in English and Chinese and trilingual in English,
Cantonese and Putonghua' (Bolton, 2000: 270).
This policy has been continued by the new Hong Kong government. Beijing wants
Hong Kong to be an international city rather than a Southern Chinese one. 'It is our pol-
icy to promote biliteracy and trilingualism. Hong Kong ... needs to promote the wider
usage of basic English. As part of China, Hong Kong people should also learn to speak
fluent Putonghua' (see Bolton, 2003: 200). The government has also recognised that this
switch to Cantonese-medium schools means that students will need extra help with their
English. To this end, each Cantonese-medium school received extra funding to hire a
native speaker of English as an English teacher. (I shall discuss these 'native-speaker
teacher' policies in Part C of the book.) The current government's recognition of the
importance of English can also be seen through the subsidies which are available for mem-
bers of the workforce to improve their English through attending courses (Li, 2000).
Written English is still the language of civil service documents, the legal system and the
police force and it remains the main language of textbooks and lectures in most of the
eight universities (Bolton, 2003).
Throughout Hong Kong's colonial history and beyond, its people have maintained a
consistent mercantile and pragmatic attitude to English (Sweeting and Vickers, 2005). Boyle
sums this up by saying 'Hong Kong Chinese have always wanted English' (1997: 176).
10.2 Hong Kong English -variety or interlanguage?
Many scholars have argued that Hong Kong Chinese do not use English for intra-
ethnic communication and that this means that Hong Kong English does not have the
linguistic environment in which to develop as a new variety. For example, Luke and
Richards recall the treaty port days in arguing that Hong Kong is a place where two large-
ly monolingual communities exist 'with a small group of bilingual Cantonese function-
ing as middlemen' (1982: 51). They thus conclude that English in Hong Kong derives its
norms from British and American English rather than possessing local norms. 'There is
no such thing as Hong Kong English' (1982: 55). This view is largely shared by Johnson,
as he suggests that Hong Kong Chinese do not use English among themselves and thus
that the idea of a Hong Kong variety of English 'has received little support' (1994: 182).
The best-known local scholar who espouses this view is Li. He argues that English is not
used by the Chinese in Hong Kong for intra-ethnic communication so 'indigenous forms
have not developed' (2000: 50). So, while the great majority of Hong Kong Chinese see
the need for English, they learn it as a school subject and feel an inhibition to use it
among themselves. Thus 'the language learning environment in Hong Kong is not at all
conducive to the development of communicative and linguistic competence in English'
(2000: 56). English in Hong Kong is exonormative. Its typical 'features', in Li's view,
should be seen as errors not systematic features of a new variety.
This position has been challenged, most notably by Bolton (2000, 2003). He argues
that the knowledge of English in the general population expanded greatly in the 1980s and
1990s, with the 1996 census showing that 38 per cent of the population (currently some 7
million) claimed to know English. He also argues that the notion of a Chinese community
that converses only in Cantonese is a myth. Instead he argues that Hong Kong is a multi-
lingual society with much greater linguistic and ethnic diversity among non-Chinese in
Hong Kong than previously understood along with greater linguistic diversity among the
Chinese community. To suggest, therefore, that Hong Kong comprises only two speech
communities, Cantonese-speaking Chinese and English-speaking expatriate, 'would be a

gross simplification' (2003: 90).
There is no doubt that Hong Kong is multilingual in the sense that many languages
are spoken there. However, the role of English as a lingua franca is not as pronounced or
obvious as in places such as Singapore, primarily because the overwhelming majority of the
people are Chinese, most of whom speak Cantonese. This is not to say, however, that
English is never used among the Chinese-speaking majority. In a comparative study of the
use of English in the workplace of companies in Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong, Briguglio
(2005) identified several interesting differences. She found that the personnel in the Kuala
Lumpur company used English more than the Hong Kong personnel in all speaking and
personal interaction tasks, but that the Hong Kong personnel used English more than the
Kuala Lumpur personnel in all writing and reading tasks, with the exception of writing and
reading formal reports and writing recruitment literature. The results showed that over 95
per cent of the Hong Kong personnel used English to write and read emails and faxes, and
that over 65 per cent used English to write letters, memos and informal reports. And while
the Hong Kong personnel used English less frequently in oral communication with their
fellow workers when compared with their Malaysian counterparts, some 33 per cent used
English regularly on the phone and 20 per cent in face-to-face conversation with fellow
workers. This would suggest that English plays important roles in the Hong Kong work-
place.
A sense of political uncertainty in the period leading up to the 1997 handover of Hong
Kong to China has also increased the use of English among Hong Kong Chinese. Some 10
per cent of Hong Kong Chinese emigrated overseas, primarily to English-speaking coun-
tries (Li, 2002b), but many have returned to Hong Kong where they are referred to as 'astro-
nauts' in HKE. Their time overseas has given them and their children an international
perspective and much more confidence in English. Thus Bolton is able to argue that Hong
Kong students 'negotiate their internationalism through English and mixed code, and
increasingly through electronic media such as the internet' (2003: 202). It should also be
pointed out that many Hong Kong families employ Filipina maids, and the lingua franca
between the family and the maid is English. Indeed, Filipina maids often take on the role of
English tutor to the family's children.
A further reason why English may play a greater role among Hong Kong Chinese than
commonly allowed has to do with their sense of identity as Hong Kong people. When Hong
Kong was a colony it was perhaps unique in providing a place of refuge for many Chinese
who wished to escape the conditions, both political and economic, of their own country.
There was mass migration from China to Hong Kong, not only at the time of the estab-
lishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, but on several occasions since then. As
Li has pointed out, the immigrants to Hong Kong 'volunteered to live under a foreign flag
in preference to their own' (2002b: 40 ). The subsequent introduction of Hong Kong iden-
tity cards helped give these people a sense of separate identity from mainland Chinese. The
extent to which English helped create this separate sense of identity among educated Hong
Kong Chinese is, as illustrated above, a hotly contested topic, but there can be little doubt
that the Hong Kong Chinese viewed the colonial administration of Britain as providing a
'benevolent, non-intrusive government and a politically stable shelter' (Li, 2002b: 40).
English was thus not associated with colonial oppression but with economic and social
mobility, primarily through education, and possibly, for some, Hong Kong identity.
In summary, English has com~ to play an increasing role not only in Hong Kong itself
but also among Hong Kong Chinese and so, therefore, it is possible that a Hong Kong vari-
ety of English does exist. Certainly, HKE appears to meet at least three of Butler's criteria
for an emerging variety of English. The five criteria are (Butler, i997: 10):
(i) a standard and recognisable pronunciation handed down from one generation
to another;
(ii) particular words and phrases which spring up usually to express key features
of the physical and social environment and which are regarded as peculiar to
the variety;
(iii) a history- a sense that this variety of English is the way it is because of the
history of the language community;
(iv) a literature written without apology in that variety of English; and
(v) reference works - dictionaries and style guides - which show that people in that
language community look to themselves, not some outside authority, to decide
what is right and wrong in terms of how they speak and write their English.
That criteria (i) and (ii) are met by HKE will be illustrated below and the discussion above
shows that English in Hong Kong has historical roots. The fourth criterion - a literature -
will be considered below. As for the fifth, this criterion is only likely to be met some time
after the variety has been established. Australian English is a prime example of this, as the
dictionary of Australian English, The Macquarie (of which, incidentally, Butler is the
Executive Publisher), was first published only in i981, some 200 years after Captain Cook
first arrived in Australia. No one would argue, however, that Australian English was not a
recognised variety before 1981. As demonstrated in Chapter 6, Australian English was a
recognisable variety at least by the beginning of the twentieth century.
10.3 Features of HKE
10.3.1 Phonology
With regard to Butler's first criterion, Hung does not think that 'there is any dispute
about the existence of an identifiable HKE accent, which is just as easily recognisable as
Indian, Singaporean or Australian English' (Hung, 2000: 337). He has described the vowel
and consonant sounds of HKE (2000: 337-56) and shown that HKE speakers operate with
seven vowel contrasts compared with the n of British speakers of RP. The four vowel
sounds that are distinguished in RP but not in HKE are:
a) the vowel sounds in RP 'heat' and 'hit' are both sounded as /I/ in HKE
b) the vowel sounds in RP 'head' and 'had' are both sounded as/EI in HKE
c) the vowel sounds in RP 'hoot' and 'hood' are both sounded as Jul in HKE
d) the vowel sounds in RP 'caught' and 'cot' are both sounded as /'J/ in HKE.
While HKE speakers use only seven simple vowel contrasts, they have eight diphthong con-
trasts (2000: 347). These are the diphthongs in 'hate' /e1/, 'height' /m/, 'house' /au/, 'coat'
/ou/, 'toyed' /'JI/, 'here' /I'd/, 'hair' /E'd/ and 'poor' /U'd/.
Hung concludes (2000: 354) by saying that HKE phonology exists with systematic fea-
tures of its own, that the phonemic inventory of HKE is considerably simpler than older
varieties of English, both in its vowel and consonant systems, and that, although HKE
phonology shows influence from both Cantonese and English, it needs to be investigated
on its own terms.
10.3.2 Lexis
Many of the lexical items identified below also occur in Chinese English and, as with
other varieties, HKE vocabulary stems from several sources. One rich source is the coinage
or innovation of new terms (Bolton, 2003: 212ff.). Examples include 'Canto-pop'
(Cantonese pop music), 'Chinglish' (Chinese English) and 'tan tan noodles'.
Words of specific cultural importance often appear in compounds. In Chapter 6, the
many compounds made with 'bush' in Australian English were noted. In Hong Kong and
Chinese Englishes, two such key words are 'dragon' and 'temple', both occurring in a wide
range of compounds that describe culturally specific phenomena, such as 'dragon boat',
'dragon dance', 'dragon pot', 'dragon cup' and 'dragon gate', and 'temple bell', 'temple altar,'
'temple compound', temple festival' and 'temple priest' (Butler, 2002: i53-4).
Borrowing also affords a rich source of HKE words and include cha siu (a type of bar-
becued pork), cheongsam (a type of dress) and gwai lo (foreign devil).
Expressions in HKE that derive directly from Cantonese include the phrase 'return
back' ( waa114 faaan) and the italicised parts of' no matter you pursue .. .' ( moU4 leon6) and
'laziness is my largest enemy' (zeoi3 daai6 ge3 dik6 ja114) (Li, 2000: 52-3). The numbers in the
Cantonese versions refer to specific tones.
Uncountable nouns in older varieties of English become count nouns in HKE, for
example 'aircrafts', 'equipments', 'staffs', 'alphabets', 'audiences' and 'researches'.
Other examples of part-of-speech shifts include the shift from intransitive to transi-
tive verbs as in 'they always laugh me' and 'he didn't reply me' (Li, 2000: 53).
10.3.3 Grammar
Li analysed the written work of his university students and identified the following
common features of their written English (2000: 53ff.). Note that Li's view is that these are
actually errors and representative of an interlanguage rather than systematic features of
HKE. This explains the way in which he describes these features.
a) Non-tense-marking in certain contexts. Li's example is: 'Luckily I am now a
university student. I decide not to join the activities I am interested in.'
b) Failure to use the passive or pseudo passives: 'In the 'Reading Section', it divided
into three parts ...'
c) Intransitive passives: 'That accident was happened at 6pm.'
d) Failure to use the 'Adj for NP to V' structure: 'You are impossible to stay here
overnight.'
e) Inappropriate post-modifying clause structure after 'There Be NP': 'There are a
lot of people died.'
f) Independent clause as subject: 'He was willing to stay surprised us all.'
g) Periphrastic topic construction: 'In the above examples, it shows that learners ....'
He also identifies the common response to negatively phrased questions in spoken HKE,
which has also been identified in many other varieties of English. For example:
Invigilator: James, you're not cheating are you?
Student: Yes. (meaning: You're right. I'm not cheating.)
What is interesting here is that some of these features occur in many other varieties of
English, although Li treats them as errors. The criteria to use in distinguishingbetweenJea-
tures of learner English or an interlanguage and features of a new variety of English remain
elusive. I shall suggest some in the next chapter.
10-4 Literature in HKE
Does Butler's fourth criterion, a literature 'written without apology', exist in HKE?
Renditions is a Chinese-English translation journal published in Hong Kong. Its main con-
tent comprises the translations of Chinese writing of various types into English to make
them available for an English readership. It is instructive, in the context of the debate about
whether a Hong Kong literature exists, to ask whether a Hong Kong literature is thought to
exist in Chinese. It is interesting, therefore, that in 1988 Renditions published a special dou-
ble issue on literature written in Hong Kong. In raising the question 'Is he or she a Hong
Kong writer?', the editor, Eva Hung, felt that no consensus had yet been reached, but that,
in the past few years, Hong Kong literature had become a 'hot topic' (Hung, 1988: 7). And
as she points out, the special edition showed that Hong Kong literature possessed a richness
and diversity, 'qualities which reflect the heterogenous culture of the territory' (1988: 8).
Almost a decade later, a second edition of Renditions (1997) was devoted to Hong
Kong. By this time the editors, Eva Hung and David Pollard, appeared more convinced that
a distinctive Hong Kong literature did indeed exist, as they wrote, 'In producing an anthol-
ogy of Hong Kong literature of the nineties .. : (1997: 5). In other words, a Hong Kong lit-
erature written in Chinese is now accepted. The question remains as to whether a Hong
Kong literature written in HKE exists. Vittachi certainly uses colloquial HKE and mixed
code to effect in his writing (see Vittachi, 2000, for example). Xu Xi, one of several Hong
Kong writers who write in English, says that, although she is a Hong Kong person who
writes about Hong Kong in English, what that English is, is for someone else to decide (Xu
Xi, 2000 ). There are a number of Hong Kong authors writing in English, including the
poets Louise Ho and Agnes Lam, but whether they write in an English that can be classified
as distinctively HKE is open to question. (Readers can refer to poems by both authors in
the Appendix, but please note that these have not been recorded.) In my own view, it is not
as distinctive as the English employed by the Chinese writer Ha Jin, examples of whose
writing are illustrated later in this chapter, and it is to China that I now turn.
110.5 English in China
The first recorded contact between British traders and the Chinese took place in 1637
and was recounted by one of the traders in The Travels of Peter Mundy (Bolton, 2003);;But
it was not until the late eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century that~on
tact became more fYste~iti,£,J'Teedless to say, th~. early schools and colleges were estab-
lish~d.by1~I$iI~l1arl~s; hut, as ~as the case in Hong Kong,7q.nany of these taught Chinese
language, literature and philosophy. Adamson (2004) has pfbvided a.useful account of the
devefopillenfOfEnglfah teaching in China and of Chinese attitudes towards English. This
chronological summary is taken from an earlier work (Adamson, 2002: 232).
1911-23 intellectual revolution; English for ideas/philosophy

1923-49 English for diplomacy and interaction
1949-60 English for science and technology only
1961-66 first renaissance - English for modernisation and international
understanding
1966-76 Cultural Revolution; English speakers are suspect
1976-82 slow recovery; English for modernisation
1982-present English highly desirable and strongly promoted in school
curricula
As the chronological table above illustrates, English has variously been seen as a conduit for
Western science and technology, a conduit for Western ideas that will assist in the mod-
ernisation of China and international understanding, or as a language whose speakers rep-
resent the 'enemy' if they are foreigners and someone suspicious if they are Chinese.
Currently English is seen as extremely important for the modernisation of China and for
international understanding and influence. The current attitude towards English is the
most positive in Chinese history. With regard to the period of intellectual revolution
(1911-23), it should be noted that other European languages, in particular Russian and
German, have been influential in introducing new ideas into China. The intellectual debate
was between the 'Anglo' philosophies of men such as Russell and Dewey and the 'European'
philosophies of men such as Hegel and Marx. The European philosophies eventually tri-
umphed, with a Chinese interpretation of Communism becoming the national ideology in
1949.
rNot surprisingly, therefore, Riissian was the first foreign language from 1949 until
the relationship with Russia c!~~~i()!:(lted from the late 1950s. Since then, the first foreign lan-
guage has been English, but with attitudes towards it shifting in the ways indicated above.
Even during those periods when English was officially classified as being the language of sus-
pect forces, many educated and urban Chinese maintained a wish to learn it. While I was a
postgraduate student at Fudan University in Shanghai during the final stages of the Cultural
Revolution in the mid-197os, I was frequently approached by Chinese who wanted to prac-
tise their English discreetly. On one memorable occasion I was approached by a man who
whisperingly wanted to know whether I knew much about the Royal Navy of Elizabeth I.
~ 'Ioday the desire to learn English among the educated and urban Chinese is astound-
ing. ~The number of English teachers has increased from an estimated 850 in 1957 to well
over half a million today (Bolton, 20o&~nd the number of Chinese learning English prob-
ably outnumbers the total population of the United States and Britain combin~;jit seems
a
inevitable that this number of people learning and speaking English will lead to distinc-
tive Chinese variety of English. Indeed the existence of Chinese English has been the sub-
ject of debate among Chinese scholars since the beginning of the 1980s (Du and Jiang,
2001). Wang (1994: 7) has defined Chinese English as 'the English used by the Chinese peo-
ple in China, being based on standard English and having Chinese characteristics'. In the
next part of this chapter, features of Chinese English (CE) will be described. Unless other-
wise noted, these are taken from Xu Xi (2005).
10. 6 Features of Chinese English (CE)
10.6.1 Phonology
Gonzalez (1997) argued that the first languages of speakers of Philippine English
could be identified. While it may not be g9ssible to identify accurately in every case the
I Tt;
mother-tongue dialects of speakers of CE, speakers of CE currently have a range of accents
that are determined to a large extent by their mother-tongue dialect rhas alrea~L~~~11:
noted that speakers of Hong Kong English speak with an easily identifiable accent and that
the influence of Cantonese phonology can be detected. By definition(~peakers of CE.come
from all over China and, fas the Chinese language has seven major diale~t groups and many
more sub-varieties, it follows that speakers of CE may have different accents dependent
.l.1£()n their mother-tongue dialect. Little research has yet been conducted into this and here
I shall no~(lttempt to claim any distinctive phonological features that are common to all
speakers of CE, except to say that CE speakers have a tendency towards syllable-timing.
10.6.2 Lexis
Transliteration of Chinese words provides a rich source of words for CE. These
include pinyin (the romanised script for Chinese characters), Putonghua (Modern Standard
Chinese), yamen (feudal administrative office), dazibao (big character poster), tai chi
(physical exercise like shadow-boxing), Jeng shui (architectural tenets, literally wind-water)
and many others including ganbei (literally 'dry glass'), which is what you are supposed to
do when you have a glass of maotai (white spirit) in front of you. A recent transliteration
that forms a hybrid compound is 'xiaokang society', a society that ensures that all can
become slightly better off in the future.
Direct translations from Chinese into English of 'things Chinese' or Chinese cultural
concepts are also a rich source of words. These include the 'four modernisations', 'one coun-
try, two systems', 'running dogs', 'paper tiger', 'to get rich quick is glorious', 'iron rice bowl',
'open-door policy', 'barefoot doctor', 'the three represents theory' and 'Project 211' (the pol-
icy to establish 100 key universities in China in the 21st century), to name just a few.
Direct translations of metaphors also add a special flavour to CE. These examples
come from Ha Jin's writing (Xu Xi, 2005: 85):
'a flowered pillowcase' (someone who is good-looking but otherwise useless)
'you can't squeeze fat out of a skeleton' (you can't get blood out of a stone)
and this memorable sentence:
'The three of them wear the same pair of trousers and breathe through one nostril.'
(Zhang, 2002: 310)
~
Nativised English words are also common, and these often show signs of se111antic shift. For
example, the English word for a particular card game, 'poker', has become pu-ke, but this
refers to card games in general~
Other 'English' words take on specific culturally Chinese meanings. Examples of com-
pounds with 'dragon' and 'temple' have already been provided. Another example is 'face', in
its distinctively Chinese meaning, referring to the crucial importance of maintaining some-
one's sense of self-esteem and position. A Chinese cultural value that is referred to in CE by
the original Chinese word is guanxi (relationships/contacts) and an example of the way this
is represented in CE is provided later in the context of an excerpt from a Ha Jin short story.
'Lover' in CE has a wider semantic range than in other varieties of English and
includes the notion of 'spouse', as in the following example:
'People are supposed to know exactly the physical conditions of their lovers,' Yao said.
This rather startling remark was made in the context of a regulation to abolish the require-
ment for engaged couples to undergo premarital medical tests in favour of privacy protec-
tion. The word 'lover' in this context is closest to airen (spouse) in Modern Standard Chinese
(Xu Xi, 2005: 58).
Two words that are of particular interest are 'comrade' and 'individual'. In CE 'com-
rade' was originally the standard form of address and is a direct translation of the Chinese
word tongzhi, itself a translation from the Russian. It represented an attempt to see every-
one as equal, as required in Communist thinking. Its meaning in CE has shifted
significantly in recent years, however, as it now refers almost exclusively to homosexuals,
although, curiously, it is still used in its original sense to refer to the highest leaders in the
Party hierarchy. The meaning of 'individual' has also shifted in CE. Originally it carried the
negative connotation of selfishness but has recently taken on a more positive meaning,
aligned to the Anglo interpretation of the word to mean someone with a 'sense of inde-
pendence and competition' (Xu, 2005: 60). This shift in meaning is reflected within Chinese
society. For example, the Communist Youth League has decided to drop its exemplar of
selfless Communist Party spirit, the boy-scout-like Lei Feng, and replace him with that
Western symbol of individual pluckiness Mickey Mouse (Hing, 2005: 56). It will be inter-
esting to see which meaning of individualism will finally become the default meaning in CE
and how long Mickey Mouse will hold a place in the Chinese Communist Party pantheon.
The success of the recently opened Disneyland in Hong Kong suggests Lei Feng's days are
truly numbered.
10.6.3 Grammar
In an analysis of a variety of data that included Chinese newspapers in English, fiction
written in CE and spoken conversational data, Xu Xi (2005: 315ff.) has identified the fol-
lowing grammatical features of CE, many of which parallel features apparent in other vari-
eties of English. Each feature (in bold) is followed by an example:
Adjacent default tense (ADT)
Last year, I write a letter ... I write two letters every week
Nu/I-subject/object utterances (NSIO)
Sometimes ___ just play basketball, and sometimes ___ go to the Beijing library,
and sometimes ___ just play some games on computer.
We can see movies, and other activities about English.
Yes, I like ___ very much.
Co-occurrence of connective pairs
Yes, although it's not as big as Beijing, but I like it, because I was born in it.
Because in the canteen of our school, it is crowded at the first of this semester, so we
wouldn't like to go ... go there to have our lunch or supper, so we choose some small
res ... restaurant to have our food.
Subject pronoun copying
Some of my college classmates they like to dress up very much, and they don't like to study
very much.
Yes-No response
Researcher: You mean your hometown is not so crowded?
Informant: Yeah. Not so crowded.
Topic-comment sentence structure
You know, I think this society (topic), the people get more and more practical (comment).
Unmarked object subject verb {OSV} word order
So, um ... I think the love is important, and the money I don't care.
Inversion in subordinate finite wh-c/auses
I really don't know what is International English.
Nominalisation
a) Head nominalised noun phrases
investment in the sectors of education, health and c.ulture in rural areas
b) Premodification nominalised noun phrases

long-term land-use rights
c) Postmodification nominalised noun phrases
the top priority given to deepening reform in rural areas
d) Paratactic compound nominalised noun phrases (NPs of equal weight)
rural prosperity and the well-being of farmers
e) Hypotactic compound nominalised noun phrases (one NP subordinate to the other)
the guiding principle for the development of agriculture
10.6-4 Pragmatics and cultural conventions

Kirkpatrick (1996) has shown that a modifying-modified sequence is a preferred
sequencing norm in Modern Standard Chinese and Xu shows that this is transferred across
into CE as in the following example:
'Because many farmers lack adequate knowledge and experience to distinguish counterfeit
goods they are generally more vulnerable.'
(Xu Xi, 2005: 318)
This is not to say that the alternative sequence cannot be used, simply that it is marked in
CE when it is so, as in the following example:
'In Shangdong province, Pingyuan county, Zhanghua town, most seed-raising farming
families would never be bothered by the matter of selling seeds, because the Seed
Association of the town has taken up 90% of the corn seeds sales.'
(Xu, 2005: 145)
This has implications for communication between speakers of CE and other varieties of
English, as the marked form in British English becomes the unmarked form in CE.
Conversely, the marked form in CE is the unmarked form in British English.
Further findings identified by Xu that are of relevance to cross-cultural communica-
tion include the frequency with which Chinese interlocutors use what Xu has termed
'ancestral hometown discourse'. It is clearly considered polite to talk about one's hometown
when meeting someone for the first time. Xu (1005: 189) summarises the possible things
one can say about one's hometown and ask about someone else's. Topics in square brack-
ets were less commonly discussed:
location
size
special food
ancestral dialect(s)
hometown --+----- [historical significance]
discourse [typical festive activities]
[weather]
[architecture]
[speaker's feeling about it ('I love it')]
[positive remarks ('It's beautiful')]
The writings of the Chinese writer Ha Jin provide an excellent source for identifying both
the linguistic features of CE and how key Chinese cultural values are reflected in CE.
Although Ha Jin currently lives in the United States, he writes about life in China from the
point of view of a Chinese person and uses a distinctive type of English in which to do this.
He can thus be considered a Chinese writer who writes in a Chinese English vernacular
rather than as a new breed of American writer, in much the same way that the Pakistani
novelist Sidhwa described herself as a South Asian writer writing in a Pakistani English ver-
nacular and distinguished herself from the new breed of British writers of South Asian ori-
gin (see Chapter 7 and Sidhwa 1996: 239). As Zhang has argued, the Chineseness of Ha Jin's
fiction is achieved through 'the creative adoption of the English language, and the innova-
tive recreation of the sensations of his native experiences' (2002: 306). The example below
shows how Ha Jin uses English and how the key Chinese cultural value of guanxi (influence
gained from interpersonal relationships) is realised through his writing:
'Every morning from then on, Jiang Bing got up early and went to the riverside to buy fish.
Sometimes he bought a silver carp, sometimes a pike, sometimes a catfish; once he got a
two pound crucian, which he smoked. Each day he cooked the fish in a different way, and
his dishes pleased the director greatly. Soon Jiang Bing ran out of money. When he told
Nimei he had spent all their wages, she suggested he withdraw two hundred yuan from
their savings account. He did, and day after day he continued to make the fancy dishes ...
A few times Director Liao wanted to pay Nimei for the fish, but she refused to accept any
money from him, saying, "It's my job to take care of my patients."
Gradually the director and Jiang Bing got to know each other. Every day after Liao finished
dinner, Jiang would stay an hour or two, chatting with the leader, who unfailingly turned
talkative after a good meal.'
The story continues:
'Director Liao was going to leave the hospital in two days. He was grateful to the couple
and even said they had treated him better than his family.
On Tuesday afternoon he had the head nurse called in. He said, "Nimei, I can't thank
you enough!"
"It's my job. Please don't mention it."
"I've told the hospital's leaders that they should elect you a model nurse this year. Is
there anything I can do for you?"
"No, I don't need anything,' she said. 'Jiang Bing and I are very happy that you've recov-
ered so soon.''
"Ah yes, how about Young Jiang? Can I do something for him?"
She pretended to think for a minute. "Well, maybe. He's worked in the same office for
almost ten years. He may want a change. But don't tell him I said this or he'll be mad at
me."
"I won't say a word. Do you think he wants to leave the hospital?"
"No, he likes it here. Just moving him to another office would be enough.''
"Is there a position open?"

"Yes, there are two-the Personnel and the Security sections haven't had directors for
months."
"Good. I'm going to write a note to the hospital leaders. They'll take my suggestion seri-
ously. Tell Young Jiang I'll miss his fish."
They both laughed.'
Xu Xi (2005: i77ff.) explains how this excerpt shows how Nimei, in collaboration with her
husband Jiang Bing, manipulates the gud nxi network with Director Liao:
Nimei is the head nurse, while Director Liao is her patient. This bureaucratically defined
'nurse-patient' relationship is not of any apparent gudnxi or significance. However,
Director Liao is not just a patient, he is also a director 'whose department decided their
[the hospital leaders'] promotions and demotions'. To Nimei, there is some sort of hidden
pragmatic gudnxi to explore .. .Director Liao is 'tired of the liquid stuff'-' rice porridge
and egg-drop soup' served by the hospital canteen, so he asks the head nurse Nimei for
'something else for a change', preferably'fish', thus rendering Nimei an opportunity to set
up gu<inxi with Director Liao. Since what is in her mind is her husband's promotion, she
naturally wants her husband Jiang Bing to get involved in the gu<inxi. So she asks him to
cook fish for Director Liao.
In this way, Jiang Bing is able to become involved in the gudnxi with Director Liao. And
although developing and nurturing the gudnxi is expensive and demanding on the part
of Nimei and Jiang Bing, it is well worth the 'investment'.
(Xu Xi, 2005: 177)
10.7 Conclusion
By referring back to Butler's five criteria for a new variety of English, it can be argued
that HKE meets criteria I, 2 and 3, with criterion 4 debatable. Chinese English meets crite-
ria 2, 3 and 4, but the first criterion may not be applicable to Chinese English, given the
different dialect mother tongues of its speakers. That Chinese English already meets these
criteria is quite remarkable given the relatively short time in which the Chinese have
embraced the learning of English on a wide scale. At the same time, recent studies into
Chinese attitudes to CE (see Kirkpatrick and Xu Xi, 2002; Hu, 2005; Lin, 2005; Xu, 2005)
have also shown that Chinese speakers of English are shifting towards an acceptance of CE
as a variety. These points, together with the sheer numbers of speakers of CE, strongly sug-
gest that Chinese English is soon likely to become the most commonly spoken variety of
English in Asia.
But at what price? First, English is now being taught in Chinese primary schools
throughout the country and it is not clear how effective that teaching can be, especially as
there is a chronic shortage of trained teachers. Second, the demand for English has seen
parents, especially those in urban areas, having to sacrifice and make savings in order to be
able to afford to send their children to increasingly expensive private English classes. There
is, I believe, a need for research into the sacrifices that 'normal' Chinese families face in
order to ensure their child receives adequate tuition in English. Research is needed into the
impact of changing levels of English-language proficiency on local, regional and global
labour markets, social mobility and status, political activism, traditional culture and fami-
ly life. Research is also needed into the consequences both of the growing use of English and
of the huge industry which has grown up to teach people English. While China would be
an excellent site for such research, comparable research is needed throughout the world.
The European
Union
11 English as a lingua franca
English is used throughout the word as a lingua franca. That is to say, it is used as a
medium of communication by people who do not speak the same first language. Despite
this extremely widespread and common function of English, analysis and descriptions of
lingua franca Englishes are rare, although there is increasing interest in English as a lingua
franca (ELF). In this chapter I shall consider the of ELF in a specific setting, the
Association of South-East Asian Nation~(ASE~N), and describe the lin~g~ist:ic features and
--~~~""-~~~~~"~~,~~~
communicative strategies of English when used as a lingua franca by speakers from coun-
tries in ASEAN. This description will include the extent to which people who use ELF in
ASEAN are ~EJ:!!aJlyiJ1!e,Higi}:)le. The findings for ASEAN ELF will form a basis for a com-
parison with the features and role of ELF in other settings, in particular the European
Union.
11.1 ASEAN and English
The Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) was established in Bangkok in

1967. It currently has ten member states: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,
Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam (for a map of this region see
pnS). A useful recent overview of English language teaching trends in each of these coun-
tries is provided by Ho a11d \!\fo11g~(2003).
The role of English.i11ASEAN!L3:S a de facto lingua franca (Krasnick, 1995). Although
this obviously prhrileges those member ~tes who~be~~idered outer circle countries,
largely due to their earlier status as colonies of Britain (Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore) or
the United States (the Philippines), the decision to adopt English as a lingua franca was con-
sidered so natural that the delegates in Bangkok did not even debate it (Okudaira, 1999).
Since then, two attempts have been made to make other languages official languages of
ASEAN: on one occasion, Indonesia suggested that Bahasa Indonesia be adopted; on the
other, Vietnam suggested 'their''colonial' language, French, should be adopted. Neither sug-
gestion was taken up.
ASEAN provides English language using contexts that are of great potential interest.
First, the four outer circle countries have developed local Englishes, namely Brunei
English, Malaysian English, Philippine English and Singaporean English. These were
described in Chapter 9. Five of the remaining six nations, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos,
Thailand and Vietnam, can be classified as being in the 'expanding circle'. This leaves
155
Myanmar, which would have been classified as an outer circle country in the years before
General U Ne Win's coup in i962. Since then, it has remained a military dictatorship and
has been a virtually closed country. English was removed from the curriculum until a
change in policy took place that led to a moderate revival of English in the mid-198os. At
that time a total of five British-government-financed 'Key English Language Teachers'
(KELTs) were assigned to tertiary institutions in Yangon and Mandalay, of which I was one.
In any event, the universities have been closed for a great deal of the time since the riots of
i988, in which some 8,ooo people died, and this has slowed down the revival of interest in
English.
The use of English ~3J1jn.J:~r:L~gi()!1:~UL!!K1!':1Jra1Jfa raises the question of mutual
intelligibility. If ASEAN is characterised by different varieties of English that include both
a number of new varieties and a range of 'expanding circle' Englishes, to what extent do
people who use it as a lingua franca within ASEAN understand each other? It also raises the
question of whether an ASEAN variety of English is dev~loping. In other words, do the
Englishes of ASEAN speakers share any distinctive linguistic features and, if so, what are
they? Or, will ELF be characterisec:l.byvariation, given the differe1it varieties of English cur-
rently spoken in specific ASEAN countries/ together with the different linguistic back-
grounds of the speakers?
11.2 ASEAN ELF
The findings that form the basis of the following discussion come from recordings of
ASEAN nationals who were attending a two-week ELT teacher training course at the
Regional Language Centre in Singapore (RELC) in 2004 and 2005. Each group was record-
ed for about 20 minutes. They were asked to begin their conversation by discussing their
impressions of Singapore and then to consider the ELT situation in their home countries.
In fact, the groups covered more topics than this and no group found themselves silently
wondering what to say or who should speak next.
Four of the five groups comprised three speakers and one had four. The groups were
made up as follows:
Gp i: an ethnically Chinese Bruneian female (Brunei), a Philippina female (P1), a

Thai male (T) and a Vietnamese female (V)
Gp 2: a Singaporean female (with Punjabi as an LI) (SP), a female from Myanmar
(M1), and a Laotian female (L1)
Gp 3: a Cambodian male (C1), an Indonesian male (h) and a Singaporean female
(with Malay as an LI) (SM)
Gp 4: an Indonesian female (12), a female from Myanmar (M2) and a Cambodian
female (C2)
Gp 5: an ethnically Chinese Malaysian male (MC), a Laotian male (L2) and a
Philippina female (P2)
English as a linguafranca 157
There were two people each from Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, the
Philippines and Singapore and one person each from Brunei, Malaysia, Thailand
and Vietnam. The speakers thus comprised people from both outer and expanding circle
countries.
Detailed results of this research have been reported elsewhere (see Kirkpatrick, 2006b;
Deterding and Kirkpatrick, 2006), so here I shall simply report the overall findings.
11.3 Linguistic features _ofJ'SEAN ELF
11.3.1 ASEAN ELF syntactic (tense and inflection) uses

The presen!_§lillR1e was by far the most commonly used tense with ASEAN speak-
ers and acco\;.;:;:ted for ~per cent_()f ?cl!~the t~gses used. The past simple was the next
most common, accounting for !~~per cegt of the total, with :qig~~1S:i~~ounting for 12 per
9~nt. Some V~[b forms, including, for example, the present perfect passive, the past con-
tinuous and the past perfect, were used extremely rarely. This raises the question whether
students in certa!U: c()ntexts should spend much ci;;;;~om time on these 'rare' tenses.
The majority of participants use a minimal number of non-standard forms
(NSF). The only participants whose NSFs in tense use constitutes more than 6 per cent
of their output are the Indonesian and both Cambodians and Laotians. If these uses are
non-systematic, it would suggest that these five be classified as learners of English rather
th~nl:iighly-e~pert users. By considering the actual language they use, however, it might
be possible to identify uses that are qualitatively different from the NSFs made by the
other participants. If this proves to be the case, it could be argued that the language
used represents 'learner errors', while the NSFs made by the others are actually system-
atic variations that occur in their varieties of English. After all, if standard British
English were to be taken as the overall norm, then, as illustrated in Chapters 4 and 5,
American and Australian speakers produce a wide range of non-standard forms. The
specific uses uttered by the Indonesian (l2) and the Cambodian (C2) are listed below.
A discussion of the nature of the specific language uttered by these two speakers fol-
lows. I shall suggest that the NSFs used by the Indonesian speaker ar~ sy~tep:iatic, but
that those used by the G~bo~dia~~~re not, and that the Ca~bodian's uses may there-
fore provide a criterion for distinguishing between a fluent speaker and a learner. This
is a key question for all varieties of English and recalls Crystal's conundrum about the
problems involved in describing Old English, quoted in Chapter 4, 'Which bits of the
variation are random error and which reflect some aspect of the sociolinguistic situa-
tion of the time?' (2004: 50).
The Indonesian speaker used NSFs when forming 7 present simple, 14 past simple and
1 present perfect form. The Cambodian speaker used NSFs when forming 7 present simple,
2 past simple and 1 modal form. A summary of the uses of both speakers is provided below.
This is followed by an excerpt in which both participate, in order to illustrate the points
being made:
The Indonesian's (12) NSFs are:
Present simple tense

7 NSFs out of a total of 119 uses:
'Singapore and Indonesia is very close' (concord)

'if the class trip finish before eleven' (no '-s' marking)
Tm looking for on Sunday that's why I try to' (adjacent default tense)
'most of stuffs in Singapore have'(?)
'what company belongs to' (incorrect collocation - lexical?)
'what Silk Air belongs to' (incorrect collocation - lexical?)
'because we get new knowledge' (are getting)
Past simple tense

14 NSFs out of 43 uses. They are:
'Mrs X already give to us'

'yesterday I check'
'I already spend'
'I left my house that's because I have to travel'
'and then I spend one night and my niece drove me to'
'I waited for the official who pick me up'
'and then did nothing just sit and I check. .. that's why I just sit and take a resf
'you taste you taste grammar already'
'the temperature dropped dramatically so we have to and we have to'
Present perfect
1NSF out of 8 uses. It is:
'you have never see before' c!J

It should be noted that the Indonesian (h) also uses the present continuous 5 times, the
present passive 3 times and the past perfect once without using NSFs.
The great majority of the NSFs identified in h's speech can be explained by non-
marking of the verb form for tense in situations where the time has already been established
by the context. The verbal inflections simply aren't necessary for making meaning in these
contexts. Phonological causes for the non-marking of tenses are also present. For example,
the non-marking of 'picked' in 'pick me up' is likely to be caused by the phonological envi-
ronment. Deterding has shown that native speakers routinely drop final /t/ and /d/ in their
speech in this way in certain contexts (Deterding, 2006).
Importantly, h shows expertise in the use of the tense system, while at the same time
breaking rules she clearly knows. 'Sit', 'check, 'sit' and 'take a rest' are all unmarked for past
tense, but this cannot possibly be explained by saying the speaker does not know the rule.
In the excerpt provided later, for example, she uses the past tense 17 times, but chooses not
to mark it only on 4, possibly 5 occasions:
The Cambodian's (C2) NSFs are:

Present simple tense
7 NSFs in 42 uses. They are:
'I get used to it' (I am getting I I have got)
'if we has no time then we just go there' (concord)
'comparing to other countries - - still expensive' (no subject, no copula)
'in the time maybe they brought there is not the other food' (adjacent tense)
'Silk Air is belongto' (use of copula 'is' and no '-s' inflection)
'I will go next years I am glad to be there' (adjacent tense)
Simple past tense
2 NSFs out of 18 uses. They are:
'how long have you waits for them?' ('-s' inflection for past)
'as the one that's pick me up said' ('-s' inflection on pronoun, no inflection on verb)
Modals
1 NSF out of 14 uses. It is:
'so we should makes any plan' ('-s' inflection on verb stem)
Other NSFs
This speaker also uses what I have called 'epenthetic' '-s' inflections. For example:
'there are a lot ofs kinds of fruits'
'one days you will have one day'
'an hours'
'I also arrived earliers than'
'I will go next years'
There is evidence here of language use of a qualitatively different kind from h's language.
This may signal a learner of English. In particular, rather than simplifying the inflectional
system by the routine non-marking of tense forms in contexts where it is not required for
meaning, C2 complicates it by adding inflections in an apparently idiosyncratic or random
way. For example, her utterances 'how long have you waits for them?', 'the one that's pick
me up', and 'so we should makes any plan' all add inflections in places where they are not
required. These 'complicating' additions may be signals of learner English.
C2's English also suggests other 'learner' features where she adds features that are not
required. For example the added 'epenthetic' /s/ sounds under 'Other NSFs' above are not
used by any of the other speakers in these conversations.
The excerpt below comes from the conversation in which an Indonesian (12), a
Cambodian (C2) and a Malaysian (M) were involved. Relevant parts are in bold. The com-
plicating additional inflections, which I am suggesting as possible markers of learner
English, are also underlined. The extract, along with others, can be heard on the accompa-
nying CD.
12: I waited] forthe official who picked (/pik/) me up ok er and then I tried to look for
the official but because er er the plane you know landed so early so (ehm uh oh)
the official hadn't come yet (C2: ehm) yeah
M: what a pity (laugh)
12: er er I I I had to stay in the airport and then did nothing (C2: ehm) just sit and I
check the placard of (ehm) RELC (M: ehm) ok and er and I couldn't see that's why
I just sit and take a rest . .. what about you what time
C2: how long have you waits for them
12: just an hour
C2: an hours (I: an hour) oh oh
12: ok I enjoyed the arcades you [know
M: and] then how did you get here
12: er no the official
M: came late
12: er that I met ok the er came late (laugh) yeah because the flight was earlier than
the (eh) schedule (oh) so ok I just er waited for him an hour in the airport yeah er
finally I met him (ehm) at one o'clock (laughter) that's it
M: luckily you arrived [safely
C2: I] also arrived earliers than the exact time (12: oh ok) as the one that's pick me up
(ehm) said but luckily I met him (laugh)
11.3.2 ASEAN ELF phonological features

The following features of pronunciation appear to be part of an emerging ASEAN
ELF. For a fuller discussion see Deterding and Kirkpatrick (2006). It should be emphasised,
however, that these features do not always occur.
The dental fricatives /8/ and /o/ have been identified by Jenkins (2000: i37) as prime
candidates for exclusion from her Lingua Franca Core, as alternative pronunciations of
these sounds seldom cause confusion. Indeed they are commonly pronounced /ti and /d/
by some native speakers and this is the case with the speakers from the Philippines,
Myanmar, Singapore, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
The consonant sounds !fl and /p/ tend not to be distinguished in Malay and Tagalog
(Deterding and Poedjosoedarmo, i998: i74, 224) and this also occurs occasionally with
speakers from Vietnam (e.g. 'fractical' for 'practical'), Laos (e.g. 'grouf' for 'group'), and the
Philippines ( e.g. 'fersonal' for 'personal').
The simplification of final consonant clusters is common, for example 'firs' (T), 'Eas'
(SP), 'wol'(world) (C1) and 'expec' (h).
The data also provides many instances of a tendency towards a lack of reduced vow-
els, for example 'method' /me8od/, (T), 'officially' /of.. ./ (h), 'compare' /komp .. ./
(Brunei) and 'graduates' /grredju:e1ts/ (P1).
English as a lingua franca 161
There was also a tendency not to reduce prominence where this (de-accenting) might
be expected. In these examples, the italicised words are given equal stress and prominence
by the speakers:
'we have the government schools and the private schools' (Brunei)
'I love teaching and I enjoy teaching' (M1)
'It was meant for only a h- a holiday a three day holiday' (T)
'Erm English is very new and very few people speak English' (C1)
Examples of syllable-timing, where each syllable in the utterances takes more or less the
same time to produce, include:
'all the theories are different when you go to classroom teaching actually' (P1)
'I still speak dialect to my father right now but I speak Mandarin to my mother' (Brunei)
'I guess get shipped to other countries' (SM)
'Er in Cambodia we do not classify them as er ... ability in English' (C1)
'I bought in the Muslim restaurant' (11)
The use of these features did not disrupt communication in the conversations. Indeed,
there were relatively few breakdowns in communication throughout the data.
Miscommunication was caused, however, by misinterpreting pronunciation. In the follow-
ing example M2 hears 'rooms' as 'food':
12: what about your rooms
M2: er
12: you feel OK any [problems
M2: I] find the taste er quite ok (ehm) but er like yours is I think er ... er ... the rice a
little bit sticky (C2: ehm) in our country we don't er eat er rice as sticky as that rice
here er ehm and then ehm how shall I say er ... and then vegetables er maybe er
the same vegetables we eat (C2: ehm) in our country (12: ehm) but er the price for
them is also expensive (laughter) I think because I prefer eating vegetables (12: ok) I
prefer vegetables er than (12: OK) to meat er
12: ok what I'm asking is about room ...
One occasion when communication broke down completely was when fellow
participants couldn't make out what L2 was saying:
L2: you know at the time that ehm tsunami occurs they there were some problem in
my country (P2: ehm)
MC: what problem
L2: yeah we've some problem we have big holes /horns/ in in some areas
MC: horns? Sorry
L2: horn you hornt
P2: hornt
L2: yeah big horn
MC: (laugh) sorry
P2: what's a horn?

L2: H-0-L-E something like this
MC: holes oh you mean hole in the ground.
In the following example, initial misunderstanding was not caused by pronunciation, but
by the lexical choice of 'sit' on the part of II. This example also shows a participant provid-
ing the correct lexical item. SM's primary motive is to engender communication rather
than to correct the speaker. The Indonesian speaker accepts the correct word immediately:
11: so how long do do they have to sit in the junior high school and senior high
school?
C1: ehm I've been teaching there for two years after my graduation er from( .. ) er
11: no I mean er er how many years do students have to sit {SM: stay} to stay in the jun-
ior high school {C1: ehm} and the senior high school?
C1: er in in in Cambodia er Isl junior high school starts from grade seven
In summary, the~y-~ixieties of English spoken by the participants did not cause Jl1_anyQLeak-
do}yns in communication. Indeed the copversations are characterised by mutual u.nderstand-
illg. The group below, however, did experience breakdown in communication, but the major
cause of this was the relative lack of proficiency of one of the participants (Li). I now turn to the
communicative strategies which the participants in this interaction adopted to overcome this.
11.3-3 ASEAN ELF communicative strategies

The excerpt below illustrates the most serious breakdown in understanding in the
entire data. The SP and M1 participants are prepared to try a range of repair strategies, in
particular the patient rephrasing of the original question. No underlying tone of irritation
or impatience is evident, despite SP rephrasing the question in five different ways and M1
suggesting a possible answer on behalf of Li.
SP: eh huh ehm do the do the children you know in er in your country those who come
from a very poor families {L1:yes} are they given financial assistance?
L1: ehm
SP: are they in in terms of money?
L1: ehm
SP: I mean does the government support them?
SP: ok is there is there like you know those children who are very poor and their parents
cannot afford to send them to school? {M1: eh hm} does the government actually
given them assistance?
M1: yeah the government will ass/It/ I think so {SP: eh hm} your government will as /sit/
(two second silence)
SP: example you know like buying uniform for them or textbooks and paying for their
school fees
L1: I th I think they don't do like that yes {SP: oh is it?} only the family or parents
SP: can afford
L1: yes afford them er for example {ehm} in the(.. ) er countryside some studen cannot
learn because er it's hardly for them to er go to school /n/ {SP: eh hm}
While this is an extreme example, it exemplifies the patience of the participants in rephras-
ing and applying a range of repair strategies. This underlines the c5>_<:>E~E~tjy~nature of the
interaction and this cooperation is seen across the data. Participants in these EI,F interac-
tions strive to understand each other and help out where they can. These findings mirror
those for ELF in Europe (see Firth, 1996), which will be considered later.
11-4 ASEAN ELF conclusion
With regard to the use of tense and inflection, this limited data set shows that the
present simple tense is by far the most common tense constituting 61 per cent of all tense
uses. The past simple accounts for 18 per cent of all uses and modals 12 per cent. No other
tense accounts for more than 3 per cent of usage and many for far less even than that.
Generally speaking, there is relatively little syntactic variation and far less than was
identified in Chapter 4 among native speaker varieties. Only 5 per cent of the present sim-
ple and 1 per cent of the past simple uses, for example, might be marked as incorrect by
someone using a native speaker model as the standard. Most of these uses actually repre-
sent the way these speakers use tense in spoken interaction. Marking past is not necessary
when the past is made clear by the context, for example. Similarly, concord (and plurals)
may remain unmarked. Some speakers make different types of mistakes, however, and these
may signal that they are learners. In particular the addition of inflections in contexts where
they are not needed is a potential marker of learner English. The simplification of syntax
by not adding inflections where the time or meaning has already been established by the
context are features of new varieties of English and mirror the way inflections have become
simpler within traditional English itself.
There is remarkably little syntactic variation and a reason for this is considered later
in the chapter. Desrite the relative lack of variation, it would be imp()S§ible to describe
ASEAN lingua franca English as a single systematic system t}i(:l,t co.uld. b~. coc!ifi~~ a.ndthen
used as~.1p()del for the.ASEAN English language classroom. Rather than being a systemat-
ic code, ASEAN lingua franca English comprises a number of separate systems. There are,
nevertheless, very few instances where speakers fail to understand each other. These exam-
ples of ASEAN lingua franca English are charaEt.er.ised ]Jy mutl}al.upder~t<g1ding, coopera-
tion and tolerance of variation. It is this mutual intelligibility and the ways in which the
participants strive for it that have important classroom implications and I discuss these in
detail in Part C of the book. I now turn to a brief discussion of the role and description of
ELF in Europe.
11.5 The European Union (EU) and English
The European Economic Community, as it was then known, was established by the
Treaty of Rome on 25 March 1957· At the time, only six European countries were members:
Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands (for a map of this
region see p154). Over the years there have been changes of name and more and more coun-
tries have joined so that today it is known as the European Union and comprises 27 coun-
tries1, with two more currently applying to join.
The main objective of the original EEC was to rebuild the European economy
after the devastation of World War Two (Ammon, 1996). Germany's defeat in the war
was also reflected in the decrease in the number of countries which studied German.
Several northern European countries downgraded German and upgraded English as a
school subject (Ammon, 1996: 250). Before the war, German had been the major lingua
franca in Eastern Europe. When this became the 'Eastern Bloc', controlled by the then
Soviet Union after the war, German was replaced there by Russian. In turn, the collapse
of the Soviet Union in 1990 saw a revival of interest in German, but also an upsurge of
interest in English. For example, in the Czech Republic English is now seen as the
'language of higher education, science and world-wide communication' (Ammon, 1996:
253).
English is the most widely used language of wider communication in Europe. It is
taught more than all the other European languages put together (Gorlach, 2002). is the
major foreign language for business .in all EU countries, preferred for negotiations and
dominant in academic publishing almost to the exclusion of all other languages (Ammon,
1996: 253), and is 'by far the most important language of scientific and scholarly confer-
. ences' (Ammon, 1996: 260 ). The domination of English in academic publications is star-
tling. For example, in 1950 all contributions to the 'oldest specialist journal in the field of
behavioural science', Zeitschrift fur Tierpsychologie, were in German. By 1984, 95 per cent
were written in English (Viereck, 1996: 20). The European Science Foundation's working
language is English and its journal Communication is exclusively in English (Ammon,
1996). The dramatic shift to English in the academic domain means that European lan-
guages are not developing appropriate scientific terms (Hoffmann, 2000: 10). And the move
from German into English has raised concerns that a once powerful European lingua
franca is being reduced to a sub-variety, used only in restricted local domains (Gorlach,
2002: 16).
It is not just in the domains of business, education and science, however, that
English is increasing its respective roles. Dollerup has argued that the 'present hegemony
of English in Europe is primarily due to the entertainment industry, and only secondari-
ly to war, technological lead, science and political domination' (1996: 26). For example,
some So per cent of the films shown in Western Europe are imported from either Britain
or the USA.
English is also, along with French, one of the working languages of the EU. While
each country's national language is an official language of the EU and there are thus 23
1
These are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany,
Greece, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal,
Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The two applicant countries are Croatia
and Turkey. For a general introduction to the EU, see the website www.europa.eu.int.
languages 2, in effect English plays the major role, for, apart from being one of the working
languages, it is also the most commonly used 'link' language for interpreters and translators
in the EU. This is not hard to explain, as there are likely to be many more people who are
bilingual in, for example, Greek and English than in Greek and Danish. Thus the majority
of interpreters will use the English interpreter's English version of a Greek delegate's speech
as the basis from which to interpret the speech into Danish (or any other language). For
informative accounts of the complexity of the translation process in the EU, see Dollerup
(1996) and Tosi (2003).
Yet, while En~lish is now the most important lingua franca of Europe, the position of
English within the countries of Europe differs considerably (Hoffmann, 2000). In
Scandinavia, Belgium and the Netherlands, English has an extremely high profile and is
almost like a second language. In contrast, in the countries of southern Europe - Spain,
Portugal and Italy, for example - it has less of a presence, although that presence is grow-
ing. English is growing in importance even in Turkey, where it is considered important both
for work and education (Hoffmann, 2000: 8). The overall picture appears to be of a bilin-
gualism or multilingualism with English as one of the languages. The majority of
Europeans, excluding native speakers, learn English in schools, while the reduction in the
numbers of students learning other European languages is worrying. So 89 per cent of stu-
dents study English with French next at 32 per cent and then German with 18 per cent.
There is no increase in the number of European students learning Italian and Spanish and
'Danish, Dutch, Modern Greek and Portuguese are badly neglected' (van Essen, 1997: 97).
At the same time, Spanish and Italian students who traditionally have learned French are
taking up English at the expense of French in increasing numbers (van Essen, i997). In
summary, English is spreading because of its value in so many different domains.
Increasingly, young Europeans are able to communicate with each other in Erigllsh.
'Students need little encouragement to study English as its utility is so clearly evident'
(Labrie and Quell, 1997: 22).
Does this mean that a variety or varieties of 'Euro-English' will develop, or will
English be a lingua franca marked by variation of the type described above for ASEAN
ELF?
11.6 Euro-English and/or ELF
Most scholars agree that the increased use of English in Etuope will lead to a variety
or varieties of Euro-English, although their emphases and predictions differ. M£c:li9,no
believes that a Euro-English will be 'legitimised, codified, standardised' (Jenkins, Modiano
2 The 23 official languages are: Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek,
Hungarian, Italian, Irish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish
and Swedish. Irish is to become an official language in the near future. The discrepancy between the number of
official languages and countries is explained by French and German being national languages of more than one
country. Britain's Independent newspaper reported on 10 November 2005 that three non-official EU languages -
Catalan, Basque and Galician - could be used at official EU meetings and in official EU correspondence.
and Seidlhofer, 2001: 13). Seidlhofer agrees, saying it should be possible to describe
European ELF 'and eventually also to provide a codification which would allow it to be cap-
tured in dictionaries and grammars and to be taught' (Jenkins, Modiano and Seidlhofer,
2001: 14). Jenkins, however, is more cautious, preferring to argue for a core of Euro-English
features, but allowing the development of different varieties of Euro-English, each with its
distinctive features. For example, French English 'will probably have an unrounded vowel
sound in the word "hot" so that it sounds more like "hut"' (Jenkins, Modiano and
Seidlhofer, 2001: 18). One would certainly expect that the pronunciation of Euro-English
would be influenced by the first language of their speakers, in much the same way that
Indian English or Chinese English is so influenced. But will a range of nativised Englishes
develop in Europe? Dollerup is certain that Euro-English will develop, but unsure whether
it will be represented by one or several varieties (1996: 35). Cenoz and Jessner (2ooob) feel
a non-native variety of Euro-English is emerging. Goethals, on the other hand, seems cer-
tain that different varieties will develop. 'Flemish English is as recognisably different from
the Dutch English in the Netherlands as from the German or French Englishes' (1997b: no).
Berns takes a similar view. In predicting that English will become the 'primary language' of
the European Union, British English will be a mere 'sub-variety' along with French, Dutch
or Danish Englishes (1995: 9-10).
11.7 Research into ELF
The communicative strategies of speakers of ELF are aimed at ensuring cooperation

and preserving face. For example, Firth (1996) analysed a corpus of telephone calls from
two Danish international trading companies that exclusively involved non-native speakers.
The level of English competency among the interactants varied and participants occasion-
ally openly acknowledged their lack of English competence. In his analy;s~s,
>·'~.>-)
,Firth noted that
0;;
'participants demonstrate a remarkable ability to systematically and contingently - and on

the basis of qui~~~ssentially local considerations - attend and disattend to a range of anom-
alies and infeliCiti~s in their unfolding interaction' (1996: 243). A principle associated with
this is what he calls the 'let it pass' (1996: 243) concept by which participants, if they are
unsure of what the other speaker means, will, instead of seeking immediate clarification, let
it pass in the expectation that the meaning will become clear as the conversation unfolds.
This may even require using the unknown phrase or word in one's own speech. Firth terms
this the 'make it normal' concept (1996: 245). As an example he shows that, although the lis-
tener does not understand the term 'blowing' in the context in which it is used, he never-
theless incorporates it into his turn:
A: their bricks get u:::h(.) blowing uh [like the balloons],

B: [yah that's it] yeah the bricks g- get blowing and uh they had ...
(1996: 247)
Similarly, any 'mistakes' are allowed to pass as long as the meaning is understandable from
the context. However, if the information is necessary for the interaction to be completed
successfully, then 'perceived problems must be dealt with immediately, rather than being
allowed to pass' (1996: 250 ). In general, Firth noted people's extraordinary ability to make
sense of what was being said. Firth concludes that further research is needed to investigate
the 'universality of such notions as the (dis)preferred construction oftl1rns, and the Jl1QC-
tion of "accounts", laughter, silence and hesitation phenomena, reformulations and r~.<lir'
(1996: 255). Meierkord (2000) also found that participants in ELF interactions worked to
preserve the face of all participants and to ensure each other of a benevolent attitude.~ The
strategies reported by Firth and Meierkord are also found in the ASEAN ELF interactions
described earlier.
Perhaps the best-known grammatical study into ELF is Jenkins' work into the phonol-
ogy of international English (2000 ). This is of particular pedagogic value, as she has
identified a' li.ngua franca core' which shows, among other things, which s2.l1nds <l!lci<l:§E~~ts
of pronunciation ~inder mutual intelligibility and which do not. I consider this further in
Part C. J(lm~s (2000) is investigating the use of ELF in the Alpine-Adriatic region of Europe.
The syntactic features which he has identified appear remarkably similar to the features that
h~ve b~en described above and in earlier chapters on specific varieties of English. These
syntactic features display a tendency towards simplification including the conflation of cer-
tain tenses and the absence of certain morphological markings. These features appear to be
non-essential for mutual intelligibility.
Seidlhofer is collecting the Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English as a
Lingua Franca (VOICE). She has listed (2004: 220) the following typical 'errors' of ELF that
do not appear to hincier c:gfi1munication. Again, all these have appeared earlier and in
descriptions of nativised varieties of English:
(i) dropping third person present tense '-s'
(ii) confusing the relative pronouns 'who' and 'which'
(iii) non-Li use of the definite and indefinite pronouns
(iv) not using correct tag questions
(v) inserting redundant prepositions
(vi) overuse of certain verbs of 'high semantic generality' ('do', 'have', 'make' etc.)
(vii) replacing infinitive constructions with that-clauses
(viii) overdoing explicitness (as in 'black colour')
The major cause of misunderstanding is 'unilateral idiomicity', where idiomatic speech of
one speaker may not be understood by others (2004: 220).
In an investigation into the use of English as an in!ernational linguafra11ca, Mc=i~t:~?J:c!_
(2004) obtained data comprising 22 hours of informal spoken data, primarily of students
from both outer and expanding circle countries who were studying at British universities.
She analysed the data for syntactic variation and classified the syntax of the speakers as 'reg-
ular' (i.e., following native speaker norms), 'marked' (i.e. following nativised norms) or
'doubtful' (deviating from both native and nativised norms) (2004: 118). She found that9_.4
R~r.cent of th.e utterances of the outer circle speakers were regularand was surprised by
C<' " " ""~~
this, as 'it contradicts the assumption that speakers would carry the characteristics of their
Il~~!ivised varieties int,o the English lingua franca interactions' (2004: 119). She also found
that 95 per cent of the expanding circle speakers' utterances w~re regular, but was not sur-
- - -- -
prised by this, as they had been taught either British or American English. These findings
did not take into account the utterances of less competent speakers, 22 per cent of which
'diverged grammatically from British English or American English' (and presumably
nativised norms also) (2004: 119). Sl:ie also found that speakers adopted processes of
simplification and regularisation. This is not the syntactic simplification referred to in my
study of ASEAN ELF above, but here refers instead to the tendency of speakers to split up
their sentences into small simple units and to avoid compound sentences and hypotaxis.
Regularisation refers to the tendency of speakers to 'front' the topics under discussion, as in
these two examples:
'Three years you have had to do'
'My unit, it's not that special you see'
(2004: 214)
Meierkord expressed surprise at the lack of variation displayed by her outer circle speakers in
these international ELF interactions. But perhaps this is not surprising at all. English oper-
ates as a lingua franca at a number of different levels, including local, national, regional and
international. Apparently paradoxically, the more localised the use of English as a lingua fran-
ca, the more variation it is likely to display. Conversely, the more international its US(O\ th~ less
variation it is likely to display. This can be explained by reference back to the 'identity-com-
munication continuum'. When used in a local setting, ELF will display identity markers. Thus
code-switching and the explicit used of nativised norms can be expected. When used for
international communication, on the other hand, speakers will consciously avoid the use of
local and nativised norms and expressions. Thus, in the ASEAN ELF data, the only use of
code-mixing occurred in the conversation that included a Singaporean and Indonesian, when
they referred to Singaporean English as rojak English. Rojak is an Indonesian-Malay word
that usually refers to a kind of Indonesian mixed salad and the term was familiar to both of
them, but not to the third member of the conversation, a Cambodian.
SM: in school in the class I will try? to speak good English in fact we are supposed to
speak good English {11: ehm} so I will switch you know ehm {11: ehm} in the class I'm
I am a teacher I see myself as a teacher we have to {C: yes} show good example {11
: eh hm} so ehm there's no way that I will speak Singlish to my kids {11: eh hm} not
in class yeah er not in class not in school {11 : eh hm eh hm} but ehm like what you
said just now NAME when we go back to our friends {11: (laugh) ok} and all that {11:
laugh} all the English {11 : laugh} and Singlish are all {11: laugh} mixed together {11:
all right} like rojak
11: oh like rojak right like that
SM: yes you know rojak right
11: yes it's fruits mi[xed
SM: all] mixed up together
11: all right all right {SM: yeah} ok oh all right
English as a lingua franca 169
With this single exception, avoiding the use of terms that might not be familiar to
participants was a strategy adopted by all the participants in their use of English for wider
regional communication. A conversation between Malays, Singaporeans and Bruneians, on
the other hand, would be peppered with code-switching and nativised features, as all
par:icipan:s would hav~ at least some familiarity with t~e local ~ultures and languages.
Me1erkord s (2004) findmg that the syntax of her outer circle subJects displayed such lit-
tle variation may be because they were using English for international communication
with people who would not have been familiar with the cultures of Africa or India. Thus
they would consciously excise nativised norms and cultural references from their speech.
11.8 Conclusion
I have suggested that the 'identity-communication continuum' can explain why ELF,
when used for international communication, is likely to display relatively little variation. In
contrast, the more localised its use, the more variation it is likely to display, in the form of
nativised and local norms. I have also suggested a possible morphological criterion for dis-
tinguishing between features of learner English and new varieties of English, namely that
learners may add inflections where they are not needed, while a tendency for all varieties of
English is towards the simplification of the inflectional system.
In the case of ASEAN ELF, the results of early research suggest that speakers have lit-
tle difficulty in communicating with one another, despite the inherent differences in the
Englishes that each speaker brings to the interaction. However, a great deal more research
into the linguistic features and roles of ASEAN ELF is needed. A second point of note is that
there has been comparatively little ill-feeling over the adoption of English as the de facto
lingua franca of ASEAN. It seems unlikely that this will change, especially if the prediction
made in the earlier chapter about China's use of English for regional and international
communication is fulfilled. This does not mean, however, that research into the roles of
English and attitudes to it is not needed. Localised empirical research into these matters is
vital, so that a picture of the ways English impacts on the lives of people, both positive and
negative, can be documented. For example, case studies in specific ASEAN countries are
required to test the current belief that the use of English as a lingua franca continues to be
accepted so pragmatically.
In the case of English in Europe, there seems little doubt that it will continue to
increase its position as the dominant lingua franca. Whether this will result in varieties of
European Englishes, or in a single variety of Euro-English being used as a lingua franca can
only be determined by further research. The extent to which it is 'stifling' (Gorlach, 2002: 1)
other European languages by steadily encroaching on more and more domains also needs
to be researched, as do European attitudes towards English, especially the attitudes of the
young.
In more general terms, research in ELF is needed to investigate if and how its speak-
ers use ELF in what Halliday has called the 'mathetic' way (1978: 54 -6). In contrast to the
pragmatic uses of language that demand responses and represent a way of participating in
a situation, the mathetic uses of language do not demand a response, but represent a way
of learning and arise out of the personal and heuristic functions of language. In other
words, the ways speakers of a new variety use the language to make meaning and create
their own versions of reality must be a key question for the researcher. This issue was dis-
cussed in Chapter 7, in the context ofindian and Sri Lankan scholars transmitting local and
traditional knowledge.
What then is the likelihood or possibility of English providing a mathetic as well as
a pragmatic function when it is used as a lingua franca? It may be argued that its very role
as a lingua franca means that English can only serve the pragmatic functions when so used.
It may also be argued that this is true of all languages that serve as a lingua franca.
However, lingua francas that are used for communication between peoples of related lan-
guages and cultures - such as Bahasa Indonesia in Indonesia and Modern Standard
Chinese in China, for example - can surely provide the mathetic functions perfectly ade-
quately, as their speakers share, in some fundamental sense, a view of the world. And when
English is used as a lingua franca among people who share the same cultural values and
where their variety of English has become their primary language, as is the case with
Australian Aboriginal English, for example, then there is no doubt that the variety can per-
form mathetic functions. But if it is argued that new varieties of English must develop
mathetic functions as well as pragmatic ones in order to become accepted and established
as new varieties, then speakers who come to lingua franca communication using their own
varieties of English will be using varieties of English that see the world in different ways.
So can ASEAN ELF provide both pragmatic and mathetic functions? With regard to the
use of English as a lingua franca in Europe, the answer to this question would appear to be
yes, as it has taken over the academic domain from other European languages. However,
much more research is needed in this particular area before definitive answers can be
given.
In the next part of the book, Part C, I summarise the key points raised in Part B, and
then consider their implications for English language teaching.
Part C: Implications
12 Summary of key themes
In this chapter, the major linguistic and sociolinguistic themes identified and dis-
cussed in Parts A and B will be summarised. This will focus on the causes of linguistic vari-
ation and the development of Englishes on the one hand, and the sociolinguistic causes and
explanations for the spread of English on the other. For example, can Phillipson's (1992)
theory of Linguistic Imperialism (see Chapter 3) adequately account for the current wide-
spread use of English, or is local demand for English the underlying reasons for its current
role as the world's international language?
12.1 Linguistic variation and the development of Englishes
There are countless varieties of English and these varieties perform countless roles in
an extraordinary range of contexts and domains. Yet, despite the number of varieties and
the variation within and between them, the linguistic causes of this variation are compa-
rable for all of them. That is to say, a m~jgr cause of variation is contact with other lan-
guages. As illustrated throughout Part B, this is as true of the way English and varieties of
English developed in Britain, as it is of the way the so-called new varieties of English have
developed or are continuing to develop. Thus traditional English owes many of its current
linguistic features to its contact over several centuries with Latin, Scandinavian languages
, a~fPrench. This change is constant, so that many other languages continue to influence
the way 'traditional' English is developing. In the context of inflections, for example, a
major change has been a tendency for the inflectional system of English to become sim-
pler over time, so that the English of today contains far fewer inflections than Old English
did.
171
Similar influences and tendencies can be seen in the development of new varieties of
:. English. All have developed in contact with other languages and aU have displayed(! ten-
dency towards syntactic simplification or regularisation of one sort or another. Any
differences are merely differences of degree, rather than differences of type. As Mufwene
(2001, and see Chapter 5) has argued, the differences in linguistic features between Black
and White varieties of American English can be explained by the different linguistic fea-
tures of the languages that have influenced them - African-American English has been
influenced more by African languages, white varieties by European languages. But both
Black and White varieties have been influenced to some extent by both African and
European languages.
The varieties of English that have developed in outer circle countries have also been
influe11ced by contact with other languages. The influence of lqcal languages upon these
indig~nised varieties of English, such as Indian, for example, may be greater than their
influence upon inner circle varieties, such as Australian, for example; but both Indian
and Australian English can be said to b£nativised varieties, in that both have developed
linguistic features that reflect lo~al cultures and ways of speaking. The Englishes of
Britain are clearly also nativised varieties in that they reflect the cultural norms of their
speakers.
Some scholars (see Chapters 3 and 11, for example) have argued that new. yarieties Qf
English will become so influenced by contact with local languages that they will develop
into different languages and will become mutually unintelligible. While this has happened
in certain contexts with the development of languages such as Nigerian Pidgin English, for
example, the need for people to be able to communicate beyond their own speech com-
munities has ensured the maintenance of varieties of English that are internationally intel-
ligible. This can be explained by the identity-communication continuum (see Chapter 1),
presented again below.
The identity-communication continuum illustrates two major functions of language:
for communication; and to establish identity. It shows that when speakers wish to highlight
their identity and membership of a speech community, they will choose to use a highly
localised, informal variety of English. Or, if they wish to identify themselves as members of
a specialist profession, they may use a highly specialised variety or register for this purpose.
These varieties are likely to be unintelligible to people outside the particular speech com-
munity. As Smith has pointed out, 'Our speech and writing in English needs to be intelligi-
ble only to those with whom we wish to communicate in English' (1992: 75). When used
locally and to signal identity within a speech community, the variety of English will display
a wide range of distinctive phonological, lexical, syntactic and cultural features. When used
in order to communicate across speech communities, however, the variety will display far
fewer distinctive features. This helps explain the comparatively wide range of variation in
the local dialect of Scottish English, the Doric (Chapter 4), as against the comparatively
narrow range of syntactic variation found when English is used as an international lingua
franca (Meierkord, 2004, and see Chapter 11).
Summary of key themes 173
Language function
Identity
l
Language variety
Communication
broad I basilectal varieties

l
educated I acrolectal varieties I registers
f\~r~markable fact connected to the development of so many varieties of English

i~~S() ll1any different linguistic and cultural ccmtexts is that so many of these varieties
share a large number of linguistic features. Below is Schmied's list of shared phonolog-
ical and syntactic features of African Englishes (1991: 58ff., and see Chapter 8). As so
many of these features have al;;-been d~;~~ibed in other varieties of English, such as
Inc1@n (Chapter 7), Singaporean and Filipino (Chapter 9), I include the list again here:
Common linguistic features of African Englishes
Pronunciation
(i) Fricatives tend to be avoided.

(ii) Length differences in vowels are levelled and not used to distinguish meaning.
(iii) The central vowels /A/, fa:/ and fa/ as in 'but', 'bird' and 'about' become more
open as in /'J/, fa/, and /a/.
(iv) Diphthongs tend to become monophthongs, so that /e1/ and /'du/ become /e/
and fol respectively.
(v) Consonant clusters either drop consonants or insert vowels to split them.
Grammar
(i) Inflectional endings are not always added to the verb but general, regular and
unmarked forms are used instead.
(ii) Complex tenses such as the past perfect and certain conditionals tend to be
avoided.
(iii) The use of verb+ing constructions is extended to all verbs resulting in exam-
ples such as 'I am having your book' and 'I was not liking the food in the
hotel'.
(iv) Phrasal and prepositional verbs are used differently, for example 'I will pick
you at 8 o'clock tonight.' (= 'I will pick you up at 8 o'clock tonight')
(v) Verb complementation varies freely to give phrases such as 'allow him go' and
'they made him to clean the whole yard'.
(vi) Noun phrases are not always marked for number and case or are treated
differently, to give 'informations', 'a cattle', 'an advice'.
(vii) Relative pronouns ('whom', 'whose') are avoided to give 'adult education
which its main purpose is to help adults .. :.
(viii) The use of plural is overgeneralised ('luggages', 'advices').
(ix) Articles and determiners are often omitted ('I am going to post office').
(x) Pronouns are not always distinguished by gender.
(xi) Adjectives may be used as adverbs to give 'I can obtain the food easy'.
(xii) Pronoun copying is common ('many of the fish, they have different colours').
(xiii) Negative yes/no questions are confirmed by responding to the form of the
question so that the answer to 'he isn't good?' becomes 'yes (he isn't)'.
(xiv) There are invariant question tags, for example 'isn't it?' and 'you wanted to
leave for Nairobi, not so?'
(xv) The interrogative word order is retained in indirect speech to give 'I cannot
tell you what is the matter'.
(xvi) There is freer word order so that 'in my family, we are many' becomes
common.
In Part B, further distinctive phonological features were identified. For example, many vari-
eties of English have a tendency towards syllable- rather than stress-timing, and this is also
true of many African varieties. Specific varieties will also display distinctive phonological
features. It explains why speakers' accents can often tell listeners where they come from.
This happens at an individual level as well, which is why it is possible to identify a close
friend from the sound of their voice alone.
Many of the grammatical features listed above appear in other varieties of English.
There are two possible explanations for this. The first is that the similarities across varieties
are due to a 'pan-linguistic grammatical simplification process' (Crane, 1994: 358, and see
Chapter 9). This accords with the process of inflectional simplification through which tra-
ditional English has passed and would account for the frequency of the non-marking of
tenses, which is listed first in Schmied's catalogue above.
A second possible explanation for the 'regularity' of these features is that they are
derived from parameter settings in Universal Grammar (UG). UG proposes that all lan-
guages share a basic grammatical system which is mapped onto language through certain
parameter settings, but that these differ across languages. 'While the principles of UG lay
down absolute requirements that a human language has to meet, the parameters of UG
account for the syntactic variation between languages' (Cook and Newson, 1996: 55).
However, many languages can share the same parameter settings. One example of a param-
eter setting is whether a language insists on some form of noun in subject position
(non-pro-drop languages) or whether it does not (pro-drop languages). British English is
a non-pro-drop language, but many other languages such as Arabic, Chinese and Italian,
are pro-drop. Cook and Newson (1996: 55) give this example from British English and
Italian respectively, where the English version requires the subject 'I', but the Italian version
does not:
I am the walrus
'Sono ii trachea' (am the walrus)
In Chapter 9, I suggested that one reason why Singaporean English does not require a sub-
ject - as in the headline 'Hurt girlfriend with lighted butt' - is because it has been
influenced by Chinese, which is a pro-drop language. Thus, varieties of English that have
been influenced by pro-drop languages may themselves become pro-drop languages.
A second parameter of UG concerns the 'presence or absence of syntactic movement'
(Cook and Newson, 1996: 27). British English requires movement but other languages do
not. For example, it is possible to change a Chinese or Malay sentence into a question sim-
ply by adding some form of interrogative particle, but in English the word order needs to
change. For example, the Malay sentence:
Dia nak pergi ke Kuala Lumpur. (He is going to Kuala Lumpur.)
can be turned into a question by the addition of'kah':

Dia nak pergi ke Kuala Lumpur-kah? (Is he going to Kuala Lumpur?)
(Cook and Newson, i996: 27)
The English question form, on the other hand, requires a change of word order from 'He
is' to 'Is he'.
It has been shown in the previous chapters that many varieties of English do not
require a change of word order in order to form questions and this may be explained by
their speakers' first languages not requiring word order change in the same way that British
English does. Linked to this is the concept of a language's Principle Branching Direction
(PBD). The PBD of a language 'refers to structures such as relative clauses, adverbial sub-
ordinate clauses and sentence complementation and the way they are generated in relation
to a head' (Flynn, 1984: 106). Chinese is principally left-branching so prefers the clause
sequence in complex sentences of subordinate to main. British English is principally right-
branching so prefers the clause sequence in complex sentences of main to subordinate
(Kirkpatrick, 1996). Thus Chinese prefers a compound cause-effect clause sequence of
'because clause, therefore clause', while English prefers a 'therefore clause, because clause'
sequence. In a neutral or unmarked context, Chinese speakers are therefore more likely to
say 'because it was raining, the match was cancelled', while English speakers are more like-
ly to say 'the match was cancelled because it was raining'. In Chapters 9 and 10, this
'because-therefore' sequence was shown to be preferred in both Singaporean and Chinese
English respectively, a preference that can be explained by the transfer of PBD from the first
language to the local variety of English.
As a final example, languages differ in the way grammatical relations operate at sentence
level. For example, Chinese is a topic-prominent language in which the grammatical relation
'topic-comment' (e.g. 'apples [topic], I like [comment]') plays a major role, while in British
English the grammatical relation 'subject-predicate' (e.g. 'I [subject] like apples [predicate])
plays a major role (Li and Thompson, 1976). Thus the subject-predicate sentence 'the leaves
on that tree are big' may be rendered in Chinese as a topic-comment sentence, 'that tree,
leaves big' (Kirkpatrick, 1996). The transfer of a preference for 'topic-comment' structures
may explain why so many varieties of English allow sentences which Schmied has called 'pro-
noun copying' and 'freer word order', as in his examples (xii) and (xvi) above.
The twin phenomena of 'pan-simplification' and the transfer of parameter settings
from local languages to the relevant variety of English may therefore explain why so many
varieties of English share so many linguistic features. In addition, however, varieties of
English possess features that do distinguish them from others. Their very distinctiveness
sees them regarded as stereotypical features of the variety in question. For example, the use
of the 'lah' particle in Malaysian and Singaporean English, and the use of 'wherein' in
Philippine English (Chapter 9) are seen as stereotypical features of these two varieties.
L}mguage contact therefore affects the relevant variety of English in different ways.
A natural tendency towards simplification coupled with the transfer of parameter settings
of UG mean many features of a developing variety of English will be shared by others.
However, the transfer of linguistically specific features from a local language to the vari-
ety of English will result in genuinely distinctive features in that variety. As the descrip-
tion of the varieties throughout Part B has demonstrated, certain phonological features
transferred from local languages will also make speakers of that variety distinctive - and
in many cases this distinctiveness will be reflected in local varieties as much as the nation-
al variety. Lexical and cultural features also contribute in major ways to the distinctive-
ness of any variety.
A major conundrum in the description of new varieties of English concerns the lack
of criteria for determining whether a linguistic feature that differs from an established
norm is indeed a feature of a new variety of English or whether it is a feature of learner
English. Bamgbose (1998: 13) has suggested five factors that can be used to determine
whether an innovation is a norm:
(i) how many people use it?
(ii) how widely is it used?
(iii) who are the people who use it?
(iv) where is the use sanctioned?
(v) is the use accepted?
It is worth recalling that this is a conundrum that faces scholars who are trying to describe
Old English (see Chapter 4), as well as those scholars who are engaged in the description of
new Englishes. And, indeed, Bamgbose's criteria present problems. First, it is not clear how
many people have to use the feature and in which contexts etc. before it can be classified as
a norm. Second, as I argued in Chapters 6 and 10, codification of a feature may mean that
it is an established norm, but the converse does not hold: the fact that a feature has not been
codified does not mean that it is not an established norm. Arguing otherwise would be like
demanding to see someone's birth certificate before admitting that they existed. Third, if
the codification is prescriptive in intent, a feature that is codified may not be commonly
used at all. It may simply be that the codifier feels that it should be. In Chapter n, I tenta-
tively suggested one linguistic criterion for distinguishing between learner and 'new'
English. If a speaker simplifies the inflectional system of English in ways identified above
(lack of tense marking in certain contexts, for example), this is likely to be a feature of a
'new' variety of English. If, on the other hand, the speaker makes the inflectional system
more complex, either by adding inflections to the wrong word or by adding them where
they are not necessary, this is likely to be a feature of learner English. One obvious way of
avoiding this conundrum is to ensure that the informants or subjects providing the data are
themselves expert users of the variety in question. All too often research into new varieties
of English and into lingua franca English includes speakers who are not proficient speakers.
For example, involving first year university students in places like Hong Kong is unlikely to
provide data from which a reliable description of Hong Kong English can be obtained, as
many of these learners will not be expert users of the language. Indeed, if I were to base a
description of Australian English on the written work of first year Anglo-Australian uni-
versity students, I would find many features that differed from established norms. It is
essential then that descriptions and analysis of varieties of English and lingua franca be
based on the language of expert users.
12.2 Sociolinguistic features and the spread of Englishes
In Chapter 3 I briefly reviewed Phillipson's theory of Linguistic Imperialism (LI)

(1992). Here I return to this and discuss it in the light of the findings presented in Part B of
this book. It is important to reiterate the key tenets of LI, and in order to ensure that these
are expressed in his own words, I quote from Phillipson's response (1997) to Davies' critique
(1996) of LI:
Linguistic imperialism is a theoretical construct, devised to account for linguistic hierar-

chisation, to address issues of why some languages come to be used more and others
less, what structures and ideologies facilitate such processes, and the role of language
professiona Is.
Linguistic imperialism is a subtype of linguicism, a term which Tove Skutnabb-Kangas
coined (1988), and is used to draw parallels between hierarchisation on the basis of race
(racism), gender (sexism), and language (linguicism).
Linguicism can be intralingual and interlingual. It exists among and between speakers of
a language when one dialect is privileged as standard. Linguicism exists between speak-
ers of different languages in processes of resource allocation, vindication or vilification in
discourse of one language rather than another - English as the language of modernity
and progress, Cantonese as a mere dialect unsuited for a range of literate and societal
functions - (...)
Linguistic imperialism takes place within an overarching structure of asymetrical

North/South relations, where language interlocks with other dimensions, cultural (par-
ticularly in education, science and the media), economic and political.
(Phillipson, 1997: 239)
Fishman, Conrad and Rubal-Lopez (1996) set out to discover, in a systematic way, the
changes in the status and functions of English in the period 1940-90 in 20 countries. The
authors responsible for reporting on these countries were also asked to react to Phillipson's
theory and ask whether any increase in the use of English could be seen as the result of
Linguistic Imperialism. Some of their findings have been reported in Part B. In his sum-
mary, Fishman himself made the following points:
With regard to which languages were used as media of education, only four of the twenty
countries conducted primary education primarily in English (or another exoglossic European
language). The four countries were Cameroon, India, Nigeria and Papua New Guinea. In con-
trast, twelve places (Cuba, the European Union, Israel, Malaysia, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the
Canadian Province of Quebec, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Uganda) used
local languages for primary education. Three countries - Kenya, the Philippines and South
Africa - used a mixed model, whereby both English and local languages were used in
primary education. In contrast, however, English is commonly used in higher levels of
education, especially at tertiary level. It was also found that English is used as either an
official or co-official language in eleven of the twenty places surveyed. English is more
common in higher reaches of society in the domains of science, commerce and industry and
is least common in the local dimensions of society. There is thus a functional division of
labour between English and local vernaculars, and there is no evidence of linguacide.
(Fishman, 1996: 637)
As Conrad argues in the same collection, 'if the agenda was really for English to
replace local languages, the policy has failed miserably' (1996: 26). Fishman concludes that
the main drivers behind the current spread of English are socioeconomic factors and that
it is more linked to countries' engagement in the modem world economy 'than to any
efforts derived from their former colonial masters' (1996: 640).
In Chapter 3, I also briefly described the work of Brutt-Griffler and her view that
English 'owes its existence as a world language in large part to the struggle against imperi-
alism, and not to imperialism alone' (2002: ix). Far from forcing its colonial subjects to
learn English, British colonial policy was, in large part, to provide an English education
only for the elite rather than to offer it to the great majority of the population, who were
to be educated in the local languages. This policy did not mean that pupils should learn
only English. On the contrary, elite education was bilingual and included the learning of
local languages. As reported in Chapter 10, this was even the case in the majority of mis-
sionary schools in Hong Kong, where the curriculum was divided between Chinese lan-
guage, Chinese literature and English (Bolton, 2003). To argue, then, that the colonial
government imposed their language at the expense oflocal languages is to ignore the facts.
As Brutt-Griffler has argued, the role played by colonial subjects is crucial to under-
standing how World Englishes have developed. 'Asians and Africans transformed English
from a means of exploitation into a means of resistance' (2002: 65). In other words, the
colonised adapted the English language and used it for their own ends. Many instances of
this have been provided in Part B, where several writers were quoted attesting to their abil-
ity to 'colonise' English and make it theirs. I review a selection of these quotes below. The
Indian author Raja Rao wrote in the foreword to his seminal and iconic piece Kanthapura,
published in 1963, 'We shall have English with us and amongst us, and not as our guest or
friend, but as one of our own, of our castes, our creed, our sect and of our tradition' (quot-
ed in Srivastava and Sharma, 1991: 190, and see Chapter 7).
D'Souza argued that English has been Indianised by being 'borrowed, transcreated,
recreated, stretched, extended, contorted perhaps' (2001: 150, and see Chapter 7).
The well-known Indian novelist Anita Desai agrees. She emphasises that Indian life is
an amalgam of many languages, cultures and civilisations that form 'one very compactly
woven whole' (1996: 221). She has found English 'flexible, elastic, resilient, capable of taking
on whatever tones, rhythms and colours I chose' (1996: 222, and see Chapter 7).
I also quoted a number of writers who expressed the opposite view, the Sri Lankan
poet Wikkrammasinha, the Malaysian poet Mohammed Haji Salleh and the Kenyan writer
Ngugi wa Thiong'o, to name just three.
The Nigerian writers Achebe and Soyinka, however, have argued that English is an
African language and that writing in adapted African forms of English can be a powerful
means of literary expression. 'When we borrow an alien language ... we must stretch it,
impact and compact it, fragment and reassemble it ... (Soyinka, cited in Schmied, 1991:
126, and see Chapter 8).
Despite Pennycook's claim that 'cultural constructs of colonialism' continue (1998:
27), the evidence presented above suggests that the colonial experience is foreign to an
increasing number of people, especially younger people who no longer see English through
a postcolonial lens. As Gorlach (2002: 10-11) argues:
The use of English has apparently become totally detached from the concept of colonial
oppressor's language in Africa and Asia (...) English is regarded as having been a vital
asset in the fight for independence and it has eminent advantages as a nation building
language in multilingual nation~.
All this would suggest that Phillipson's theory of Linguistic Imperialism has been overtak-
en by recent international developments. Linguistic Imperialism was more directly appli-
cable in many countries in the period after the end of World War Two, but the globalisation
phenomenon of recent times has complicated the issue of language choice, so that other
factors need to be considered. Thus, English is now not used by speakers in outer circle
countries today solely because it was imposed upon them by British colonial policy. The
quotes above strongly suggest that, for many people in outer circle countries, English is
used in a wide number of domains because they consider the nativised form of the
language to be their language. English is no longer considered a 'colonial' language. Even
during the time of colonialism, in certain places English was seen as a language through
which people could mount their own resistance to colonialism. In some African countries,
for example, it was seen as a language ofliberation and it is still used as a language of resist-
ance against indigenous regimes throughout the world (see Chapter 8).
As has been illustrated in Part B, English is also used for a range of pragmatic and per-
sonal reasons. It is used because the people see how useful it is for social and economic
advancement. It is used because it is the language of international trade. It is used because
it is the major language of technology, education and popular culture. I reiterate Li's views
on this in the context of Hong Kong:
English helps one access more information and people - through higher education, on
the job, in cyber space and international encounters. In writing, English has a greater
potential to help one reach out to wider audiences compared with other languages. In
this light, rather than a tool of hegemony, English may be looked upon as a resource to
enhance the learners' linguistic repertoire, which in turn has good potential for enriching
their quality of life through higher education and professional development.
(Li, 2002b: 55, and see Chapter 10)
This pragmatism is also evident in expanding circle countries, as we saw in the case of the
extraordinary and increasing desire for English in the countries of the European Union,
, South-East Asia and China (Chapters 10 and n).
The argument that English has spread because of demand as well as hegemony
appears powerful. However, this does not mean that the spread of English is always benev-
olent. The arrival in any linguistic setting of a language for which there is so much demand
is likely to affect the role and status of the other languages. So, we need to ask, for example,
whether English has spread at the expense of local languages? The answer to this question
depends very much on the contexts in which English has become established. In Britain
itself, English has been a 'killer' language. As the importance of English increased through-
out Britain, it became the language that people needed to know in order to gain employ-
ment. People then began to learn it and started to lose their own languages. A long-term
process developed that saw a monolingual community in Language A gradually becoming
a bilingual community in Language A and English, and finally becoming monolingual
again, but in English (Burchfield, 1994b). In this way, English replaced local languages in
many parts of Britain. A comparable process can be seen in settlement colonies. As
described in Chapter 6, for example, an original 250 Australian Aboriginal languages have
been reduced to fewer than 50 and, at the same time, Australian Aboriginal English has
become the language spoken by the majority of Australian Aboriginals.
In outer circle countries and in those where English also plays an important role, such
as the European Union, English tends to be learned as an additional language and its speak-
ers are bilingual, or more probably, multilingual. Gorlach argues that, while English has
never completely replaced a European language outside Britain (2002: 16), it will stifle
European languages in that it will take over functions currently served by European lan -
guages. He cites Germany as a country where German may be reduced to a kind of dialect
(2002: 16), in particular in the field of education and scholarship, a fear shared by Ammon
for German and other European languages (1996). In Chapter 10, a number of other schol-
ars were cited expressing similar concerns. Certainly research is needed into the role aca-
demic English is playing in international scholarship. This is not simply a question of
having to write in a language that is not one's own in order to disseminate one's scholar-
ship or ideas, unfair and onerous as that this may be. The need to write following an empir-
ical-scientific knowledge paradigm and in 'Anglo' rhetorical styles can greatly disadvantage
those unfamiliar with both, as was discussed in Chapter 7 in the context of India and Sri
Lanka. This is also a major concern of Ammon (2000), who argues that the second lan-
guage writer is seriously and unjustly disadvantaged when seeking publication in main-
stream Anglo-American journals. We need to develop ways of ensuring that the
dissemination of knowledge can flow from outer and expanding circle countries to inner
circle ones in order to counteract the current mostly one-way flow of knowledge from the
inner circle, in particular the United States, to the outer and expanding circle. As suggested
in Chapter 7, research is needed to see whether English is being shaped and adapted to local
rhetorical styles so that traditional and indigenous knowledge - whether this be medical or
technological or philosophical - can be successfully disseminated to the inner circle and
globally through English.
When used as an international lingua franca, however, English tends to become an
additional langlgge. This does not mean that it has no effect on local languages. Clearly
it takes over domains in which local languages previously operated. And while Bisong
(1995) has argued that English has not replaced any local languages in Nigeria, a detailed
ethnographic study conducted at a local lev~ has provided evidence that English is
replacing the Emai language in a region of southern Nigeria (Schaeffer and Egbokhare,
1999). This kind of localised empirical study is the type of research that is crucially
needed in order to establish the influence that English is having on local languages in
outer and expanding circle settings (see also Martin, 2005). It is likely, for example, that
the need to learn English will have an effect on the maintenance of smaller languages,
especially if they have no written tradition, as is the case with Emai. This is because chil-
dren will not only need to learn English but also a major local language which itself will
act as some form of lingua franca, whether that be Igbo in Nigeria, Swahili in East
Africa, Bahasa Indonesia in Indonesia or Putonghua in China. The need to learn two
languages may well mean that priority is placed on the learning of these at the expense
of local languages, especially as children move away from rural areas, where the local
language is used, into the cities. So, while it can be argued that it is national lingua fran-
cas - whether these be English or Swahili or Putonghua - that are the killer languages,
the need to learn English in these settings may serve to push local languages further
down the pecking order of importance. What is clear is that many languages that are
spoken by relatively small populations are dying or have already died (Skutnabb-
Kangas, 2000; Dalby, 2002).
Further issues that need to be addressed in any consideration of the demand for
English upon people and nations include the amount of sacrifice or cost that is required for
the learning of English. How much are parents willing, or being asked to, pay in order to
ensure that their children learn this apparent passport to social and economic improve-
ment? To what extent does the learning of English actually provide such a passport to the
rapidly increasing number of school children who are now learning English all over the
world? What are the implications of this desire and demand for English for local, national
and international labour markets? There has been little research into questions of this
nature, but such research is needed.
In addition to reviewing the work of Phillipson (1992) and Brutt-Griffler (2002) on
reasons for the spread of English, in Chapter 3 I also reviewed the theories of the ways
English has developed in outer circle settings. I pointed out that scholars such as Kachru
(1992a, b), Moag (1992) and Schneider (2003a) agreed in general terms that new varieties
of English pass through a series of stages, starting with a reliance on exonormative vari-
eties and a prejudice against the local variety through to the stage where the local variety
receives local acceptance and becomes the classroom model. And, as was pointed out in
Chapter 1, it is important to remember that prejudice against the local variety, even by
speakers of it, is also common among speakers of so-called native speaker varieties. Moag
also suggested that in some cases - and he gave Malaysia and the Philippines as examples
- a decline in the use of English might be seen. As illustrated in Chapter 9, however, in the
case of both Malaysia and the Philippines, far from a decline, there has been an increase in
the use and roles of English and this increase is likely to continue, although Malaysia did
see a decline in the 1960s and 70s. Indeed this increase in use can be seen not only in outer-
circle countries but also in those of the expanding circle, where I have suggested that
nativised varieties are also developing, as in the case of Chinese English, for example. This
is interesting as Schneider expressed the hope that, while his model was based on post-
colonial Englishes, 'In principle it should be possible to apply the model to most, ideally
all of the Englishes around the globe' (2003a: 256). It will be remembered that Schneider
has identified five phases. The first, the foundation phase, occurs when English first
arrives; the second, the phase of exonormative stabilisation, is characterised by a depend-
ence on the variety spoken by the settlers; the third, the nativisation phase, occurs when
the variety of English takes on local lexical and cultural features leading to phase four
when this newly formed indigenous variety becomes accepted as the local standard. The
final stage, differentiation, signals not only the emergence and acceptance of the local vari-
ety in all domains, but also sees the emergence of different local varieties that may mark
ethnic identity, for example.
Are these the phases that expanding circle varieties go through? If we consider
China, it would be difficult to justify that there was a 'foundation phase' as such, in the
same way that there was in inner and outer circle countries. By the same token, the sec-
ond phase of'exonormative stabilisation', during which there is a dependence on the vari-
ety 'spoken by the settlers', makes little sense when there were no settlers, although, in
expanding circle countries the model of English used for the teaching of English is always,
by definition, an exonormative one, at least in the early stages. It does appear, however,
that the next three phases may accurately describe the process through which Chinese
English is going. Based on the evidence provided in Chapter 10, I would argue that it is
currently somewhere between Schneider's phase two and phase three. This corresponds
with Kachru's second phase, which sees the co-existence of exonormative and local
varieties.
A second potential difference in the development of expanding circle Englishes is the
speed with which they can develop. Given the extraordinarily high current demand for
English, certain 'expanding circle' Englishes - European Englishes and Chinese English, for
example - are likely to develop at a far greater pace than did their outer or inner circle
counterparts, remembering that it took some 200 years to pass before The Macquarie
Dictionary of Australian English was published. If we argue that China's interest in English
really only took hold in the 1980s (Chapter 10), it seems highly unlikely that we shall have
to wait until 2180 for the first dictionary of Chinese English, especially given China's emerg-
ing status as an economic super-power.
In this chapter I have reviewed the key themes established in Parts A and B of the
book. I have briefly summarised the linguistic causes of variation and the development of
Englishes, and discussed the reasons for the spread of English across the world. I conclud-
ed that local demand for English is at least as powerful a cause for its current spread as any
imperial or post-imperial imposition of it upon unwilling speakers. In the next chapter I
consider the implications of these issues for English language teaching.
13 Implications for English language teaching
In this chapter I shall consider the implications for language teaching of the variation
that exists within and across Englishes and the way that it has developed and spread in the
context of the choice of model for the language classroom in outer and expanding circle
countries (see also Kirkpatrick, 2007, 2006a). Currently, one of the following two alterna-
tives tend to be chosen: either to adopt an exonormative g~t!Y~ 5pea1z~rgig_del or to ad()pt
an ~pdonormative nativised
~-~,~-~-'"'''
~()~ci:=fi;~ po.ssi6le'iea~;ns and the advantages -;~ddisad-
"''"'''''''' __,,_,,,_,·,
,,,,,,~
1antages for the various stake,hgJg~rs in choosing these models will be considered. These
choices are never absolute, of course: a country, ministry or institution may choose one
model for one context and another for another. It is possible for an outer circle or expand-
ing circle country to choose an exonormative nativised model. I shall also discuss the pos-
sibility of using a lingua franca model in certain contexts and conclude the chapter by
providing a list of skills required by English language teachers. It follows that TESOL cours-
es should provide these and TESOL employers should insist upon them.
13-1 Choosing an exonormative native speaker model
This is the choice that most outer and robably all expa11ging circ;le coung:k,sJ1ave
made. There are several reasons for this. he firSt is that these, native spe~~~-~~dels have
1
·~-~~·---···~······· ~
prestige and legitimacy. )I'hey have ~.!Y and, most importantly, they haye been codified.
. / . . . . ·- .......-----.
This means that grammars and d1ct10nanes are available, useful reference tools for teach-
ers and learners alik;.c;<lifi~~ti~u'al~~·b;i;g;~ith.it-the notion of acceptance as a stan-
dard - learness can be tested. and evaluated against codified norms and standards. Thus
Bamgbose has pointed out that, for nativised varieties, 'The importance of codification is
too obvi9.us.to_pe-lab,oured'
./-- --._,__,_ "'\
(1998: 4). .
\\\f;j'S ZJ
. f•• ·.f ··
,!',\.?/ '..'.;<\i '
·A seco~~r,_<:as_(')g!for choosing an· exonormative native speaker m~del is that\_fnglish
language teaching materials based on such models are readily available.) English language
teaching publishers are constantly commissioning new courses and r~rinting successful
old ones. However, most publishers seek to publish for a mix.of global markets for their
English language teaching courses and localised markets, producing m~rket-specific cours-
es for the latter.
Linked to this is the massive English language teaching industry that exists in the US
and Britain. American and British organisations compete for contracts to provide English
language teaching expertise in countries throughout the world. The English language
184
Implications for English language teaching 185
teaching market is so important that it is common to find senior government ministers

promoting it on behalf of their respective ELT industries. It is inevitably sometimes tempt-
ing for them to claim a 'market advantage' in that they can provide native speaker teachers,
and th ear to claim some extra value in a native speaker model.
thj~~!~~~~?21)or the choice of a native speaker model is that(Ministries o\Education
around the world are keen to be seen to be providing the 'best' for their people) By insist-
ing on a native speaker model, ministries can claim to be upholding standards ind provid-
ing students with an(internationally recognised and internationally intelligible variety of
English, although, as I have illustrated earlier, ~ative speaker models are not always easily
understood in international communication.)
But does the choice of an exonormative native speaker model really advantage the
people for whom the choice is most significant: the teachers and the learners?
13.1.1 Advantages and disadvantages

As implied above, there is no doubt that the choice of a native speaker model advan-
tages the ~merica11 and British English language teac,:hing ii:ici:tistrit:~· They can sell mate-
rials, provide ..lI"<lining and courses, place native speaker teachers and develop
Trrternati~n~l~amination and testing systems. All this i~-finanC:ialfybegefi<:!<tl for the par-
ti~~~~~~ne.d. ·- · ·· · ··· ············ ·
The choice of a native speaker model obviously also advaf!!<tge§.ll<lti.v.e..~Pe<tker!e2:£h.:
ers. They have become in great demand thr~n1gh()1Jt the world. The demand for native
speakers is so high in many pl;~~~that being a native speaker is the only qualification that
many teachers require(Thus native speakers who have no specialist training in English lan-
guage teaching are routinely employed by schools, institutions and universities all over the
world) know from personal experience that many Chinese universities currently employ
native speakers to teach English to a wide range of students and that only a small mi11c:H"i-
ty of these teachers have teacher training qualifications. That teachers only need to be
native speakers is often explicitly stated in advertisements. When the South Korean gov-
ernment decided to employ i,ooo native speaker English teachers in its schools, the Korean
Herald carried the advertisements reprinted below (emphasis added) (Kirkpatrick, 2002a:
220):
Type 1 teachers require a Certificate in TESOL or three years full-time teaching experience
with a graduate degree in TESOL or experience and interest in Korean culture and lan-
guage.
Type 2 teachers only have to be native speakers of English with a bachelor's degree in any
field.
In other words, even the higher grade teachers only actually require 'e~~K.e..and..inter-
e~~!~~-~~:i:!~~ and langu'!ge', however defined.
In a teacher recruitment advertisement placed by an ELT company in Japan, a
prospective applicant simply needed to be 'a J::>~<:)ple-_()2:i~E!ed, PEQ.fess!9nal:-giigged uE~':er
sity graduate'. In the same issue of the newspaper, an ELT recruitment company was also
~--·------~ .
recruiting for teachers to teach English in Japanese schools. Such teachers needed to be
'enthusiastic, energetic graduates' and 'must like children'; 'No teaching or TEFL experience
l.sreg:i:iired'.
It would seem pedagogically risky for such companies to recruit and employ
untrained native speakers as English language teachers. And it is disturbing that these
companies are recruiting untrained teachers (who 'must like children') to teach children,
given the child protection measures that operate in other areas of education. This recruit-
ment of untrained native speakers needs to be challenged on both pedagogical and moral
grounds.
In some countries around the world, the choice of a native speaker model can also
advantage those institutions and schools which can afford to hire native speakers, who, even
when untrained, can command a far higher salary than even ___
.--.~.--- ~ ~~---
well-trained jln_c:Lhighly
,,---~---~----· ------~
proftcientJ~cal teachers. This can happen when groups of learners of English in an outer
'or an expanding cirdecountry display a prejudice against the local model and a preference
for a native speaker model (see for example, Kubota, 1998).
If the choice of a native speaker model advantages native speak~eE)eachers, it can also
disadvantage non-native speaker local teac~~E~ for several reasons.(FirstfrJthe choice of an
exonormati~e modei··automaticaHf&~~~n~tfi[vaiue~ind app;;~nt legitimacy of a
local teacher's own model of Englisbl.. SeconaIY,Qeachers are required to teach a model
which they themselves do not speak, which ·can severely reduce their sense of self-
confidence (Medgyes, 1994):)Such a lack of self-confidence may be accompanied by a relat-
ed feeling of resentment, especially when they themselves are highly trained, if an untrained
native speaker teacher appears in the school who then becomes the 'source' of knowledge
about the model purely on the strength of being a native speaker. How would such a situa-
tion be received by teachers in inner circle countries? It is diverting to imagine the reaction
of Australian English language teachers, for example, if they were told by their government
or institution that the model they would be required to teach was American English and
that untrained American native speakers would be employed, at higher rates of pay, to
demonstrate the model.
The choice of a native speaker model may also disadvantage local teachers if the
choice of the model is tied to a choice of methodology associated with native speaker teach-
ers. Two tenets of native speaker English language teaching methodology are tha~ English
should be taught monolingually- this despite there being 'no principled reasons for avoid-
ing the L1 in the classroom'\Cook, 2001: 157) - and that the ideal teacher is therefore a
monolingual native speaker (Braine, 1999). That is to say that English should be the sole
language of the classroom and a teacher who is monolingual is thus an ideal teacher, pre-
cisely because s/he cannot resort to the use of other languages in the classroom. The
teacher's linguistic paucity ensures the sole use of English in the classroom.
Belief in these two tenet{further undermines the value of multilingual local teachers.
Their knowledge of the language of their students, far from being seen as a strength, is seen
as a weakness. As they know the languages of their students, they will inevitably resort to it
in the classroom, runs the argument and this thus violates the first tenet.
In fact, however,• being multilingual and knowing the language of their students
should be seen as imp6rtant strengths for any language teacher for a range of reasons
(Cook, 2002; Skutnabb-Kangas, 2000). First, such teachers have had the experience, not
only of learning a language as a second language, but learning the language they are now
teaching. This experience gives them an understanding of the potential difficulties their
students might have and an emp(lthy yviththeir students.(Medgyes, i994))Second, it would
seem important for a language teacher to have knowledge of more than one language. It is
hard to conceive of any other field in which a powerful part of the profession could seri-
ously argue that teachers with limited knowledge of the subject should be employed ahead
of those with wider knowledge of it. But when arguing that monolingual native speakers
are ideal language teachers, the language teaching profession is in danger of doing just that.
The great majority of English language learners are at least bilingual (Brutt-Griffler, 2002).
Bilingual students benefit from and respect bilingual teachers.
In some circumstances, however, certain students may be advantaged by the choice
of a native speaker model. In particular, students who have the opportunity to visit or
study in inner circle countries would clearly benefit from being taught by a well-trained
native speaker teacher who has first-hand knowledge of the culture and manners of the
relevant inner-circle country. Students who go to study abroad in English-medium uni-
versities comprise the major part of this group and it would appear obvious that such
students would benefit from using as a model the English variety spoken in the country
to w~h~ey are going. However, this is more complex than it seemyor-atl~t four rea-
son~many of the academic staff of the host university will be 'fo.re.ignersJ3or exam-
ple, many universities in English-speaking countries employ a significant number of
academics recruited from other in_ner::.ci~es and from many-:9utekcii;:cleones.
In some disciplines, ~11_glo:ac_9.g,emj~pres.c:gL<LI!liJ1ori!y 2!~..th~.staJf;.Sef?Ed,}he local
student 'body will speak a broad, informal variety of English characterised by local and
'student' slang, while the international student body will speak a wide range of varieties
of English. ~he host cmg1try, especially if it is Britain or th~ States, will be
home to a wide range of- regional dialects (see Chapters 4 and 5). \~he host coun-
~--~~,-, ~~~~~~'''~~~~~~~
try is likely to have a mixed multicultural population, many of whom will speak a
'localised' version of their own variety of English. For these reasons, the belief that stu-
dents going, for example, to Australia, Britain or the United States will be advantaged by
learning an idealised version of the respective native speaker model is not necessarily
true.
,.---~It also needs to be pointed out that students whQ areJear11ing English in order to
study in English-speaking countries only constitute a very small minority of the sum total
of English learners. The great majority of learners of English are children studying in.state-
run schoQl$. that range . from well::resourced urban schools to poorly resourced rural
schools, of which·th~i~tter, unfort~nately, represent the majority. As I shall argue below, the
choice of a native speaker modelg()es.not necessarily advantage such students.
The choice of a native speaker model can also disadvantage the great majority of stu-
dents if the chosen model is seen as unattainable by the students (Honna and Takeshita,
i998) and the students feel that this is so. This also leads to an unwillingness to experiment
with the language and results in:
... Japanese students' passive attitudes in using this language as a means of interna-
tional and intercultural communication. They are ashamed if they do not speak English as
native speakers do
(Honna and Takeshita, 2000: 63)
As Cook has pointed out:

If L2 learners feel that the chief measure of L2 success is passing for native, few are going
to meet it. Both teachers and students become frustrated by setting themselves what is,
in effect, an impossible target.
(2002: 331)
This feeling can be devastatingly de-motivating for students. Adopting a native speaker
model and then hiring native speakers to model it simply serves to let the students know
that the model can only be attained by people who look and sound very different from
themselves. This also carries the clear message that teachers who do look and sound like
them ar~ unable to produce the required model. Students will wonder what chance they
will have if even their teachers can't manage it. Again, it is hard to conceive of any other field
in which the learners are implicitly informed that, not only can they never achieve the goal
that the curriculum has set for them, but that this goal is even beyond their own teachers.
Students who are continually evaluated against unrealistic, unattainable and inappropriate
models will soon become disheartened and disillusioned.
A native speaker model is thus potentially disadvantageous, not only when it is unat-
tainable, but also when it is inappropriate for all bAL<l:ll1in()rity.9L~!!:J:<:lents. Throughout
this book, the development of local nativised Englishes and the roles of English as a lingua
franca have been described. Outside inner-circle countries, English is most commonly used
by and between bilingual or multilingual people. These users thus do not need an inner-
circle native speaker model as much as they need to be able to com111unicate effes:threly .
acrossJinguistic an4 culturaCboundaries.:..Teaching a native speake; model that includes
inner-circle linguistic and pragmatic norms and inner~circle culturesjs~tl111s not appLQP!l=
ate for many learners of Eriglish i!l non~inner. circle countries. The role of English in the
European Union (EU) and in the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) (see
Chapter 11) would appear to indicate that learners need an English language teaching cur-
riculum that teaches them about the cultures of the people they are most likely to be using
English with, and how to compare, relate and present their own culture to others. In the
context of ASEAN, students are likely to need ELT materials that provide information
abQut ;\SEAN cultures and how their own culture relates to and differs from others in
ASE.AN. In this way, the major focus of the curriculum becomes Asian cultures. 'The
~E~lish standard becomes an Asian standard' (Kirkpatrick, 2002a: 215), and this includes
both lingµistic and pragmatic norms. Potential texts for an ELT curriculum could include
comparative cufil.lral topics such. as a discussion about the comparative roles of Buddhism
and Islam in Thailand and Indonesia, comparative linguistic and pragmatic norms, such as
a comparison of the different ways of addressing, greeting and farewelling in ASEAN cul-
tures and topics that explore the roles and status of English in ASEAN.
Curricula of this type already exist in the EU. One of the aims of 'Networking
English/European language learning in Europe' (NELLE) is to promote materials about
European cultures and values and 'to develop awareness of English as a supplementary lan-
guage of communication in Europe and as a means to the richness of other cultures'
(Goethals, 1997a: 61). Of course, Britain is a member state of the EU so there is good rea-
son for European students to learn about British English and British culture, but not as a
model, rather 'as an example of a national variety of European culture and civilisation' (van
Essen, 1997= 99).
I have argued that adopting a native speaker model of English for outer and expand-
ing circle countries advantages the American and British ELT industry and native sp_eaker
te_(lchers~As far as non-native teachers are concerned, however, it is greatly disadvantageous,
as it devalues their potential strengths as English language teachers and undermines their
self-confidence. For the most important people, the students, the choice of a native speak-
er model can benefit those who have specific reasons for learning inner-circle models of
English. For the great majority of learners, however, the choice of a native speaker model is
both unattainable and inappropriate. What then are the advantages and disadvantages of
adopting a local endonormative model of English?
13-2 Choosing an endonormative nativised model
Countries most likely to choose an endonormative model are outer-circle countries

in which the local variety of English has become socially accept(l_ble. Even in such countries,
however, there is often fierce debate over this. For example, whiie Ni.gerian_English~is.Jhe
classroom model in Nigeria, there are still those who oppose this (see Chapter 8). It is also
only relativelyrecentlytliat a country such as Singapore with its well-established variety of
English has moved from insisting on a native speaker model to one which is international-
ly intelligible. Countries of the European Union, on the other hand, have been far more
ready to accept what might be called a lingua franca or 'bilingual' model (van Essen, 1997)
and I discuss this approach later.
13.2.1 Advantages and disadvantages

Local teachers are obviously advantaged by choosing the local model, as they are, by
··~--cr,,9-~<,R"'"-'"'<•,_ '""~" ~#
definition, speakers of that model. This legitimises their model of English and thus increas-
es their self-~d;;z~·~nd..sclf-:esteem. The choice of a local model also empowers local
teacJ1~rs in aJ!!!Jn.1?gi:9f9~)J.s:rway,s, With the choice of the local model, the multilingu~f~
competence of the teacher is both recognised and can be exploited in the classroom. The
two tenets concerning the monolingual teacher and the monolingual classroom are dis-
carded in favour of the multilingual teacher and the use of languages other than English in
the classroom. In particular, as teachers know the language of their students and have had
the experience of learning English as a second language, they can..µ.se their shaI~.<!!inguis
tic resources in the classroom while, at the same time, unde;standing thela11g11.age le~rning
problems that their students might face. Instead, therefore, of beingn;~de to feel linguisti-
cally inadequate because of their inability to speak a native speaker model, they can now
feel proud of their multilingual skills and put these to use in the classroom.
In addition to sharing the linguistic repertoire of their students and being able to
exploit this in class, lQgiteachers.are_<llmiamiliar~ith.theeducatiQl}f.l, social and cultur-
.all1Q[JJ!§.9f their students and, importantly, the school system as a whol~·:They undmtana·~
~'' ~ h' '?',·~'c''k''''*"'Wd','•7·<''"•'''""'~'"~"'·'"' '-"~''"'"' ','
the roles expected of them as teachers in their particular culture and how these roles inter-
act with the expected roles of students. This clearly benefits both them and their students.
In summary, it is hard to see how, in these language learning contexts, a monolingual native
speaker could be preferred over a multilingual teacher who speaks the local variety of
English and has 'native' familiarity with local cultural and educational norms. The choice
of a monolingual native speaker becomes even more perplexing when that person is not
trained, but when the multilingual local teacher is. /~··-~.
The education system as a whole is also advantaged both ~edagogicallD and
(fln~n~Y\by the choice of a local model and local teachers. Resources thafwoii1d other-
'W~c:~nt on employing native speaker teachers can go towards the training of local
ones. This is money well spent, as local teachers will remain in the system. Schools and stu-
dents will benefit from their increasing expertise and experience. Hiring native speakers, on
the other hand, brings little long-term benefit to the students or schools. Native speaker
teachers tend to take short-term contracts and then return to their own countries.
Furthermore, those that are monolingual are 1ikely to be less able to contribute to the life
of the school or institution in the ways routinely expected of local teachers.
An advantage for governments of adopting a local model and thus the local teacher is
particularly significant in the context of the fear that the learning of English brings with it the
learning and adoption of alien values and cultures. I have argued that the spread of English
has more to do with local demand than 'Anglo-American' policies, but there is no doubt that
American values and culture, for example, have permeated most corners of the world, pri-
marily through the reach of popular American culture. Local teachers are less likely than
American teachers, for example, to be purveyors of American cultural values. Why then
would governments who fear the encroachment of alien cultural values upon their own insist
on recruiting native speakers to be teachers of English in their own countries? As Goethals
has pointed out, most European English teachers are multilingual and European. This, in
Goethals' words, 'weakens their anglophilism . . . and favours sensitivity to English as an
international language' (1997b: no). In the same way, local teachers of the local variety are far
less likely to promote 'Anglo-American' values in the language classroom. A monolingual
native speaker, on the other hand, is more likely to do so. By employing local teachers to teach
the local model, governments may therefore not only advantage their teachers and students,
but also safeguard what they feel is unique and precious in their own society and culture.
In certain contexts, the choice of the local model can also directly advantage the stu-
dents. The model is now both attainable and appropriate. Students now have role models
in the form of their teachers and they can get on with the business of language learning
without worrying that, whatever progress they make, they will remain unsuccessful. Instead
of being forbidden to speak their own language in the classroom, they can exploit their own
multilingualism in the classroom in their learning of English. Multilingualism becomes the
language learning asset it should be.
To turn to .P.~~~ggf~~11her~nt in the choice of a local mod_el~..~l11ili()!
drawha..ck arisetlQ]l~al .l1124fLll<lS~Il:()t yet been codified and there are no grammars and
by
n()_ textbooks or materi'!ls [email protected]<::.aLmml~1A possible soluti~~-~;:i:gg~~t~~:f som-;
scholars (see McKay, 2002) is that a native speaker variety could be used as a norm rather
than as. a model. That is tg say thataMtrve.. sp;;k~~ vari~ty beco.me;··a~b~-;_-~hmarFagainst
whlC:h to~eai~~f ti;p~~-duc:;tion oflearners. Learners are not expected to m1micthe n:·;tive
speaker·~;del precisely but to produce sounds and utterances that do not stray too far
from the norms in the native speaker model. This solution does give rise to some questions,
however. First, as we have seen in Chapters 4, 5 and 6, native speaker varieties differ
significantly from each other in terms of phonological, lexical and grammatical features.
The norms of each of these varieties stand some linguistic distance away from each other.
How far from a norm can a learner be allowed to travel, therefore? Apart from the issue of
intelligibility, which I consider below, there seems to be no definitive answer to this ques-
tion. In the end, it will not make much difference whether students will be evaluated against
a native speaker norm or a native speaker model. Native speakers will remain the source of
'correctness' and this greatly disadvantages both local students and local teachers.
The fear that learners may not be internationally intelligible underpins the argument
for adopting a _s9~ified model. However, as i have argued throughout this book, this fear is
unfounded. (First, ~sJ.ong.a~.§.peals.§fS. have a genuine motivation to communicate across
cultuEaj_a.ndJfogui;tic boundaries, they-;-il[.be ~ble to C()l11!J1Unicate. ~d, m_any local
varieties of English are syllable-timed, and these have been shown to be more easily i11t~l
ligibfe.than the stress-timed varieties.of native speakers (see Chapters 9, 10 and n). {fhir~
a nafivespeaker model is unattainable in any case and this makes any argument abo\ifthe
relative international intelligibility of such a model frequently irrelevant.
~ ·The advantages of choosiU:g a local model in outer-circle countries where the local
variety has been codified and has become socially acceptable in both informal and formal
domains appear obvious. On the other hand, in outer-circle countries where the local vari-
ety is currently only acceptable in informal domains, or in expanding-circle countries, the
disadvantages of choosing a local model may outweigh the advantages.
But is there a case for an expanding-circle country to use, as its model, a codified
nativised variety of English? In the case of Indonesia, for example, there woulg_cippear to
be a strong argument for the adoption o:ftlie exonormative but nativised model of
Malaysian English for several reasons. _!jn;t Malaysia and Indonesia share many lingl1Tstic
and cultural features. Both countries have more or less the same national language (Bahasa
Melayu/13ahasa Indonesia) and, while both countries are multicultural and multi-ethnic,
both are predominately Muslim countries. Indonesian English can be expected to share
many linguistic and cultural similarities with Malaysian English therefore. Other
advantages for Indonesia in the adoption of Malaysian English as a classroom model would
be that Malaysian English language teachers would provide a more economic and cultural-
ly knowledgeable source of language teachers than native speakers imported, say, from
neighbouring Australia. Added to this, the South-East Asian Ministers of Education
Organisation (SEAMEO) has esta~l~sji~g.Jhe RegionaLLang11(lge Centre (R,~!:-<:::LiE_
Sing'1.P2!:~:~Qne of RELC's aims is to pro111ote collaborative English language teaching with-
in ASEAN. All these apparent advantages need to be weighed against political and cultural
. sensiti~ities, however. The geographical and cultural proximity of Indonesia and Malaysia,
coupled with their closely connected histories, might make it difficult for either country to
accept scholarly expertise from the other.
Would the choice of an exonormative but nativised model be more advantageous
than not in an expanding country such as China? In Chapter 10, I argued that although
China was an expanding-circle country following Kachru's classification, a Chinese variety
of English was developing there and developing faster than has been the case in outer-cir-
cle countries. In such contexts, it seems inevitable that the local endonormative model will
become the one used in classrooms. This is already the de facto position in many parts of
China as local Chinese English language teachers have no option but to teach the model
they themselves have learned. It would be sensible for the government to move to make this
the official position as well as the de facto one. In this way, teachers and learners would
enjoy the advantages associated with choosing a nativised model itemised above.
In Japan, the situation is different, as the development of Japanese English is unlikely
to proceed as quickly as in China. This is partly because the Japanese ELT profession has
been so strongly influenced by American teachers. But there really are two quite different
'Englishes' in Japan. The first is an institutionalised variety based on an American native
speaker model. This is the variety that students struggle to learn in schools. Kubota has pre-
dicted that the English taught and learned in Japan will continue to gravitate towards
inner-circle varieties and to promote Westernisation 'while failing to provide global socio-
linguistic perspectives' (1998: 302). The presence of this institutionalised variety on the
school curriculum has led Tsuda to argue that English is being imposed upon the Japanese
in a process he has called eigo-shihai (English domination) (1997: 22). However, Kubota's
plea that the ELT curriculum should be extended to include varieties and cultures other
than British and American has been heard, at least in certain quarters. Professor Honna of
Aoyama Gakuin University, and the editor of the journal Asian Englishes, has long argued
against the use of a native speaker model for Japanese schools (see above) and has been
influential in promoting the idea of English as an Asian language. As part of this, he has
encouraged the hiring of speakers of Asian Englishes from outer-circle countries such as
the Philippines, Singapore and India to work as English language teachers in Japan. His goal
is to show Japanese learners that English is as much an Asian language as an Anglo-
American one and that English can be owned by Asians, and varieties of English that reflect
Asian rather than Anglo cultures can develop. This idea has been taken up and promoted
by Professor Yoshikawa and others in the recently established Department of World
Englishes at Chukyo University (Yoshikawa, 2005).
The second variety of English that exists in Japan is quite unlike the institutionalised
variety taught in schools. Stanlaw (1004: 291) quotes Ono's definition of Japanese English
as 'the English which internalises a Japanese language system and a living system of the
Japanese and which grows with Japanese culture'. This Japanese variety of English is a 'cre-
ative force in Japanese sociolinguistics and in various forms of artistic expression' (Stanlaw,
2004: 299). This creativity is evident in advertising, pop culture and internet usage. It can
also be seen in the creation of words. Stanlaw (1004: 37-43) gives a number of interesting
examples, two of which are: ran pari (London-Paris), which means being cross-eyed, as it
refers to someone with one eye on London and the other on Paris; and peepaadoraibaa
(paper driver), which refers to someone who has a driving licence, but seldom actually
drives. Despite its existence and its inventiveness, it will be a long time before this variety
of Japanese English becomes formalised and taught in schools. Yet a move towards adopt-
ing, as a learner target, a Japanese variety of English that allows for international commu-
nication could greatly enhance the prospects of successful language learning in Japanese
schools.
In summary, the advantages of choosing a local model in outer-circle countries in
which the local variety has already gained widespread social acceptance outweigh the
advantages of choosing a native speaker model. Above all, such a choice advantages local
teachers and the great majority of the students. In other situations, the choice over which
variety to adopt must depend on the local context, including the reasons why people are
learning English and the extent to which a local endonormative model is appropriate.
However, the concern over the lack of codification of many new and developing vari-
eties of English remains. An alternative to both a native speaker and a nativised model is to
adopt what might be called a 'bilingual' or 'lingua franca' approach to the teaching of
English, and I consider this below. In such contexts, the teachers themselves and other expert
users of English with which the learners can readily identify can become the 'models' for the
learners. This may help overcome the concerns associated with the lack of a codified model.
13.3 Choosing a lingua franca approach
In Chapter 11, the features and roles of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) in ASEAN
and the EU were described. I noted that the many varieties of English that lingua franca
speakers bring to any regional or international lingua franca interaction make it difficult to
describe or codify a lingua franca model as such for the classroom. However, a lingua fran-
ca approach based on the goal of successful cross-cultural communication could be advan-
tageous to both teachers and students. Such '!:!l~pproach would need a curriculum which
wouldinclude at least three strand~/Firs'~, students would need 1:0 be alerted to which lin-
g~~i~tic features cause particular p~6"6fems of mutual intelligibility (see James, 2000;
Meierkord, 2004; Seidlhofer, 2004; and Chapter 11). In this context, Jenkins' work on the
phonology of international English is of particular pedagogic value (2000, 2002). She has
described a 'Lingua Franca Core' to 'provide EIL (English as an International Language)
with a core intended to guarantee the mutual intelligibility of their accents' (2005: 126).
This provides a list (see Jenkins, 2002, 2005: 126-7) of segmental and non-segmental fea-
tures that alerts learners to features of pronunciation that are unlikely to cause problems of
intelligihi!ity in lingua franca interactions and those features that may well do so.
~,the curriculum would need to focus on how cultures differ and the implica-
tions of such differences for cross-cultural communication .. J~ examples of the use of
'facework' and appropriate request schemas are given below. 'thir~ students would need to
be taught the communicative strategies that aid successful cross-cultural communication
(see Firth, 1996; Meierkord, 2000; and Chapter 11). These strategies include the accommo-
dation of different linguistic and sociolinguistic norms and a range of repair strategies
which can be used in the face of misunderstanding. They are underpinned by a mutual
desire to cooperate and collaborate and to preserve the face of the participants.
Adopting a lingua franca approach would provide the advantages to both teachers and
; students outlined above for the adoption of an endonormative nativised model. Neither
teachers nor students would be asked to aim for an unattainable or inappropriate model.
The adoption of a lingua franca approach also advantages teachers and learners because the
focus and aim of English language teaching shifts. In aiming to teach and learn English in
ways that would allow for effective communication across linguistic and cultural bound-
aries the focus of the classroom moves from the acquisition of the norms associated with a
standard model to a focus on learning linguistic features, cultural information and com-
\ municative strategies that will facilitate communication.
This approach, which can also be termed ~g~J2!9ach', is already being
adopted in many multilingual settings. Bilingualism needs to be seen as 'a normal, rather
than special, condition' (Graddol, 2006: 117). This should mean that, following Cook
(2002), the standards set are L2 or bilingualS!(lnd~<!rds, not unattainableandinapprQpriate
11 standards. This is not to say these standards are inferior, merely that they are different.
L2 and bilingual users should be judged against L2 and bilingual standards. And for the
same reasons, speakers of regional varieties of English should be judged against the stan-
dards of the varieties they speak. The teaching of English should be framed within the goal
of creating bi- and multilingual citizens. 'Schools are very significant contributors towards
bilingualism in Europe' (Hoffman, 1996: 54). At the same time, avoiding adopting a native
speaker model means that bilingualism in English does not need to equate with learning
about British or American culture (Hoffman, 2000). Throughout the chapters of Part B,
examples were given of new varieties of English that reflect the cultures of their speakers.
And, as I argued above in the context of an ELT curriculum for AEAN countries, English
can also provide a medium for the study of many different. cultures.
A further possible advantage of an ELF or bilingual approach is that it accommodates
cultural conventions and pragmatic norms that differ from Anglo-American norms. For
example, the use of 'facework', whereby people tend to delay the introduction of the topic
in conversation until after they have talked about the other person's family or given them
'face' in some way (Scollon and Scollon, 1991), is a pragmatic norm that is shared by many
Asian cultures. An ASEAN-based lingua franca approach would promote the teaching of
'facework' in the ELT classroom, because it is culturally valued in regional cultures. A
related example is the Chinese speakers' preference for giving reasons or justifications for a
request before making the request, while native speakers prefer to make the requests and
then provide justifications for it (Kirkpatrick, 1991, and Chapters 9, 12). This request pat-
tern preference is shared by many other cultures in East and South-East Asia. It would be
important therefore to teach this 'reasons for request - request' sequence or schema in the
ASEAN ELT classroom. Far from being deviant because they differ from native speaker
norms, these 'norms' are culturally appropriate for the learners, as they will, entirely or
mostly, be communicating with people from the region.
This focus on cross-cultural communication inherent in an ELF or bilingual
approach supports Bamgbose's call that 'Communication across world Englishes has to be
seen in terms of accommodation between codes and in a multilingual context' (2001: 359).
I shall conclude this chapter by listing, in the light of the arguments presented above,
the skills English teachers in outer and expanding-circle countries need and a set of princi-
ples that might underpin relevant English language teacher training courses.
13-4 Requirements for ELT teachers and training courses
English language teachers who wish to work in outer and expanding circle countries
should:
• be multilingl}al~11<!~111:l1lticultural and ideal!}' know the language of their students
and understand the educational, social and cultural contexts in which they are
working;
• either be able to provide an appropriate an<!~ttainable model for their students
or, if they speak another variety, understand that th~·local variety of English is an
appropriate and well-formed variety that is not inferior to their own;
• understand how different varieties of English.have developed linguistically and
the ways in which they differ phonologically, lexically, grammatically, rhetorically
and culturally;
• understand how English has developed in specific contexts and how it has spread
across the world;
• understand the role(s) of English in the community and how these interrelate
with other local languages;
• be able to evaluate ELT materials critically to ensure that these do not, either
explicitly or implicitly, promote a particular variety of English or culture at the
expense of others;
• be able to evaluate the specific needs of their students and teach towards those
needs; and
• be prepared to contribute to the extra-curricular life of the institution in which
they are working.
If these are the skills required of English language teachers, it follows then that the curric-
ula of TESOL courses and the like should be designed to equip teachers with these skills.
A survey of MA TESOL courses offered by institutions across the United States suggests
that few courses, at the time of writing, actually did provide their students with these skills
(Govardhan, Nayar and Sheorey, i999). The authors of the survey reported that US MA
TESOL courses were generally more suited to those wishing to teach in the United States;
they were unable to identify any programme specifically designed for preparing ELT teach-
ers to teach abroad.
A course that prepared English language teachers to teach in outer and expanding-cir-
cle countries was the specialist Diploma in Teaching English to Speakers of Asian
Languages (Dip TESAL) (Kirkpatrick and Prescott, i996). While this course focused on
Asia, its aims could be adopted by other TESOL courses. The Dip TESAL was designed to
produce teachers who:
• have knowledge of the systems of English and how these differ from selected
Asian languages;
• are able to analyse the specific linguistic difficulties that speakers of non-Indo-
European languages can face in the learning of English and are able to adopt
strategies to help their learners overcome these difficulties;
• recognise that English is represented by a range of varieties and that these
include varieties that have developed in Asia;
• recognise that these different varieties of English comprise different but complete
linguistic systems and represent different cultures;
• understand the importance for English language teachers to be bilingual and
multicultural;
• understand the role(s) of English(es) in their teaching community and ensure
that this understanding informs their practice; and
• are able to evaluate teaching methods and materials and are able to adapt their
teaching styles and methods to suit the needs of different contexts and cultures.
13-5 Conclusion
Governments, ministries and employers, particularly those in outer and expanding-

circle countries, need to recognise the advantages associated with multilingual local teach-
ers who are expert users of English. Far from being classified as somehow inferior to native
speaker teachers, as is all too often the case at present, these teachers should in fact be held
up as strong role and linguistic models for their students. It is these teachers upon whom
governments and institutions should be spending their resources to ensure that they receive
training and opportunities for professional development. In turn, those providing this
training and professional development need to recognise the importance and value of
courses that include the components listed above. And while there is always room for the
multilingual and culturally aware native speaker teacher, the policy of employing
untrained, monolingual native speakers as English language teachers should be systemati-
cally opposed by the profession. Well-trained, multilingual and culturally sensitive and
sophisticated teachers can best teach today's learners of English, the overwhelming major-
ity of whom are bilingual and who are learning in culturally diverse contexts for an extraor-
dinarily complex range of needs, stretching from local to international.
In the Introduction I listed five key themes that underpinned this book. They were:
(a) that variation is natural, normal and continuous - and that ELT professionals
must establish a tolerance and understanding of variation;
(b) that, while prejudice against varieties is likely to occur, these prejudices are sim-
ply that - prejudices;
(c) that the differences between all varieties, both native and nativised, are similar
and comparable;
(d) that context and learner needs should determine the variety to be taught; and
(e) that multilingual non-native teachers represent ideal teachers in many ELT con-
texts.
I hope that this book has illustrated these key themes in an approachable and stimulating
way and that it has helped develop an understanding of the many complexities surround-
ing the spread and development of different varieties of English. Above all, I hope that read-
ers can appreciate that English is not solely the property of its native speakers, but that it
can, through the processes described in this book, develop new varieties that reflect the cul-
tural norms and meet the functional needs of its speakers. In the teaching of English, there-
fore, the goals set and the models adopted should be appropriate and relevant to the norms
and needs of the learners and users of English.
Appendix .... Transcripts of samples of varieties
of English
Contents
Chapter 4: Variation and impurity in British English

Tracks 1-s: Laad 0 Pairts (read by Marion Johnston)
Track 6: Excerpts from Gamrie Wis a Magic Place
Chapter 5: The powerful variety: American English

Tracks 7-12: Karen Higgins (Part 1)
Tracks 13-18: Karen Higgins (Part 2)
Tracks 19-21: Claudia Sullivan
Tracks 22-25: Tim Kane
Chapter 6: A younger 'cousin' and indigenous identity

Track 26: Radio Australia, 'Australia All Over', introduced by Ian Macnamara (Part 1)
Tracks 27-28: Radio Australia, 'Australia All Over', introduced by Ian Macnamara (Part 2)
Tracks 29-31: Radio National, 'The Children of the Bush', interview with John Williamson
Chapter 7: Englishes of the subcontinent

Track 32: Thiru Kandiah, introduction
Track 33: Yasmine Gooneratne, Menika
Track 34: Yasmine Gooneratne, excerpt from The Lizard's Cry
Track35: Lakdasa Wikkramasinha, excerpts from The Life of the Folk-Poet Ysinno
Track 36: Lakdasa Wikkramasinha, The Cobra
Chapter 8: Voices from Africa

Tracks 37-42: Radio 6NR, Curtin University, interview with a Soweto Flying Squad (SFS)
policeman, conducted by Pieta O'Shaughnessy
Track 43: 'tope Omoniyi, Let them who have ears hear
Track 44: 'tope Omoniyi, I do not know anymore
Track 45: 'tope Omoniyi, Midwives or a deluge?
Track 46: 'tope Omoniyi, The dogs of Baidoa
198
Appendix - Transcripts of samples of varieties of English 199
Chapter 9: Englishes of South-East Asia - colonial descendants?

Track 47: Muhammad Haji Salleh, On a dry bund
Track 48: Ghulam-Sarwar Yousof, The Midnight Satay- Vendor
Chapter 10: Emerging Englishes: Hong Kong and China

Tracks 49-s6: Hong Kong professionals (KT and KC)
Not recorded: Louise Ho, Hong Kong riots
Not recorded: Louise Ho, End of an era
Not recorded: Agnes Lam, Yellow flowers on a battlefield
Chapter 11: English as a lingua franca

Track57: Example i: A Filipina (P) and a Bruneian (B)
Track58: Example 2: A Filipina (P), a Bruneian (B) and a Vietnamese (V)
Track59: Example 3: A Cambodian (C), an Indonesian (I) and a Singaporean (S)
Track 60: Example 4: An Indonesian (I), a Malaysian (M) and a Cambodian (C)
The Transcripts
As a general rule, listeners might like to listen to these excerpts before consulting the
transcripts. In this way the relative intelligibility/unintelligibility of these varieties can be
better appreciated. Please note that the excerpts here are simply intended to give listeners
the opportunity to listen to a selection of different varieties of English. They are not sup-
posed to provide listeners with material from which they can make a systematic compari-
son of, for example, the vowel sounds across varieties of English.
The selections range from informal dialogues (the excerpts in Chapter 6, for example)
to poetry readings (the excerpts in Chapter 7, for example). Where I thought it would be
helpful, I have provided 'translations' of the excerpts and/or the meanings of some of the
vocabulary items.
I would like to acknowledge the help and generosity of the voices here. They include
Karen Higgins, Thim Kandiah, Marion Johnston, 'tope Omoniyi, Sivanes Phillipson,
Claudia Sullivan and others who preferred to remain anynymous. Particular expressions of
gratitude are reserved for Marion Johnston and 'tope Omoniyi, who provided not only
their voices, but also their poems.
Chapter 4: Variation and impurity in British English
Examples of the Doric

When you listen to the examples of the Doric variety on the CD, pay attention to the
use of the distinctive phonological, syntactic and lexical features of the variety. In particu-
lar, note the use of '-it' as a past tense/past participle marker, the use of initial /f/ where
other varieties might use /wI and the 'new' vocabulary.
Laad 0 Pairts {cited in Kynoch, D. (1997) Doric for Swots, Dalkeith: The Scottish
Cultural Press, pp12-13, read by Marion Johnston)
This short story describes a boyhood incident in the life of a local millionaire, called
Geordie Peerie. He grew up in a poor home that had only two rooms. If people wanted to
wash, they had to use the sink. Geordie has just started to wash.
200
Laad O Pairts
Track 1
'Nyaakit as the day the howdie skelpit his dowp, Geordie hid ae legit in ower the sink an
ae fit in the nammel basin, fin, o a suddenty, there wis a chappin at the door. Fit a fleg he
got. Niver myn, he thocht, he widna hae tae ging tae the door. His mither wis ben the
hoose. She wid awa tae the door; an wi him in the state he wis in, she widna tak onybody
in. He haird her opening the door. "Och, it's yersel, Mr McKillop." (The meenister!) "Come
awa in!"
Track 2
Fit wis she thinking aboot? Geordie yarkit his fit oot o the basin, ruggit tee the windae
curtains tae hide aa the troke at the sink, grabbit a tool fae the press an his claes aff a
cheer an skelpit for aa he wis worth tae the curtaint wardrobe in the far neuk of the livin-
room;jinkit ahin't an pullt tee the curtain jist as he saa the meenister's haat com in' roon
the door.
Track 3
An there, he dreept and chittert, file the meenister and his mither newsed awa aboot ae
thing an another; the kirk and the kyre; the faimily; the loons and their skweel wark.
Geordie wis wee! able tae spik for himself bit thocht he'd mebbe better nae stick his heid
roon the bit cloot hingin in front o him an say 'Tm deein fine, thank ye kynly."
Track 4
At laist, the meenister rase, said a gweed-wird or twaa and gaed awa tae gie some ither
body a fleg. Geordie's mither, fin she cam back intae the livin-room, wis fair stammy-
gastert, fin she saa a near-nyaakit loon faar naebody hid bin afore. "I winnert fit had come
ower ye", says she "bit I hidna time tae think ower muckle aboot it."
Tracks
It wis a moment of revalashun. Geordie made up his myn that sic a thing would never
happen again. "Gin iver I mak a meelyin", he thocht, "I'm gaan tae get masel a new
mither."'
Vocabulary
Laad 0 Pairts a versatile, educated (young) man
howdie midwife
skelpit belted (note metaphorical use, and use of '-it' past tense marker)
dowp buttocks
fleg scare
ruggit tee tugged closed
troke stuff, things
jink avoid
dreep drip
skweel wark school work
cloot cloth
gweed wird prayer (good word)
stammygaster an unexpected shock
Translation
Naked as when the midwife slapped his bottom Geordie had a leg in over the sink and
a foot in the enamel basin, when, suddenly, there was a knocking at the door. What a fright
he got. But never mind, he thought, he would not have to go to the door. His mother was
inside the house. She would go (away) to the door; and with him in the state he was in, she
would not let anybody in. He heard her opening the door. "Oh, it's you Mr McKillop." (The
Presbyterian Minister!) "Come in!"
What was she thinking about? Geordie yanked his foot out of the basin, tugged closed
the window curtains to hide all the stuff at the sink, grabbed a tool for the press and his
clothes off the chair and belted for all he was worth to the wardrobe in the far corner of the
living room; jumped behind it and pulled the curtain to just as he saw the minister's hat
come round the door.
And there he dripped and shook while the minister and his mother chatted about one
thing and another: the church and the choir; the family; the children and their school work.
Geordie was quite able to speak for himself but thought he maybe better not stick his head
round the bit of cloth hanging in front of him and say "I'm doing just fine, thank you kindly."
At last, the minister rose, said a prayer or two and went away to give someone else a
fright. Geordie's mother, when she came back into the living room, was completely aston-
ished when she saw a near-naked boy where nobody had been before. "I wondered what
had happened to you'', she said, "but I didn't have time to think too much about it."
It was a moment of revelation. Geordie made up his mind that such a thing would
never happen again. "If ever I make a million", he thought, 'Tm going to get myself a new
mother."
Excerpts from Gamrie Wis a Magic Place (written and read by Marion Johnston)
Track 6
'I wrote this because young folk nowadays always say the're bored and we were never
bored when we were young. It's called:'
Gamrie Wis a Magic Place

Gamrie wis a magic place tae play fin I was young
But the things t' we'd get up till as yet remains unsung
Bit ah thocht it recht tae tell ye aboot foo we eest tae play
Be it summer or weenter, ere wis nivver a Jang aneuch day
Het or caal, rain or shine, we was aye rael well contentit

'n' boret wis a wird't hidnae been inventit.
I quines wis makin milkies ablow i new bank

I loons wis raikin for beg craibs doon aside i shank
Pillars 'n' hardy safties, roddicks 'n' green chats
Pickan thoozins a' buckies, 'n' sailin hame made yaats.
Fish in wis a favourite thing 'ere wis nae occupation tae marra't
A bit a steck fae yer mother's fire 'n' a hyook fae the tin 'n i garrett
Wi twa/three feta herrin twine, wappit on b'some aal mannie
A limpet for bait, we wis proper set it made a nae bad wannee.
Bit best of aa wis fin we got snaa ah'd be oot o' ma bed lik a rocket
I hale toon gid hushlin mad especially if i road was blockit
I fishermen cud nae get oot o' the toon 'n' snaaploo cud nae get in
It wis oot wi yer sledge 'n' scoor aff i roost 'n' then i fun wid begin
'Er's nae a better feel in wi i frosty ween in yer face

I sparks fae i runners fleein 'n' i runny afore ye lik glaiss
Ah still get hushlin fivver fin i grun's aa' covert wi snaa
Bit ah've still ma sledge in i sheddie ah cud nae gie it awa
It's affa fine t' look back on bit aa'thing comest' an en'
Oh fit ah wid gie for a 'ear t' dee't aa ower again.
Translation
Gamrie was a Wonderful Place
Gamrie was a wonderful place to play when I was young
But things we used to get up to as yet remain unsung
But I thought it was right to tell you about where we used to play
Be it summer or winter, there was never a long enough day
Hot or cold, rain or shine, we were always very contented

And bored was a word that had not been invented.
The girls were making mud pies below the new bank
The boys were scraping for big crabs beside the slope
Small crabs and other crabs, frog spawn and small haddock
Picking thousands of whelks and sailing home-made yachts.
Fishing was a favourite thing, there was no occupation to match it

A bit of stick from your mother's fire and a hook from the tin in the garret
With two or three feet of herring twine wrapped on by some old man
A limpet for bait and we were ready. It made a good fishing rod.
But best of all was when we got snow, I'd be out of my bed like a rocket
The whole town would go completely mad, especially if the road was blocked
The fishermen could not get out of the town and the snow plough could not get in
It was out with your sled and scour off the rust and then the fun would begin
There's no better feeling with a frosty wind in your face
The sparks of the runners flying and the run in front of you like glass
Ah I still get shaking fever when the ground is all covered with snow
But I've still got my sled in the shed, I couldn't give that away
It's fine to look back on but all things come to an end

Oh what I would give to do it all over again.
Chapter 5: The powerful variety: American English
Examples of English spoken in the southern United States

Karen is a white American female who lives in North Carolina. In these two excerpts,
she tells us something about her life. Listeners may find it interesting to compare and con-
trast her experiences of growing up and her career with those of women in their own cul-
tures.
Karen Higgins (Part 1)

Track 7
My name is Karen Higgins. I live in North Carolina. I er ... speak with a typical southern
accent. I was born and raised in the um central part of North Carolina ... near Charlotte.
I have had people who er tell me that dialects are different from one end of this state to
the other, so I've I've not found that to be true myself because um I don't know, I think we
all sound the same.
Track 8
Anyway I er I have been many places where my accent was remarked upon. I have had um
people in California make fun of the way we talk ... Of course we are bad to drop our 'gs'
and the tireder I get and the more I drink of course the more 'gs' I drop,
Track 9
so we're 'drinkin' instead of'drinking' ... I've also er had the experience I've been to New
York several times, New York City, and had the experience of er meeting people there who
I could hardly understand because they talk so fast. It's true that southerners do talk a lit-
tle bit slow at times ...
Track 10
so ... New York, yeah, I I have had problems with some of those accents. I have um pretty
much lived in North Carolina my entire life and worked for a short time in South Carolina
but that's the extent of of places I've actually lived ... I do have a sister who lived in
Germany for some years so I have visited ah Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy ... places
like that erm ... where of course my poor attempts at German or my sad attempts at
French are erm pretty much laughed at, but people did appreciate the effort ....
Track 11
I also have a brother who lives in Hawaii and ah there is a type of dialect there that's a lit-
tle bit difficult to um understand, actually they they make up some of their own words
which is pretty interesting, but erm at least in Hawaii no one ever made fun of my south-
ern accent ....
Track 12
I really don't have any anecdotes for you um aside from the um the run-ins I have had
with people from California who made fun of my accent. I do um I do realize that I prob-
ably ... talk different when I'm with different people um - I've I've noticed quite a few
people do that -11 use proper English more when I'm with people from other areas who
do not have the southern accent ...
Karen Higgins (Part 2)

Track 13
This is Karen Higgins again. I wanted to talk a bit about some of the jobs I've had. The first
job I ever had ... I was six years old and I picked cotton. We ... got three cents a pound for
every pound we picked ... needless to say not one of my more favourite jobs
Track 14
er I was raised on a farm. We had dairy cows and crops so the um the second job I ever
had was ... probably picking strawberries. The farm work we didn't get paid for but um
these were jobs we did for other farmers in the area so picking strawberries I believe if I'm
not mistaken we made fifty cents an hour ...
Track 15
So as time went on ahm probably the worst job I ever had was picking peaches. It was hot
and the peaches were fuzzy and the fuzz made you itch - it was just miserable but ...
those were character-building experiences I guess you would say
Track 16
Ah time went on I had a brief career as a Volkswagen mechanic ahm I was living in a
place, Grandfather Mountain as a matter of fact, where there were very very few jobs and
the jobs that you could get were service jobs cleaning motels uhm had a brief stint mak-
ing baskets, things like that, and a federal program became available where you could get
money to go to technical school.
Track 17
Unfortunately the only er courses you could take were automotive mechanics or machine
shop technology so ... I decided since my Dad and one of my brothers were mechanics
that I wanted to learn how to do that ... went to school for a year and then went to work
at Volkswagen and I was the first female Volkswagen mechanic in North Carolina certi-
fied to work on Volkswagens. That job ah lasted about a year and a half, got tired of all
the grit and grease under my fingernails, so I decided to go back to school ... and became
interested in electronics, the only electronics-er-type course they had at the time was
called biomedical electronics which I thought I'd give a go even though I did not like hos-
pitals ah or the way they smelled but this was to learn about working on electronic
equipment used in hospitals, which I thought would be very interesting
Track 18
ehm the more I ahm learned the more I liked this because I found out hospitals didn't
smell the way that they used to when I was a kid. The disinfectant smell was not so hor-
rible and ah of course we working on equipment didn't have to see some of the grosser
things like the nurses do ... so that's what I ended up doing as my er main career, was
being a biomedical electronics technician. Which is really fun and a good thing to do and
much much better than picking cotton or peaches or strawberries ...
An example of 'General' American

Claudia is a white American female who was born in New York, but who grew up in
Maine, a state in the north-west of the United States. She has also spent several years of her
life as a university lecturer in Singapore. In this excerpt she talks about the prejudices
against her Maine accent which she has encountered.
Claudia Sullivan
Track 19
My name is Claudia Sullivan. I was born in New York State, New York City ehm but I was
only a year old before we moved to Maine, my parents were moved to Maine, and I
learned to talk ehm in Maine ... where they have they have a what we call a 'down east'
accent and until I went away to university ... in Boston, I spoke like a Mainer.
Track 20
er I did have the advantage of my parents having a New York accent ehm particularly pro-
nouncing 'r's where in Maine we didn't pronounce the 'r's at all, and my sister also had
learned to talk in New York so she didn't sound like I did. But I went to Boston University and
within twenty-four hours I had adopted my New York accent again because everyone was
saying'Oh isn't that cute', 'Say that again', because they had never heard anyone from Maine
before ehm it was very easy for me because I had the background of of New York people.
Track 21
I of course don't think I have an accent ehm I my husband is from Boston and he does seem
to have a very strong Boston accent; mine seems to be I think because I'm er more timid or
less secure in my language or in myself that I tend to adopt whatever I'm around. Ah as for
prejudice with accents I don't I really can't think of any that I feel. I worked in various places
in the world in Singapore and in the West Indies and in Hawaii, in Florida, and I never really
had any problem with it. The only problem I had with my accent was when I was going to
university ... ehm the accents that I find that are difficult to understand are ehm southern
accents when they speak really fast but now that I'm living in the south I'm beginning to
pick up on them ehm I don't really ... I don't really find any other ones difficult to under-
stand.
An example of African American

Tim Kane lives in the northern United States in Pennsylvania but has relatives from the
South and has worked in the South. Note how he gives examples of some of the features of
southern American speech which were considered in Chapter 5 itself, in particular the length-
ening of vowel sounds (Tim uses the term 'voweled out'), and the use of the words 'finnin'
and 'fixin to'. When talking to his friends at home, however, he uses a different speech style.
For example, when he says "yo bro 'sup?" he is saying something like "Hello brother, what's
up?" In this talk he provides more evidence for the existence of the 'identity-communication
continuum' (Chapter i). He speaks a more 'standard' variety at work and two quite distinct
varieties when at home in Philadelphia, or with his peers in North Carolina.
Tim Kane
Track 22
My name is Tim Kane. I'm originally from Philadelphia Pennsylvania. My father is a south-
erner from North Carolina. My mother grew up in Philadelphia but her parents grew up
in New England. When I go home I find myself talking with my boys and it's more of a "yo
bro 'sup"' ehm "how ya doin'?" Everything is everything you know it's er very quick, very
casual relaxed sound er quite a bit of a difference between most of the conversation or
"conversatin"' that I have to do outside of that in the business but er you do find yourself
falling back into it it's a part of the colour of speech it's part of the colour of music music
is very big in Philadelphia.
Track 23
I find that when I go down South to visit my family down there it takes actually several
hours before I can really understand what they're saying ehm it's a completely different
sound, it's voweled out where a simple word like 'had' just lasts for days it seems like. A
simple example of that is a phrase like "are you going to go to the store?". In Philadelphia
with my boys it would probably be more something like "hey brother you ready to head
out?" or er "are you ready to bounce to the store?" and in the South it would be some-
thing like "Tim you finnin' to roll to the store?" and that phrase alone [laughs] was
enough to send me into confusion. I didn't know what 'finnin' was, but it's 'fixin', some-
times it's er an amalgamation of a few different words er but it all means 'prepared',
'ready', 'set to go'.
Track 24
My father grew up in central North Carolina. He moved to Philadelphia in his late teens
early twenties. He still holds very much the southern cadence of his speech I always laugh
at him because one of his little expressions you know before we're getting ready for din-
ner is "er Tim you wash your hand?", making hand a singular er is one of my favourite lit-
tle things that he does. He also er likes to ask me er "we're going out to the store later on
today, I want you to get right" ehm another one of those 'get prepared' you know er "if
you fixin' to go to the store you better get right".
1 Note the shortening in "yo bro' 'sup" where bro' is short for 'brother' and 'sup for 'what's up?'
Track 25
I went to school in Western Pennsylvania which has a-nother speech pattern that I was
unfamiliar with it's not a huge difference but there are other regionalisms and I think it
was living out there that made me realize that Philadelphia had its own set of speech
patterns and unique phrases. From there, spending time in the South ah in the Virginia
Tidewater area and having worked in Jackson Mississippi and in Florida which also has er
more of a southern sound than I guess I expected, ehm these experiences introduced me
to the idea or at least to a better understanding that your speech can set you apart.
Chapter 6: A younger 'cousin' and an indigenous variety
The first two excerpts come from the Radio Australia programme, 'Australia All Over',
which is introduced by Ian Macnamara. His nickname, 'Macca', is a shortened or 'clipped'
version of his surname. He is 'I' in these dialogues. In this programme he is interviewing
people at a bush or country show in a place called Dalgety, which is a small town in New
South Wales. In the first dialogue he is talking to a shearer called Malcolm (M) and in the
second to a truck driver called Craig (C).
Ian Macnamara {Part 1)

Track 26
I: Good day, what's your name?
M: Malcolm
I: What do you do Malcolm sorry?
M: Oh shearer, labourer, whatever I can find
I: And what are you doing here today?
M: Oh just helping out with the dogs. I'm just out ... putting the sheep out for the um
blokes to work around
I: With their dogs?
M: Yeah
I: And so where do you live?
M: Ah Beloka, about fifteen ks out of out of Dalgety
I: What's that like?
M: Good. Excellent place
I: And where do you go shearing? Just around local or
M: Yeah, just locally. Near Jindabyne, Dalgety, that's about about as far as I go.
I: That's a top hat, that one
M: Ah, it's about buggered now (audience laughter)
I: That's why I say it's a top one, it's great
M: Yeah, they just get comfortable and you've got to throw 'em away.
I: Nice to talk to you.
M: Yeah, nice to talk to you.
Ian Macnamara (Part 2)

Track 27
I: 's Craig. How are you Craig? What What's your story?
C: I come from Cooma, a truck driver ah during the week and got a bit of a block up the
back of Adaminaby
I: bit of a block?
C: yeah bit of a bush block, a few horses out there yep
I: And what do you what do you run sheep or
C: a few horses yeah
I: you like riding and stuff
C: yeah you go up the eh up round the back of Adaminaby there yep
I: a bit cool up there I suppose
C: oh yeah we camp out there a fair bit we've had the dam frozen right over and the dog
can go skating across that and eh (audience laughter) goes well
I: that's cold
C: yeah it is cold yeah yeah but it's good to see you up here
I: oh it's a pleasure to be er you got em a little house there and stuff have you or?
C: no I live in Cooma got a em got a house in Cooma and live in
I: so go camp you camp up there?
C: yeah camp up there
I: God it must freeze
C: oh it is a bit cool ehm yeah but we have a good time
I: he's the outdoor type Kel he's he's the this bloke's the outdoor type that's a good hat
too that one
Track 28
C: yeah so em now we have a good time up there
I: and where do you drive your truck Craig just around the local area?
C: no a Sydney to Canberra er nearly everyday of the week yeah so we keep pretty busy
during the week yeah there's no time to rest so
I: is there many prangs on that freeway or hold-ups and stuff?
C: oh yeah now and then they sort of go scrub a bit and yeah
I: there was a big one on ah Friday of course ehm blocked it for a couple of hours but
ehm being a truck driver it'd seem to me to be a stressful sort of occupation
C: oh if you can get your sleep in there and sort a you know make sure you get your
sleep there and have good rests yeah you should er sort of come good even if a ten
minute rest yeah really perks you back up again yeah no worries yeah
I: Craig nice to talk to you
C: thanks Macca for coming up here
I: it's a pleasure please thank Craig and Richard
C: thankyou
John Williamson
The excerpt below comes from a Radio National interview with John Williamson for
the programme 'The Children of the Bush'. John Williamson is a well-known Australian
folk singer, and True Blue is one of his most famous songs.
Track 29
'The most important images of Australia, to me, are the natural ones ehm and I'm talking
about the colour, for instance, the red ochre, the shape of gum leaves, ah. Gum trees
themselves which are completely unique to this country, and ah, they're evergreen, um.
To me there's so much more colour in gumtrees than than the first Europeans realized er.
And they are very much a part of a my psyche now as a as a sixth-generation Aussie I real-
ly feel I'm starting to eh feel the spirit of the land that the Aborigines obviously have felt
for thousands of years.
Track 30
Hey true blue, don't say you've gone
Say you've knocked off for a smoko and you'l I be back later on
Hey, true blue
I find urban Aussies um I perform to as more urban Aussies than I do to anybody else um
and even when it comes to big towns in the country and ah um because they're all very
similar now everything's they all get their Coles and they all got their Targets and they've
all got their McDonalds and they've all got the same TV programs they watch, but I think
one thing that Australians have in common is is that most of 'em have some sort of con-
nection with the bush and I think they like like to think they have, I mean if they know a
farmer that's out in the bush that they can go and visit that's important to them.
Track 31
ehm I'd I'd say the majority of Australians find it very important to have that that bush er
connection or or escape and I I think it's important to Australians that we've got that
wide horizon. I think that's the difference between an Australian and a European is that
that we know that we can just drive for hours and it's in our psyche that we can just get
in a car and drive for hours without running eh without needing a passport.'
Chapter 7: Englishes of the subcontinent
These examples are Sri Lankan poems or excerpts of poems read by the Sri Lankan
scholar Thim Kandiah. He first introduces the poems and then reads them. Of the four
poems, the first two are by the female poet Yasmine Gooneratne and the second two are by
Lakdasa Wikkramasinha. Gooneratne is one of Sri Lanka's finest poets and she uses the
standard language to accommodate Lankan experiences. The first poem, Menika is the
name of a domestic servant. The poem talks about an arranged marriage or match, which
remains typical, especially in the villages. In the final verse the poet talks about a girl's com-
ing of age. This is a very important occasion in Sri Lanka and a time that is very important
for the girl's mother.
Thiru Kandiah: introduction

Track 32
'I've chosen the poems I'm going to read not only because I like them and because I think
they are good poems in their own right, but because I think they will help dispel a com-
mon misconception about new Englishes like Lankan English. The misconception is that
such Englishes may be seen as some kind of minimalist entities defined by those odd
exotic-sounding unusual forms which are simply suited to the expression of minimal
thoughts and simple everyday experience in pure colloquial settings. These poems will, I
hope, demonstrate that Lankan English is a versatile entity which has a strong systemat-
ic nature which gives an important place to both everyday spoken and formal standard
modes of expression and which is also adapted immediately to a range of complex imag-
inative, emotional and intellectual experience.'
(Some feminists might find the poem unacceptable as the woman never blames the
man; but she does stand tall and prevails over her unfortunate circumstances.)
Track 33
Menika by Yasmine Gooneratne
Deft-handed, swirling rice-grains in clear water,
pouring the white stream from pot to pot
she said:
I would like to go back to the village next week
There is a court case
I am reclaiming my children, two daughters, from their father
He has another woman.
Neat-handed, kneading coriander and cumin

on the smooth stone
she said:
My father made the marriage
There were good fields and much fine property
My father inspected the fields, my brother went with him,

They all agreed it was a good match
Two weeks after the marriage he brought her back to the house
The pestle rising, falling, in her practised hands

the grain in the mortar crumbling to powder
she said:
We lived eighteen years in that house
My children with me in one room, she with him in the other
One day a relation of his came in, asking for a measure of rice
I did not think to refuse it
That night he came home drunk, and said I was giving away the household goods
Spreading the grain in the sun to dry

she said:
When he beat me before the neighbours I sent for my father
He came and took me away
When we signed the register at the Police Station
the Sergeant said: What a man is this,
To make such a shameful to-do over a measure of rice!
She looks after my children well, they tell me
But they are daughters, can I allow them to become women
And far away from me?
On the day of the court case, her skin smoothly powdered,

a crimson sari knotted at her neat waist, her hair
combed into shining coils on her slender neck
She said:
He is a good man
There is no fault in him
The second poem is an extract from a long poem by Gooneratne. The lizard referred
to is the house lizard or ghekko. Many superstitions are built around it. For example, if one
is leaving the house and the ghekko chirps one is advised to come back into the house and
only go out again sometime later. The first two and final stanzas are written in standard
while the rest of the poem is in colloquial Sri Lankan English. 'King Kong' is the derisive
nickname given by a junior to his boss. In this poem, Gooneratne is dealing with the decline
of Sri Lanka into decadence and chaos.
Track 34
From The lizard's Cry by Yasmine Gooneratne
Slowly
light dies.
Gently
breath recedes.
Where then shall we turn?
To whom are we to render our petition?
Somewhere along a corridor of files

six floors up above a seething city
a bell rings
a voice replies
What is this I say can't get a call

you fellows talking talking all
the time on this phone you're telling me
this is Government business Ha ha ha
Look here Head Office rang up complaints being made
about those missing items Then some foreigners it seems paid
a visit here (our chaps also) and they have said
we should do something about the lava-
tory too Trouble is I say that Silva is
a soft chap never moves from his chair His
people can't be controlled naturally This
is your problem Melvin not ours
I think you better advise the chap Just tell
Head Office rang up tell they'll give us hell
if things don't improve Bad for us no Mel-
vin all this talk What? Can you hear
me I say another thing just
now I heard them say your section must
shift into Grand pass I can fix it yes
but you must also ha ha ha remember
us Good good good Glad to help a friend
Good looker your boss has got himself Congratulations
boy I'd like to give her some dictation myself Send
her along sometime So how's the
wife and kids Regarding
the other matter No need to tell I told I say King
Kong on line son I'll be hanging
up now Cheer-o cheer-o Yes sir Morning sir
All the mail in order sir Unlock
the files Watch the clock
Grease a palm Pass the buck
Our responsibility stops here
Watchman of evil, confessor of our present anguish,

where then shall we turn?
As crowding beasts, clawing each other down,

snarl for the fading light as for a bone,
to what god can we render our petition?
The next two poems are by the late poet, Lakdasa Wikkramasinha. He had an instinc-
tive feel for everyday language and liked to used Lankan names in his poems. Note
'Haniketta' and 'Iddamalgoda' in the first poem and the woman's name, 'Dunkiriniya', in the
second, for example.
The first poem is about a farmer who is also a poet. 'Walauva' refers to a feudal house
and 'yala' is the smaller of the two annual harvests reaped in Sri Lanka.
Track 35
From The Life of the Fo/k.:Poet Ysinno by Lakdasa Wikkramasinha
Ysinno cut the bamboo near Haniketta,
And from those wattles made his hut
And had nothing to cover it with, nothing
Like a hundred and sixty
Bales of straw
So he made his way to the Walauva at lddamalgoda

And to the Menike said how poor he was,
And how from his twenties he had made those lines of song
Swearing before her all his fealties.
So she said, Wait for the yala
Harvest and take the straw
Ysinno said, 0 the rains are coming near,

My woman fretting, her kid will get all wet.
Then the kind Menike said, 0 then

You take what straw you need from the behind shed.
And Ysinno being a folk poet, and his lines being not all dead,
The benison of the Menike of Jddamalgoda
Lives even today.
In his second poem Lakdasa Wikkramasinha writes about a cobra who has killed a
woman. The cobra is venerated in Sri Lanka, even though it is poisonous and capable of
killing people. In the poem the cobra is killed after killing the woman, and people from sur-
rounding villages come to see it. The real beauty and sadness of the poem lies in the last
three lines when we learn who has died.
'Paramitas' are the disciplines Buddhists are expected to observe on their way to
Nirvana.
Track 36
The Cobra by Lakdasa Wikkramasinha
Your great hood was like a flag
hung up there
in the village.
Endlessly the people came to Weragoda -
watched you (your eyes like braziers),
standing somewhat afar.
They stood before you in obeisance. Death,
the powers of the paramitas, took you to heaven
however.
The sky, vertical, is where you are now

shadowing the sun, curling round and round my mind.
They whisper death-stories -
but it was only my woman Dunkiriniya,
the very lamp of my heart,
that died.
Chapter 8: Voices from Africa
Two quite distinctive examples of African Englishes are provided here. The first is of
White South African in conversation with an Australian radio presenter and the second is
of the Nigerian scholar and poet, 'tope Omoniyi, reading his own poetry
The first excerpt is an interview with a Soweto Flying Squad (SFS) policeman whose
first language is English. Soweto (South West Township) is a black suburb of Johannesburg.
The interview was conducted by Pieta O' Shaughnessy (POS), for Curtin University's Radio
6NR.
In the interview, a white South African police officer talks about his job. He is a
Soweto Flying squad officer who has come over to a university in Australia to work with
students and staff during a brief visit as a visiting lecturer.
Note that the speaker uses a standard variety of English, as he wants to communicate
with people from outside his own community. By simply listening to the interview the lis-
tener can determine the relative intelligibility of the speaker's accent, however. Some listen-
ers may find this variety of English particularly difficult to understand until they gain some
familiarity with it.
Interview with a Soweto Flying Squad {SFS) policeman, conducted by Pieta

O'Shaughnessy {POS)
Track 37
SFS: The students on the Social Sciences body, the Department, we invite actively
involved in a role play with them, the role plays and scenarios, which we've depicted
for the people which we've set out for them and it's to you know it's just to get to
know the guys and to show them how how the things are done being active being
an active participant
POS: Can you can you give us an example of a role play say, just er give er outline for me
a role play you might do with the students in this way?
Track38
SFS: OK the ones one of the ones the role play that we did on Tuesday was a scenario in
Orlando West. We'd have er a landlord with seven shacks in the back with all the
tenants there as well and you'd have illegal immigrants staying there and there
was a squabble apparently with one of the tenants and the landowner and ehm
and er the er on the rent and the electricity issue and there was a a fight ensued
and she was beaten up severely or she was stabbed and he was also beaten up.And
I have to get all the people together a hostile crowd the ANC activists and erm your
community leaders and things like that. So everyone it's it's a debate where every-
one comes together and you you know everyone just just climbs in and you see
how you how the policing is done as such
Track 39
POS: So how long have you been in the police force, in the Flying Squad?
SFS: Ehm I've been in the force for three and a half years and in Soweto itself for three
years
POS: Why did you join the police force in the first place, was it has it always been some-
thing you wanted to do?
SFS: Yes definitely I've always been I've always wanted to help people and it's well I've
had brothers who were in the police as well so it's you know I think it's pretty it
comes down that way
Track 40
POS: What would be the most rewarding aspect of your work?
SFS: It's just you see people appreciate the work you do and ... and to help someone
who really does need help ... and ehm that's basically it it's just you know to ren-
der a service to the people a good service
POS: And what would be the most challenging or perhaps frightening aspect of what
you do?
SFS: It's the that your life is always at risk, there's a a big a big risk involved, you never
know when or what's going to happen when it's going to happen that's the biggest
fear that you might lose your life in the line of duty
POS: How many how many officers for example have lost their lives in the line of duty
in the Soweto Flying Squad in the last four months?
SFS: None in the last four months. A lot of a lot of the guys have committed suicide due
to the stress and stress-related incidents. We've lost ehm in the last in our relief in
the last eight months we've lost two guys to suicides and two guys have died in
accidents and things like that
Track 41
POS: Have you had any ehm perception of the fact that those people have been under
such stress? I mean what kind of incidents would have concerned them to that
degree that they might commit suicide?
SFS: I mean it's all ... everything you see ... I mean you you think you can cope with it,
but you can't really. It's it's it's in your subconscious most of the time and you think
you're a strong character you can handle it I mean you see it everyday of your life
and one day you just er I don't know you just snap and it's everything just happens
from there. You become depressive and I mean a person you think you're tough you
can handle it but you can't. It's I mean it's you need psychological help and that
type of thing
Track 42
POS: How old are you?
SFS: er twenty-two
POS: How do you feel?
SFS: About what?
POS: I mean do you feel that you're in any way stressed or that you're under that kind of
strain?
SFS: I do feel that I am stressed but I've been to a psychologist a couple of times and he
explained to me OK what your problem is and give you a bit of counselling and
that. Nothing to be disgraced about I'm only I'm not embarrassed about it. I mean
it helps me in my work as well it pertains to my work so it's it definitely helps me
POS: Have you have you felt like you ever wanted to do anything else?
SFS: What do you mean another type of career? No not at all. I love my work it's I enjoy
it thoroughly. I mean to provide a service for the people it's great. It's it's funny a lot
of people aren't too they don't derive a lot of job satisfaction from their work and
their careers. Actually that's the most important thing it's the job satisfaction
The next excerpts are examples of Nigerian English and are read by the Nigerian
scholar and poet 'tope Omoniyi. He reads four of his own poems, from his 2001 collection
Farting Presidents and Other Poems, Ibadan: Kraft Books.
Track 43
let them who have ears hear by 'tope Omoniyi
Let them who have ears hear
feed them from fibres of history
on the graveless end of tyrants
teach them from signs of the times

that these are not rumours and murmurs
but the war cries of distressed gods
targeting bullet vendors
and two-kobo Generals
let them who have ears hear

in the barracks and Government House
that only dogs destined to stray
defy the hunter's rally
those who wrestle with the gods

contend with the Unseen
the Mighty Sigidi, spirit warrior
making a mockery of letter bombs
and tanks
for a nation on cliff-edge

only a half-tilt will quench the appetite
of angry gods
the mightiest will fall to a pulp
commoners will stretch their creases
and wait for coronation next season.
Track 44
I do not know anymore by 'tope Omoniyi
I do not know what to do with the leaders of my clan
I do not know what to make of their pacifism
all night long they preach the gospel of non-violence
but they hang at dawn
and are buried at noon
I do not know what to do about the rage in my veins

I do not know what to make of this rebel urge
all night long I hatch plans of assault against the enemy
then bow to elderly wisdom
and carry coffins
I do not know what to do anymore

to rouse the world
I do not know how to mould
their bashful threats into bombs
all night long they warn these sons of a gun
but daybreak serenades an unholy swoon
and raises a toast to enemies of our moon
I do not know anything anymore

but one - we're a tribe of warriors
when my time comes
my crimson stream will join the ritual flow
I shall embrace their gallows with a smile
and a prayer that our passing brings
strength and defiance to pall bearers.
Track 45
Midwives or a deluge? by 'tope Omoniyi
we have witnessed gross abominations
we have seen the castration of justice
on court-room slabs
we have swallowed fat frustrations
at the coronation of falsehood
but now
gales and floods of cleansing
or promises of them
flood through our land
parting anal feathers
and exposing the foul frames
of vicious uniformed contrivances!

fixed forensic findings revealed
vindicate victims of tutored miscarriage
after the savaging of Ogoni
fresh hunt now for stale villains
royal victims craving judicial rebirth
but how long more

these gales and floods of cleansing?
how potent this royal injunction
for the burnishing of courtrooms?
our stables still fetid with mess

from unbridled stallions on patrol
horrid stench of stillbirths
clench still to Wisdom Wigs
and so several yet languish

for innocence
perhaps in Kirikiri
many more are hounded in the streets and parks
in homes and pubs
from Benin to Birnin Kebbi
and as we approach the end

of our generation's tether
we wonder
if commissioned midwives can deliver us

from the miscarriage of Wigs and goons
and the tragic innocence of folks
or our stables must wait for a cleansing deluge.
Track 46
The dogs of Baidoa by 'tope Omoniyi
daily
my innerwards turn
at the ghastly
sight
of their savagery
on kith and kin
these dogs of Baidoa

court my hate
with their bumper
health and crease-free
suits
besides kinsmen
on death row
chestbones, skulls and all
covered with thin slices
of death satin skin
dogs want to be
presidents in Baidoa
but do they have
courage to sit over a
parliament of ghosts
for their clansmen
have departed in hunger
starved beyond the
depths of catacombs
they raise a voice
for the union of the dead
some day soon
the whirl of enraged spirits
unearthed will choke
the barking dogs
of Baidoa
and castrate their dreams.
Chapter 9: Englishes of South-East Asia - colonial descendants?
Poetry again provides the examples here. Two Malaysian poems are read by Sivanes
Nadarajan, a Malaysian-Indian academic. The first is by Muhammad Haji Salleh and the
second is by Ghulam-Sarwar Yousof. Both come from the collection Insights, compiled by
Malachi Edwin Vethamani and published in 2003 by Maya Press.
Track 47
On a dry bund by Muhammad Haji Salleh
i cycled on a dry bund
back
to my childhood.
its world was open and green:
thick nipahs half-cut
wild and dusty jeruju
caught trouser cuffs or claves,
fierce beluntas spread out their thorns
to the swamp sun,
and the channels in mud
slowly find their courses to the sea.
memories return again,

the acrid berembang on a child's morning tongue,
gentle sweetness of young nipah fruits,
grease from dredge and the smell of engines,
they give life to my citified senses.
Track 48
The Midnight Satay-Vendor by Ghulam-Sarwar Yousof
he cuts a sorry figure, the solitary vendor
among the sleeping bungalows
pedalling up the stubborn
aristocratic slopes of jesselton heights
satay
satay
satay
i can see him wiping his sweaty brow
can smell piquant in the air the aroma
of chicken and cincang

as he fans the fire
beneath the sizzling rows of skewers
at home in the kampong a wife and children

await the meagre day's collection:
some ringgits and a few sen
that go nowhere
in these days of inflasi; and the election
too, with its promise, come and gone
but life must not stop for the likes of him,

so at pasar ma/am and along the night's inclines
wiping his migraines off his forehead
he returns to the embers
his children amidst their kurang ajar yawns
prepare tomorrow's ketupat and cucumbers
satay
satay
satay
i wish at times I could trade places with him
the midnight vendor, if only as a game
surrender for once a so-called elegance
but education tells me I am ha/us, he kasar

for don't you see I'm a shakespeare-wa//ah
with this degree that clings to me like a vise
and a middle-class airconditioned nose?
Vocabulary
Poem I
nipah a kind of palm
jeruju a plant with sharp leaves
beluntas a plant/tree
berembang a brown fruit
Poem2
cincang meat sauce
kampong Malay village
ringgi ts/ sen Malaysian currency (dollars and cents)
inflasi inflation
pasar malam night market
kurang ajar cheeky, disrespectful
ketupat sticky rice cakes
halus upper class

kasar lower class
wallah person with a specified role
Chapter 10: Emerging Englishes: Hong Kong and China
In this excerpt, the longest on the CD, two multilingual Hong Kong professionals talk
about their experiences with English. Note that, although these speakers occasionally use
non-standard forms, they understand each other perfectly. I think listeners will also find
that they can understand them. Listeners might like to consider how intelligible these
speakers are, compared with the Australian and South African speakers.
Hong Kong professionals

Track 49
KT: Actually both of us are like a product of Hong Kong. We er born and we grew up and
basically we have education in Hong Kong. So can you tell me exactly how you start-
ed to learn English and what what was your feeling?
Track 50
KC: er I started learning English when ... I when I was in primary two I think (ehm) aged
er aged six. (ehm) so I learned er English as a school subject (ehm) I think among er
er seven to eight school subjects in my primary school
Track 51
KT: Even in primary school? (yeah) You mean teaching that subject in English?
KC: I er learned the subject of English er (wow) I think er all primary school kids (ehm)
did er most primary school kids do nowa nowadays (ehm) so er er and then I was
switched to a secondary school using English as the medium of instruction (ehm) er
where most of the subjects were taught in English (ehm) so that er I think that last-
ed for seven years until I entered er university which er is an English-speaking uni-
versity where most er lectures examinations er reading assignments were all in
English. er so I /f/ I recall that I think the er the biggest er difficulty for me is really
when switching from primary school setting in which Chinese is the medium of
instruction er to a secondary school using English as a medium of instruction. I still
remember that was er quite a shock actually. I got a er an English speaking er er
class teacher. er the principal was an English er nearly all the lessons er were taught
in English except perhaps physical education or of course Chinese. er so I I think it
had taken me maybe two to three years to adjust to that. (ehm) yeah so that er that
wasn't very pleasant experience, I would say, in er in learning in my learning of
English. But 11 think eventually er I got over that and then has since used English er
as the er medium of learning in universities in postgraduate work and and now in
in my workplace I think where English is er is really used as the bus as the language
of communication with er with er the er Isl with the senior management ehm and
and a large number of colleagues (ehm)
Track 52
KT: Well I had a very similar experience. Like you I I would say that I was quite dumb
when I entering er my secondary school which is also an um English [?] um stroke a
school with English as the medium of instruction. Like you I I thought it was it was
to me it's a terrible experience. I had two years in a row going to the assembly week-
ly really without knowing what's going on - laugh - and I er really lost confidence
in myself. But like again like you I have my er headmistress many teachers who are
expatriates there there really was no choice for us to speak Chinese at all and
through that well maybe it's a forced situation but I think that actually was the way
I was brought up er looking back I thought the experience was in fact very positive
to become a multilingual person
Track 53
KC: so er so er do you recall whether whether you really liked English as a er a school
subject or or English as a language right for for your your own daily use er?
KT: well English as a subject to me is is just like er part of the game you know if you
want to survive if you want to like lead er er er a life that er will allow you to move
up the social ladder. er when I was young I already realised that you actually have to
speak good English. Why I say so ... because ehm I recall that I have many class-
mates who were very brilliant learners great in arts music what have you or
Chinese. But only because my English was better again looking back I know that I
have really a better life than you know what they have too. so to me er learning
English is something I feel OK but I also er have a strong feeling of the fact that er
you know the language is always put in a political context it's a sociological context.
it actually means at least in Hong Kong something to do with your future. So stu-
dents have to learn ehm very diligently. When I have grown up there's another
observation I had, that is you know being a multilingual person I I would say that
learning English is not that political (laugh). In fact I think it it's also an element of
respect of other people. As you said English is really the language of communication
these days not only in the work place but I think just as as a person. I have who have
extensive international experience English is the only language that you can speak
and communicate people as the I think the only common platform in the world. So
when I come across situations where there are expatriates around and there are
many Chinese around, I am always very conscientious that speaking English is real-
ly a matter of respect for other people ehm in the audience or ehm you know in that
that gathering ... so what is er your observation?
Track 54
KC: well er in my er secondary school days I I If/ er recall that I had never ident identi-
fied myself as someone good in English (laugh) there were classmates I think er who
have much er better English training I think in the primary school days. They could
er speak pretty well, very good pronunci;:ition, (ehm) and er I think they were well-
liked by their English teachers because they they always gave correct answers so er
there were groups of classmates I think mainly mainly girls er who er like English lit-
erature. (ehm) er I still remem I remembered that I hated English literature (laugh)
right. I had no I did not find any interest er in reading er literary works. I I was never
er interested in in reading Shakespeare (laugh). er I was er punished by not being
able to memorise the er poems (laugh) of English er poets. I I so er in those days it
was copying a hundred times the poem of a certain poet which er make me made
me hate really the er such learning right of er of English.And so I actually found peo-
ple who were interested in English literature a bit strange OK - laugh - I (laugh)
Track 55
KT: did they did you actually find that most of them are very like snobbish people? (laugh)
KC: well they er this I could not understand why they could become interested in it (laugh)
OK so but anyway I think perhaps my exposure for example in - cough -with er non-
Chinese-speaking professors in er in the university and my er later my overseas stud-
ies in Canada in er in Australia, and er so er of course there there were still some times
where 11 was not very sure OK about what my English prof my professors were refer-
ring to. (ehm) There were some th I think th differences all right there were some er
daily English which they have thought was very Isl very common for them OK (ehm)
but actually might not be understood OK by me as a foreign student. (ehm) er of
course there were sometimes the the problem accents for example in I think particu-
larly in er Australia (ehm) er in Scotland (ehm) and then I realised er er it was some-
times it might not be just a problem for a foreign student because even people who
spoke English as their first language they sometimes had difficulty in understand er
er each other. (ehm) So so er generally of of course I think the English used by aca-
demics right I think they they have survived so long I think - laugh - in that field so
they I think they tend to speak a kind of English still that er is more easily understood
among that er that er professional field. (ehm) But I do not the same feeling OK when
when er it was to the in the for the common folks in in bars or coffee shops (laugh) er
er of course sometimes it's difficult to it's not easy to understand OK. I still remember
having er dinner in a pub where the er the er northern English were watching a soc-
cer game (laugh) OK between Manchester United and another another team. And I
could not understand what er many words OK. They were so expressive they were so
er so I felt I'm I was a foreigner (laugh) OK? a complete foreigner (ehm) during that er
Track 56
KT: even though you can speak English
KC: yeah in that evening yeah. So er so sometimes I think we we had that feeling when
travelling er in the in the Isl the we the type of English OK I think still is spoken by
common folk sometimes it's er still difficult to understand by by I find it difficult to
understand
KT: thank you
The following three poems, two by Louise Ho and one by Agnes Lam, are reprinted
here as additional examples. Please note, though, that they are not recorded on the accom-
panying CD.
Hong Kong riots by Louise Ho

At five this morning
The curfew lifted.
Receding it revealed
Shapes that became people
Moving among yesterday's debris
Stones, more so than words,
Are meaningless,
Out of context
End of an era by Louise Ho

End of era
Or change of chapter
Smaller than a speck on the map
A nerve centre in the world
Miniscule place
Global space
Several vortices
Suspended by their own velocity
Drive cogwheels that orbit like planets
Yellow flowers on a battlefield by Agnes Lam

You ask me what is happiness
You ask me what is success
I once was young like you
Like you, I needed answers.
You tell me learning is difficult

in circumstances like yours.
Your teachers know that too.
I couldn't agree more.
There are not enough books,

not enough tapes or videos,
not enough teachers,
not enough anything.
How can I talk to you

about English on the Net
when there's only one computer

for each department?
Six days I have taught you.

Six days you have all come.
Always eager, always trying,
ever listening and asking.
You ask me for my poems.

You ask me for my photo.
You ask me for my signature.
My dear students, I am but a teacher.
Tomorrow I shall fly away

back to my office where I work
from eight to eight and I shall miss
your thirst for learning, your welcome.
I wish so much
You would be happy,
That you would find
Meaning and success.
But all I can leave you

are but another's words -
zhan di huang huafen wai xiang.
On a battlefield, yellows flowers are
sweeter than ever
[The final two lines of the final poem translate the previous line of standard putonghua.]
Chapter 11: English as a lingua franca
These examples are all taken from conversations between people from different coun-
tries in ASEAN, using English as a lingua franca. The nationality of each of the speakers is
given at the beginning of each excerpt.
Example 1: a Filipina (P), a Bruneian (B) and a Thai (T)

The bold type indicates where one speaker anticipates what the other is going to say
and provides an example of shared understanding. Listeners will also be able to hear the
syllable-timing of these speakers.
Track 57
P: and the parents are well educated whereas {T: eh hm} those coming from the public
er {B: school} should come the lower er
B: income
P: income families {F+ T: ehm yeah} that's why er during our national exams this ah chil-
dren coming from the private schools they get higher scores than the ones who are
{F+T: ehm} in the government in the elementary {F+ T: ehm} school except for some
science high schools {B: ehm} and the University of the Philippines {B: yes} system
students [they get high grades
B: for our high school] we get good results because we {F: ehm} we after standard six or
primary six they primary school they go to a secondary {T: correct} school so our
school is a government school and we get students from private school {T: yes} and
students from the government school {F: eh hm} so and ehm these people who've
who are who are from the government er the private school usually do better
{T: ehm} and they will continue doing
P: better
B: better until {T: right} er ['O' levels {V: yeah yeah} or or high school {Fx2 +T: yeah} at the
end of the high school year
Example 2: a Filipina (P), a Bruneian (B) [the same participants as in example 1]

and a Vietnamese (V)
Note the Vietnamese speaker's pronunciation of 'taught', her use of both /8/ and /t/
and her addition of an 's' to 'future' and 'children'. None of this causes any misunderstand-
ing.
Track 58
P: er what have you done in Vietnam about teacher education?
V: ehm well ehm for in terms of ehm teaching grammar ehm as I mentioned this morn-
ing ehm (.. ) er we have er the at university we have the two like er two stages. The
first one is for the first year so the students ehm will be lt?tfI all the basic er rules
like like I I mean this for the er for the sub for the grammar subject itself it's not for
interpretative skills {F: ehm} so ehm after the first years er we move to the second
year and the th/8/ird year for more ehm like er more academic {B: more academic
yes} more /t/eoretical {B: oh ok} (.. )what because we believe that ehm because our
teacher won't be teacher of English in the futures so they will teach [ehm
B: young] young children
V: young childrens {T: ehm} so they must like master grammar very well so that they can
you know they are able to ehm teach them? the rules [so
Example 3: a Cambodian (C), a Indonesian (I) and a Singaporean (S)

Note how the Cambodian makes himself easily understood and how the Singaporean
suggests an alternative word ('benefits' for 'good things'), which he then adopts. The ques-
tion in bold is actually a rhetorical question, so when the Indonesian tries to answer it, the
Cambodian speaker continues his rhetorical 'game' until all the participants understand.
The excerpt ends in shared laughter.
Track 59
C: in the future I hope that er( .. ) er more and more (.. ) Cambodians will speak English
because erm we we understand about the advantages of English. We cannot erm live
erm without English because {S: ok} we have to contact the world {S: eh hm} we have
erm to do business with the world we have to {I: ehm} yeah we have to develop our
country with the world. {S: ehm} So nearly all nearly all nearly all factors of develop-
ment we have to(.. ) erm interdependent {S: eh hm} yeah we have to interdependent
between one {S: eh hm} country and another country. So we have to use English in
communi[cation
I: ah yes of] course yes
C: so Cambodian people rely and I will I will tell Cambodians I will tell them about the
advantage advantages of English and ehm er (.. ) motivate them to learn English
because I know the the the good things of English
S: the benefits
C: yeah the benefit you want to travel the world?
I: well you [can you
C: you you] have to speak English
I: you [can
C: you] want to do business with er {I: ehm ehm} other country you have [to
S: you have] to use English
I: yeah
C: use] English
I: yeah yeah ok
C: you want to do research? {I: laugh)
S: you have to do it in English
C: you have to {S+I: laugh) to do in English (general laughter)
Example 4: an Indonesian {12), a Malaysian {M) and a Cambodian {C2)

These are different participants from those above. I discuss this excerpt in Chapter n
itself. I have bolded the linguistic features that are discussed there. The reason why the
Indonesian speaker does not mark the past tense on 'pick' is almost certainly phonological,
but phonology cannot explain the lack of past tense markings on 'sit', 'check', and 'take'.
Track 60
12: er 11 waited] for the official who picked {/pik/) me up ok er and then I tried to look
for the official but because er er the plane you know landed so early so {ehm uh oh)
the official hasn't come yet {C2: ehm) yeah
M2: what a pity (laugh)

12: er er 111 had to stay in the airport and then did nothing (C2: ehm) just sit and I check
the placard of (ehm) RELC (M2: ehm) ok and er and I couldn't see that's why I just sit
and take a rest ... what about you what time
C2: how long have you waits for them
12: just an hour
C2: an hours (12: an hour) oh oh
12: ok I enjoyed the arcades you [know
M2: and] then how did you get here
12: er no the official
M: came late
12: er that I met ok the er came late (laugh) yeah because the flight was earlier than the
(eh) schedule (oh) so ok I just er waited for him an hour in the airport yeah er final-
ly I met him (ehm) at one o'clock (laughter) that's it
M2: luckily you arrived [safely
C2: I] also arrived earliers than the exact time (I: oh ok) as the one that's pick me up
(ehm) said but luckily I mets him (laugh)
References
Achebe, C. (1975/2005) 'The African writer and the English language', in: Jenkins, J. (2005)
World Englishes, London: Routledge, pp169-72.
Adamson, B. (1002) 'Barbarian as foreign language: English in China's schools', World
Englishes, 21(2): 231-43.
Adamson, B. (1004) China's English. A History of English in Chinese Education. Hong Kong:
Hong Kong University Press.
Ahulu, S. (1994) 'How Ghanaian is Ghanaian English?', English Today, 38 10(2): 25-9.
Aitken, A. J. (1979) 'Scottish speech: A historical view, with special reference to the Standard
English of Scotland', in: Aitken, A. J. & McArthur, T. (eds.) (1979) Languages of
Scotland, Edinburgh: Chambers, pp85-118.
Aitken, A. J. & McArthur, T. (eds.) (1979) Languages of Scotland, Edinburgh:
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Author index
Achebe, C. 112, 179 Clyne,M. 13

Adamson, B. 1, 145 Collard, K. 82
Ahulu, S. 104 Conrad, A. 3, 36, 178
Aitken, A.J. 49 Cook, Captain 79
Algeo, J. 65 Cook, V.J. 10, 174-75, 186, 187, 188, 194
Ammon, U. 36, 164, 181 Cooke,M. 81
Ash, S. 60 Crane, G. 126, 174
Awoniyi, A. 115 Crystal, D. 11, 19, 39, 40, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 95, 157
Cukor-Avila, P. 62-63
Baikolo, A. 112
Bailey, G. 59, 62, 65, 66, 96 D'Souza, J. 85, 87, 91, 95, 96, 179
Bamgbose, A. 103, 176 David, M. 120, 124
Bamiro, E.O. 104 Davies, A. 8, 10, 36, 177
Bartlett, F. C. 23 de Klerk, V. 107, 109
Bautista, M.L. 130, 132-33, 134 Delbridge, A. 69, 70, 122
Bernard, J.R.L. 71, 78 Desai, A. 96, 112, 113, 114, 179
Berns, M. 166 Deterding, D. 122, 123, 124, 126, 158, 160
Bernstein, C. 64, 66 Dillard, J.L. 56, 59, 60
Bickerton, D. 125 Dixon, R.M.W. 72
Bisong, J. 181 Dollerup, C. 164, 165, 166
Biswas, G. 89, 90 Du, R. 146
Blake, N.F. 41, 42 Dubois, S. 60
Bloomfield, L. 8
Eades, D. 80-81
Boberg, C. 60 Egbokhare, F.O. 181
Bokamba, E. 113
Eisterhold, J. 23
Bolton, K. 30, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 143, 145, 146
Ellis, A.J. 47
Boyle, J. 138
Braine, G. 1, 186 Fenton, A. 49
Briguglio, C. 141 Ferguson, C.A. 90
Brown, A. 122, 123 Fernando, C. 91, 97
Brown, G. 36 Firth, A. 163, 166
Brutt-Griffler, J. 36, 178-79, 182, 187 Fisher, 0. 42
Buchan, P. 51 Fishman, J. 178
Bullokar, W. 46 Flynn, S. 175
Burchfield, R. 43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 53, 56, 180
Butler, S. 72, 142, 144, 151 Garcia, E.A. 130
Genesse, F. 8
Canagarajah, S.C. 89, 92, 97 Giles, H. 14
Carrell, P. 23 Goethals, M. 166, 189, 190
Cawdrey, R. 46 Gonzalez, A.B. 129, 130, 131, 132, 146
Caxton, W. 40, 45, 46 Gooneratne, Y. 96
Cenoz, J. 166 Gorlach, M. 1, 30, 69-70, 74, 78, 164, 169, 179, 180
Chaucer, G. 44 Gough, D. 107, 109
Cheke, J. 44-45 Govardhan, A. 196
Chen Ping 121 Graddol, D. 194
Cheshire, J. 12 Green, L.J. 60, 63, 64
Chick, J.K. 109 Gupta, A.F. 30, 122, 125
Churchill, W. 70 Guy, G. 71
249
Ha Jin 145, 147, 150-51 Mackay, G. 79

Halliday, M.A.K. 34, 83, 169 Malcolm, I. 79
Hancock, I. 103, 104 Mandela, N. 107
Harkins, J. 79, So, 82 Maramba, A.D. 132
Hashim, A. 123, 128 Martin, LP. 129, 133-34, 181
Hing, B. 148 Mazrui, A. 111
Ho, L. 145 McArthur, T. 1, 5, 30, 48, 61, 120, 125, 129, 131, 132
Ho, M.L. 125 McClure, J.D. 53
Hockett, C.F. 8, 9 Mcintosh, A. 49
Hoffman, C. 164, 165, 194 McKay, S.M. 191
Holm, J. 13 McLellan, J. 122, 124, 127-28, 128
Honna, N. 187-88, 192 Medgyes, P. 8, 186, 187
Horvath, B. 60 Mehrotra, R.R. 85, 86, 89, 90, 93
Hosali, P. 85, 86 Meierkord, C. 167-68, 172, 193
Howard, J. 75 Melchers, G. 1
Hu, X. 151 Mencken, H.L. 56, 57, 58
Hung, E. 142-43, 144 Mesthrie, R. 107, 108
Mitchell, A. 70
Ihalainen, 0. 48 Moag, R.F. 31, 34, 182
Modiano, M. 165-66
Jackson, H. 23, 94 Mohamed, M. 120
Jacques, M. 37 Mufwene, S. 13, 29, 32, 34, 59, 60, 172
James, A. 167, 193 Mukerjee, R. 96
Jenkins, J. 1, 18, 160, 165-66, 167, 193-94 Murison, D. 44, 49
Jessner, U. 166 Murray, L. 47
Jiang, Y. 146
Johnson, R.K. 139, 140 Naik, M.K. 86, 88, 91> 98
Johnson, S. 46, 56, 125 Naryan, S.A. 86, 88, 91, 98
Johnstone, B. 66 Nayar, B. 196
Jones, G.M. 122 Newson, M. 174-75
Jordan, J. 61-62, 63 Ngugi wa Thiong'o 111-12, 179
Jowitt, D. 103 Nihalani, P. 92
Kachru, B.B. 1, 3, 28-30, 31, 34, 36, 85, 87, 88, 90, 93, 94, Okara, G. 113
97, 113, 182, 183, 192 Okudaira, A. 155
Kahane, H. 55, 57 Oladipo, 0. 114
Kamwangamalu, N.M. 106 Omoniyi, T. 105
Kandiah, T. 34, 36, 90, 91, 92, 95 Othman, N.A. 128
Kay, W. 52-53 Oxenham, D. 82
Keats, J. 47, 75
Killingsley, S.Y. 128 Pankratz, K. 132
Kirkpatrick, A. 3, 11, 123, 126, 149, 151, 160, 175, 176, 184, Pantoja-Hidalgo, C. 134
188, 195, 196 Parakrama, A. 92
Koch, H. So Pena, P.S. 132
Krasnick, H. 155 Pennycook, A. 138, 179
Kretzschmar, W.A.Jr. 67 Phillipson, R. 35, 36, 171, 177-78, 179, 182
Kubota, R. 186, 192 Platt, J. 12, 70, 122, 125
Kynoch, D. 52 Poedjosoedarmo, G. 160
Pollard, D. 144
Labov, W. 60 Poplack, S. 62
Labrie, N. 165 Powland, P. 14
Lam,A. 145 Poynton, C. 74
Lass, R. 42, 106 Prescott, D. 196
Le Page, R.B. 122
Lee, S.K. 128 Quayum, M.A. 129
Li, C. 176 Quell, C. 165
Li, D.C.S. 24, 36, 76, 140, 141, 142, 143-44, 180
Lin, J. 151 Raheem, R. 91, 92
Lippi-Green, R. 60-61, 62, 65 Ramly, R. 128
Lo Castro, V. 81 Rampton, M. 10
Lowenberg, P. 123, 124 Ramson, W.S. 72
Luke, K.K. 139, 140 Ransom, W. 75
Author index 251
Rao, R. 95-96, 179 Thompson, R.T. 130

Ratwatte, H. 91, 92 Thompson, S. 176
Ray, J. 46 Tillery, J. 59, 62
Richards, J.C. 139, 140 Titlestad, P.J.H. 114
Richardson, M. 44 Todd, L. 103, 104
Robinson, W. 138 Tosi, A. 165
Rubal-Lopez, A. 178 Toulmin, D. 51
Trudgill, P. 48
Salleh, M.H. 129, 179 Tutuola, A. 112
Saro-Wiwa, K. 113-14
Saunders, N. 123 Valentine, T.M. 85, 87
Schaeffer, R.P. 181 van Essen, A. 165, 189
Schmied, J. 101, 102, 103, 109, no, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 176, Vickers, E. 140
179 Viereck, W. 164
Schneider, E.W. 1, 32, 34, 182, 183 Vittachi, N. 144
Scollon, R. 194 Vonwiller, J. 71
Scollon, S. 194
Seidlhofer, B. 3, 165-66, 167, 193 Walker, J. 46
Sharma, V.P. 94, 95, 179 Wang, R. 146
Shaw,P. 1 Watson, D. 72
Sheorey, R. 196 Weber, H. 12, 70, 122, 125
Sidwha, B. 96, 150 Webster, N. 56-57
Singh, K. 85, 87-88 White, L. 8
Skutnabb-Kangas, T. 177, 181, 187 Widdowson, H. 3, 13, 32-33
Smith, L.E. 35 Wikkramasinha, L. 89, 95, 129, 179
Sonntag, S.K. 37 Wikle, T. 59, 62
Soyinka, W. 113, 179 Williams, J.M. 41
Sridhar, K.K. 95 Williamson, J. 73
Srivastava, R.N. 94, 95, 179 Witherspoon, J. 56
Stanlaw, J. 1, 193 Wolf, H.-G. 101, 105
Steward, F. 138 Wolfram, W. 62
Strang, B. 44
Strevens, P. 30 Xu, X. 144, 146, 147, 148, 151
Swales, J. 8, 36 Xu, Z. 147, 149, 151
Sweeting, A. 140
Swift, J. 46 Yong, J. 124
Yoshikawa, H. 192
Tagliamonte, S. 62
Takeshita, Y. 187-88 Zhang, H. 147, 150
Thomas, E.R. 65
Thomas, M. 72
Subject index
Aboriginal languages (Australia) 13, 20-21, 80-82 vocabulary 20

academic English see also African American Vernacular English;
international scholarship 164, 181 Southern American English
linguistic imperialism 36 American Indian Pidgin English (AIPE) 55
accents apartheid 106-7, 108, 115
first language 130 Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN)
linguistic prejudice 14-15 English 3, 7-8, 130
African American English (AAE) 59, 60 acceptance of 169
African American Vernacular English (AAVE) 55> 67 ASEAN member states 119, 155
'be', uses of 62, 63-64 communicative strategies 161-62
and General American 64-65 cultural norms 188-89, 194-95
identity, and language 61-62 expanding circle countries 155
inflectional system, simplification of 62-63 misunderstandings 161-63
language change, synopsis of 63 model choice 188-89
prejudice against 60-61 mutual intelligibility 155, 163
'rules' of 62, 63 non-standard forms 157-60, 163
social/regional variation 62-63 official language, suggestions for 155
and Southern American English 59 outer circle countries 155
African American Vernacular English test (AAVEs) 59 phonological features 160-62
African English Vernacular (AEV) 60 syntactic uses 157--60, 163
African Englishes Australian Aboriginal English (AAE) 29, 69, 180
English, importance of 115-16 Aboriginal languages 13, 20-21
grammar 173-74 communicative strategies 80-81, 82
linguistic complexity 101 multiplicity of 79
media of education, choice of 114-15 speech styles 81
mother tongue, choice of 114 transfers from 79, 80
pronunciation 173 cultural norms, misunderstanding of 81-82
and RP 110 definition of 79
writers, and English/African culture 112-14 identity-communication continuum 78, 79, 82-83
see also Nigerian Englishes; South African Englishes as intra-Aboriginal lingua franca 78, 79, 82
African lingua francas 101 pragmatic/ cultural transfer 80-83
American English 5, 6, 17, 18 relative homogeneity of 79
American culture, diffusion of 36-37, 55, 190, 192 syntax 79-80
and British English 57-58 Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) 70, 78
communications technology, development of 55 Australian Englishes 5, 6, 12, 13
General American 55, 64-65 background 78
in Japan 9, 192 pronunciation 17
linguistic complexity 55 vocabulary 20-21
linguistic independence, attempt at 56-57 see also Australian Aboriginal English; Standard
power, and language versus dialect 55 Australian English
prejudice against 56
slave trade 55 Bahasa Indonesia 7, 9, 155
varieties of 55 Bahasa Malaysia 119-20, 129
colonial lag theory 59 Black English, in Britain 15
dialect regions 60 Black English Vernacular (BEV) 60
ethnic diversity 59, 60 Black South African English (BSAE) 108, 109
language contact theory 59 British Council 36
metropolitanisation 59, 67 British English 5, 6, 20
migration 59-60, 67 and American English 57-58
252
Subject index
change, examples of 1476-1776 Chinese English 36-37, 150-51

!-sf plural marking 45 and ELT 188-89, 190
cumulative negation 46 European Union English 188-89
dictionaries and grammars, appearance of 46-47 Hong Kong English 24-25
initial /fn/ to /sn/ 45 Indian Englishes 87-88, 95
non-rhotic varieties 45 Nigerian Englishes 106
prescriptivism 46-47 Standard Australian English 76-78
second person pronoun 45
silent /ti 45 Dharuk language 72
third person present simple inflection 46 dialects
change, examples since 1776 contemporary England 47-48
four-syllable words, two main models for 47 versus language 55, 79
'huntin' to 'hunting' 47 Middle English 44
'lost'/'cloth'/'cross' vowel shortening 47 Old English 40
new verb forms 47 versus registers 34
silent initial 'h' in words of French origin 47 Scottish English 49-53
contemporary England, variety in dictionaries, appearance of 46-47
dialects 47-48 Diploma in Teaching English to Speakers of Asian
'do' + 'be' 48 Languages (Dip TESAL) 196
double modal (Scots) 48 Doric 49-53, 61, 172
'isn't it' all purpose tag 48 Dutch 106
'northern subject rule' 48 see also South African Englishes
present tense marking 48
topic-comment sentence construction 48 Early Modern English (EME) 40, 45-47
development of 39-40 East Africa
English family tree 39-40 East African English 101
French, influence of 43-44 Ki-Swahili as lingua franca 7
inflectional system, simplification of 41-42 Ebonics 60
Latin, influence of 42, 43 ELT see English Language Teaching (ELT)
as 'model' variety 7 Emai language 181
Scandinavian languages, contact with 42-43 emerging varieties, criteria for 142, 144, 151
verbs, strong and weak forms 41-42 English as a lingua franca (ELF) 1-2, 3, 101
see also Middle English; Old English; Scottish English Australian Aboriginal English 78, 79, 82
Brunei 122 bilingual approach 194-95
see also South-East Asian Englishes Chinese English 29-30, 33, 145-46
Buchan Doric see Doric code-switching 168-69
codification 193
Cambodian 157, 159-60 communicative strategies 166-67
Cameroon English 105 cross-cultural communication 194-95
Cantonese 139, 140-41 English language teaching 189, 193-95
Central Australian Aboriginal English (CAAE) So Hong Kong English 141
Chinese 21, 175-76 identity-communication continuum 168, 169
see also Cantonese; Mandarin Chinese; Putonghua Indian Englishes 91
Chinese English 146 mathetic versus pragmatic uses of language 169-70
costs of learning 151-52 mutual intelligibility 167, 193-94
development of 182-83 phonology 167
English, roles of 29-30, 33, 145-46 'regular'/'marked'/'doubtful' forms, use of 167-68
grammar 148-49 regularisation 169
lexis 146-48 simplification 169
model choice 15, 192 see also Association of South-East Asian Nations
as new variety 151 (ASEAN) English; European Union (EU)
and People's Republic of China 120-21 English
phonology 146 English as an Asian language 192
pragmatic/cultural conventions English Language Teaching (ELT)
ancestral hometown discourse 149 endonormative nativised model
cultural values 36-37, 150-51 codification, lack of 191, 193
modifying-modified sequence 149 educational/cultural norms, familiarity with 190
Chinese Pidgin English ('Canton jargon') 137-38 expanding-circle countries, choice of 191-93
Colebrook-Cameron Commission 91 governments, benefits for 190
Coloured South African English (CSAE) 107 local teachers, advantages for 189-90
cultural conventions 23-24 multilingual teacher/classroom 189-90, 196-97
ASEAN English 188-89, 194-95 norm versus model 191
English Language Teaching (ELT) (cont.) cultural conventions 24-25

endonormative nativised model (cont.) English, as exonormative 140
outer-circle countries, choice of 189 English-medium schools/universities 138-39
teachers and learners, advantages and grammar 143-44
disadvantages for 189-93 identity 141-42
exonormative native speaker model, choice of lexis 143
codification, importance of 184 literature in 144-45
cultures and values 188-89 local norms, absence of 140
expanding-circle countries, choice of 184-85 mission schools, and Chinese education 138
language teaching industry 184-85 mixed code instruction 139
materials, availability of 184 multilingual community 140-41
monolingual classroom/teachers 186-87 phonology 142-43
native speaker model, and students 187-88 variety versus interlangage 140-42
native speaker teachers, advantages for 185-86 workplace, role of English in 141
non-native speaker teachers, disadvantages for 186
prestige and legitimacy 184, 185 identity-communication continuum
teachers and learners, advantages and Australian Aboriginal English 78, 79, 82-83
disadvantages for ]85-89 English as a lingua franca 168, 169
untrained native speakers, demand for 185-86 language functions 10-13
lingua franca approach 189, 193-95 linguistic variation 172-73
teachers and training courses, requirements for Nigerian Englishes 102-3
195-96 Standard Australian English 82-83
errors see learner errors Igbo 102
European Union (EU) English imperialism see linguistic imperialism
cultures and values 188-89 Indian Englishes 6
English, roles of in Europe 'Anglicists' versus 'Orientalists' 90, 116
academic publishing 164 'Butler' English 86
business 164 cultural conventions 87-88, 95
entertainment industry, role of 164 education, in English 90, 91
scientific and scholarly conferences 164 English as lingua franca 91
as working language 164-65 history of 90
EU member countries 163-64 indigenous varieties 89, 95-97
Euro-English, and/or ELF 165-66, 169 lexis 93-94
lingua franca approach 189 literature, in English 95-97
official languages 164-65 local language, presence of 86-87
multilingualism 89-90
Fijian English 31-32 'network of varieties' 89
Filipino 129 phonology 92-93
see also Philippine English Pidgin Indian English 86
French 43-44,47,49 pragmatic/mathetic functions 83
functions see language functions stylistic effects 88
syntax 94
General American (GA) 55, 60, 63, 64-65, 66, 67 'three language formula' 90-91
see also American English Indian South African English (ISAE) 107-8
German 163, 180-81 Indo-European language family 39-40
Ghanaian English 33 Indonesia
globalisation 3 Bahasa Indonesia as lingua franca 7, 9
grammar texts, appearance of 46-47 Malaysian English 191-92
guanxi 150-51 inflectional system
Guugu Yimidhirr language 72 number and tense 21-22
Guyanese Creole (GC) 125 simplification of 41-42, 62-63, 172, 174, 176-77
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) 16
Hausa 102, 105 Irish English 17, 18, 48, 71
Hawaiian Creole English (HCE) 125
Hindi 86-87, 89, 90-91, 93, 97 Japan
Hong Kong English model choice 192-93
biliteracy and trilingualism, promotion of 139-40 varieties of English in 21, 192-93
British colonial period 137-39 Johnson's Dictionary 46, 56
Cantonese 139, 140-41
Chinese-medium schools/universities 138-40 language functions
Chinese Pidgin English 137-38 basilectal/mesolectal/acrolectal varieties 12-13, 34-35
Chinese rule, return to 139-40 broad/general/educated varieties 12-13, 34-35
Subject index 255
communicative function l0-11 inflectional system, simplification of 41-42

formality 11, 12 linguistic variation 44-45
identity function 11-12, 35 models, of World Englishes
intelligibility function 11-12, 34-35 developmental cycles
register 10-11, 12, 13 comparison of 32, 33f
variation, as normal and natural 12, 18, 53 dialects versus registers 34
see also identity-communication continuum 'fulguration' process 34
learner errors, versus non-standard forms 157-60 identity-intelligibility continuum 34-35
Leopard, The 49-51 nativised varieties 31, 34
linguicism see linguistic imperialism non-nativised Englishes 31-32
linguistic imperialism postcolonial Englishes 32
British and American English, spread of 36-37 spread versus distribution 33-34
colonial subjects, role of 178-79 terms, use of 30-31, 32
English, cost of demand for 181-82 ENL/ESL/EFL 27-28
European languages stifling of 180-81 linguistic imperialism 35-37
key tenets of 177-78 model choice
language, pragmatic uses of 179-80 ASEAN English 188-89
local languages, replacement of 178, 181 British English 7
new varieties, stages of development of 182-83 Chinese English 15
postcolonial era, and English 179 Japan 192-93
struggle against 178-79 Nigerian Englishes 189
linguistic prejudice polymodel versus monomodel approaches 37
African American Vernacular English 60-61 'three circles' model 28-30
American English 56 see also English Language Teaching (ELT)
native versus nativised varieties 6-7 Modern English (ModE) 40
Received Pronunciation 14-15 morphology 21-23
Scottish English 52-53 Myanmar 155
Southern American English 65-66
Standard Australian English 69-70, 72 native versus nativised varieties
linguistic terms 16-26 acculturation and indigenisation 7
linguistic variation influence on younger varieties 6
African Englishes, common linguistic features of versus lingua franca 7-8
109-10, 173-74 linguistic prejudice 6-7
English, influences on 171-72 local language and cultures, influence of 6-7
expert users, need to base analysis on 177 native versus non-native speakers 5
identity-communication continuum 172-73 alternative terms 10
inflectional system, simplification of 172, 174, 176-77 bilingual children 10
innovation, as norm 176-77 linguistic and communicative competence 10
local languages, transfers from 176 linguistic prejudice 10
nativised varieties 172 monolingual versus mulitlingual societies 9
as natural and normal 12, 18, 53 'mother tongue speaker' /'first language speaker'
pan-linguistic grammatical simplification process 8-9
174 native speaker as 'better' 8
stereotypical features 176 Networking English/European language learning
Universal Grammar parameter settings 174-75 Europe (NELLE) 189
new varieties of English (NVEs) 42, 182-83
Macquarie Dictionary, The 75-76, 183 Nigerian Englishes 33
Mainstream US English (MUSE) 60 African lingua francas 102
Malay 121 British colonial legacy 102
Malaysian English 6, 7, 19, 21, 31-32 cultural conventions 106
English-medium education 120 identity-communication continuum 102-3
literature in English, development of 129 lexical features 104-5
Malaysianisation policy 119-20 local languages 181
see also South-East Asian Englishes model choice 189
Malaysian University English Test (MUET) 120 phonological features 104
Mandarin Chinese 7, 121, 128 RP 102, 103
mathetic versus pragmatic uses of language 83, 169-70, syntax 105-6
179-80 Nigerian Pidgin English 102, 105, 172
Middle English non-standard forms, versus learner errors 157-60
as dialect age 44
French, influence of 43-44 Official Languages Act (1967) (India) 90
Great Vowel Shift 44 Old English 39-40
Pan-African movement m English-medium of education 121

Philippine English 7, 31 'Speak Mandarin' campaign 121
bilingual education policy 130 see also South-East Asian Englishes
colonial history 129 Sinhala 91-92, 93
English-medium education 129-30 South African Englishes 101
grammar 132-33 African Englishes, common linguistic features
lexis 131-32 109-10, 173-74
linguistic background 129-30 Afrikanerisation policy, and apartheid 106-7
literature in 133-34 Anglicisation policy 106
phonology 130-31 Black South African English 108, 109
Tagalog (Filipino) 129 Coloured South African English 107
phonology, and pronunciation conservative-respectable-extreme continuum 107
consonants, differing pronunciations of 16-17 Indian South African English 107-8
first language, influence of 18-19 official languages 107
'functional loading' 17 White South African English 107
Received Pronunciation 16, 17-18, 19 South Asian Englishes see Indian Englishes; Sri Lankan
spelling/pronunciation mismatch 16-17 English
stress- versus syllable-timing 19 South-East Asian Englishes 119
'th', voiced and voiceless 17 basilect/mesolect/acrolect continuum 122
vowel pronunciations 17 code-mixing 127-29
word pronunciations 17 grammar 124-27
word stress 19 identity 128-29
Pidgin Indian English 86 lexis 123-24
pidgins 30 phonology 122-23
American Indian Pidgin English 55 see also Association of South-East Asian Nations
Chinese Pidgin English 137-38 (ASEAN) English; Malaysian English; Singapore
versus creoles and varieties 13-14 English
Pidgin Indian English 86 South Korea 185
prejudice see linguistic prejudice Southern African English 101
prescriptivism 46-47 Southern American English (SAE) 55
printing, invention of 40-41, 44, 46 influences on 65
pro-drop versus non-pro-drop languages 126, 174-75 South, defining area of 65
Putonghua 7, 121, 139-40 'southern drawl', prejudice against 65-66
sub-varieties of 65
Received Pronunciation (RP) 16, 17-18, 19 syntax 66
American English 58, 59, 67 see also American English
Hong Kong English 142-43 Sri Lankan English
linguistic prejudice 14-15 academic writing 97
Regional Language Centre (RELC), Singapore 192 code mixing 92
registers English as lingua franca 92
versus dialects 34 English-medium education 91, 92
language functions 10-11, 12, 13 linguistic context 91
Pidgin Indian English 86 Sinhala-speaking elite 91-92
rhetoric, and language 97 Tamil language 91, 92
rojak English 168 Standard American English (SAE) 60
Russian 145 see also American English
Standard Australian English (SAE) 69
Saghal 91 cultural/pragmatic conventions 76-78
Sanskrit 97 history, and prejudices 69-70, 72
schemas 23, 24-25 identity-communication continuum 82-83
Scottish English 17 pronunciation
development of 48-49 Australian questioning intonation (AQI) 71-72
dialects 49-53 'broad' /'general' /'cultivated' continuum 70-71, 74,
double modals 48 78
English, increased influence of 49 clipping, and cultural values 74
French, influence of 49 diphthongs, distinctive pronunciation of 71
prejudice against 52-53 epenthetic 'schwa' 71
Scandinavian, influence of 49 roles and status 78
Singapore English 11, 12-13, 19, 20 syntax
basilectal/mesolectal/acrolectal levels 71 'but', as sentence ending 74
Chinese-medium education, suspicion of 120-21 'fair dinkum' 75
'English + l' bilingual language policy 121 'good', use of instead of 'well' 74
index 257
'less' and 'fewer' 75 pro-drop versus non-pro-drop languages 174-75

'of' for 'have' 75 South-East Asian Englishes 126-27
third conditional, distinctive use of 75 syntactic movement, presence of absence of 175
third person female pronoun, use of 74 topic-comment versus subject-predicate sentences
usage, and acceptability of forms 75-76 175-76
'what', in relative clauses 75 Urdu 97
vocabulary 72-74
stress- versus syllable-timing 19 variation see linguistic variation
subject dropping 126, 174-75 Viena-Oxford International Corpus of English as a
Swahili, as East African lingua franca m Lingua Franca (VOICE) 167
syntactic simplification 22 vocabulary 20-21
Tagalog 129 Welsh English 48

see also Philippine English accent 14
Tamil 12, 121, 128 'isn't it' all purpose tag 48
teaching see English Language Teaching (ELT) topic-comment sentence construction 48
'three circles' model 28-30 West African English 101
1i·avels of Peter Mundy, The 145 White American English Vernacular(s) (WAEVs)
Treaty of Nanjing 137 59,60
World Englishes, meaning of 3
Universal Grammar (UG) parameter settings
Principal Branching Direction (PBD), oflanguages 175 Yoruba 102,105,112

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Curtin University Library

Hong Kong Institute of Education

Cambridge University Press

© Cambridge University Press 2007

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

First published 2007

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data

ISBN-13 978-0-521-85147-3 hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or

Part A: The Framework 5

Part B: Variation and Varieties 39

Part C: Implications 171

Appendix -Transcripts of samples of varieties of English 198

1 Key sociolinguistic concepts

1.1 Native varieties vs nativised varieties vs lingua franca Englishes

It is customary to distinguish between native and nativised varieties of English (cf.

1.2 The native speaker vs the non-native speaker

1.3 The functions of language and the 'identity-communication continuum'

Figure 1: The identity-communication continuum

broad I basilectal varieties

1-4 Pidgins vs creoles vs varieties of Englishes

1.5 Linguistic prejudice

2.1 Phonology and pronunciation

2-3 Morphology and syntax

2-4 Cultural conventions and schemas

CPC: My mother is not well, sir.

CPC: Could I take a day off please?

Perhaps the most common classification of Englishes, especially in the language

Perhaps the most common classification of Englishes, especially in the language

3.2 Developmental cycles

As I mentioned in Chapter 1, there is a close relationship between the development of

Figure 2: Developmental cycles of new varieties of English

Kachru 1 non-recognition 2 co-existence oflocal 3 recognition

Moag 1 transportation 2 indigenisation 3 expansion 4 institutionalisation 5 (decline)

Schneider 1 foundation 2 exonormative 3 nativisation 4 endonormative 5 differentiation

Widdowson makes a clear distinction between the developmental processes in indi-

3.3 English as an International Language or World Englishes?

4 Variation and impurity in British English

4.1 Old English and Middle English

Figure 3: The English language family tree

Modern In do-European Languages

Stage 1: Old English (OE), from 450 to 1150;

ModE Anglian OE West Saxon OE

Case Singular Plural

rfdan - rad (ride/rode)

endian - endode - endod (end/ended/ended)

4.2 From Middle English

By 1400 the amount of variation presented cumulative difficulty in writing between

4.3 Examples of change (1476-1776)

(vi) Up to 1776, negation continued to be cumulative and not self-cancelling as this

4-4 Examples of change (since 1776)

4.5 Variation in contemporary England

4.6 Scottish,English and variation in Scotland

'Spik o The Place' (Speak of the Place) by Norman Harper

The pronunciation of this variety is obviously distinctive. In addition there is significant

To be yourself and make that worth being

Stability of meaning is rare in any language.

No construction is everlastingly stable, no cherished rule remains unbroken.