Why a global language D' Crystal, English as a Global Language, CUP, chapter 1

1
Why a global language?D. Crystal, English as a
Global Language, CUP, chapter 1
2
What is a global language?

• A language that develops a social role
  recognised in every country.
• How?
• As an official language (second language)
• As a foreign language

3

• Used as first language, second language and
  foreign language it is inevitable that a language
  will be used by more people than any other
  language.

4
What makes a global language?

• It depends on the number of people that speak it.
  
  True ? False ?
• English has less grammar than other languages and
  therefore it is easier to learn. True ? False ?
• Children of all cultures learn to speak over more
  or less the same period of time. True ? False
  ?
• What makes English appealing to learn?

5

• A language does not become a global language
  because of its structural properties. A language
  becomes a global language for one main reason
  the political, economical and military power
• of its people.

6

• A lingua franca is a medium of communication for
  people who speak different first languages.
• A pidgin is a language with a reduced range of
  structures and use, with no native speakers.
  (e.g. West Africa Pidgin English is used between
  several ethnic groups along the West African
  Coast)

7
The need for a global language

• Political bodies (from the 1950s in particular)
• International accademic world
• Business community

8
The dangers of a global language

• Linguistic power.
• People who speak it as a mother tongue could be
  in a privileged position.
• Linguistic complacency
• It could eliminate the motivation for adults to
  learn other languages.
• Linguistic death
• It could contribute to the disappearance of
  minority languages ancd cultures

9
On the other hand.

• Linguistic power
• Language learning from early stages is
  incouraged.
• Linguistic complacency
• Growing awareness of the importance to learn more
  languages, particularly in the English speaking
  community.
• Linguistic death
• The processes of language loss are independent
  from the emergence of a global language
• Intellegibility and identity can co-exist.

10

• Local languages continue to represent local
  identities, as English is seen as the primary
  means of achieving a global presence.
• English plays a central role in empowering the
  subjected and marginalized communities.

11
The historical context D. Crystal, English as a
Global Language, CUP, chapter 2

• Colonial expansion of England
• From the reign of Elisabeth I (1603)
• America
• 1 settlement - North Carolina (1584)
• 2 settlement Virginia (1607)
• 3 settlement New England (1620) Pilgrim
  Fathers - Mayflower

12
Different accents

• Virginia (South)
• The settlers came from the west counties
  (Somerset, Gloucestershire)
• Rhothic accents

• New England (North)
• The settlers came from the east counties (Essex,
  Kent and London)
• Non-rhotic accents

13

• The dialect picture was never a clear one,
  because of widespread North- South movements and
  continuing inflow of immigrants.

14
Other migrations

• Irish immigrants mainly along the coast
  (Philadelphia) and in the West.
• Spanish immigrants West and South West.
• French immigrants Northern territories
• German and Italian immigrants
• Central European Jews

15

• The English language played a major role in
  maintaining American unity throughout this period
  of great diversification a glue which brought
  people together and a medium which gave common
  access to different opportunities.

16
Canada

• English migration along the Atlantic coast.
• Conflict with the French
• Further increase of English migration in the
  XVIII cen after defeat of French.
• After declaration of independence (1776)
  migration of British Loyalists.
• Canadian English has a lot in common with the
  English spoken in North America.

17
The Caribbean

• Importation of African slaves (from XVI cen)
• The policy of slave-traders was to bring people
  of different language backgrounds to make it
  difficult for groups to plot rebellion.
• Growth of several pidgin forms of communication.
• When children were born the pigdin gradually
  became a mother tongue, a black creole speech.

18
Creole expansion

• Creole English became very popular in Southern
  plantations.
• British English stayed a prestige variety.
• Creole forms of French, Spanish and Portuguese
  also developed.
• In the Caribbeans we find a remarkable range of
  varieties of English which spread also in Canada,
  USA and Britain.

19
Australia

• First penal colony (Sydney 1790)
• Settlers came mainly from London (Cockney accent)
  and Ireland (Irish accent).
• Aboriginal language influence.

20
New Zealand

• Christian missionary work with Maori (from 1814)
• Differences with Australia
• Stronger sense of relationship with Britain and
  strong British accent.
• Growing sense of national identity.
• Concern for the Maori population.

21
South Africa

• English became the official language in 1822.
• Stronger London accent in Cape town.
• Midlands and Northern British speech in Natal.
• English used as a second language by Afrikaans
  speakers.

22
Afrikaans language

• Afrikaans means African in Dutch.
• Afrikaans was considered a Dutch dialect until
  the late XIX cen, when it began to be recognised
  as a distinct language, and it gained equal
  status with Dutch and English as an official
  language in South Africa in 1925.
• It was originally the dialect that developed
  among the Afrikaner Protestant settlers and the
  slave workforce (South Indians and Malaysians)
  brought to the Cape area.

23

• During apartheid society, Afrikaans was perceived
  by the black majority as the language of
  authority and repression.
• Many blacks saw English as a means of achieving
  an international voice.
• For the white authorities too English was seen as
  a means of international communication.
• Great importance of English in a country with 11
  official languages.

24
South Asia

• One of the most distinctive English variety is
  South Asian English.
• Brought to India by the British East India
  Company (1600)
• English has become since then a medium of
  administration and education also after
  idependence in 1947.
• At the Universities of Calcutta, Bombay and
  Madras, English is the primary language
• English has the status of an associate official
  language with Hindi, the official language.

25
West Africa

• The spread of English is from the beginning of
  the XIX cen. Because of increase in commerce and
  anti-slave movements.
• Because of hundreds of local languages we find
  several English based pidgin and creole languages
  alongside a standard variety of English.
• English based pidgin and creole languages have
  official status in Sierra Leone and Gambia (Krio
  creole), Ghana, Nigeria, Cameron, Liberia

26
East Africa

• British English played a major role in the
  development of these states.
• The types of English that developed here are much
  closer to a British model.
• A large number of British people settled here.
• The varieties spoken in this part (Somalia,
  Botswana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, etc.) are
  closer to those of Australia rather than West
  Africa.

27
South East Asia and South Pacific

• Colonial past
• The population has been exposed to a standard
  British English model.
• There is no single South East Asian variety.
• Singapore and Hong Kong have English as a second
  language
• Malaysia as a foreign language.
• Papua New Guinea as an English-based pidgin as a
  second language used by hlf of the population.

28
The 3 circles of English

• The US linguist Braj Kachru has suggested that we
  think of the spread of English around the world
  as 3 concentric circles.
• In the inner circle we find people and countries
  that have English as a native language.
• In the outer or extended circle we have countries
  with different native languages that have adopted
  English as an official language.
• The expanding circle included countries where
  English is spoken as a foreign language.

29

• Why English?
• The cultural foundation
• D. Crystal, English as a Global Language, CUP,
  chapter 3

30

• English is destined to be in the next and
  succeeding centuries more generally the language
  of the world than Latin was in the last or French
  in the present age.
• John Adams 1780
• Proposal to the Congress of an American
  Academy
• In which ways have people come to use English?
• In which situations do they depend on it, now?

31

• The answers refer to different factors
• Geo-historical and political Colonialism -
• Socio-historical Industrial Revolution -
• Cultural Internet -

32
Pros and cons of the language of a colonial power

• Pros
• It introduces a new, unifying medium of
  communication.
• It brought immediate access to the culture of the
  Industrial Revolution. (only English)

• Cons
• It reflects the bond between the colony and the
  home country.

33
The Industrial Revolution

• English guaranteed access to innovations
• The harnessing of coal, water and steam to drive
  machinary
• Printing
• Transportation
• The development of new materials in manufacturing
  industries.
• International banking system (Germany, Britain
  and USA)

34
The status of English called into question

• Some languages felt they needed protection
  (Welsh, Gaelic. French in Quebec and Maori)
  inner circle-
• English chosen as neutral language. outer
  circle. (Ghana, Nigeria)

35

• The future of global English
• D. Crystal, English as a Global Language, CUP,
  chapter 5

36
What could impede the growth of English?

• Political factors
• rejection of the language of the coloniser
• Social factors
• the need to express local identities
• Economic reasons
• if a country decides to operate at local rather
  than international level

37

• The need for intelligibility and
• the need for identity
• often pull people in opposing directions
• The former motivates the learning of an
  international langugae,
• the latter motivates the promotion of ethnic
  language and culture.

38
The US situation

• Over 95 of the population speak English.
• It has 4 times as many mother-tongue speakers of
  English as any other nation.
• It exercises a great influence in the way English
  is developing worldwide.
• It is involved in International development.
• It is in control of technology.
• It is in control of the new industrial resolution.

39

• The loss of military and economic power of the US
  would produce
• immediate consequences
• for the global status of the language.

40
The language debate (1990s)

• The official English movement
• Why did the US feel the need to confirm the
  dominant status of the English language?
• The proliferation of minor lanuages were
  perceived as a danger to the social and economic
  stability of the US.

41
The pro-official side

• The Emerson bill (moderate position)
• Empowering immigrants by giving them greater
  opportunities through the use of the English
  language.
• English as social glue which guarantees political
  unity.
• Alternative language services are a waste of
  resources.
• Educational programmes in the mother-tongue
  eliminate motivation for learning English.
• English is considered the language of
  opportunity.

42
The anti-official side

• An official English bill is unnecessary
• An official English bill is considered a federal
  intrusion into self-expression
• The use of one language does not guarantee ethnic
  harmony.
• The pro-official side was addressed as racist,
  anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic.
• To promote minor language learning does not
  represent a waste of resources.
• Fear that the public domain will erode the
  private one.
• Fear that interest in foreign-language learning
  will further diminish.

43
Educational issues

• Pro-official side
• Many students in bilingual education programmes
  are taught by teachers whose level of English is
  very poor.
• To have an inadequate command of English will
  generate a ghetto dialect that will mark the
  speakers as socially inferior.
• They fear a society in which people will be
  considered just for language reasons and not for
  other abilities and experience.

• Anti-official side
• They stress the value of bilingualism in
  childrens education.
• The official English bill does nothing to enable
  people to acquire fluency in English, therefore
  avoiding the creation of a ghetto dialect.

44
The English Plus resolution

• Promoted by anti-official supporters
• They considered the official English position as
• fostering discrimination
• violating human rights
• violating cultural pluralism
• dividing communities

45

• New Englishes
• D. Crystal, English as a Global Language, CUP,
  chapter 5

46

• The English language ceased to be the sole
  possession of the English some time
  ago.
• Salman Rushdie, Imaginary homelands essays and
  criticism

47
STATUS OF ENGLISH IN THE WORLDTRIPARTITION
48
British and American English

• New spelling
• New words
• New pronunciation

49

• New Englishes are like the dialects that exist in
  our own countries.
• If two social groups come to be separated only by
  a mountain range or a wide river, they will soon
  begin to develop different habits of speech.
• Dialects emerge because they give identity to the
  groups which own them.

50

• International varieties express national identity
  and are a way of reducing the conflict between
  intelligibility and identity.
• The drive for identity was particularly dominant
  in the second half of the XXth century, when the
  number of independent nations grew.

51

• An indepedent country wants to set free from its
  colonial past and language.
• Local languages can provide a symbol of a new
  nationhood.
• Sometimes the language of the coloniser offers
  the only possibility to national unity.
• In Nigeria there were 500 local languages,
  therefore the only solution for unity was to keep
  using English, the former colonial language.

52
What generates new words?

• Borrowings
• Word-formation
• Word meaning
• Collocations
• Idiom phrases
• Different cultural domains (Biogeographical
  uniqueness, mythology, religion, laws and
  customs, social structure, etc.)

53
Changes in grammar

• Less in grammar more in vocabulary and phonology
• The core grammatical features are relatively
  uniform across dialects for 2 reasons
• grammar has focused on Standard written English.
• new varieties are mainly associated with speech
  rather than writing.

54

• As English becomes increasingly global we must
  expect far more attention to be paid to speech.

55

• Grammatical differences between British and
  Amrican English are likely to be small compared
  to New Englishes.
• There have been very few attempts to adopt a more
  general perspective to determine if a feature
  noticed in one variety of English can also be
  found in others. (see table 4 p. 153 for grammar
  features of new Englishes)

56

• The reasons for the grammatical changes are not
  clear
• maybe the change is a result of transference
  from a local contact language
• maybe it is a general property of English foreign
  language learning
• it is usually for both reasons.

57
Changes in Vocabulary

• Borrowings from indigenous languages
• Loan words
• Influence of local languages (loan translations -
  afterclap from Afrikaans agterklap flap)
• Word class conversion (to aircraft)
• A word or phrase with a new meaning (cockpit
  type of valley in Jamaican English)

58

• Even if the number of new words is small, the
  effect can be very powerful because
• the words are frequently used in the local
  community
• words dont appear in isolation but recall many
  related words.

59

• This kind of language is often described using a
  compound name like
• Chinglish
• Japlish
• Spanglish
• Franglais
• Tex-Mex
• Itanglish
• New Englishes are not homogeneous entities with
  clear-cut boundaries.

60
Phonology

• Usually this element of distinction between New
  Englishes doesnt have much attention.
• Syllable-times languages all syllables occur at
  regular time intervals (French, Greek, Italian,
  Spanish, Hindi, and the majority of world
  languages
• Stress-timed languages the stressed syllables
  fall at regular intervals (English, Russian,
  Arabic, Portuguese, Swedish etc.

61

• No language is totally syllable-timed or
  stress-timed.
• The contact with new Englishes is changing
  English into a more syllable-timed language.
• This can generate problems of comprehension with
  misinterpretation of individual words.
• Perhaps ¾ of English speakers in the world are
  now speaking a variety of English that is more
  syllable-timed.