World Englishes Jennifer Jenkins A resource book for students

Strand 6: English as a lingua franca Ambivalent attitude towards English as an international lingua franca Reasons for the international status of English: Historical reasons Internal political reasons External economic reasons Practical reasons Intellectual reasons Entertainment reasons Personal advantage/prestige (Crystal 1997) A6

Mutual intelligibility and group identity Intelligibility and identity: two opposing forces Mutual intelligibility: accent differences decrease Identity: accent differences increase A6

Native and non-native speakers of English Arguments against using the terms ‘native speaker’ and ‘non-native speaker’: Implies that monolingualism is norm (although multilingualism is widespread) Multlingual repertoires: L1/L2/L3 increasingly blurry Implies that order of acquisition determines proficiency Anglo speaker seen as reference point Implies a unidirectional power relationship Encourages simplistic view of what an error is Negative perception of/among ‘NNSs’ Image of ideal NS B6

The NS as target for language learning: resulting questions Who is the NS of a standard language? Speaking English – not related to cultural identity? Regional accents accepted in NSs, regarded as poor acquisition in NNSs? Having to sound ‘more British than the British’? EFL vs. ELF – an important distinction? B6

Alternatives to the NS/NNS distinction Rampton 1990: ‘experts’  expertise Advantages: does not require identification, learned rather than fixed or innate, relative, partial, can be challenged Disadvantages: ‘non-expert’  value judgement B6

Alternatives to the NS/NNS distinction Jenkins 1996, 2000: Monolingual English Speaker (MES) Bilingual English Speaker (BES) Non-Bilingual English Speaker (NBES) Advantages: MES less favourable than BES  monolingualism is not the preferable target Removes L1/L2 distinction Disadvantages: Problematic distinction between BES and NBES B6

English as a lingua franca (ELF) ELF is used in contexts in which speakers with different L1s (mostly, but not exclusively, from Expanding Circle) need it as their means to communicate with each other ELF is an alternative to EFL rather than a replacement for it – depends on speaker’s (or learner’s) individual needs and preferences C6

English as a lingua franca (ELF) EFL ELF Part of modern foreign languages Part of World Englishes Deficit perspective Difference perspective Metaphors of transfer / interference / fossilisation Metaphor of contact / evolution Code-mixing and switching are seen as interfererence errors Code-mixing and switching are seen as bilingual resources Kirkpatrick (2007b) adapted from Jenkins (2006c) C6

English as a lingua franca (ELF) ELF involves linguistic innovations that differ from ENL and which, in some cases, are shared by most ELF speakers ELF involves the use of certain pragmatic communication strategies, particularly accommodation and code-switching. ELF forms crucially depend on the specific communication context. Descriptions of ELF that may lead to codification are drawn from communication involving proficient ELF speakers. C6

ELF features Lexicogrammar (Seidlhofer 2004) e.g. ‘dropping’ third person –s, interchangeable use of who and which, flexible use of articles, invariant tag questions, additional prepositions, frequent use of verbs with high semantic generality, heightened explicitness Collaborative behaviour in interaction e.g. supportive interruptions, positive minimal responses, repetition, completion of the interlocutor’s sentences Pronunciation C6

ELF features Pronunciation (Jenkins 2000) Lingua Franca Core (LFC) consonant sounds except th-sounds and dark ‘l’, vowel length contrasts, avoidance of consonant deletion at the beginnings of words, placement of nuclear stress Non-core features e.g. vowel quality, weak forms, assimilation, elision, word stress C6

ELF processes ELF features are the result of processes similar to the ones affecting ENL Additional factors in ELF language contact on a massive scale intercultural communication Acceleration of processes Attitudes towards ELF still scepticism/rejection among many linguists and ELT professionals C6