New Englishes: A Global Perspective on Language Variation

Posted on Aug 19, 2024 in Geography

New Englishes (1): Introduction

The First Diaspora

(Inner Circle) Migrations to North America, Australia, New Zealand à L1 varieties.

  • USA / Canada: From the early 17th century (English), 18th century (North Irish) to the USA. From the 17th century, African slaves to South American states and Caribbean Islands. From 1776 (American Independence), some British settlers to Canada.
  • Australia: from 1770.
  • New Zealand: from the 1790s (official colony in 1840).

Different development from colonial British English: 1. Mixture of dialects and accents among the settlers. 2. Influence of the languages of Indigenous populations.

But even so, because they were spoken as mother tongues, a strong element of continuity in the use of these Englishes from pre-colonial days.

The Second Diaspora

Migrations to Africa and Asia à L2 varieties.

  • South Africa: from 1785, 3 groups of L2 English speakers (Afrikaans / Blacks / from the 1860s Indians).
  • South Asia: from 1600, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan (1765 – 1947 British sovereignty in India).
  • Southeast Asia and South Pacific: from the late 18th century, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Philippines.
  • Colonial Africa: West (from the late 15th century): Sierra Leone, Ghana, Gambia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Liberia (no major English emigrant settlements  pidgins / creoles). East (from c. 1850): Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe

The Second Dispersal (Asia and Africa)

* Colonial Africa, 2 patterns: West and East:

  • West Africa: slave trade and development of pidgins and creoles

No major British settlement. English used as a lingua franca both among the indigenous population (hundreds of local languages) and between these people and the British traders.

English, official status. Some pidgins and creoles (Krio in Sierra Leone, Cameroon Pidgin English), spoken by large numbers of people, especially as L2.

  • East Africa: settlement following expeditions (David Livingstone)

British protectorates or colonies. From the early 1960s, independence. English, official language in Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Large numbers of L2 speakers, although Swahili more frequent as a lingua franca in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.

  • South Asia: British East India Company, early 1600s. 1835, English educational system (in English). Today, Hindi, official language, English, ‘associate official language’. Process of Indianization, developing a distinctive national character.
  • Southeast Asia, East Asia, and South Pacific: Seafaring expeditions (James Cook). – Papua New Guinea, British protectorate (1884 – 1920). Tok Pisin (expanded pidgin), one of the official languages. – Singapore. Increase in the use of English. A local variety has begun to emerge. – Malaysia. Decline in the use of English. After independence (1957) adoption of Bahasa Malaysia as the national language and medium of education. But English reintroduced in education from 2003. Nowadays, learnt in Taiwan, Japan and Korea. The latter two, considering the possibility of making English an official second language.

What is a ‘New’ English?

(Outer Circle): learnt as a second language, or as one language within a wider multilingual repertoire of acquisition: e.g. Indian, Philippine, Nigerian, Singapore English. The latter, increasingly being spoken as a mother tongue.

4 criteria:

  1. Developed through the education system. Taught as a subject and in many cases used as a medium of instruction in regions where languages other than English were the main languages.
  2. Developed in an area where a native variety of English was not the language spoken by most of the population.
  3. Used for a range of functions among those who speak or write in the region where it is used.
  4. ‘Localised’ or ‘nativised’ by adopting some language features of its own (sounds, intonation patterns, sentence structures, words and expressions).

Status of the norms, despite their differences from native English norms. 5 factors:

  1. The demographic factor: how many speakers of the acrolect (standard variety) use the innovation?
  2. The geographical factor: how widely dispersed is it?
  3. The authoritative factor: where is it sanctioned?
  4. Codification: does it appear in reference books (dictionaries, grammars)?
  5. The acceptability factor: what is the attitudes of users and non-users towards it?

Codification and acceptability, the most crucial factors. Without them, any innovation will be regarded as an error, rather than a legitimate form.

Phases of spread:

  1. Spoken only by English-speaking colonisers from Britain and North America.
  2. Setting up of schools, teaching English and other subjects through English by native teachers.
  3. As time went on, increase in the number of students. Recruitment of local non-native teachers.
  4. Differences grew still more marked among the children who were taught by non-native speakers.

Levels of Variation

Pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary / idiom and discourse style. The different varieties are not internally uniform. Nevertheless, as with British English, in the vast majority of cases, sufficient common ground to identify a particular national English (Nigerian, Indian, American, etc.).

Pronunciation

* Dental fricative: /θ/, /ð/ (thin, this)

  • Indian and West Indian /t/, /d/ à “tin” (no plosion), “dis”
  • Lankan, Malaysian, Singapore, many African Englishes. /tθ/, /dð/ à “t-thin”, “d-this”. Initial attempts to pronounce “correct” L1 English sounds, later extended by L2 English-speaking teachers as classroom models. Today, regarded as local variants in the process of being codified.
  • /w/ à /v/ (wetàvet) (Lankan and some Indian Englishes).
  • /p, t, k/, without aspiration (Indian, Philippine, Malaysian). To Inner Circle speakers, more like /b,d,g/ à “pin”, “tin”, “gap” à “bin”, “din”, “gap”.
  • Final consonants, either unreleased or replaced with glottal stops: “cat” /kæt/, or /kæˀ/ (Ghana, West Indian, and colloquial Singaporean). Also in some non-standard varieties of British English (Estuary English and Cockney).
  • RP voiced word-final consonants voiceless (Indian, West African, Papua New Guinean); “feed”, “gave”, “rob” à “feet”, “gafe”, “rop”.
  • Clear and dark “l” (lip, pill) not distinguished (most varieties).

More restricted:

  • /r/ à /l/ (Hong Kong, Singapore (Chinese origin), some East African Englishes); “red” à “led”.
  • /ʃ/ à /s/ (some East African, Hong Kong (some speakers)); “ship” à “sip”.

Vowel sounds

Variation in terms of vowel quality (close-open, front-back, spread-rounded) and vowel quantity (short-long):

  • No (or minimal) difference /ɪ/-/i:/; “sit”, “seat” à /sɪt/ (many, e.g. Singapore, Indian, African). Often the same with /Ʊ/-/u:/.
  • RP /a:/ without the length; “staff”=”stuff” (Lankan, Singapore, Indian, Philippine, Jamaican).
  • Word-final /ə/ (shwa) > /a/; “matter” /mata/ (African Englishes).
  • Shortening and monophthongisation of diphthongs (Indian, Lankan, Malaysian and African); “take” à “te·k”; Lankan: “coat” /kɔ:t/ (more educated), /kɒt/ (=RP “cot”) (less educated).
  • Syllable-timed, rather than stress-timed rhythm (most New Englishes). As a consequence, vowel reduction is not as common as in RP and in some of them (ə) is rare.

Grammar

* Non-marking of plural forms:

  • Up to twelve year of schooling (India)
  • And they know all four dialect (Jamaica)
  • Pilipino is only one of the subject (Philippines)

* Specific / non-specific system (rather than definite / indefinite)

  • Non-specific: Everyone has car (India): I’m not on scholarship (East Africa)
  • Specific: I’m staying in one house with three other (Indian). Here got one stall selling soup noodles (Singapore)

* Quantifiers (change of form):

  • Don’t eat so much sweets (Singapore)
  • Some few fishermen may be seen (West Africa)
  • I applied couple of places in Australia (India)

* Pronouns (no distinction between 3s he and she):

  • When I first met my husband, she was a student (East Africa)
  • My mother, he live in Kampong (Malaysia)

* Word order (within the noun phrase):

  • A two-hour exciting display (Ghana)
  • Dis two last years (Papua New Guinea)
  • Ninety over cheques (Singapore)

Verbs:

* Limited marking of 3s present tense form: She drink milk (Philippines)

  • Limited marking for the past tense: Mandarin, I learn it privately (Hong Kong). My wife she pass her Cambridge (Singapore)
  • Aspect system (action finished or still going on) rather than tense system (time when an action takes place): I still eat (= I am / was eating: Malaysian). I have worked there in 1960 (Indian).
  • be + verb + ing constructions for stative verbs: She is knowing her science very well (East African). Mohan is having two houses (Indian)
  • General or undifferentiated tag form: is it?, isn’t it?, no? Harriet will be home soon, isn’t it? (Lankan) (general tag, seen as non-impositional; canonical tag, seen as assertive)

VocabularyLocally coined words / expressions

Tendency to be overlooked by speakers of Inner Circle varieties. Creativity still often being classified as error.

  1. Coinages by addition of a prefix or suffix to an existing (British or indigenous) word:
  • -Spacy Indian English ‘spacious’.
  • -Heaty Singapore / Malaysian for foods which make the body hot (spicy food).
  • -Teacheress Indian ‘female teacher’.
  • -Jeepney Philippine ‘a small bus’ (army jeeps à buses).
Compounding from English items (local concepts):
  • – Peelhead Jamaican ‘a bald headed person’.
  • – Dry coffee East African ‘coffee without milk and sugar’.
  • – Dining leaf Indian ‘banana, lotus or other leaf as a plate’.

High hat Philippine ‘a snob’

Discourse style

New Englishes tend to be more formal than the Inner Circle Englishes. Some Indian English features are logical extensions of British English strategies.

‘would’ / ‘could’ rather than ‘can’ / ‘will’:

  • We hope that you could join us.
  • We hope that the Vice-Chancellor would investigate this matter.

More tentative–>more polite (cp. British English ‘Could you open the door? Rather than Can you open the door?)

Indian and African Englishes. Through influence of indigenous culture, expressions of thanks, deferential vocabulary and use of blessings, usually felt to be redundant or overdone by speakers of an Inner Circle English:

Indian: I am bubbling with zeal and enthusiasm to serve as a research assistant.

Greeting and leave-taking. Commonly direct translations of indigenous languages.

Greetings:

  • Lankan: So how (Sinhala)
  • Nigerian: You’re enjoying? (Yoruba)
  • West African: How? How now?
  • East African: Are you all right?

Leave-takings:

  • Lankan: I’ll go and come
  • Singapore, Malaysia: Walk slowly ho!