World Englishes

One important area of study for World Englishes which is becoming an increasingly popular topic of investigation is how English operates as a lingua franca, most simply defined as a common language. The need for a lingua franca arises when individuals who speak different, mutually unintelligible languages come into contact with one another. English has become the world’s lingua franca, and the acronym ELF (English as a Lingua Franca) is now frequently used. Speakers from any of the three circles, including native speakers, can engage in ELF communication.

Examples of English fulfilling the role of a lingua franca can be found in various locations across the globe. For example, South Africa has 11 official languages, but English operates as the country’s lingua franca, functioning as the language of business, government and the mass media. Across Asia, English operates as a lingua franca in numerous countries, including Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia. English is also the most common lingua franca in Europe. While there is variation in terms of the positioning of English within individual European countries, English is the lingua franca imbued with the most importance: more individuals learn English in Europe than any of the other European languages put together. The European Parliament has 23 official languages, but English is the one most commonly used.

English as a lingua franca in Europe can be observed in action in the following report of a short yet revealing interaction which took place in the Czech Republic. While quietly sipping a Budweiser Budvar beer in a café in Old Town Square, Prague, one of your book’s authors observed a group of Spanish L1 speakers approach one of the Czech waiters. The group was engrossed in conversation (in Spanish) and was deciding on nominating one of its members to ask the waiter for directions to the famous Charles Bridge. One woman eventually came forward and immediately codeswitched from Spanish into English, thus selecting English as the perceived common language in order to communicate with the waiter:

Tourist: Excuse me, where is Carlos Bridge?

Waiter: Straight on then turn left at the corner and follow to the river

Tourist: Thank you

In the tourist’s initial utterance, one lexical item, the proper noun ‘Carlos’ from her native language, was still present. It is clear from the waiter’s response that this ‘splicing’ together of language varieties, known in sociolinguistics as code-switching, had not hampered his understanding – the conversation was completed with all relevant information disseminated.

When English is operating in the role of lingua franca, Firth (1996) has argued that, from the perspective of pragmatics, there is a ‘let-it-pass principle’ in operation: providing that conversationalists can basically understand each other, they will let any mistakes pass without comment in an effort to communicate effectively in a manner that displays consensus and cooperation.

However, despite the successful nature of the above encounter in terms of information dissemination and maintenance of cooperation and consensus between speakers, this did not prevent an aside from a British woman at a nearby table to her companion once the interaction had finished. She clearly would not ‘let-it-pass’, even though she had played no part in the conversation apart from being another overhearer. She rather sarcastically made the following comment: ‘Funny that I thought it was Charles Bridge not Carlos Bridge. Who’s this Carlos?’

This British woman’s comment, and the rather snide laughter that followed from her and her interlocutor, can arguably be seen as a prime example of native-English-speaker monolingual superiority and a negative attitude towards code-switching. The sharp-eared waiter could not resist responding to this and took great delight in informing the woman (in English of course) that Charles Bridge is actually called ‘Karluv Most’ in his country’s native language.

This brief example illustrates a range of sociolinguistic issues surrounding World Englishes, including insights into language attitudes and stigmatisation associated with code-switching, the maintenance of the pragmatic rules of cooperation by two ‘non-native’ ELF speakers, and the use of English as a successful lingua franca.

There has been common agreement amongst many World Englishes academics that the increases in the usage of English as a lingua franca within Europe will lead to the future establishment of a variety of ‘Euro English’ and that such a ‘Euro English’ could well undergo the process of standardisation (see Kirkpatrick 2007). For a variety of any language to become standardised, it needs to undergo some process of codification: to be officially recorded. A common manner in which language varieties are codified is through the publication of dictionaries and grammars. Therefore, it is predicted that in the future dictionaries and grammars of a World Englishes variety known as ‘Euro English’ may well appear.

Once a variety of a language has been codified, norms of usage become established from these sources of authority. A standard language variety can then be formally taught, in part, by drawing upon these resources. In order for World Englishes to ever be properly recognised, varieties need to undergo some process of codification. Codification is often considered to be the most powerful mechanism to enhance the status and prestige of World Englishes varieties. Dictionary publication is crucial in demonstrating that a variety has become properly institutionalised.

The process of codification is the most effective way of cataloguing descriptions of different, emergent varieties of English. In particular reference to English as a lingua franca – though this point applies equally to all World Englishes research – Seidlhofer (2004) argues that one key principle which should be accepted by researchers is an acknowledgement of the need for detailed description and then codification. The cataloguing of descriptions would create a highly useful and much-needed source so that knowledge of the linguistic features including phonological, lexical, grammatical, discoursal and pragmatic features that constitute different varieties of English can be shared. However, it is important to highlight that once a standard variety develops and undergoes codification, this does imbue prestige to this one variety at the expense of all other varieties, which will become stigmatised variants in comparison. The standard variety is the one that has the most social, political and economic power attached to it. The standardisation process places an uncomfortable control upon the natural process of language evolution. As emphasised in the previous unit, variations and changes are a completely usual and expected part of the life course of any variety of language, be it a newer variety of English, such as those in the Outer and Expanding Circles, or any other variety of English circulating in the Inner Circle. Therefore, despite the advantages of codifying particular varieties, it is important to bear in mind that fixing a language goes against its natural evolution. Any standard variety that has been selected by appropriate authorities is not inherently more complex, ‘correct’ or ‘pure’ – it is simply the version that has been imbued with the most societal power and prestige.

So, how many different types of World Englishes dictionaries are there, and when did they first emerge? World Englishes researcher Kingsley Bolton (2006) reports that the first was Webster’s Dictionary, published at the beginning of the nineteenth century (1806) in the United States, followed by a revised and expanded version in 1826. Further versions of American dictionaries were also published during the twentieth century. The first Canadian dictionary was published in 1967, but this has been replaced by the publication of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary in 1999; Australia had its first dictionary in 1981, entitled The Macquarie Dictionary, and a New Zealand dictionary first appeared in 1997. India has a history of glossary and word list publications dating back to the late nineteenth century, but as yet does not have an official national dictionary. The Caribbean has twentieth-century dictionary publications of Jamaican English and Bahamas English and a dictionary of English usage published in the late 1990s, but no national dictionary. No other World Englishes varieties as yet have any fully-fledged dictionary publications, though there are projects underway to produce dictionaries for East Africa and South-East Asia.

It is immediately noteworthy that the fully-fledged codification examples of national dictionaries are from the most established, Inner Circle countries of the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. The only other countries which have had (non-national) reference works published are Outer Circle countries which, like the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, have a lengthy history of English usage through colonisation: English was first introduced in the early seventeenth century in the Caribbean and India. The use of English in these Outer Circle geographical locations thus has much longevity, and, like its former colony counterparts in the Inner Circle, English has had the status of an official language in these countries for a considerable period of time. Publication of national dictionaries is a part of a country’s independence process and clearly demonstrates an official, separate identity from the former coloniser. It is arguably more clear-cut to do this in post-colonial situations than in newer situations in places such as Europe or South-East Asia, where English is used as a lingua franca by speakers across many different nations.