New Englishes

Global English  ‘[…] the English language ceased to be the sole possession of the English some time ago’ (Rushdie, 1991)  Loss of ownership over English > no alternative  US speakers constitute only the 20% of English speakers worldwide  global English: usage is not restricted by countries or by government bodies

Population growth  The number of L1 speakers of English are about the same number of L2 speakers  countries belonging to the outer circle have a much greater growth rate ( %) than those belonging to the inner circle ( %)  There are probably already more L2 speakers of English than L1 speaker

Linguistic change  unpredictable linguistic change  emergence of new varieties of English >American English vs. British English >vocabulary, pronunciation, and spelling >“two countries divided by a common language” (G.B. Shaw)  1960s: ‘New Englishes’

American English  ‘Dissertations on the English Language’ (Webster, 1789) American standard: > hono(u)r > common sense > practicality > politics  Cassidy p jokes about non- standard

Varieties of English  Australian English  New Zealand English  Canadian English  South African English  Caribbean English  Irish English  Scots English  Welsh English  South Asian English (Indian English)  Singapore English  West African English  East African English Think of Word spell-checker!

Language varieties vs. dialects  spread on an international scale  applying to whole countries and regions  applying to millions  official status  providing identity (as well as dialects) > international varieties > national identities

Zadie Smith   rio/?issue_id=383 rio/?issue_id=383 p.145 When a country becomes independent, there is a natural reaction to leave behind the linguistic character imposed by its colonial past, and to look for indigenous languages to provide a symbol of new nationhood. e.g. Nigeria

Lexical creation  Most adaptation in a New English relates to vocabulary  Many cultural domains can motivate new words Biogeographical uniqueness Foodstuffs Drinks Medicines Drugs Various practices (Health-care, disease, death)

Grammar  grammars have traditionally focused on standard English, i.e. printed English  New Englishes are associated with speech rather than writing  the role of corpora (written and spoken) for the study of English, e.g. BNC, ICE, etc.  grammatical differentiation

Importance of speech  Strong prescriptive tradition  adjective FORMAL MAINLY DISAPPROVING saying exactly what must happen, especially by giving an instruction or making a rule: Most teachers think the government's guidelines on homework are too prescriptive.  We must expect far more attention to be paid to speech

Co-selection  Collocation the combination of words formed when two or more words are frequently used together in a way that sounds correct  Colligation the grammatical company a word keeps (or avoids keeping) either within its own group or at a higher rank (b) the grammatical functions that the word's group prefers (c) the place in a sequence that a word prefers (or avoids).

Examples p  Although each point is relatively small in scope, the potential cumulative effect can be considerable.  Whatever grammatical differences between AmE and BrE are likely to be small if compared with the kinds of difference identified in New Englishes  Careful interpretation

Vocabulary  borrowings from indigenous languages e.g. totem (Native American)  the amount of borrowing is influenced by the number of co-existing cultures  semantic shift, semantic extension, or semantic expansion (160) >a word or phrase from a well-established variety may be adopted by New Englishes and given a new meaning or use without undergoing structural change e.g. beverage = lemonade (Jamaican English)

Problems  Is the word restricted to that country?  Representativeness?  Lexical items only > collocational distinctiveness not represented