|
2.1.2 Language Contact Theory
New Englishes emerged as a product of ‘contact-induced language change’ (Schneider, 2003, p. 271). This is why the study of New Englishes cannot be divorced from the study of pidgins and creoles because both language types originate in contact situations. Accordingly, Thomason (2001, p.21-17) provides four types of contact onsets which include:
the movement of one group into another group’s territory
immigration of small groups or scattered individuals
importing a labour force
cultural contacts through long-term neighbourhood.
These contacts might be motivated by military adventure, merchants and merchandise, missionary activities among others. These contacts in the words of Mufwene (2001) may lead to “trade colonization, settlement colonies and exploitation colonization” (p.204-206). Thus, as we shall see in the models developed to account for New Englishes, some of the models will rely on the ecologies of contact situations for the categorization of Englishes and even the identification of norm-establishing varieties. Language contact situations are ingredients whether through racial, ethnic, religious and social mix, whether in schools and neighbourhoods, which inevitably support linguistic diversity and variation rather than linguistic insularity and/or purification.
2.1.3 Accommodation Theory
Linguistic accommodation is concerned with linguistic convergence based on the principles of co-operation which facilitate the approximation of speech forms of different speakers. Of course, there cannot be linguistic accommodation without language contact (See Giles, 1984; Thomason, 2001; Trudgill, 1986; Schneider, 2003). This is what happens when languages come in contact and this is the kind of linguistic convergence which gives rise to new language varieties and this is what we see in the features of New Englishes. It is this convergence and the approximation of each other’s speech forms that give New Englishes identity. Thus, the features of domestication or localization which characterize New Englishes are manifestations of linguistic accommodation.
Beginning from the early 1980s when scholarship in Englishes was given attention, many models have been propounded to classify New Englishes. The first model in the classification of New Englishes is based on the functions and political roles of English. Based on these, three descriptive categorizations are identified as highlighted below. These were: English as a Native Language (ENL) which describes where English is the native language of almost all or a large majority of the population such as Britain, the USA, Australia, and New Zealand for example. Since these countries are considered native speakers of English, the classification of New Englishes does not include them. However, we shall return to the issue of ‘native speaker’ shortly. The second is English as a Second Language (ESL) which account for situations where English assumes prominent official functions especially in multilingual contexts such as Ghana, Malaysia, Nigeria and many other countries. The third is English as a Foreign Language (EFL) which describes situations where English can be used in higher education, media, international communication but no official internal function as we have in Egypt, Israel, Taiwan, and some other countries. Based on these three descriptive classifications, McArthur (1998) listed the number of English -speaking countries as follows: ENL (36), ESL (57) and EFL (139). However, Schneider (2003) rightly cautions that
Any attempt at a comprehensive listing will require extensive discussions and unavoidably arbitrary decisions on how to draw borderlines between languages and dialects, between distinctively ‘new’ varieties with an identity of their own and variants of other varieties (related to the ESL/EFL, Outer/Expanding Circles, or ‘X English/’English in X’ distinctions) (p. 237).
Description of countries in terms of ENL, ESL, and EFL raises a lot of questions some of which are summarized below.
If we categorize the US, Australia and New Zealand as belonging to the Inner Circle or ENL category, what happens to the minorities in those countries such as Native Americans, Hispanic Americans, the Aborigines in Australia and the Maoris in New Zealand?
If countries like Nigeria, Tanzania or Singapore are regarded as members of the Outer Circle or ESL category, what happens to the increasing population of indigenous people who grow up speaking some form of English as their Mother Tongue or as their first language?
What happens in South Africa with a significant number of those who speak English and also other populations whose native languages are recognized as official languages (note that South Africa has 11 official languages)? Will South Africa be categorized as being both in the Inner Circle or Outer Circle or both an ENL and ESL country?
Some of these questions continue to interrogate Kachruvian paradigms (1985; 1997) of ‘Three Concentric Circles’ which roughly approximates the ENL, ESL, and EFL descriptions outlined above as well as the relabeled ‘Overlapping Circles’ of English. The two models are basically the same except that there seem to be overlapping influences of each circle on the other and the abandonment of the notion that the ‘Inner circle’ remains the only ‘norm producing’ variety of English. In addition, while espousing the Overlapping Circles, Kachru argues that the vitality and expansion of English lie in the Outer and Expanding circle countries. In other words, New Englishes should be seen as distinctive varieties of English. It is in this kind of claim that one appreciates Germino Abad, the Phillipine poet who declared that, ‘English is now ours; we have colonized it.”
To address the inherent weaknesses in Kachruvian models, Graddol (1997) introduced arrows flowing from the Expanding Circle through the Outer Circle to the Inner Circle; a modification which did not resolve the criticism completely. Yoneoka (2001) therefore proposed the ‘English Umbrella’ Model which enabled ‘newer Englishes to be viewed on an egalitarian footing with more established varieties of English’ (Adegbite, 2010, p.6). This model has five components namely: (i) the handle of the umbrella typifies the ‘core easy English’; (ii) the tips of the umbrella represent varieties of English; (iii) the spokes represent communication networks in English; (iv) the fabric covering describes the background socio-cultural systems which plant and support English globally; and (v) the tip of the umbrella which identifies the idealized ‘standard’ English which is a pointer to the imagined ‘standard international English’ which has no known native speaker. The English Umbrella Model appears more dynamic and fluid to account for English as an international language on one hand and to account for the emergence of not only new Englishes but the possibility of newer Englishes. This conceptualization is captured in the revised English Umbrella Model (Wenfang, 2011). These models are represented below.
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
