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Zoya Proshina The abc and Controversies of World Englishes ббк 81


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Monocentrism vs. Pluricentrism




Ключевые слова: вариант; три концентрических круга, Внутренний круг, Внешний круг, Расширяющийся круг; английский как родной язык, английский как второй язык, английский как иностранный язык, английский как язык-посредник, английский как международный язык, трансплантированный английский язык, новые варианты английского языка, мировые варианты английского языка, вспомогательный язык, дополнительный язык, официальный язык, институционализированный вариант, деятельностный вариант, родной язык, связывающий язык, моноцентрический, плюрицентрический, разнообразие, англоязычные страны, интерперсональная функция, инструментальная функция, регуляторная функция, творческая функция, двуязычный, широта распространения английского языка, глубина распространения английского языка, международный, внутренний, культурный контекст/ ~ая ситуация; аккультурация английского языка, англизация, нативизация, глокализация, диалект, вариант, язык.

The spread of the English language in the world and the rise of its diverse varieties required some categorization of these varieties. The best-cited categorization was done by Braj Kachru and is known as the Theory of Three Concentric Circles of World Englishes, or simply the Three Circles (Kachru B. 1985: 11-30).

The ideas of world Englishes were prompted to B.Kachru by his teacher, J.R.Firth. In one of his lectures in the 1950s, Firth pointed out that
“…English is an international language in the Commonwealth, the Colonies and in America. International in the sense that English serves the American way of life and might be called American, it serves the Indian way of life and has recently been declared an Indian language within the framework of the federal constitution. In another sense, it is international not only in Europe but in Asia and Africa, and serves various African ways of life and is increasingly the all-Asian language of politics.” (Firth 1956 / 2006: 204)
It was brave of Firth to reject the monocentric idea of English at that time. But though the idea was formulated in the 1950s, it took a long time and great courage of Braj Kachru to insist on equality of diverse Englishes, and his native Indian English in particular.

Kachru visualized diversity of Englishes as three concentric circles and classified all the varieties into three groups, each group pertaining to a certain circle.


The spread of English may be viewed in terms of three concentric circles representing the types of spread, the patterns of acquisition and the functional domains in which English is used across cultures and languages. I have tentatively labeled these: the inner circle, the outer circle (or extended circle), and the expanding circle.“ (Kachru B. 1985/2006: 242)
S
chematically, the three circles look in the following way (Kachru B. 1997: 213)

Fig. 3. Kachru’s Three Circle Model of English Spread


The Inner Circle is represented by the countries where English is a native language (ENL) – Great Britain, the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Sometimes these countries are labeled as BANA countries (Britain, Australia with New Zealand, and North America) (Holliday 2005: 2-3). In terms of functions, English is the domineering, if not the only official, language implementing all sorts of functions in these countries.

The Outer Circle countries include former colonies where English was transplanted in non-native cultural contexts. These are New Englishes (Platt, Weber, Lian 1984), contrasted to Old Englishes of the Inner Circle. In their countries they function as an official language together with one or more vernacular languages, so the speakers of English are mostly bilingual in these countries. Since English as an official language plays a very important role in the language policy of these countries, it is institutionalized, i.e. supported by the state institutions. It functions in government, legal system (regulative function), religion, trade and commerce, business, and is a medium of education. It also has an interpersonal function within the country. It has developed nativized literary traditions in different genres (novels, short stories, drama, and poetry), which is termed a creative, or imaginative, or innovative function. “In other words, English has an extended functional range in a variety of social, educational, administrative, and literary domains. It also has acquired great depth in terms of users at different levels of society” (Kachru B. 1985/2006: 243). In educational terms, Outer Circle schools have English as a second language (ESL). The universities offer practically all classes in English. A distinctive feature of the Englishes of the Outer Circle is that they are used as auxiliary languages, i.e. languages, other than the first language, which are used for internal communication by nationals of the country (Smith L. 1983a: 1).

The Expanding Circle includes countries with restricted range of English functions. Primarily, here English is used for international communication rather than in domestic context. However, the impact of Englishes is increasing and is seen in advertising, media, pop culture, science and education where it is more often just a discipline, English as a Foreign Language (EFL), rather than an instrument or tool of education. Since it is the language for international purposes mostly, it is now labeled as English as a Lingua Franca2, or ELF (Jenkins 2003, 2004) meaning that it serves as a link language (lingua franca in a broad meaning of the word)3. English as an International Language (EIL) is another term that is currently in use for English in the Expanding Circle (Smith L. 1983b; Jenkins 2000, 2003). Unlike the institutionalized varieties of the Outer Circle, the Englishes of the Expanding Circle are termed performance varieties (Kachru B. 1983: 75) because in this case we are dealing with the performance level of educated speakers (Smith L. 1983c: 15). As this language is acquired by speakers additionally to their native one, it is called an additional language (Honna 2005: 105; Hilgendorf 2007: 144).

There are no clear demarcation lines between the circles as “the status of English in the language policies of such countries changes from time to time” (Kachru B. 1985/2006: 243). For example, Irish and South African Englishes are sometimes claimed to refer to the Inner Circle, rather than the Outer Circle. Scandinavian countries are said to be “moving into the ESL territory by internalizing and nativizing English” (Yano 2001: 124). In 2002, Japan attempted to legalize English as an official language but failed. There is a prediction that the 21st century will find the greatest numbers of speakers in the Outer Circle (Pakir 1999: 108)



All the circles are united by world Englishes, “an umbrella label” (Bolton 2006b: 240) relating to all varieties of the language, national and local. When functioning in a local, non-native context, English and a native language interact. This interaction is a two-way street: English influences a vernacular by Englishizing it (cf. a lot of English words in Russian), while a local language provides culture-loaded words and other innovations that are borrowed by English, the process called nativization of English.
The degrees of nativization of a variety of English are related to two factors: the range and depth of the functions of English in a non-native context, and the period for which the society has been exposed to bilingualism in English. The greater the number of functions and the longer the period, the more nativized is the variety. The nativization has two manifestations, cultural and linguistic, with ‘cultural’ here referring to the acculturation of English. The result is that, both culturally and formally, the English language comes closer to the sociocultural context of what may be termed the adopted ‘context of situation’. This new, changed ‘context of situation’ contributes to the deviations from what originally might have been a linguistic ‘norm’ or ‘model’. (Kachru B. 1983: 78)
Since today’s English manifests both global and local features while serving both global and local needs, it is sometimes called a glocal language:
The term ‘glocal,’ derived from the words ‘global’ and ‘local,’ indicates that one has to be open to new ideas and yet to be embedded in one’s own culture. Today, the clarion call is ‘think globally, act locally.’ “ (Pakir 2001/2006: 192)
The term ‘glocal’ means that as a global language English supports its local users and their specific functions for the language (Pakir 2001: 84). By bringing a country into the global community and having an international status of a global spread, English is used to express ethnic culture and ethnic identity. Being rooted in the local contexts, English gets enriched from other languages and cultures. Thus to describe our history, everyday life or culture, we, Russians, use Russian culture-loaded words like samovar, gzhel, kommunalka, perestroika that become known to other countries as well. Borrowing non-Anglophone culture-loaded words, English spreads them throughout the world, making them international. This, for example, happened to Japanese words like karaoke (cf. караоке по-русски), karate, geisha, bonsai a.o., now known in every country. When becoming international, these words are used as a basis for deriving new words and collocations: karaoke-bar, karaoke bus/taxi, karaoke machine. Employed by many other nations, these words still retain their ethnic flavor, which causes the antinomy of national vs. international. But though they have still preserved their ethnic connotation, they have become international or used world-wide (e.g., the world community has been so much scared and infuriated by the actions of Arab kamikaze since the tragic days of September 11 – the word kamikaze is of Japanese origin). This spread of nationally-colored words all over the world may be called language glocalization. Glocalization proves once and again that we are living in a small world – what is happening in one part of it effects other nations and countries. Words specific to one culture become known to and used by people of other cultures.

Thus from a monocentric language, with British as its primary center, English has turned to be pluricentric, with many centers and many cultures.

In this respect, another question may arise: what is the difference between the terms ‘variety,’ ‘dialect,’ and ‘language’? It is well known that many languages are not homogenious and may have several dialects. Can this be interpreted as pluricentrism? On the other hand, there have been attempts to separate English varieties into independent languages, like American language (Menchen 1919) or Spanglish, a New American Language (Stavans 2003). What are the criteria that differentiate the three concepts?

A really insightful differentiation has been suggested by Henry Widdowson (1997). He pointed out that there are two main features that differ dialects from varieties: historical development and dependency. A dialect is “a variation which has a pedigree in that it has also developed as change over periods of time” (Widdowson 1997; 141) not far from its ancestral home. Dialects of the same language have a common history. They evolved in a long period of time and developed concurrently within the same larger community, whereas varieties “have sprung up in a relatively extempore and expedient way in response to the immediate communicative needs of people in different communities with quite different ancestors” (Widdowson 1997: 141). As a rule, dialects are older than the standardized form of the language; therefore, they are seen as reflexes of a historical development (Bussmann 1996: 125). The history of a variety development is different. Varieties of the Inner Circle and most of varieties of the Outer Circle have started from primary British English, with some varieties having a tertiary relation to British English (through American English). The same is true about varieties of the Expanding Circle. They have developed in far flung regions, while dialects have a proximity regional distribution (this geographical criterion can be added to the parameters singled out by Widdowson). The criterion of dependence implies a certain hierarchy with a standardized language: “a dialect presupposes a language it is a dialect of”, while varieties are independent, “in their own right” (Widdowson 1997: 141). In the long run, varieties can happen to end in converting into distinct languages - D.Graddol and D.Crystal warned us about this possible fragmentation (see Chapter 1).

Though varieties of English are “incipient languages” (Widdowson 1997: 141), they are not proper languages yet.
A particular virtual language gets variously actualized over a period by communities adapting it to their changing needs. If these communities have reason to assert their own independent identity, they will gradually generate their own norms dissociated from previous coding conventions. They will be oriented inwards rather than outwards, and their actual language then ceases to be exonormative as a dialect and becomes endonormative as a separate language. And once a community invests its separate social identity in its language in this way, conditions are naturally created for it to become different as a virtual resource. Once a new linguistic species has been brought into being, so to speak, it becomes increasingly distinctive under its own momentum. The change in psycho-sociological attitude to the language triggers off linguistic change. So it is that varieties evolve into autonomous languages ultimately to the point of mutual unintelligibility.” (Widdowson 1997: 142)
So mutual intelligibility and social acceptability is what differs languages from varieties.

Thus, dialects are representations of a monocentric language and variants cause the pluricentricity of a language.



Questions to discuss:

11. Fill out the following table that shows the applicability of the three criteria to the three circles of the Kachruvian theory:







Inner Circle

Outer Circle

Expanding Circle

Functions:

  • Regulative

  • Interpersonal

  • Educational

  • Creative

  • Business

  • Media

  • Commerce













Users:













Patterns of acquisition

  • ENL

  • ESL

  • IFL/ILF/EIL









Compare the content of your table with that of your partner and discuss it (in pairs)


12. What is the difference between range and depth of English? How can you characterize range and depth of English in Russia?
13. What is understood by “acculturation of English”? Give examples.
14. Give examples of Englishization of the Russian language. What is your attitude to this process? Is it inevitable?
15. Find English equivalents to the Russian key words stated before the text of the chapter. Discuss the meaning of the terms.


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