Zoya Proshina The abc and Controversies of World Englishes ббк 81

Endonorms vs Exonorms

Language standards, or norms,⁵ signify prescriptive rules of appropriateness. They are selected, codified, accepted, and capable to perform a wide range of functions (Семенюк 1990: 337; Jenkins 2003: 29-30). A standard variety of a language, based on educated speech, has the highest status in a community. It is used in the news media and in literature, described in dictionaries and grammars, and taught in schools (Richards, Platt & Platt 1992: 351). However, standards are not absolute and rigid but are subject to gradual change because a living language is dynamic. This dynamism of standards can be observed nowadays in the paradigm of WE.

Though the British Received Pronunciation (RP) and the General American standard (GA) are distinguished mainly in phonetics, Peter Trudgill and Jean Hannah argue that “(t)he term Standard English refers to grammar and vocabulary (dialect) but not to pronunciation (accent)” (Trudgill & Hannah 1994: 1). This thesis is very important for defining varieties of English.

A norm is standardized if codified. Braj Kachru considers four types of codification (Kachru B. 1985/2006: 251-252):

1. 
   authoritative codification, which entails a recognized codification agency (like Academie Francaise for French). The English language has no such authoritative agency.
   
2. 
   sociological (attitudinal) codification, which means broad recognition;
   
3. 
   educational codification – in dictionaries, the media, and educational textbooks;
   
4. 
   psychological codification. “In this case, language is associated with a specific ‘power’ and that power diminishes if the authoritative norms for its use are not obeyed.” (Kachru B. 1985/2006: 252) in other words, psychological codification means acceptance of the norm.
   

1. 
   Norm-providing varieties (the inner circle): these varieties have traditionally been recognized as models since they are used by the ‘native speakers’. However, the attitudes of the native speakers and non-native speakers toward such native varieties are not identical. One might say that traditionally the British variety was generally accepted as the model, and it is very recently that the American model has been presented as an alternative model. There is, however, still resistance toward accepting Australian or New Zealand varieties. …
   
2. 
   Norm-developing varieties (the outer circle): in regions using these varieties there has been a conflict between linguistic norm and linguistic behaviour. They are both endonormative and exonormative.
   
3. 
   Norm-dependent varieties (the expanding circle): this circle is essentially exonormative.” (Kachru B. 1985/2006: 246)
   

The term “endonormative” (from Greek endo “inside”) refers to a language whose internal standards are localized, i.e. developed in this very language variety, e.g., British norms (RP) have developed in British English; American norms (General American, or GA), which are somewhat different from British standards, in American English. R.Quirk argues that standards of Australian, New Zealand, and Canadian Englishes are “informally established” (Quirk 1990/2006: 505) though originally they were exonormative as they relied on British English standards.

The term “exonormative” (from Greek exo- “outside”) implies external norms developed in some other variety of language used as a model in teaching and learning practice. For example, Russian students of English using Russian English depend on standards of either British or American English. Exonorm is a norm transplanted to a new sociolinguistic context and used by educated users of English from the Expanding Circle.

Debatable is the issue of norms in the Outer Circle. Users of Outer Circle Englishes, like today’s users of Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, claim their own endonorms, which are different from the standards of their former metropolis English (Sridhar & Sridhar 1992; Bamgbose 1992; Bhatt 2001). Following the national sovereignty, there came “linguistic liberation” (Kachru B. 1991/2006) and the awareness of their own linguistic identity manifested in a localized English. These new norms are found on all levels of the language structure. Thus, for example, Indian English has its own norm of an undifferentiated tag question:

Cf. (IndE) You said you’ll do the job, isn’t it? (Bhatt 2001: 535)

(BrE) You said you’ll do the job, didn’t you?

These undifferentiated tags in Indian English serve positive politeness functions, “signaling deference and acquiescence”. They are “linguistic devices governed by the politeness principle of non-imposition” (Bhatt 2002: 94).

Many speakers of Outer Circle countries express their negative attitude to British and American endonorms. They take pride in their own varieties and frown upon those who approximate too closely to the native standard as “distasteful and pedantic,” “affected or even snobbish” (Sridhar, Sridhar 1992: 95). In one of his works Braj Kachru quotes Passe (1947) who described the attitude of Sri Lankans to standard English of native speakers:

Though the terms “norm” and “model” are very close, yet they are distinct (Jenkins 1998: 124). The concept of norm entails, on the one hand, prescriptivism and, on the other, “conformity with the usage of the majority of native speakers” (Kachru B. 1983: 69). The concept of model “implies a linguistic ideal which a teacher and a learner keep in mind in imparting instruction or in learning a language.” (Kachru B. 1981: 286). As was mentioned above, in most countries of the Expanding Circle, British or American Englishes are external pedagogical models (Strevens 1985/2006: 461). Today a new model has emerged – that of English as an International Language (EIL) (McKay 2002; Jenkins 2006). Unlike Expanding Circle, countries of the Outer Circle claim to have their own norms and their own internal model.

The 1980s witnessed the beginning of a debate over standards of world Englishes. Two key and influential figures in the field, Randolph Quirk (1985) and Braj Kachru (1985/2006) expressed diametrically opposed views on the issue. Quirk spoke for a standard that would uniform varieties of English. His opinion was that “(t)he relatively narrow range of purposes for which the non-native needs to use English (even in ESL countries) is arguably well catered for by a single monochrome standard form that looks as good on paper as it sounds in speech” (Quirk 1985: 6). B.Kachru objected to this: “[T]he native speakers of this language seem to have lost the exclusive prerogative to control its standardization” (Kachru B. 1985/2006: 259); “…we are witnessing a new phenomenon: the users of the institutionalized varieties are now not only ‘norm-developing’… but also function as the channels for the diffusion of their respective norms to the expanding circle of English (EFL contexts)” (Kachru B. 1985/2006: 257). In a number of other works (Kachru B. 1983; 1985/2006; 1986; 1991/2006) he emphasized that we should recognize a variety of norms based on the manner in which English is used within particular educated speech communities.

Quirk’s position was preceded by the work of Clifford Prator (1968) who spoke ardently against using models and local endonorms of ESL in teaching and who called Kachru’s position a “heretical tenet”:

The proponents of internal models and endonorms present the following arguments: 1) acculturation of the English language to new sociocultural contexts is unavoidable; the functional range of English is being increased; 2) “languages do not owe their existence to codification, they exist because they are used by people” (Kachru Y. & Nelson C. 2006: 15). Dictionaries and grammatical descriptions of many varieties are available or are being compiled; 3) nowadays English reflects many cultures rather than only British or American cultures; it turns to be “a configurer of multiple cultures and identities” (Pakir 2001: 78); 4) the assertion of status of localized varieties of English is an assertion of sociolinguistic reality and claim of identity; 5) most people are already multidialectal and they will be able to understand more than one variety of English; 6) supporters of exonormative ideology struggle for the competing market (Bhatt 2001).

Today, the problem of norm types is of utmost challenge for test developers. The proponents of WE paradigm express a legitimate concern that “large, powerful English language tests are fundamentally disconnected from the insights in analysis of English in the world context” (Davidson 2006: 709) as they are based mainly on the standards of British and American Englishes. Even such a test as English for International Communication (TOEIC), though claiming to be international, has no input from any of Englishes from the Outer Circle and fall far short of their claims (D’souza 1997/2006: 315; Lowenberg 2001; Davies, Hump-Lyons & Kemp 2003).

To sum up, the problem of norms, standards and models proves to be the central and most debatable one in modern linguistics. Many other disputable issues depend on a linguist’s approach to this problem.

16. Do you think it is justifiable to divide ESL and EFL in terms of norms and standards? Why or why not?

Fig. 4. The Three Circles.