Zoya Proshina The abc and Controversies of World Englishes ббк 81

WE vs EIL⁶

T
he concept of standards divides scholars into those who stick to the terms ‘world Englishes” and those who stand for the term “English as an International Language”. The central idea of WE is plurality and equality of all varieties of English, that is, equality of their own norms. This idea was emphasized by using the grammatical plural number of the term that was taken for the title of the journal World Englishes (Oxford, Boston: Blackwell Publ.). Later, the term spread in world linguistics. In the first editorial statement for the journal, the co-editors Braj Kachru and Larry Smith stressed:

Fig. 5. The journal WE published in Oxford (UK) and Boston (US) by Blackwell Publ.
“The editorial board considers the native and non-native users of English as equal partners in deliberations on uses of English and its teaching internationally… The acronym WE therefore aptly symbolizes the underlying philosophy of the journal and the aspiration of the Editorial Board” (Kachru B & Smith L. 1985: 210).
So each English variety of the norm-providing and norm-developing status has its own autonomous standards, which makes us speak about the pluricentricity of English. “(T)he concept of ‘world Englishes’ embraces difference without losing the force of that which has come to be globally shared” (Dhillon 2006: 536). This seems to qualify profoundly the basic concept of the paradigm as equality of diverse entities and rejection of a “mononorm” (Kachru B. 1984/2006: 448).
“The strength of the world Englishes paradigm has lain and continues to lie in its consistent pluralism and inclusivity.” (Bolton 2005: 78)
The pluralism stressed by Kingsley Bolton implies diversity and equality of Englishes and inclusivity means equal right of each variety to become a member of the global club of world Englishes.

The main argument against the diversity of autonomous Englishes is stated in the possibility of their future unintelligibility. For the variants to be understood universally, it is necessary that they have a common core, as suggested by the opponents of Kachru. Jenina Brutt-Griffler suggested a centripetal force that maintains the “Englishness” of world English varieties: “World English, rather than a variety, constitutes a sort of center of gravity around which the international varieties revolve” (Brutt-Griffler 2002: 177).

In her theory, the terms seem to be misplaced – what is World English in her understanding is more customarily called the common core, or International English, or Lingua Franca English. Jennifer Jenkins (2003: 125), who applies the core theory to teaching pronunciation, labels it “a core approach” to EIL teaching. She points out three main directions to establishing a core:

1. 
   a contrived core established artificially by simplifying the existing language inventory, the examples being Gimson’s “rudimentary international pronunciation” (RIP), Quirk’s (1982) “nuclear English”, or Ogden (1930) and Richards’ Basic English;
   
2. 
   an empirical core established by identifying shared components of all varieties of English, e.g., Jenner (1997, cited in Jenkins 2003: 126);
   
3. 
   Lingua Franca Core, the idea developed by Jenkins (2000: 124) combining the empirical and artificial approaches.
   

The Lingua Franca approach to grammar and lexis is being implemented by Barbara Seidlhofer (2001) who has embarked on the compilation of a corpus of English as a Lingua Franca at the University of Vienna. Her project was supported by Oxford University Press and is called the Vienna–Oxford ELF Corpus. The corpus comprises spoken English developed through interaction among non-native speakers from different first languages. There are some other attempts to create a corpus of International English, based mainly on the English learners’ material (Hassal 2000; Yang 2005). The largest project of the International Corpus of English, associated with ICLE (the International Corpus of Learner English), combines 18 national and regional corpora: Australia, Cameron, Canada, Caribbean, East Africa (Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania), Fiji, Ghana, Great Britain, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Nigeria, Philippines, Sierra Leone, Singapore, South Africa, the USA (Greenbaum & Nelson G. 1996).

A similar idea of International English was expressed by David Crystal who emphasized the necessity of World Standard Spoken English (WSSE):
“Which variety will be most influential, in the development of WSSE? It seems likely that it will be US (rather than UK) English. The direction of influence has for some time been largely one-way. Many grammatical issues in contemporary British usage show the influence of US forms, US spellings are increasingly widespread (especially in computer contexts), and there is a greater passive awareness of distinctly US lexicon in the UK (because of media influence) than vice versa. On the other hand, the situation will be complicated by the emergence on the world scene of new linguistic features derived from the L2 varieties… This would be especially likely if there were features which were shared by several (or all) L2 varieties – such as the use of syllable-timed rhythm, or the widespread difficulty observed in the use of th sounds. … The concept of WSSE does not replace a national dialect: it supplements it.” (Crystal 1997: 138)
The definition of Standard English offered by Peter Strevens is also very close to the understanding of a neutral common core: “a particular dialect of English, being the only non-localized dialect, of global currency without significant variation, universally accepted as the appropriate educational target in teaching English; which may be spoken with an unrestricted choice of accent” (Strevens 1983: 88).

There is an opinion that International English is based on the formal level of communication which usually takes place in international negotiations, scientific discussions, etc. It is used mostly by international agencies (like the U.N., USIS, British Council) and by other international communicators (Johnson 1990). Linguistically, EIL comprises neutral modern vocabulary, excludes outdated words, expressive and very informal words; it uses simple structures. The least attention is paid to the phonetic accent of speakers. While observing Euro-English in the European Council’s “power corridors”, D.Crystal (1998: 92) concluded that EIL must have a slow tempo, syllabic rhythm, more distinct articulation, lack of phonetic assimilation and sound drops typical for native speakers.

The world leading linguists and TESOL educators Michael Halliday (1973), Peter Strevens (1978), and others believe that as an ELT model we can use only the variety of English which meets three requirements – intelligibility, appropriateness and effectiveness of communication. Henry Widdowson also argues that most learners study the language “not to conform to any national norms of general use, but to co-operate as members in international modes of [expert] communication” (Widdowson 1997: 144), which leads him to interpret EIL as English for Specific Purposes (ESP):
“Of course, if it serves the purpose of a particular expert community to develop a register as an ingroup language, this will inevitably lead to some loss of more general intelligibility. There are indeed registers which are inaccessible to outsiders. And these outsiders can be people who are otherwise highly competent in the language. As a native speaker of English, for example, I freely confess that the English registers of computer science, finance, stock exchange reports, genetics, and many more, are largely incomprehensible to me. As far as these uses of language is concerned, I am incompetent. But the crucial point is that there are innumerable people all over the world, speaking all kinds of primary language, from all kinds of primary socio-cultural background who have become competent in these secondary varieties of the language. And as they have achieved this competence, they become full members of these global communities with equal rights to initiate innovation. Whether you are a native speaker of the language or not is irrelevant. It is what you are now that is important, not where you have come from.” (Widdowson 1997: 144)
As International English proves to be a scholarly construct rather than a live variety, Braj Kachru raises objections against it. His main argument is that the concept proves to be too abstract, like looking for “dog-ness” in both terrier and alsation; “yet no single variety of dog embodies all the features present in all varieties of dog” (quoting Quick et al.; Kachru B. 1984/2006: 434). The abstract character of the concept of International English allowed Yamuna Kachru to make the conclusion:
“It is clear that there is no entity called ‘International English’ which every English-using person is competent in. Instead, what we have are world Englishes with their cultural underpinnings and rhetorical strategies.” (Kachru Y. 2001: 66)

Another reason for criticism is that the idea of a core English raises associations with the field theory, whose ethnocentric consequences are revealed by R.Phillipson (1992) who noted that the neo-colonial idea of core and periphery implies language inequality, imposes the perception of better and worse languages, and shuts out ‘other Englishes” (Pennycook 2003: 518).

An idea somewhat intermediate between the Kachruvian approach and the core approach was expressed by the Japanese linguist Yasukata Yano:
“…there will develop a loose league of acrolect-level varieties of English … which have less regional specificity and have global mutual intelligibility, while keeping their local sociocultural uniqueness and identities for intranational use. There will be an amalgamation of varieties, rather than a single standard.” (Yano 2001: 126)

Questions to discuss:

26. Why are the terms “World Englishes” and “English as an International Language” not synonymous?