World Englishes

Rethinking Paradigms

Ee Ling Low, Anne Pakir, Ee Ling Low, Anne Pakir

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780367878511
• eBook ISBN: 9781317203490
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

In this book, leading scholars in the field of World Englishes (WE) offer fresh perspectives in re-thinking issues on the use of English as a global language in an interconnected world. Established as a legitimate field of study, WE offers a conceptual framework which has influenced scholarship in many related disciplines: contact linguistics, postcolonial Englishes, English as a lingua franca, English as an international language, and applied linguistics. This seminal volume will have an excellent balance between theoretical and empirical works focusing on scholarship that has arisen in relation to the Kachruvian Three Concentric Circles model.

This book covers topics such as state-of-the-art review of WE, WE and contact linguistics, post-colonial Englishes, English as a Lingua Franca, English as an International Language, WE and applied linguistics, language measurement and testing in WE, language policy and management, language education and dynamic ecologies, language typology, WE as a new canon, WE and corpus linguistics, WE and multimodalities, and makes predictions about the future of WE. It contains a comprehensive and up-to-date bibliography of major works published in the field.

1 Introduction

World Englishes – rethinking paradigms

Ee Ling Low and Anne Pakir

1.1 Background

At the point of conceptualisation of this monograph, the intention of the editors was to celebrate the works and contributions of the founding father of World Englishes (WE), Professor Braj B. Kachru. We felt it was timely to trace the historical development of the Kachruvian paradigm and to reflect on the related disciplines and fields of investigation that the paradigm has helped to shape. While wanting to paint a state-of-the-art picture of the field, we also wanted a monograph that pushed the envelope of his thinking by asking expert authors in related disciplines to position their work in relation to the WE paradigm and to discuss how current developments in their field have necessitated, if at all, the need to rethink the Kachruvian paradigm and their reflections about what this rethinking might look like.

Little did we know then that the appearance of this volume would be more timely than we had first anticipated it would be. On 29 July 2016, scholars working within the WE paradigm, applied linguistics and English language teaching learnt, with sadness, about the demise of Braj B. Kachru at his home in Urbana-Champaign. With his passing, three founding figures in the world of WE have left us (in chronological order): Yamuna Kachru, in April 2013, Larry Smith, in December 2014 and Braj B. Kachru, in July 2016. It is easy for scholars, researchers and ex-students of the Kachrus and Larry Smith to feel as if the field that they nurtured and grew with passion and genius to their deaths has become forever impoverished by their departures. However, it would be a far greater honour to each of these bastions in the field if we continued to grow the research and scholarship in the field, building strong empirical basis for us to rethink new areas of growth for the field. It is in this spirit that we wrote to all contributors to the volume, seeking their permission to dedicate this volume to the memory of none other than the founder of this paradigm, Braj B. Kachru. We received overwhelming support from the contributors and from Routledge, our publisher. The obituary that one of the co-editors, Anne Pakir, wrote in his memory also provides a fitting backdrop to this volume that has now become most timely. This monograph now stands as a tribute to the man who founded and grew the field and as an important turning point for all scholars working within the field to reflect upon how they can continue to rethink the paradigm and to grow the field within their respective related disciplines in the post-Kachruvian era.

The field of WE has become one of the fastest burgeoning areas of research since the term was first introduced almost three decades ago. According to Bolton (2012, p. 14), the term may have a narrow or wide application. Taken in a narrow sense, it refers only to the work of Kachru’s (1985, 1992) Three Concentric Circles of English while, taken in a broader sense, it encompasses the study of different approaches to English varieties around the world. Taken in the widest sense, Bolton (2012, pp. 14–15) lists the entire range of approaches to the study of world Englishes from the 1990s to the present. These include corpus linguistics, the sociology of language, features-based approaches, Kachruvian studies, Pidgeon and Creole studies, applied linguistics, lexicography, critical linguistics, linguistic futurology and emergent approaches such as English as a lingua franca (ELF) and English as an international language (EIL) (see also Bolton in this volume). Using Kachru’s (1985, 1992) Three Concentric Circles model as the point of departure, this chapter first provides a rationale for this volume and a literature survey of the conceptualisation of this field of study. The theoretical and terminological debates surrounding the terms WE, ELF and EIL will be discussed. Crucially, how WE as a field has influenced both emergent and emerging paradigms will also be elucidated. An overview of the chapters in this volume will be provided. Finally, terminological clarifications as used in this book will be made.

Since the term was first introduced about three decades ago, WE has generated a wealth of research scholarship. There have been published monographs and book series which focus on various aspects of the spread of English across the world. However, given the quick pace of development in the field and growing demand from researchers and educators for relevant resources, there is a need to update some of the existing research and, more importantly, there is extreme urgency to extend the research scholarship to areas that have received scant attention. In addition, previous volumes mainly take a handbook approach focusing on different areas of study related to the field of WE. However, the approach adopted in this volume attempts to break new ground by viewing the discipline in its entirety and to focus our attention on rethinking the paradigms and approaches that surround the study of world Englishes.

As stated earlier, the point of departure for this volume is the Kachruvian model of the Three Concentric Circles of English, which was first conceptualised as a construct to describe the types of spread, patterns of acquisition and the functional allocation of English in diverse cultural contexts. At the time of its conceptualisation, the Concentric Circles approach represented a major paradigm shift. Currently, WE has established itself as a legitimate field of study and offers a conceptual framework which has influenced scholarship in many related disciplines: variation and contact linguistics (e.g. Bao, 2011; Bolton, 2012; Mesthrie, 2003; Mufwene, 2001), postcolonial Englishes (e.g. Schneider, 2007), ELF (e.g. Jenkins, 2000, 2007, 2009a; Kirkpatrick, 2010; Mauranen & Ranta, 2009; Seidlhofer, 2011), EIL (e.g. McKay, 2002), applied linguistics (Widdowson, 1994, 1997) and critical applied linguistics (Pennycook, 2001). This volume invites contributions from scholars who have offered new thinking and paradigms that have emerged in response to the WE framework both as a construct and as a reality. Collectively, the book hopes to offer fresh perspectives in rethinking issues arising from the use of English as a global language in an interconnected world.

1.2 A retrospective view

As if having a premonition that his death was pending and that there was an urgent need to document the history of the development of WE from his perspective, Kachru, in 2013, wrote a chapter entitled ‘History of World Englishes’ published in The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics (Chapelle, 2013). This section summarises the main milestones in the historical development of WE from his perspective but also attempts to provide an update of the field’s development from 2013 to the point of his death in 2016.

According to Kachru, WE is viewed as a construct, rather than a paradigm as the editors of this volume have described it to be and that it is a relatively young construct of not more than fifty years of existence. Kachru traces the appearance of WE to 1978 when two what he calls “path-breaking” conferences were organised in the US, one held at the East–West Centre in Hawaii and the other at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in Chicago. Conference participants were or later became key scholars in the field of WE, comprising both native and non-native speakers of English and users of English from different sociolinguistic contexts around the world. A listing of these scholars as documented by Kachru (2013) is provided herewith and what is noteworthy is how their later scholarly work has been crucial in shaping the field of WE¹. Participants in both conferences debated openly about topics pertaining to linguistics and literary scholars. These included issues such as the use of English in both native and non-native countries with differing linguistic and cultural contexts and the use of English in the professions. Kachru and Quirk (cited in Kachru, 2013), described both conferences to have

blazed the trail for a new approach which provides a realistic framework for looking at English in a global context, and for relating concepts such as appropriateness, acceptability and intelligibility to the pragmatic factors which determine the uses of English as an international or intranational language.

(Kachru & Quirk, 1981, p. xx)

From these two groundbreaking conferences to the formation of the International Association for World Englishes (IAWE) in 1992, WE colloquia tagged on to other conferences run by other major existing English language associations such as Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL) and also at the Georgetown University Round Table (GURT) on Languages and Linguistics. In 1986, the East–West Centre organised a conference with the theme ‘Language and Power: Cross-cultural Dimensions of English in Media and Literature’. The aim of this conference was to explore the power of English from a cross-cultural perspective in the media and literature spheres. At the TESOL Convention in 1988 held in Chicago, there was an agreement to form the International Committee for the Study of World Englishes (ICWE).

The formal birth of WE may be associated with the formation of IAWE in 1992 where the ICWE participants met at a conference with the theme ‘World Englishes Today’ held at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The leadership of IAWE as seen from the past elected presidents represent scholars researching English from all Three Circles: Larry E. Smith (1993–1996), Braj B. Kachru (1997–1998), Anne Pakir (1999–2000), Ayo Bamgbose (2001–2002), Kingsley Bolton (2003–2004), Margie Berns (2005–2006), Bertus Van Rooy (2007–2008), Daniel R. Davis (2009–2010), Zoya Proshina (2011–2012), Suzanne Hilgendorf (2013–2015), Cecil Nelson (2015–2016) and Tej Bhatia (2017–2018). Since its inception, the IAWE conference has also been organised globally and on many occasions outside the US, such as at several institutes of higher learning in Japan, namely the International Centre in Nagoya, Tsukuba University, Chukyo University and other world-renowned universities in Asia such as the National University of Singapore. In 2012, for the first time ever, the WE conference was held in two different cities in Asia starting at City University Hong Kong and carrying onto Sun Yat Sen University in Guangzhou, China. The Linguistic Society of the Philippines is another Asian host of the conference. The IAWE conference has also been hosted in Europe at Regensburg University in Germany and has made its way to the Middle East in Istanbul, Turkey and also down under in Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. The different host countries represent the geographical range and linguistic depths of the users of world Englishes.

The birth of the World Englishes journal in 1985 which pre-dated the establishment of IAWE marks another milestone in the historical development of WE. More information about the inaugural issue of the journal can be found in Kachru (2013).

1.2.1 Kachruvian concept of World Englishes

What is most groundbreaking about the Kachruvian concept of WE which he terms as a concept with multiple constructs is its all-embracing and inclusive view of WE or what he calls the “WE-ness”, as Kachru asserts:

This concept emphasizes “WE-ness”, and not the dichotomy between us and them (the native and non-native users). In this sense, then, English is a valuable linguistic tool used for various functions. The approaches to the study of world Englishes, therefore, have to be interdisciplinary and integrative, and different methodologies must be used (literary, linguistic, and pedagogical) to capture distinct identities of different Englishes, and to examine critically the implications of such identities in cross-cultural communication and creativity.

(Kachru, 1997, p. 212)

Kachru’s view is that the dichotomy between the native and non-native speaker of English is unhelpful and even functionally misleading, as it fails to consider the contexts of use of English especially in multilingual, social contexts.

In 1985, Kachru elucidated WE in terms of the Three Concentric Circles: Inner, Outer and Expanding Circles at the 50th anniversary of the British Council in London. What is important to note is that Kachru did not mean for the Circles to have any sort of hierarchical ranking or preferential status. According to Kachru (1992, p. 356), the Three Circles “represent the types of spread, patterns of acquisition and the functional allocation of English in diverse cultural contexts”. The Inner Circle is “inner with reference to the origin and spread of the language”, while the Outer Circle refers to the “geographical expansion of the language” (Kachru, 2008, p. 568) beyond the traditional bases of English speakers and the Expanding Circle countries, unlike the Outer Circle countries, were not colonised by the British or Americans. To Kachru, the Concentric Circles model “embodies a long historical context within which the English language has evolved, expanded, converged and altered to form distinct identities” (Kachru, 2005, p. 219).

1.2.2 Three Concentric Circles model = WE paradigm?

Having traced the historical development of the Kachruvian Three Concentric Circles model and how Kachru conceived WE as a concept with multiple constructs, it is important for us to consider the question of what constitutes the WE paradigm in a volume which aims to rethink the WE and associated paradigms. The first logical question to ask is whether Kachru’s Three Concentric Circles model is synonymous with the WE paradigm. If we go back to Bolton’s (2012, pp. 14–15) definition earlier, he talks about a narrow or broad conception of the term WE. If we take WE in its narrowest sense, then it refers to the study of English worldwide as conceptualised by Kachru and his close group of scholars. However, if we widen the approach based on the coding of focal research areas published in the World Englishes journal, then the WE paradigm encompasses many different approaches to the study of English worldwide such as “English studies, corpus linguistics, the sociology of language, features-based and dialectological studies, pidgin and creole research, Kachruvian linguistics, lexicographical approaches, popular accounts, critical linguistics, futurological approaches” (Bolton, 2012, p. 15) and an emergent paradigm that can be considered to have been inspired by WE known as ELF.

Several models have been developed to describe the spread of world Englishes and some of the most influential are summarised and discussed in this volume, such as in Chapter 3 by Buschfeld and Schneider and in Chapter 13 by Bolton (see also Jenkins, 2003, 2009b, 2015; Mesthrie & Bhatt, 2008).

1.3 Overview of chapters

The topics covered in this volume represent the variety of argument and research questions that characterise the rethinking of the WE paradigm. These topics include ‘ELF’, ‘postcolonial Englishes’, ‘language education and dynamic ecologies in WE’, ‘EIL’, ‘language testing in WE’, ‘WE and linguistic border crossings’, ‘contact linguistics’, ‘WE and corpus linguistics’, ‘lexicography and WE’, ‘language policy and management in WE’, and ‘current trends in and future directions for WE’.

Is ELF a paradigm competing with the WE paradigm? Is the Kachruvian model able to cope with present and future ELF communication? Jennifer Jenkins’s chapter explores the answer to the first question. Jenkins examines how ELF was conceptualised and researched from the beginning to the present in terms of the stages which she terms as ‘ELF 1’, ‘ELF 2’ and ‘ELF 3’. Jenkins then explores the most recent thinking about English as a multilingual franca and finally considers the possible trajectory in the development of the ELF paradigm over the next few decades. The second question is explored in Yasukata Yano’s chapter, which first reviews the Kachruvian Three Circles model, then highlights the changes of the use of English in the world, use of ELF, the transition from the native–non-native to proficient–non...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Text boxes
• Notes on contributors
• Acknowledgements
• A tribute to Braj B. Kachru
• Prelude to special essay by Edwin Thumboo
• Special essay on creativity in Englishes: an SG experience vis-à-vis poetry
• 1 Introduction: world Englishes – rethinking paradigms
• 2 ELF and WE: competing or complementing paradigms?
• 3 World Englishes: postcolonial Englishes and beyond
• 4 Language education and dynamic ecologies in world Englishes
• 5 Teaching English as an international language: a WE-informed paradigm for English language teaching
• 6 The challenges of world Englishes for assessing English proficiency
• 7 Communication in English as a lingua franca: the Kachruvian model of Three Circles reconsidered
• 8 World Englishes and linguistic border crossings
• 9 World Englishes and contact varieties: clustering in substrate influence
• 10 World Englishes and corpus linguistics
• 11 Lexicography and world Englishes
• 12 Language policy and management in world Englishes
• 13 World Englishes: current trends and future directions
• 14 Concluding remarks
• 15 World Englishes: bibliographic references
• Index