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    38 views16 pages

    English As A Lingua Franca PDF

    Uploaded by

    Viktória Čechotovská

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 16
    vi English as a lingua franca English is used throughout the word ass Fingua franca, That is 10 say it used 3S 2 medium of communication by people whe Jo not speak the same frst language, Despite this extremely widespread and common function of English, analysis and descriptions of Tingua franca Englishes are F9"e although there is increasing interest in English asa lingua ijranca (ELF). Tn this chapter | ‘shall consider the role of ELF in a specific setting, the “Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), and describe the linguistic features and communicative strategies of English when ned as a lingua franca by speakers from coves tries in ASEAN. This description wil snclude the extent to which people who Se 1 in ASEAN are mutually ineligible. The findings for ASEAN ELF will form a basis for a com= parison with the features and eof ELF in other settings in particular the European Union. na ASEAN and English “The Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) was established in Bangkok ip 1g67. It currently has ten member states Brunei, camborta, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia ‘Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, “Thailand and Vietnam (For a map of this resio® see pris) A useful recent overview of English language teaching trends in cach of these coun Pies is provided by Ho and Wong (2003)- “The role of English in ASEAN is asa de facto lingua franca (Krasnick, 995)- Although this obviously privileges those member stateS ‘who can be considered outer circle countries targely due to their exlier status a Colonie: = prtain (Brunei, Malaysia and Singapor®) oF the United States (the Philippines), the “Jeision to adopt English as a Hingua fraca was sidered so natural that the delegates in Bangkok did not even debate it (Okudaira, 1999)- Since then, two attempts have been made 10 oe ke other languages official languages of "ASEAN: on one occasion, Indonesia suagested that Bahasa Indonesia De adopted; on the ther, Vietnam suggested their colonial langues ench, should be adopted. Neither sug- gestion was taken Up. "ASEAN provides English language using contes's that are of great potential interest. First, the four outer circle countries have “Jeveloped local Englishes, namely Brunet English, Malaysian English, Philippine English and Singaporean English ‘These were described in Chapter 9. Five of the remaining °& nations, Cambodia, Indonesia, L808, ‘Thailand and Vietnam, can be classified 3s ting in the “expanding circle: This leaves | 156 World Englishes: Implications for international communication and ELT ‘Myanmar, which would have been classified as an outer circle country in the years before General U Ne Win’s coup in 1962, Since then, it has remained a military dictatorship and has been a virtually closed country. English was removed from the curriculum until a change in policy took place that led to a moderate revival of English in the mid-1980s. At that time a total of five British-government-financed ‘Key English Language Teachers’ (KELTs) were assigned to tertiary institutions in Yangon and Mandalay, of which I was one. In any event, the universities have been closed for a great deal of the time since the riots of 1988, in which some 8,000 people died, and this has slowed down the revival of interest in English. The use of English as an inter-regional lingua franca raises the question of mutual intelligibility. If ASEAN is characterised by different varieties of English that include both a number of new varieties and a range of ‘expanding circle’ Englishes, to what extent do people who use it as a lingua franca within ASEAN understand each other? It also raises the question of whether an ASEAN variety of English is developing. In other words, do the Englishes of ASEAN speakers share any distinctive linguistic features and, if so, what are they? Or, will ELF be characterised by variation, given the different varieties of English cur- rently spoken in specific ASEAN countries together with the different linguistic back- grounds of the speakers? 11.2 ASEAN ELF ‘The findings that form the basis of the following discussion come from recordings of ASEAN nationals who were attending a two-week ELT teacher training course at the Regional Language Centre in Singapore (RELC) in 2004 and 2005. Each group was record: ed for about 20 minutes. They were asked to begin their conversation by discussing their impressions of Singapore and then to consider the ELT situation in their home countries In fact, the groups covered more topics than this and no group found themselves silently wondering what to say or who should speak next. Four of the five groups comprised three speakers and one had four. The groups were made up as follows: Gp x: an ethnically Chinese Bruneian female (Brunei), a Philippina female (P1), a ‘Thai male (T) and a Vietnamese female (V) a Singaporean female (with Punjabi as an La) (SP), a female from Myanmar (MA), and a Laotian female (L1) Gp 3a Cambodian male (C1), an Indonesian male (In) and a Singaporean female (with Malay as an L1) (SM) Gp 4: an Indonesian female (I2),a female from Myanmar (Ma) and a Cambodian female (C2) Gp 5: anethnically Chinese Malaysian male (MC), a Laotian male (L2) and a Philippina female (Pa) English as a lingua franca 157 ‘There were two people each from Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines and Singapore and one person each from Brunei, Malaysia, ‘Thailand tnd Vietnam. The speakers thus comprised people from both outer and expanding circle countries Detailed results ofthis résearch have been reported elsewhere (see Kirkpatrick, 2006b; Deterding and Kirkpatrick, 2006), so here I shall simply report the overall findings. 113. Linguistic features of ASEAN ELF 1313. ASEAN ELF syntactic (tense and inflection) uses “The present simple was by far the most commonly used tense with ASEAN speak: cers and accounted for 61 per cent of all the tenses used. The past simple was the next most common, accounting for 18 per cent of the total, with modals accounting for 32 per cent, Some verb forms, including, for example, the present perfect passive, the past con tinuous and the past perfect, were used extremely rarely. This raises the question whether students in certain contexts should spend much classroom time on these ‘rare’ tenses. ‘The majority of participants use a minimal number of non-standard forms (NSP). The only participants whose NSTs in tense use constitutes more than 6 per cent of their output are the Indonesian and both Cambodians and Laotians. If these uses ar€ o on-aystematic, it would suggest that these five be classified as learners of English rather than highly expert users. By considering the actual language they use, however it might be possible to identify uses that are qualitatively different from the NSFs made by the other participants, If this proves to be the case, it could be argued that the language used represents learner errors, while the NSFs made by the others are actually system- vie variations that occur in their varieties of English, After all if standard British English were to be taken as the overall norm, then, as illustrated in Chapters 4 and 5, “American and Australian speakers produce a wide range of non-standard forms. The specific uses uttered by the Indonesian (Ia) and the Cambodian (C2) are listed below. A discussion of the nature of the specific language uttered by these two speakers fol- Jows.I shall suggest that the NSFs used by the Indonesian speaker are systematic, but that those used by the Cambodian are not, and that the Cambodian’s uses may there- fore provide a criterion for distinguishing between a fluent speaker and a learner. This is. key question forall varieties of English and recalls Crysta’s conundrum about the problems involved in describing Old English, quoted in Chapter 4, ‘Which bits of the variation are random error and which reflect some aspect of the sociolinguistic situa- tion of the time?” (2004: 50). “The Indonesian speaker used NSEs when forming 7 present simple, 14 past simple and 1 present perfect form, The Cambodian speaker used NSFs when forming 7 present simples 2 past simple and 1 modal form. A summary ofthe uses of both speakers is provided below. This is followed by an excerpt in which both participate, in order to illustrate the points being made: 158 World Englishes: Implications for international communication and Ett ‘The Indonesian’s (Ia) NS s are: Present simple tense 7 NSFs out of a total of 119 uses: “singapore and Indonesia i very lose’ (concord) “ifthe clas tip finish before cleven’ (no -s" marking) «Ym looking for on Sunday that's why I try to! (adjacent default tense) “most of stuffs in Singapore have'(?) «hat company belongs to’ (incorrect collocation = lexical?) chat Silk Ait belongs to (incorrect collocation — lexical?) because we get new knowledge’ (are getting) Past simple tense 14 NSFs out of 43 uses. They are “Mrs X already give to us? ‘yesterday I check’ ‘Lalready spend ‘left my house that’s because I hiave to travel” ‘and then | spend one night and my niece drove me to! {waited for the official who pick me up’ sand then did nothing just sitand I check. . that’s why T just sitand take a rest ‘you taste you taste grammar already’ «the temperature dropped dramatically so we have to and we have to” Present perfect LNSE out of 8 uses. It is: ‘you have never see before’ It should be noted that the Indonesian (I2) also uses the present continuous 5 times, the present passive 3 times and the past perfect once w ithout using NSFs. “The great majority of the NSFs identified in 12s speech can be explained by non- marking ofthe verb form for tense in situations where the time has already been established by the context. The verbal inflections simply aren't necessary for making meaning in these contexts. Phonological causes for the non-marking of t ‘he nom marking of picked in‘pick me up’ slikely tobe caused by the phonological envi- onment, Deterding has shown that native speakers routinely drop final t/ and /d/ in their speech inthis way in certain contexts (Deterdings 2006). Importantly, I2 shows expertise in the use ofthe tense systems while at the same time breaking rules she clearly knows. Sit,‘check, sit and "take 2 rest’ are all unmarked for past ot, but this cannot possibly be explained by saying the speaker docs no} know the rule. In the excerpt provided later, for example, she uses the past tense 17 times Dut chooses not to mark it only on 4, possibly 5 occasions: ses are also present. For example, ‘ce RS EATER AIT ish as a lingua franca 159 ‘The Cambodian’s (C2) NSFs are: Present simple tense 7 NSFs in 42 uses. They are: “L get used to it (Lam getting / I have got) Gf we has no time then we just go there’ (concord) ‘comparing to other countries —— still expensive (no subjech no copula) “in the time maybe they brought there is not the other food! (adjacent tense) “Silk Airis belong to’ (use of copula ‘is’ and no'-s’ inflection) <{ will go next years I am glad to be there’ (adjacent tense) Simple past tense 2. NSBs out of 18 uses. They are: show long have you waits for them?” (inflection for past) «he the one thats pick me up sai? (‘-sinflection on pronoun, no inflection on verb) Modals 1 NSF out of 14 uses. It is

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