Lingua Inglese 1 Prof.

ssa Virginia Pulcini

A.S 2015/2016 Scienze della Mediazione Linguistica

Università degli Studi di Torino Cap. 1 ~ Language change and variation in

English 1. Language change, variation and history (pg. 21) Linguistic Variability. As a social aspect
on human life, languages can change constantly, either suddenly in the case of the introduction of
new words, or slowly, as e.g. the change of pronunciation from generation to generation.

All languages can be considered as open an dynamic entities witch adapt to the history and culture
of the speech communities in which they are in use. Language change happens through the adoption
and diffusion of a certain language form, or variant (e.g. a phoneme, a word or a syntactic
construction), as a consequence, equivalent variants may coexist within a speech community for
either a long or short time , until one predominates over the other. All languages show a surprising
level of variability concerning their phonological, morphological, syntactic and lexical structures.
The study of language variability deals with how language varies among its speakers, when
speakers use different variants, and what the social and linguistic significance of such variation is.

Standard and non-standard varieties. In modern languages we usually analyse language variability
in relation to its standard variety (= the language par excellence, in terms of social prestige,
language functions and domain of us). By contrast, non-standard varieties, have been commonly
regarded as ‘irregularly patterned” with respect to standard.

Language in society. According to sociolinguistics (= the study of the relation between language
and society), all the varieties of a language have the same status, in other words, we should not say
that a language is more correct or appropriate than another. However, language varieties suffer from
social, ethnic and racial prejudice towards their speakers and their socio-cultural, economic and
political status, and speakers develop positive or negative attitudes towards them. Language
behaviour and language variability are influenced by social factors such as social class, social
networks, sex/gender, ethnicity and age, at a general level, by the context in which the interaction
take place. Labov’s sociolinguistic work carried out during the 1960’s, in particular the analysis of
the patterning of [r] pronunciation with reference to the interviewed speakers’ social class and
speech style. The pronunciation of [r] in words with the r before consonant (like fourth) and with r
at the ends of the word (like floor), acquired prestige in American English after 1945. Labov show
how lower socio-economic classes tended to use the prestigious “r-full” pronunciation with less
frequency, while the middle and upper middle classes increased. Variation was also related to style
of speech: the use of [r] increased as the formality increased.
Language attitude. Language behaviour is conditioned by factors like language attitude towards a
specific language or variety. A positive attitude favours a diffusion of a variant, this contributes a
language change. Some language or variety are perceived as more prestigious and useful than
others, as for example British English: in other words, the use of such a prestige variety represent a
mean which allow people to get access to cultural values considered more prestigious. Language
change and variation do not go synchronically, in relation to their social and structural status at a
given time, but they take place along an historical period, or chronological order of sequencing of
events.

Historical linguistics and the history of language. There are two approaches to historical language
change:

1. Comparative linguistics (or language reconstruction): is based on the concept of “proto-

language”, usually a reconstructed language, and “language family”. For example, English is a
Germanic language, which originated from Indo-European and which belongs to so-called
Ingvaenonic or Anglo-Frisian sub-group of Germanic.

2. History of language: the study of the changes made by a single language over the centuries.
Literature on the history of language has usually distinguished between external and internal causes
for change:

a. External causes: are extra linguistic or socialfactors which contribute to language change, such as
technological innovation, the introduction of new concepts and the vocabulary to express them.

b. Internal causes: changes leading to balance in the system, like, for example, analogy, in other
words, the analogical spread of regular forms.

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The writing of a history is always selective. Traditional history of the English language (HEL) have
mainly focused on the history of the standard variety and its speakers and have conceived the HEL
as divided in three main periods:

1. Old English (OE) -> 700-1150 2. Middle English (ME) -> 1150-1500 3. Modern English
(ModEngl) -> 1500-1900

This approach has been supported by the ideology according to which the development of English
has happened in a sociolinguistic way, where language change has been considered exclusively as
an internal or structural matter, and phenomena such as language contact or mixing have been only
overlooked. We have attempted to expand our historical account of the language to present day
English (PDE) in order to include both the historical/diachronic and synchronic/social dimension of
language and to highlight sociolinguistic matter of language identity. The analysis of language use
in social context applied the history of language is, however, difficult for lack of any spoken
evidence for the earlier stages of the language and, for the difficulty of interpreting and dating
changes in earlier written texts.

2.Types of language change (pg. 25) 2.1. Phonological change (pg. 25) Sporadic and regular
change. Phonological change deals with any mutation with the sound system of a language and can
be both sporadic and regular:

Sporadic change: refers to change which affect the sound of a limited number of words (e.g. the loss
of <r> in OE spræc -> PDE speak). Regular change: implies the change leading to the re-
organisation of the phonological inventory of a language (e.g. the split of nasal phoneme /ŋ/. In the
OE there was no velar nasal phoneme, so [ŋ] represented an allophone of /n/before /k, g/.

Conditioned and unconditioned change. Another distinction concerning the phonological change
refers to the differentiation between unconditioned and a conditioned change:

Unconditioned change: refers to sound change regardless of the phonetic context in which it
happens as in the case of the so-called Great Vowel Shift (GVS). The GVS started in the 15th
century and affected the ME long vowels. It causes a major reorganisation of the vowel system
through a push chain process: [i:] -> [ai:], as consequence [e:] and [ 0 25 B:] -> [i:], creating an
homophones (meet = meat). [a:] -> [ 0 25 B:], and [u:] -> [ 0 25 4u:], causing the change of the
vowel [o:] -> [u:] and the vowel [ɔ:] -> [o:].

These change partly explain the inconsistence between spelling and pronunciation in PDE: while
the pronunciation of English was dramatically modified by the GVS, its orthography had already
begun to standardised y the introduction of the printing press on the basis of 14th century
orthography and pronunciation. Conditioned change: refers to a phonological change which is
conditioned by a specific phonetic environment. As for example, the development of PDE fricative
phonemes. In OE only one set of fricative phonemes existed /f, s, /, and each of them was used to
represent two different allophones:

• /f/ [f] and [v] -> wif [f] (PDE wife) / wifes [v] (PDE wives) • /s/ [s] and [z] • <ð> [θ] and [ð]

2.2. Morpho-syntactic change (pg. 26) Morphological levelling. Morpho-syntactic change refers to
any change in both the morpho- phonematic and syntactic system of a language.
Mechanisms of morpho-syntactic change. The main mechanisms of morpho-syntactic change are:

1. Analogy: the process of modelling a language form in relation to an already existing form of that
language (e.g. modelling the ō-long syllable -> rōd (pl. rōda) the equation of this analogical change
is stone : stones = rōd : x, x = rōd(e)s)

2. Hypercorrection: speakers’ awareness of the social value of the different language varieties
within their speech community (e.g. the umbrellow form, created as attempt to avoid the American
non-standard forms like fella (-> fellow), yella (-> yellow).

3. Backformation: creation of a language form which is not historically documented (e.g. to laze
from the adj. lazy)

Two main examples of syntactic change are: word order (the order of the elements within the
sentence) and grammaticalisation (phenomenon by which a grammatical function is given to a
previously autonomous word – e.g. the formation of the PDE auxiliary/modal verbs from
autonomous OE verbs, like wilan -> will).

2.3. Semantic change (pg. 27) Semantic changes refers to any mutation in the meaning of individual
lexical items, which is commonly influenced by external factors such as socio-cultural change,
scientific innovation and borrowing (foreign language influence).

Types of semantic change. The different kind of semantic changes involve a change of meaning
(widening and narrowing) or affect connotation (pejoration and amelioration.

• Widening: use of a particular item in more than one context (e.g. to grow originally meant ‘grow
by getting bigger’, while in PDE it denotes ‘to grow in any quality’.

• Narrowing: indicate the opposite process of widening (e.g. meat indicated food) • Pejoration:
linked to speakers’ social attitude and prejudice (e.g. PDE silly derives from ME sely

meaning ‘happy, innocent’. • Amelioration: change denoting a positive attitude towards a certain
word (e.g. PDE knight meaning

‘a mounted warrior serving a king’, comes from OE cniht meaning ‘boy, servant’.
3. The history of English (pg. 28) 3.1. Old English (pg. 28) Indo-European and Germanic
languages. Historically English is a Germanic language. It is, however, difficult to locate or give a
date to the origin of the Germanic languages. According to the Roman historian Tacitus, Germanic
was the language of the population who inhabited the continental European area east of the River
Elbe. The progenitor of Germanic is the Indo-European language, that is a reconstructed language,
which is considered to be the ancestor of classical language like Latin, Greek, Slavic and Sanskrit,
and as consequence of many modern European language such as Italian, English, French, and so on.
The Celts were Indo-European people who lived in Europe from 2000 BC to 100 AD. They
inhabited the British Isles before the Roman and Anglo-Saxon invasion. The Celtic origin languages
spoken today are Welsh, Irish, Gaelic and Scots Gaelic (Breton) The OE period. The stage of
language that goes from 700 to 1150 A.D., is commonly known as the OE period. The term OE
refers to the Germanic dialects (Kentish, West-Saxon, Mercian and Northumbrian), spoken at that
time in England by Jutes, Angles and Saxons, who arrived in British Isles, former part Roman, part
Celtic-speaking area, in the 5th century A.D. The Celtic inhabitants of the British Isles were
assimilated or forced to move westward and northward and the use of their language became
geographically, socially and culturally confined to those areas. The major evidence of this process
of language contact and mixing is recording in place name (London, Leeds), rivers (Avon = water),
counties (Kent, Devon). There are very few words in PDE, as there are very few word in OE too.

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The event that mostly contributed to the shaping of the OE language was the Christianisation of the
Island, starting from the 6th century, the main consequence of this being the introduction of the
Latin alphabet and the progressive abandonment by the Anglo-Saxons of the Runic alphabet (or
Futhark). The graphemes <a, æ, e, I, o, u, y> were used to represent both long and short vowel
sound. The consonant letters were very similar to those used today, except the letters <þ> (thorn)
and <ƿ> (wynn), which were borrowed from Anglo-Saxon’s Runic Alphabet and <ð> (eth) that is
an Irish based innovation. The correspondence between letters and sounds presents some
inconsistencies, e.g. < c > and < g > represent both velar phonemes /k/ and /g/ when followed by /a,
o, u/ and /t∫/ and /j/ when followed by /æ, e, i, y/. The West-Saxons dialect of OE. During the period
from the 9th to the 11th centuries, several manuscripts were translated from Latin into West-Saxon
dialect of OE. This dialect is associated to King Alfred the Great, who was at the head of the West-
Saxon reign, at the time the most important political, religious and cultural centre of Europe. West-
Saxon is commonly considered the first standard written language, or the language associated with
political, military and cultural power in society. The Scandinavian and Anglo-Norman invasion.
Two important historical episodes that profoundly changed the history of England was:

• Scandinavian invasion: from the 8th century. The first settlers were located in the north-east of
England, and by the year 867 they expanded all through the island until King Alfred the Great,
raised an army and defeated them in the 9th century (887 AD), pushed them out of his kingdom and
re-conquered part of the Scandinavian possession. Alfred saved the English language and he
commissioned the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles where the “dark ages” of the Scandinavian invasion,
were recorded. The king also encourage the use of English in writing and in speech.
• Norman conquest: contributed to changing Anglo-Saxons English socially, politically and
culturally. A new dominant French-speaking nobility substituted the Anglo-Saxon court, noblemen
and bishops. The re-organization of political power meant the progressive marginalisation of the
rich and flourishing Anglo-Saxon cultural and literal tradition.

Beside the increased use of Latin, the major language change was represented by the abandonment
of the West-Saxons variety of OE as the ‘standard language’ of England. West-Saxons was
substituted by Anglo-Norman, the variety of French spoken by conquerors. Synthetic vs analytic
languages. The term OE refers to a highly inflected or synthetic language.

• Synthetic language: language functions, grammatical categories and relations, and verbal
conjugation are expressed by the use of a system of case markers, or inflections.

• Analytic language: language in which grammatical and syntactic relations are expressed by word
order, and grammatical words such as prepositions and auxiliaries (e.g. PDE).

Word order in OE. The most striking aspect is that in inflectional languages like Latin and OE,
words are variable, that is they are usually composed of a root and an ending (e.g. puer-i / cildr-a).
Generally the word order was free, but in OE prose, it’s possible to find this main word orders:

• S V, in main and subordinate clause • S […] V, commonly in subordinate clause • V S, in

interrogative, negative and declarative clause indifferently

OE nouns and adjective. OE distinguishes four cases (nominative, genitive, accusative and dative),
two numbers (singular and plural) and three gender (masculine, feminine and neuter) for noun,
adjective and pronouns. The inflection of nouns are divided in two categories: strong (mainly refer
to the masculine and neuter –a stem nouns, names that in plural form end with –a) and weak
(include the nouns which plural form end with –n). Adjectives usually agree with noun they modify
and are also divided into strong and weak declensions: strong, when the adjective is not preceded by
a demonstrative, weak, when the adjective is preceded by a demonstrative or a deictic word. OE
determiners. The most striking differences in relation to PDE concern the forms and functions of the
definite article (PDE the) and demonstrative pronouns (PDE this/that). In OE, the

demonstrative (sē, sēo, þæt (sin.) and þa (pl.)) covered the domains in both the PDE definite article
and the demonstrative. Also the demonstrative in OE are inflected for case, gender and number. OE
verbs. In OE, as in PDE, there are two main types of verbs: strong (irregular) and weak (regular).
Both strong and weak show two tenses (present and past), threemoods (indicative, subjunctive and
imperative), two infinitive (bare and inflected) and two participles (present and past). There are also
two main irregular verb sub-categories: the present-preterite (past) verbs (which show an old strong
past form as present and a weak past form) and anomalous verbs (a set of verbs showing different
sets of forms in the present indicative). OE vocabulary. A feature that contributes to differentiating
OE from PDE is vocabulary. The core of OE vocabulary is inherited Germanic lexis, and include
also words of Celtics. The influence of foreign languages such as Latin and Scandinavian is also
attested during this period:

• Latin: there are two major stages of influence: 1. period relates to the conquest of part of the
British Isles by Roman (54 B.C.) 2. the second stage of influence concerns the period of
Christianisation of the island from 6th century, when many

religious terms, from Latin and Greek, were borrowed with minimal phonetic accommodation •
Scandinavian: the Scandinavian influence on OE in this period is limited to technical terms for
ships,

warfare and legal institutions and simple-life. Danish (Vikings) influence was the strongest because
the two Germanic languages had similar grammatical structures, declensions, and conjugations. For
this reason, mutual intelligibility in saying the simple things related to commerce (e.g. buying and
selling sheepskin)

3.2. Middle English (pg. 35) The ME period. The Norman conquest of England in 1066, by William
the Conqueror, is traditionally considered as the starting point of the Middle English period (1066-
c. 1500). We can distinguish three main stages for ME:

1. Transition stage (1066-1150): when important sociolinguistic change occurred. The Norman
conquest represent the end of the advanced Anglo-Saxon social and cultural systems. This meant
that the role and functions of the West-Saxons, in domains such as administration, the Church,
education and culture were reduced. The main evidence for language maintenance in early ME is
the continuity of the late Anglo-Saxons literary tradition (e.g. Ælfric).

2. Early ME period (1150-1350): during which English gradually recovered its status of official
language as is testified by the increasing number of legal documents and literary writings.

3. Late ME period (1350-1430): from the 14th century on, many sociocultural change took place in
England, such as urbanisation, in particular the growth of London, the rising of new social classes
(middle classes) and the introduction on the printing press in England by William Caxton in 1476.
This events increased the need for a common and fixed standard language.
The language in use in the ME period. During the ME period three main language were spoken in
England: Anglo-Norman (or French. The language of power, bureaucracy and partly literature),
Latin (which continues as the language of learning, education and the Church) and English
(language of the majority of the population, although a certain degree of bilingualism was not an
exception in society. Gaelic and Scandinavian languages (which, after 1100, merged progressively
with northern Me dialects) were also spoken. The linguistic features of ME. The ME period has
been described as the stage of the language in which complex phenomena of dialectal variation,
language contact and attempts to standardise language co-exist. The main variety was the so-called
classical ME variety, or educated 14th century London English, represented by the language of
Geoffrey Chaucer (with his “The Canterbury Tales”, the most authoritative example of written
literary English), and refers to the main language changes operating during this period:

• the reduction of the OE inflectional case system • the fixing of SVO word order as in PDE, with
some variation • a marked foreign influence on ME vocabulary

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ME nouns and adjectives. During the ME period, the OE noun case system submitted a process of
profound re-adjustment owing to the collapse of vowels in unstressed syllables. As regards ME
adjectives, by the end of ME period the distinction between strong and weak types was lost . only
two main forms were in use: a basic form and an –e ending form which is also used to signal plural
forms. ME determiners and verbs. This process of language levelling also involves determiners and
pronouns. OE demonstrative forms sē, sēo, þæt (sin.) and þa (pl.), were reduced to the invariable
‘þe’ form for both sing. and plural. OE pronouns, continue almost unchanged in ME, apart from the
introduction of the 3rd person singular form (she/shoe) (PDE she). The verbalsystem of ME keeps
the OE differentiation between strong and weak verbs, but the most innovative aspect of ME is the
development of new tens: future (in OE there is no future), progressive/continuous (this form was
already in use in OE, however present and past progressive/ continuous tenses only developed
during the ME period, though they were not commonly used until early ModEngl) and the passive
voice (in OE the passive was formed by the verbs be and become, in ME the passive form
continued to be expressed by the verb to be, though perfect and pluperfect passive forms with to
have were used sporadically. Word order in ME. In late Me the predominant order is SVO, as in
PDE, though variation is still present. In fact SVO order is present in statement and with dependent
clauses, while inversion VS is used with commands, wishes or adverbial phrases. ME vocabulary.
ME is the period in which a large number of French words entered the English language. The
supremacy of French concerned only a limited number of people, especially the nobility and the
royal family. During the 12th and 13th centuries an French-English bilingualism existed both in
upper and middle classes, many Normans kings were often totally ignorant of their country’s
language. This condition lasted until the end of 13th century, when more and more bilingual
speaker shifted to English. By the end of this period nearly 900 words of French origin had entered
the language (e.g. age, marry, city, country, flower, …). Latin continued to exercise great power in
English as the language of the Church and scholarship and to a lesser extent of the law, the Magna
Charta Libertatum (1215), was written in Latin.
3.3. Modern English (pg. 38) Modern English and the debate on standard. The origins of standard
English are to be found in the south-eastern Midland variety of English, spoken in the London area
in the 15th century, the language of the “powerful” emerging urban upper-middle class. The growth
of standard English took place through a long process of selection, acceptance. The most prestigious
variety of English needed to be further elaborated and codified to achieve functional efficiency and
to increase its expressive power.. Neologisers vs. Purist. In the course of these centuries English
became the language of those domains where Latin and French were previously used. The
expansion of vocabulary gave rise to the opposition between the so-called Neologisers and Purists.
The neologisers contributed to introducing a certain number of new words into English, mainly
loans from Latin and French. Purists believed in the preservation of native vocabulary through, for
example, processes of word formation: prefixation (e.g. the prefix un- in adjectives and nouns for
express negation), suffixation (e.g. –ers in crackers, preggers). William Caxton. William Caxton
was the first scholar to officially pose the question of the need for a standard language. ModEngl
dictionaries and grammars. During the ModEngl period several glossaries and both monolingual
and bilingual dictionaries were compiled. Among them we can recall John Florio’s Italian-English
dictionary, and in particular A dictionary of the English language by Samuel Johnson. Classical
languages, especially Latin, represent in this period the main model for the improvement of
grammar and the codification of its rules. Received Pronunciation. Another significant aspect of the
debate on language codification concerns the idea of a ‘correct’ pronunciation. Through the concept
of ‘proper’ pronunciation goes

back to Shakespeare’s time, it is only 19th century that standardisation of pronunciation, or

Received Pronunciation (RP) is achieved. RP was mainly a marker of social class. From a linguistic
point of view, we can say that ModEngl is very close to PDE written standard. However, there are
still many inconsistencies in both spelling and grammar: e.g. the interchangeable use of the
graphemes <u> and <v> in word such euery and the use of to do as an auxiliary verb in negative
and interrogative sentences.

ModEngl inflectional system. The main changes in ModEngl concern the inflectional systems of
nouns, adjectives and verbs. Towards the end of this period distinction between strong and weak
declensions of nouns and adjectives disappeared. The only noun case that survived was the genitive
case, which was indicated by –sand –‘s form. As regards adjectives, the only relics of OE and ME
inflectional systems refer to the comparative and superlative -er and -est endings. Through
distinction between strong and weak verbs continues. The most conservative aspect of ModEngl
grammar are pronouns, which are still marked for case, number and gender. The only difference in
relation to PDE is the distinction in use between 2nd person singular thou/thee to indicate lack of
formality and ye/you to express politeness. This distinction was lost by the end of this period, when
the form to express politeness. This distinction was lost by the end of this period, when the form
you was used for both functions as in the PDE. Word Order in ModEngl. This further reduction of
the inflectional system of ME strengthened the tendency to use the SVO order. The main features of
ModEngl syntax are:

• inversion of subject in declarative sentences • multiple negation • repetition of subject • omission

of subject
it is usually assumed that by the end of the 19th century the process of standardisation of the
language was almost complete. Language spread. Late ModEngl is also the period of the so-called
fragmentation of the standard in which the English language, its speakers, spread and settled in
different geographical and socio-cultural contexts worldwide. Several political economic and social
factors contributed to this process, in particular British colonialism and imperialism. Three main
stage can be distinguished:

1. The increasing activity of British trading companies and the slave trade, starting from the
beginning of the 17th century. From the contact between English and, West African languages new
varieties of English emerged, namely Pidgin Englishes and Creoles, which functioned as a sort of
lingua franca for trade and commerce.

2. The establishment of stable colonial settlements in America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and
South Africa. The contact between English and native but also other European languages such as
Spanish, French and Dutch, resulted in the formation of the so-called colonial standard varieties of
English.

3. The institutionalisation of English within colonies. English started to be used as a second

language and became the official language of government, bureaucracy, education and religion in
the colonies, even when the ex- colonies acquired political independence from Britain.

Another reason for the present predominance of English in the world is because of the clarity,
simplicity, size of its vocabulary, flexibility in creating new words, adaptability to distant contexts
of the English language.

4. The sociolinguistic status of present-day English (pg. 42) The Englishes paradigm. Since the
beginning of the 20th century the term English has been used mainly to indicate the varieties of
British English. Since the middle of the 1980s, a new paradigm of studies and terminology about its
status, has emerged. The focus of attention goes to matters of linguistic variation taking place
beyond the national boundaries of the UK. The new work of language investigation is commonly
defined as the Englishes paradigm and can be explained in terms of ‘research interest’:

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• geographical location (American English) • linguistic and ethnic association (Maori English) •
activities (commerce, education, culture and technology – legal English) • combination of location
and activities (British medical English) • fusion of English with other languages (Frenglish)
The major parameter of pluralisation of English are its geographical spread and the number of its
speakers.

4.1. The diaspora of English (pg. 43) The diaspora of English worldwide is characterised by three
main stages:

1. Expansion of English within British Isles: Scotland, Wales and afterwards Ireland. The major
sociolinguistic consequence of this process was the gradual linguistic, cultural and economic
oppression of the Gaelic- speaking population of the British Isles. The process started in the 5th
century with the arrival of the first Germanic tribes and continued in the Middle Ages with the
establishment of English-speaking colonies in Ireland and the defeat of Welsh military resistance in
the 13th century. Scotland, where Scots, an Old English dialect, was spoken, resisted English
dominion until 1707 (Act of Union). The English colonisation did not result in the loss and death of
Gaelic and Scots languages, we can defined them minority languages, they are still spoken as a
second language (L2) by a large number of people).

2. Discover of new territoriesand the establishment of the British colonies: in the USA, Canada,
Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Contact between English and other languages resulted in
the development of Pidgin Englishes and Creoles, which were used as lingua franca for
communication in trading exchanges and between African slaves and their British masters. This
stage of the spread of English mainly regards the formation of the colonial standard, or new
Englishes. Political independence from British colonial control after WWII contributed to their
recognition as autonomous, standardised varieties of English. English has been retained as the
official language (along with other native languages) in more than 70 former British colonies.

3. Second diaspora of English: concerns its diffusion and use as L2 (ESL = English as Second
Language) in continents such as Africa and Asia and it mainly refers to 19 th and 20th century
American imperialism, including what we commonly define as globalisation.

4.2. The countries and speakers of English (pg. 45) The geographical spread of PDE has been
described in terms of three concentric circles:

• Inner circle: English has a multifunctional role and is used as a native language (ENL or L1).
English is transmitted through the family and institutional agencies such as the media and school

• Outer circle: English has the status of second language (ESL or L2), or additional language
(usually in former British colonies). English is the language of government, media, religion and
education.
• Expanding circle: English is used as a foreign language (EFL). English functions in international
domains such as diplomacy, scientific research, business negotiation and international organisation
such as European Union (EU). The sociolinguistic situation in EFL countries, is complex, and we
need to be aware of the extensive process of language hybridisation between the local varieties of
English and immigrant languages taking place in multicultural and multilingual urban contexts (e.g.
New York, London, …).

4.3. English as a Global Language (pg. 45) PDE has acquired the status of a global language. There
are several approaches that recently propose to describe and explain this phenomena.

1. The world Englishes paradigm, initiated by the sociolinguist B.B. Kachru, focus on why the
functional aspects of the spread of English, on its cross-cultural nature and changing identity has
contributed to re-think English in both sociolinguistic and education context

2. English for Specific Purpose (ESP), that has interpreted its use and function in terms of utility
and instrumentally. English has been considered as a useful means of communication, serving the
needs of different communities of speakers around the world.

Three major aspects of English as a global language can be identified: • the establishment of new
English-speaking communities in new geographical and socio-cultural context

• the contact and mutual influence between English and other non-genetically related languages •
the formation of non-native varieties of English or global Englishes.

4.4. The speech community of contemporary English (pg. 46) The speech community of PDE is a
multicultural place, where social (bi-) multilingualism is the norm. Many members of the global
English-speaking community, especially in ESL countries, are competent in two or more languages:
standard, social, regional or local varieties, according to the verbal repertoire. Their choice is
determined by sociolinguistic factors such as language attitude, social belongings etc. Language
plays an important role in the the construction of both individual and collective identities. The use
of two or more varieties of languages within the same speech event (code-switching) is the most
powerful marker of language identity.

4.5. The varieties of English (pg. 47)

The varieties of English worldwide can be: • regional (Yorkshire English) • social (Cockney
English) • colonial (American English)* • immigrant (Chicano English)
*Native or “colonial Englishes” are a set of different but related varieties which share a common
core of grammar and vocabulary, but they differ mainly in pronunciation and lexis. The two main
ones are British English and America English, that also provide the norms for EFL learners. **
English was used as lingua franca is now used in international, scientific, business meetings or the
internet Global Englishes can also be considered in two different ways:

1. Polylectal continuum: ranging from standard varieties (acrolet), which is very close to the
colonial varieties and is used by educated people, to low-prestigious varieties (basilet), which is
spoken by people with little knowledge of the language and no formal or school education.

2. Cline of bilingualism: at one end of the cline we find the educated variety of English, while at the
other there are varieties, which reflect particular cultural, social and linguistic identity and show
four functions:

2.a. Instrumental : English as the language of education 2.b. Regulative: English as an

administrative and bureaucratic means 2.c. Impersonal: referring to verbal communication between
two intelligible languages 2.d. Imaginative: English as the language of different literary genres

4.6. The genesis of global Englishes (pg. 48) There are another approaches to explain the develop of
English as a global language: the so-called deviationist perspective, according to which global
Englishes are the result of ‘imperfect learning’ of L1 varieties of English, and a further perspective
that considers global Englishes as the result of complex processes of language contact. Global
Englishes have developed through five different chronologically ordered stages:

I. foundation: the spread of English in non-English speaking countries worldwide II. exonormative
use: the imposition of the varieties of English spoken by local native speakers III. nativisation: the
mixing and hybridisation of both local/native communities and English native speakers IV.
endonormative stabilisation: the birth of a indigenous variety which is accepted by the majority of
the

members of the speech community V. differentiation: acknowledgement and awareness of the

sociolinguistic value of the new variety of

English

4.7. Language contact: nativisation and acculturation (pg. 48)

12
• pidgin and Creoles (Nigerian English)

• Shift-Englishes (Aboriginal English

• English as lingua franca (ELF)

Language plurality and differentiation are always the result of process of language decentralisation,
which correspond to the re-adjustment of English in context far from its original one. The
nativisation and acculturation of a variety of English may take place in: borrowing of words from
the native language, nativisation of some standard English word, which are adapted with a new
meaning to the local context, the adoption and change of the original meaning of some standard
English words. English has undergone a process of acculturation, or manipulation and adaptation to
new socio- cultural context through a process of linguistic creativity. 4.8. The linguistic features of
global Englishes (pg. 49) Indefinite and definite article. In global English the indefinite articles Is
usually replaced by one. This type of variation is mainly due to individual language competence
through the influence of substrate languages. The deletion of the definite article is common in
global English, in particular with proper nouns or when there is a reference to a specified context.
The addition, happens where in standard English either the article would be omitted, or an indefinite
article would be present. Number. A common feature of global Englishes is the deletion of noun
plural marker –s. innovation in plural marking, includes also the regularisation of standard English
zero plural nouns (softwares, fornitures) and the use of post-nominal formsdem and them as plural
marker Gender. In standard English, in order to distinguish the three gender types (masculine,
feminine and neuter) we use he, she and it, in some global Englishes, because of the influence of
substrate languages, this distinction is not used and he, she and it co-reference pronouns are used
indiscriminately. Personal pronouns. In English, personal pronouns cannot be deleted, however,
deletion of personal pronouns is testified in several global Englishes. In some other cases, there is
the use of singular personal plural for plural. Demonstrative pronouns. Demonstrative pronouns
show great variation in the case of use of the singular this/that for plural form (these/those) Tense.
In standard English we distinguish between two main tenses: present and past. Global Englishes
vary with respect to the way they mark past tenses. Is also present a process of regularisation of
irregular verbs (e.g. drinked instead of drank). Aspect. In standard English we commonly use the
present simple to denote that something is habitual or recurrent. Global Englishes, use the –s
inflection to mark an habitual action. The progressive form, which in standard English is expressed
by the use of be + -ing participle, in global English is almost never used, because there is
nodistinction between dynamic and stative verbs. Another tendency is the use of would instead of
will to express a definite future. Concord. Global Englishes are also characterised by the absence of
the simple present 3rd person – s, and a widespread use of plural personal pronouns with the past
form was. Forms of to be. Unlike in standard English, the absence of copular be in the present tense
in commonly found in global Englishes. For habitual actions and process the invariant for beis also
used (e.g. they be playing) Word order. One of the main characteristics of global Englishes is
inverted word order, that can be: OV order in declarative sentences, the re-use of pronouns in
relative clause and the indirect question. Tag question. In global Englishes is common the use of
invariant tag isn’t it?(e.g. She ate, isn’t it?)
4.9. English as language of power (pg. 53) Another crucial aspect of PDE is language power or
power of English, that is mainly related to its functionality in contexts such as economy,
technologies, business, etc. The knowledge of English allows and favours social mobility and work
opportunities, and it signals the integration of a speech community within the so-called global
market. English has become a sort of cultural capital through which it is possible to access material
and immaterial goods.

4.10. The predominance of English (slide)

Positive. World languages have always existed A world language is necessary in a globalised world
A post-national language may be useful to world democracy and citizenship

Negative. English is killing other languages and cultures People are becoming lazy in learning other
languages English expresses a particular world view and favours its native speakers (cultural
imperialism) English has become uncontrollable