Lesson 15

Variations in World Englishes: Linguistic Features

Topic:

 Phonology I,II, & III

 Lexis I, II, & II

The lecture is very important, whatever your predicament, if you must be safe from end of
semester banging from hackeous lecturers. If you ever bang for more than is safe, the school is
ready to fashee you. To avoid this, you must go beyond attending lectures; you must be a mad
jacker if you do it too much, you will end up as an aro in B1 some do burst lectures shao! Those
are the Nfites. Certainly, as a jambite, don’t try it. Longe (1999: 239)1

Introduction
For the users of the English in the Outer and Expanding Circles, English is either a second
language, or, if they are multilingual, it is one of the languages in their linguistic repertoire. As
such, their English is in constant contact with the languages of the regions which they inhabit.
Consequently, these varieties of English are influenced by the local language(s) in various areas
of their grammars and exhibit specific phonological, lexical, syntactic and discoursal
characteristics. The excerpt above from a text in Nigerian English exemplifies features that are
not familiar to users of other varieties of English. The text is, of course, coded in the student
slang of a particular campus. As such, it illustrates the uses of the language localized to suit the
purposes of a specific site in Nigeria. The features of Outer- and Expanding-Circle Englishes
may extend or restrict the rules of the Inner-Circle varieties of English. Findings of research in
identifying and describing these characteristics are summarized briefly here.

Phonology
There are phonological differences across all varieties of English. When we speak of someone
having an ‘accent’, what we mean is that the person exhibits a characteristic pronunciation that
we do not share. The differences are in stress and rhythm as well as in segmental features.
Stress and rhythm
Stress assignment in words in the Outer and Expanding Circles does not follow the rules that
operate in the Inner-Circle varieties. Word stress in the Outerand Expanding-Circle varieties may
seem idiosyncratic from the perspective of a speaker from the Inner Circle, e.g., ‘success for suc
cess (Nigeria), recog’nize for ‘recognize (India, Nigeria), etc. Actually, as most such varieties
have a syllabletimed rather than a stress-timed rhythm (Bamgbo.se, 1992; B. Kachru, 1983), it is
probably the case that the stress assignment follows the values attached to the morae (weight of
syllables in terms of duration) in these varieties. This seems to be the case in South Asian
English (SAE). Since the vowels in re- and -cog- are short and not as ‘weighty’ as the diphthong
in -nize, the primary stress goes with the heavier syllable (e.g., for Philippine English [PhE] see
Bautista, 2000; Tayao, 2004).2
Rhythm in varieties of SAE is based on the morae of the syllables; long syllables are twice as
long as short ones, but the quality of the vowels in long as well as short syllables remains the
same. In the case of a word with several long syllables, all the syllables are pronounced long,
irrespective of their stressed or unstressed character. This is in contrast to the Inner-Circle
varieties, where the stressed syllable in a word has a longer duration as compared to the
unstressed syllable; in fact, the characteristic rhythmic pattern of British English is such that in a
multi-syllabic word, the duration of the several unstressed syllables is roughly equivalent to that
of the one stressed syllable. Speakers of Outer- and Expanding-Circle varieties arrive at values
for syllables following the conventions of their first languages and assign stress accordingly. For
instance, in words such as biology, speakers assign the value to syllables as follows: ba-yo-lo-ji
and both ’bi-o-lo-gy and bi-o-’lo-gy are possible.

Such stress placement is attested in SAE, PhE and Singapore-Malaysian English (SME); see B.
Kachru (1983), Llamzon (1969, 1997), Platt and Weber (1980), and Zuraidah Mohd Don (2000)
for further discussion of these phenomena. In addition, speakers of these varieties do not utilize
stress to make a distinction between nouns and verbs in pairs such as Inner-Circle ’import and
im’port. They do not utilize contrastive stress for focussing, either (Bamgbo.se, 1992; Gumperz,
1982a, 1982b). Instead of JOHN did it, Nigerians say It was John who did it (Bamgbo.se, 1992)
and Indians say John only did it (Gumperz,1982b). Both sets of speakers are utilizing a familiar
device for emphasis. Nigerians use the cleft-sentence pattern ‘It was X …’ and Indians use an
emphatic particle ‘only’ as in their native languages. Emphasis and focus, as well as the
distinction between given and new information, are signalled by utilizing pitch and intonation in
ways which are very different from those utilized by the Inner-Circle varieties (Gumperz, 1982a;
1982b).

In most Outer- and Expanding-Circle varieties, there exists the phenomenon of ‘spelling
pronunciation’. For instance, a word such as plumber is pronounced with a medial -mb- cluster
since the word is spelled as it is. As English is learned in schools from local teachers, the
tradition of local pronunciation continues. Although the pronunciation of segmental sounds in
the Outer- and Expanding-Circle varieties hardly ever leads to communication breakdown or
even serious misunderstanding, the following information about the characteristics of sounds in
these varieties may be useful.

Sounds
In pronunciation, most Outer- and Expanding-Circle varieties display differences from the Inner-
Circle varieties, similar to those found between regional dialects within the Inner-Circle
varieties. Some of these differences lead to grammatical consequences which may affect
comprehension. One such feature is the simplification of final consonant clusters in Singapore-
Malaysian English, e.g., [lef] for left. By itself, in most contexts, there will probably be no
serious difficulty. It is noteworthy, however, that this feature leads to the loss of past tense
endings on verbs, e.g., pick for picked, and to the loss of plural markers on nouns, bed for beds.
There is potential for misunderstanding in such cases. These features occur not only in the Outer-
and Expanding-Circle varieties, but also in certain varieties of American English (e.g., African-
American Vernacular English [AAVE], see Chapter 15).
Some English sounds that are pronounced differently in the Outer- and Expanding-Circle
varieties are as follows. Only widely shared features are listed; this is not an exhaustive
description of any particular regional variety. Consonants and vowels are different as compared
to the Inner-Circle varieties in the following ways:3
1. Voiceless plosives, p t k, lose their initial aspiration so that the speakers of Inner-Circle
varieties often perceive them as b d g.
2. Fricatives f v P –d s z s z are often replaced by other sounds: f by ph (Indian English [IE]), v by
bh or w (IE), P by t (Chinese English [CE], SME, PhE) or th (IE), –d by d or z (CE, SME, PhE),
or d or dh (IE), z and z by j in most varieties; s and s are not kept distinct in many subvarieties,
and s, z, s and z may all be pronounced as s in PhE.
3. The clear and dark l (as in like and dull) are not distinguished in most
varieties.
4. Some speakers of Expanding-Circle varieties do not distinguish between
r and l.
5. Final consonant clusters are simplified in most East and Southeast Asian varieties. In some
varieties, initial consonant clusters with initial s are either simplified by inserting a neutral vowel
between the two consonants or pronounced with an initial vowel so that the cluster is no longer
initial, e.g., [sRpor.t] for sport, [islo] for slow (IE).

6. Almost all Outer- and Expanding-Circle varieties simplify the diphthongs and triphthongs of
the British variety, e.g., ei>e as in paid, ou>o as in bowl, au>aw as in our, pronounced [awRr].
7. Stressed and unstressed vowels are not distinguished.
8. In several varieties, -i and i, and u- and u are not distinguished, therefore, sleep and slip have
identical pronunciations, and so have pool and pull.

Occasionally the grammatical differences in the new varieties combine with the differences in
rhythmic patterns to cause serious problems in communication between speakers of Inner- and
other-Circle varieties. However, all users of English arrive at some accommodation as they
become more familiar with the variety in use among the interlocutors (Smith, 1992). Awareness
of variety differences thus promotes successful communication across varieties. The media have
unintentionally started playing a role in creating such awareness, as multinational channels such
as the British Broadcasting Corporation, Public Radio International and Cable News Network
employ more and more local reporters with a variety of accents to report on local and regional
events.

Grammar
The grammatical features that are common to a large number of varieties are described below in
comparison with the grammars of the American/British varieties, not because they are being
treated as ‘the norm’, but because they are extensively codified in grammars (e.g., Quirk et al.,
1985) and dictionaries (e.g., Webster, Random House, Longman), and most students of English
are familiar with them. What follows is a brief discussion of features that are widely
but not uniformly shared.

Nouns
The grammar of nouns deals with the dependency between articles and singular count nouns and
the distinction between count/mass and singular/plural.
Articles and determiners
English articles belong to a category that is defined in relation to nouns. For example, the articles
a(n) and the, though written as independent words, do not really have the privilege of occurring
as independent words. Similarly, singular count nouns such as boy, book, chair, etc., cannot
occur in a sentence without an article or some other determiner such as this, that, any, each, etc.
There is nothing comparable to the articles of English in many of the languages of the world,
though most languages have demonstratives such as this, that, etc.
References:

Compiled from

 Jenkins, J. (2009). World Englishes: A resource book for students. (2nd Ed.). Routledge:
London. pp 30-32
 Kachru, Y. & Nelson, C. L. (2006). World Englishes in Asian contexts. Hong Kong
University Press: Hong Kong. pp 35-38