LANGUAGE SPREAD:

The Worlwide Spread of

English And Its Implications
for Foreign/Second
Language Teaching
“Sociology of English
as an
Additional Language”

by
Joshua A. Fishman
 Not only is English still spreading, but it is even
being spread by non-English mother-tongue
interests.
 The continued spread of English for international
and intranational purposes is not novel in the
annals of world history – or, if it is novel, it is in a
quantitative sense, in terms of scale, rate, and
degree, rather than in any qualitative sense or in
terms of kind.
 The spread has reached such an order of
magnitude that it is now significantly fostered
by the non-English mother-tongue world,
rather than being predominantly dependent
on resources, efforts, or personnel of English
mother-tongue world.
 Third World nations are themselves fostering
massive efforts via and on behalf of English.
 On the other hand, however, equally massive
programs via English are being conducted by
the Soviet Union, the Arab world, and mainland
China – world powers that have their own well-
developed standard languages and that
normally oppose various political,
philosophical, and economic goals of the
English mother-tongue world.
 Whereas the international and intranational
roles of French also continue to be fostered,
such efforts are conducted exclusively by
current francophone nations or by countries
under French cultural, political, or economic
domination.
 However, English, in addition to countries
under former (or current) Anglo-American
domination, is being fostered both by its
opponents and by “third parties.”
 English has become a major medium of
indigenous elites (“native foreigners”), of
tourism (“foreign foreigners”), of popular media,
of technical publications, of the metaphor of
mastery, of teenage slang, and even of
language-planning models and anti-models all
over the world.
 English is being regulated via both status
and corpus planning.
 The growth of English-speaking “false
foreigners” in various parts of the non-
English mother-tongue world (e.g. West
Africa, East Africa, India, Puerto Rico) is an
indication that a non-native variety of
English may succeed not only in stabilizing
itself cross-generationally, but also in
becoming a mother tongue in certain speech
networks.
 A common status-planning goal has recently
been implemented by the Philippines: English
as a medium of education has been restricted to
mathematics and natural sciences.
 Similar steps to make sure that English does
not intrude upon the domains of local ideology,
literature, history, and citizenship have
multiplied in Tanzania, Taiwan, India, France,
and Puerto Rico, and can be expected, quietly
but increasingly, elsewhere as well.
 Multilingualism is not a new phenomenon.
What is new is the fact that more and more
of the world’s multilingualism is being
governmentally recognized, sponsored,
planned and protected. English is spreading,
but its spread is being controlled and
counterbalanced by the sponsored,
protected spread of national and
subnational languages.
 As a result, more and more of those who
learn English do so in the context of other
languages that have their own benefits and
potentials. This influences the image of
English in many parts of the non-English
mother-tongue world, as well as in the
English mother-tongue world itself.
 The spread of English sketched up to now
seems stable enough at the moment, but the
lesson of History is quite clear, even its pace
is not predictable.
 Third-party inertia would continue to
reinforce English for decades or longer, but
ultimately a shift would take place. If and when
such a shift occurs, there may be few who will
shed a tear. The world has no tears left. At any
rate, crying takes time and, as all the world
has learned from American English, “time is
money.”
English as an International
Language
Even though the number of people who speak
English as their mother tongue is about 350-400
millions, the total number of users worldwide is about
between 1,5 and 2 billions according to David Crystal
(1985) (nearly five times of native speakers).
As this number continues to increase, numerous
functions and uses of English become apparent.
English as an International
Language
 This variety brings about some consequences some of which
are simply:
- The need for an awareness of facts about today’s English and
the pace of change.
- Standards and norms within English because there is a great
deal of variation.
- A criteria for evaluating success in learning and teaching
English.
- Profound perceptions of identity between natives and non-native
speakers. Ex: some native speakers react negatively to the
variety of English used by non-natives which in turn leads to
ethnic mistrust.
World English and Englishes Today
 Generally speaking, the label “English” can be
applied to many forms of language which are
identifiably different from each other. Ex: British
English, American English, Indian, West African,
Singapore, Australian English etc.
 According to H.L. Mencken the trend today is to
accept this differentiation within English and even
to employ a new plural “Englishes” as in the title.
World English and Englishes Today
 The fact that the number of non-native speakers of
English is four or five times higher than native
speakers creates a massive paradox and has
profound psychological consequences.
 One’s language is central element in his/her
personal, national and ethnic identity: so it is not
easy for native speaker to come to terms with the
variations that occur in nonnatives’ use of what
native speaker feels to be his/her own language.
World English and Englishes Today
 Another important aspect is the speed with
which nonnatives have increased. Perhaps 1
billion of the 1,5 billion nonnative English
users have learned English in the past 20
years.
 The rate of change has great implications for
the English teaching profession in many
countries.
The Origins of Present-Day English
 Why is it English that has come to occupy this
unique situation?
 It is young compared to Chinese or Greek or
Japanese.
 It was the language for exploration, trade and
conquest, but the same situation is true for Spanish,
Portugese and Arabic which do not have dominant
nonnative speaker populations as English.
 So why especially English?
Why English?
 There is the element of historical luck:
 The explorations of Captain Vancouver and
Cook, establishment of trading posts in Africa
and the Orient, the colonial settlements in
North America and Australasia, the profit
dominated grip in India and the industrial
revolution. All these events were dominated
by people who spoke English.
The Origins of Present-Day English
 Engish first came into existence around 1350, after
the 300 years of influence of Norman-French
occupation.
 It was assimilated onto a basis of Germanic dialects
with some editions from Scandinavian invaders.
 Until 1600 it was only spoken in England (by around
7 million people)
 But between 1600 and 1750 the seeds of today’s
global English were sown.
The Origins of Present-Day English
 Between 1750 and 1900:
 The size of the overseas that England dominated
increased greatly and they started to develop a
separate identity.
 The people in England-dominated areas had to
learn English in order to survive.
 In USA and Australia the colonies got their
independence from England.
The Origins of Present-Day English

 During the period between 1900 and 1950

colonies began to build schools and offer
education which made English spread
faster.
 One final characteristic that contributed to
the spread of English is that it is inherently
a borrowing language.
 For ex: French is a language which
expresses the purity of the language.
English in the Modern World: New
Uses and New Functions
 After 1950 all the colonies of Britain became
independent. So the role of English has changed
from an instrument of subservience to a window on
the world of science and technology.
 Also as the communications revolution got under
way, English became dominant in the international
media, radio and TV. Today the international pop
music industry relies on English just like the space
science and computing technology.
British And American English: Two
Branches of the Family
 Until 18th century English was not spoken anywhere
other than England. The beginning of American War
of Independence was the start of an English that
was identifiably and proudly American, not British.
 In practice, English in Canada, Puerto Rico, the
Phillippines, and the American Samoa is
recognizably related to American, and all other NS
and NNS varities are related to British English.
British And American English
 Linguistically American and British English are
far more similar than different. At the level of
grammar there are very few trivial differences.
 Ex: in hospital (BE)

in the hospital (AE)

The book will be published on Friday. (BE)
The book will be published Friday. (AE)
British And American English
 At lexical level there are a lot of differences but the
differences in vocabulary does not interrupt the flow
of meaning most of the time.
 At the level of pronunciation, the systems (of
vowels, consonants, stress etc.) are similar but the
coloring of the sounds is different.
 Ex: AE has an “r” colored vowel in words like bird,
peer, park, etc. whereas BE accents have no
indication of such coloring.
British And American English
 The stress on two-syllable words is
different.
 Ex: AE: CIGarette

BE: cigarETTE
AE: ADdress
BE: adDRESS
Local Forms of English
(LFE)

Wherever there is an English-using community

which is sufficiently stable and large, there
may arise localized forms of English such as
“Singapore English” and “East African
English.”
LFEs vary greatly and in numerous ways. Some
are complex with many subdivisions. Although
most of them have detailed anatomies, they are
very different in terms of their variations.
E.g. “Indian English” is the name commonly
applied to many subdivisions of the LFE in India.
“Philippine English” also displays a considerable
range of internal variations. “Sierra Leone
English” has fewer variations but reflects history
of Sierra Leone.
 LFEs change with time because of the
different history of the status and teaching
of English. New EFLs can emerge: for
example, there is growing evidence of an
“Educated European English,” used by
business people, professional
administrators from France, Germany,
Holland, etc.to communicate together in
English but each his/her own accent.
NS-NNS, Mother Tongue, Foreign Language,
Second Languae
There are four perspectives which causes
confusion about whether English is an international
language. These are:
the English language and the populations who use
it.
the individual and the language or languages
he/she is able to use.
the status of English within a given country.
the learning and teaching of English.
 The individual human being, user of
language, acquires language during
infancy and childhood. This primary
language is the language used by the
child’s mother which is labeled as mother
tongue.
 There are strong reasons for believing that
the acquistion of mother tongue and
subsequent language is inhently different
in terms of gaining practical command in
these languages.
 English is a foreign language within a
community when it has no special standing but
is simply “just another language”. English is EFL
in Korea, Brazil, China, France, and so on.
 English is a second language when it has
special standing, such as being acceptable in
the courts of law, being the medium of
instruction in the educational system, being
commonly used on radio or television, and
where there are major newspapers puplished in
English. English is ESL in Nigeria, Hong Kong,
Philippines, and so forth.
Why does the FL/SL
distinction matter?
It makes a very considerable difference when it
comes to the teaching and learning of English,
whether the environment is FL or SL since it affects,

 the extent of the learner’s prior familiarity with English

 the learner’s expectations of success.
 both the average level of attainment reached by most
learners.
 the ultimate norms or goals for success which learners and
teachers set themselves.
Attitudes, Norms, and Standards
 Among the great majority of the world’s English
users, non-native users speak and write varieties
different in detail from native varieties. However,
native speakers despise these varieties; these NS
attitudes are in turn perceived by NNS as being
arrogant and insulting.
 E.g. “to have one’s English labeled Indian was
an ego-cracking linguistic insult”
Kachru (1986)
 A similar conflict of attitudes occurs whenever a
native speaker rejects non-native varieties of
English.The basic reason for this native
speaker’s attitudes is ignorance: a total lack of
awereness of the existence of effective,
functional, elegant, and literary non-native
varieties of English.
 Consequently, teachers of EFL/ESL wrongly
equate variations from NS norms with classroom
errors, or regard NNS varieties as some kind of
on the path to NS English.
• According Widdowson, the spread of
English may be viewed in terms of three
concentric circles representing the types of
spread, the patterns of acquistion, and the
functional domains in which English is used
across cultures and languages. Kachru
labeled these as the inner circle, outer circle
(or extended circle), and expanding circle.
• The inner circle refers to the traditional bases
of English- the regions where it is the primary
language in ters of the users.
• The outer circle forms a large speech
community with great diversity and distinct
characteristics.
• The expanding circle requires a recognition of
English as an international language in order to
understand the function of English.This circle is
expanding rapidly and has resulted in numerous
performance varieties in Engish.
• Consequently, when we investigate how
English has spread throughout the world
and been accepted as a foreign and
second language, we see that Britain’s
colonies and the need to teach it to great
numbers of immigrants in United States
have contributed to the acceptance of
English as an international language.
Is There a Global Norm or
“Standard” for English?
Each English speaking community sets
its own goals and targets. BECAUSE,
there is no academy or authority for
English.
 Two components of English are taught
and learnt without variation. These are:
 Grammar
 Vocabulary
 Accents and lexico grammars belong
together and do not switch and they are
local except one. THAT IS WHAT?
 The grammar and vocabulary of educated
usage.
 Us had best take us coats: happen it
will rain.( We had better take our coats: it
might rain.)
 This is a north-east English usage.
Which English should I learn or
teach?
Should I learn or teach American
rather than British?

 Learn educational English.

 Choose the one that will be most useful.
 Teach the kind of English you use.
Learning and Teaching English as an
International Language

Non-Native Speakers Non-Native Speakers

“It is the widespread use of English which
makes it an international language. This
does not mean, however that soon every
one everywhere will be speaking English.”

REF: Smith (1983)

“English is being used as an international
language in;
 Diplomacy
 International Trade
 Tourism etc.”

REF: Smith (1983)

Resource Countries: (Britain, US)
- Provide the intellectual and material bases
of EFL/ESL
- Supply teachers for work in NNS Countries

India China
Belgium Morocco
Two Further Dimensions of Change
1. The great advance in effective learning
of English through informed teaching
2. Increase in professionalism in teaching
and in teacher preparation
THE FUTURE OF ENGLISH

Language matters
Intelligibility and identity
Intelligibility is a traditional criterion. There are
several well-known instances of English regional
accents and dialects causing problems of intelligibility
to people from a different dialect background,
especially when encountered at rapid conversational
speed.
The problems largely resolve when the
speakers slows down, or they reduce to difficulties
over isolated lexical items.
The changing situation
English is now spoken by more people (as a first,
second, or foreign language) than any other language
and is recognized by more countries as a desirable
lingua franca than any other language.
But it is important to recognize that unprecedented
scale of the growth in usage (approaching a quarter of
the world’s population) has resulted in an unprecedented
growth in regional varieties.
 The issue of identity has been central to debate
about the nature of Creole and pidgin Englishes around
the world. But it is only in recent decades (chiefly, since
the independence era of the 1960s) that the diversity has
become so dramatic, generating a huge literature on
‘world Englishes’ and raising the question of linguistic
identity in fresh and intriguing ways.
Hybrids
“Hybrid is a word composed of elements from
different languages.”

Different degrees of language mixing are apparent:

at one extreme, a sentence might be used which is
indistinguishable from Standard English. At the other
extreme, a sentence might use so many words and
constructions from a contact language that it becomes
unintelligible to those outside a particular community.
 In between, there are varying degrees of
hybridization, ranging from the use of a single lexical
borrowing within a sentence to several borrowings, and
from the addition of a single borrowed syntactic
construction (such as a tag question) to a reworking of
an entire sentence structure.
In addition, the pronunciation shows similar degree
of variation.
 Hybridization has been a feature of English since
Anglo-Saxon times. Any history of English shows that
the language has always been something of a ‘vacuum-
cleaner’, sucking in words and expressions from the
other languages with which it has come into contact.
But today, with more contact being made with other
languages than even before, the scale of the borrowing
is much greater than it has been in the past.
Novel developments
Linguistic change has in store for us many novel
kinds of hybrid.
For example;
Although several languages are co-official in the
Europian Union, pragmatic linguistic realities result in English
being the most widely used language in the corridors of
Brussels. But what kind of common English emerges, when
Germans, French, Greeks, and others come into contact,
each using English with its own pattern of interference from
the mother tongue? There will be the usual sociolinguistic
accommodation, the result will be a novel variety of ‘Euro-
English’- a term which has been used for over a decade with
reference to the distinctive vocabulary of the Union.
WSPE and WSSE

Standard English, as it currently exists, is a global

reality only with reference to the written language: it
might more accurately be called World Standard Printed
English (WSPE).
Apart from a few instances of literature and humour
involving the representation of regional dialect, and the
occasional US/UK spelling variation, WSPE has no
regional manifestations.
 But if a spoken equiavalent to WSPE develops –
World Standard Spoken English (WSSE), a regionally
neutral international spoken standard, acting as a
stabilizing force on global spoken diversity- this situation
will change.
An International Norm
“Whatever the eventual
WSSE, it will occupy a world
which, as far as its use of
English as a spoken lingua
franca is concerned, will be a
multidialectal one.”
 One day there will additionally be an
international standard of spoken English, to
be used as a means of international
communication in an increasingly diversified
world.

 It anticipates a day when learners will have

to adapt their British Standard English to an
international norm- or vice versa, learning
an international norm first and modifying it
to British (or US, etc.) English.
 Teaching Matters
Therotical and pedagogical questions raised by the emergences of
hybrid trends and varieties:
 They blur the long-standing distinctions between “first”, “second” and
“foreign” language.

 They make us reconsider the notion of “standard” especially when we

find such hybrids being used confidently and fluently by groups of
people who have education and influence in their own regional setting.

 They present the traditionally clear-cut notion of “translation” with all

kinds of fresh problems, for at what point in a conversation should we
say that a notion of tarnslation is relevant, as we move from
“understanding” to “ understanding most of the utterances precisely” to
“understanding little of the utterances precisely” to “understanding none
of the utterances, despite its containing several features of English”?

 At what point would our insistence on the need for translation cause an
adverse reaction from the participants, who might maintain they are
“speaking English” even though we can not understand them?
Towards a new pedagogy...
 There is need for increased recognition of the
fundamental importance of distinguishing
between production and reception skills in
language teaching.

It is a fact that there are new hybrids

emerging in foreign-language contexts all
over the English-speaking world.
Towards a new pedagogy... (cnt’ed)
 from a production point of view, there is a strog
case for pedagogical conservatism. If one is used
to teaching Standard English and RP (received
pronunciation) accent, then one should continue
to do so.
 But from the viewpoint of listening comprehension,
there is an equally strong case for pedagogical
innovation. It is a fact that RP is changing and that
many forms of “regionally modified RP” are now to
be heard among educated people in Britain and
abroad. It is a fact that several regional accents
are now more prestigious than they used to be
and are being used in settings which would have
been inconceivable twenty years ago. (radio,
television)
Flexibility and Variety
 Students should be prepared by teachers
for a world of staggering linguistic
diversity.
 Somehow, teachers need to expose them
to as many varieties of English as
possible, especially those which they are
most likely to encounter in their own
locale. The absolutist concept of “proper
English” or “correct English” needs to be
replaced by relativistic models.
 Familiarity breeds content- but also contempt,
when it fails to keep pace with social realities. All
over the world there are people losing patience
with what they percieve to be an irrational
traditionalism.

 Accepted local usages may (will!) come into

conflict with traditional standards.

 While there are still some parts of the world

where there is a reverential attitude towards
British English in general, and RP in particular,
this attitude is rapidly being replaced by a
dynamic pragmatism.
The new reality...
The emphasis has got to move away from “British
English” or at least to a revised concept of British
English which has variety at the core.

WHAT IS BRITISH ENGLISH TODAY?!?

 The spoken British English of Britain is already a
mass of hybrid forms.

 What we might call “classical” RP is probably

down to 2 per cent of the population now; and
modified forms of RP are increasingly the norm,
and regional accents are increasingly accepted in
educated contexts.
Linguistic diversity and language
health
 For in some parts of the world the wisest advice
would be to recommend that we divert some of our
resources to maintaining the life of minority
languages.
 Identity and intelligibility are both needed for a
healthy linguistic life.
 The responsibility of doing something to try to
minimize the ongoing damage to the world’s
ecolinguistic environment belongs to every one,
whether they are ELT specialists or not.
A change in mindset...
 If we observe a group of well-educated people
from Ghana, or India, or Japan, talking happily
together in their country in English, and when we
find we can understand little of it,
 what are we to say?
 Are we to blame the teaching methods,
theeducationla system, the motivation of the
learners?
 Do we continue trying to make their speech
improve towards the standard British model (or
US, Australian, or whatever we are using)?
 Or do we recognize the possibility that here we
may have a new variety of English which has
achived some viability?
Prediction of David Graddol
 Power centers are ever-changing and one they
situation might be vice-versa, Standard English
speaker may need to interact with others in others’
dialect and may have to take pains to accomodate
to their dialect (or, of course, language), if they
want to make inroads into their markets.
 We need to begin thinking about how such
scenerios of mutual respect would relate to our
current teaching models and policies.
“Best practice” in a new century
“Eveywhere is in the same boat. Or, to be more
accurate, they are all in their own boats, each
taking on board the waters of diversification and
hybridization at its own rate.”

The chief task waiting ELT is how to devise

pedogogical policies and practices in which the
need to maintain an international standard of
intelligibility, in both speech and writing, can be
made to confortablyexist alongside the need to
recognize the importance of international
diversity, as a reflection of identity, chiefly in
speech and eventually perhaps also in writing.
 ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING IS IN
THE BEST POSITION TO DO THIS AS IT
HAS BEEN COPING WITH DIVERSITY
FOR CENTURIES.

 English had readily borrowed hundreds of

words from other languages and perhaps
this feature has been an element in its
global growth.
 Any move to a new mindset is
never easy, and some will not
wish to make it, for old habits
die hard.

 “A renewal is fruitful only when

it goes hand in hand with
tradition.”
References:

 Kachru, B. Braj. (ed.) (1992) The Other Tongue: English across cultures,
University of Illinois Press.
Chapters by
J.A. Fishman “Sociology of English as an additional Language”,
and
P. Strevens “English as an International Language” pp. 19-47

 Crystal, D., Chp. 4, “The Future of Englishes”, (Burns and Coffin, 2001)