GLOBAL/WORLD

ENGLISHES:
Ebru Atak Damar, PhD
Variation
 THE HISTORICAL, SOCIAL, AND
POLITICAL CONTEXT
➢ Seventy-five territories where English is spoken

a) First language (L1)

b) Official (i.e. institutionalised) second language (L2)

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The two dispersals of English

➢ The first diaspora:

The migration of around 25,000
people from the south and east of
England primarily to North America
and Australia

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The two dispersals of English

➢ The second diaspora:

The colonisation of Asia and Africa,
led to the development of a number
of second language varieties, often
referred to as ‘New Englishes’

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 WHO SPEAKS ENGLISH? & HOW?

➢ a native language (ENL) ➢ English as a Native Language ,

➢ a second language (ESL) or English as a mother tongue
➢ a foreign language (EFL) ➢ English as a Second Language,
➢ English as a Foreign Language
➢ a lingua franca (ELF)

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Models and descriptions of the spread of English

KACHRU’S THREE CIRCLE MODEL

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 THREE-WAY CATEGORISATION

➢ The first diaspora to the other

➢ Inner Circle ENL countries ➢ norm-providing
➢ The second diaspora to the
➢ Outer Circle ESL countries ➢ norm-developing

➢ The ‘third diaspora’, to the

➢ Expanding ➢ norm-dependent
EFL countries
Circle

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 What is standard English?
➢ The dialect of educated people throughout the British Isles.
➢ The variety of the English language which is normally employed in
writing and normally spoken by ‘educated’ speakers of the language.
➢ It is that set of grammatical and lexical forms which is typically used in
speech and writing by educated native speakers.
➢ The Standard English of an English-speaking country as ‘a minority
variety’*
➢ The kind of English in which all native speakers learn to read and write
although most do not actually speak it

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 VARIATION ACROSS ENGLISHES

➢ British English ➢ The Outer Circle Englishes

➢ The Inner Circle Englishes For example, Indian English,
Philippine English, Nigerian
English, and Singapore English

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 LEVELS OF VARIATIONS

➢ Pronunciation,

➢ Grammar,

➢ Vocabulary/idiom,

➢ Discourse style

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 Levels of Variation
Pronunciation

Consonant sounds
• The pronunciation of /θ/ and /ð/ sounds
• /w/ is pronounced as /v/, i.e. ‘wet’ sounds
like ‘vet’.
• The voiceless sounds /p/, /t/, and /k/
‘pin’, ‘tin’, and ‘cap’ sound closer to ‘bin’, ‘din’,
and ‘gap’
• Voiceless instead of voiced : ‘feed’, ‘gave’, and
‘rob’ as ‘feet’, ‘gafe’ and ‘rop’.
• / ʃ / is pronounced as /s/: ‘ship’ sounds like ‘sip’.
 Levels of Variation
Pronunciation
Vowel sounds
• Vowel quality and vowel quantity

• The short and long vowels /I/ and /i:/ both as /ı/

• /a:/ without length, the word ‘staff ’, for example,

sounds closer to ‘stuff’

• Diphthongs have a tendency to be pronounced both

shorter and as monophthongs, i.e. the diphthong /eı/
in the word ‘take’ becomes [e] sounds as ‘tek’.
Levels of Variation:
Grammar
➢ a tendency not to mark nouns for plural
➢ a tendency to use a specific/non-specific system for nouns rather than a
definite/
➢ indefinite system, or to use the two systems side by side
➢ a tendency to change the form of quantifiers
➢ a tendency not to make a distinction between the third person pronouns
he and she
➢ a tendency to change the word order within the noun phrase.

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Levels of Variation
Grammar: Examples

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Levels of Variation
Grammar: Examples

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Levels of Variation:
Vocabulary/Idiom

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Levels of Variation:
Vocabulary/Idiom

‘to shake legs’ Malay idiom ‘goyang kaki’, meaning ‘to be idle’.

‘to be on the tarmac’, East African idiom meaning ‘to be in the process of seeking a new job’.

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Levels of Variation:
Discourse Style
Some examples of greetings are:

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 “
➢ ANY QUESTIONS?

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 References
You can find the reference list in the course syllabus.

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