Preface 1. Why a global language? 2. Why English? The historical context 3. Why English? The cultural foundation 4. Why English? The cultural legacy 5. The future of global English References Index List of tables.

English as a Global Language

‘English is the global language.’ A headline of this kind must have appeared in a thousand news-papers and magazines in recent years. ‘English Rules’ is an actual example, presenting to the world an uncomplicated scenario suggesting the universality of the language's spread and the likelihood of its continuation. A statement prominently displayed in the body of the associated article, memorable chiefly for its alliterative ingenuity, reinforces the initial impression: ‘The British Empire may be in full retreat with the handover of Hong Kong. But from Bengal to Belize and Las Vegas to Lahore, the language of the sceptred isle is rapidly becoming the first global lingua franca.’ Millennial retrospectives and prognostications continued in the same vein, with several major newspapers and magazines finding in the subject of the English language an apt symbol for the themes of globalization, diversification, progress and identity addressed in their special editions. Television programmes and series, too, addressed the issue, and achieved world-wide audiences. Certainly, by the turn of the century, the topic must have made contact with millions of popular intuitions at a level which had simply not existed a decade before. These are the kinds of statement which seem so obvious that most people would give them hardly a second thought. Of course English is a global language, they would say. You hear it on television spoken by politicians from all over the world. Wherever you travel, you see English signs and advertisements.

English as a global language: Why a global language?

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English as a Global Language, Second Edition

DEFINING BLACK SOUTH AFRICAN ENGLISH English is a world language, likely to continue to play a leading role internationally as an important language of education and as the language of choice for business, science and popular culture (Platt et al. 1984: 28). A consequence of its dominant position and growth as the language of power and as an important medium for the dissemination of knowledge is the striking increase in the number of those learning and using English as ‘other’ language. In this process English has acquired various identities and multiple ownerships (Kachru 1986: 31), one of them being black South African English (BSAE). BSAE is the variety of English commonly used by mother-tongue speakers of South Africa's indigenous African languages. In terms of Platt et al's criteria (1984: 2–3), BSAE fits the category ‘new English’ in that it has developed through the education system as an L2 in an area where English is not the language of the majority, and has become localised for use in intra-regional communication, as is typical of colonial contexts in which English has been imported to compete with indigenous languages. However, defining BSAE precisely is problematic: strictly speaking, whose English is BSAE? Is it the English of those learners who have encountered only a smattering of English in informal contexts and use it occasionally for business or work purposes?

Language in South Africa: Black South African English

This paper undertakes the investigation of the disposition to stress of Nigerian users of English and the nature of spoken Nigerian English rhythm The subjects of the study were sixty Nigerians of varied socio-economic, educational and ethno-linguistic backgrounds and a native (British) English speaker, whose productions from reading a passage and speaking freely for three minutes on a common topic were analysed metrically and statistically, using a modified version of the Metrical Theory, the Wilcoxon Matched Pairs Signed Ranks Test and the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) In spite of earlier classifications, the study assumes the existence of three varieties of spoken Nigerian English characterized by their disposition to stress and speech rhythm: the “Non-Standard”, the “Standard” and the “Sophisticated” varieties, which are individually different but collectively similar yet different from Standard British English, represented by the control’s performance The existence of the three varieties is confirmed by the data The common performance features include a tendency to stress more syllables in words than the native speaker This feature, which is traceable to the influence of the syllable-timing rhythm of the subjects’ mother tongues, tends to characterize the Nigerian accent of English; but whereas the Non-Standard Variety conforms to the syllable-timing description the Standard and Sophisticated Varieties require further investigation

Stress and rhythm in the Nigerian accent of English: A preliminary investigation

(1984). Stress and intonation and the intelligibility of South African Black English. African Studies: Vol. 43, No. 2, pp. 217-230.

L. W. Lanham

Papers

Stress and intonation and the intelligibility of South African Black English