Showing papers in "World Englishes in 1986"

The power and politics of English

Abstract: The issues related to power and politics of the English language are presented specifically in relation to the unprecedented global spread of the language. Several perspectives—linguistic and non-linguistic—used to conceptualize the relationship between language and power are considered, particularly that of Michel Foucault. The power-related issues, and their manifestations and implications, are seen in terms of various control-acquiring strategies resulting in political manipulations and language conflicts. The interplay of power and politics within the three Concentric Circles of English (Kachru, 1985a) is shown in issues related to sociolinguistics, linguistic innovations and language pedagogy. It is claimed that the most vital power is that of the ‘ideological change’ which has been attributed to the knowledge of the English language and literature in the Outer and Expanding Circles. The paper aims at providing a blueprint for the study and conceptualization of selected issues related to the power and politics of an international language.

Bridging the paradigm gap: second language acquisition theory and indigenized varieties of English

Abstract: It is argued that there is a paradigm gap that has prevented research on second-language acquisition (SLA) theory and indigenized varieties of English (IVEs) from making substantive contributions to each other While it is true that studies of IVEs and their acquisition have been impressionistic (non-empirical) and often atheoretical, the lack of rapprochement is also due to SLA theory's excessive reliance for its models on acquisition in native-speaker environments and ignorance of the dynamics of language use in multilingual settings. This has resulted in the neglect and misunderstanding of IVEs. It is shown that IVEs represent a number of significant sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic variables, the investigation of which will put SLA theory on firmer theoretical ground and give it greater explanatory power

The power of the English language in Thai media

Abstract: This article will focus on how the English language came to Thailand and how it is used today, particularly in advertising and the media. The first part of this article will be devoted to the historical events which have contributed to the development and widespread use of the English language from its first penetration to the present. The second part is a description of the present-day phenomena of the Thai media. The scope of the discussion will be confined to advertising messages which appear on television and radio, in newspapers and magazines, and on billboards and posters. The third part involves the assessment of the impact of English based on the historical account and on various salient factors which justify the adoption of Western life-styles along with the English language and the assimilation of Western cultural dimensions with the indigenous.

Sociolinguistic context and second‐language acquisition: acculturation and creativity in Malaysian English

Abstract: Apparent similarities between linguistic processes involved in second-language acquisition and in the nativization of norms in non-native varieties of English have led many researchers to interpret nativization as merely the fossilization at a societal level of an interlanguage of native speaker varieties of English [e.g. Platt, John and Weber, H. (1980) English in Singapore and Malaysia—Status: Features: Functions; and Selinker, L. (1972) International Review of Applied Linguistics, 10, 209–231]. This paper presents evidence to the contrary from the output of one such process, lexical transfer, in the nativization of Malaysian English. The paper presents an historical summary from the colonial era of the sociolinguistic context of Malaysian English, focusing on the domains of English and Malay in Malaysia, and on the relative socioeconomic and political status of Malaysia's major ethnic populations. Analyzed within this context, data presented from English language newspapers and ESL textbooks demonstrate that transfer from Malay to standard Malaysian English does not result from ‘interference’ leading to fossilization. Rather, it is a creative process reflecting a high degree of bilingual proficiency in Malay and English, by which English is acculturated in a sociolinguistic context unique to Malaysia (e.g. ethnicity, identity and status.)

Exotic Other: Western representation of India in English literature and film

Abstract: This paper seeks to point out the power of language and the power of the visual image in determining and constituting thought and imagination, and to demonstrate how this power operates within a certain knowledge system and cultural discourse. This paper focuses attention on Western representations of India in creative literature and film. One could have illustrated this by selecting for analysis works of literature and cinema which do not enjoy a wide reputation as creative and serious efforts and which present obvious stereotypes. However, such a course of action would not have allowed the opportunity to examine the complex implications of the thesis explored in this study. Instead this investigation is based on an outstanding novelist and a well respected filmmaker—E. M. Forster and David Lean. The work analyzed in this paper is the novel, A Passage to India, and its film version. Forster is considered to be one of the most important English novelists of the twentieth century, and David Lean is a highly gifted film director who has successfully translated into cinema distinguished novels of Dickens and Pasternak. This study shows that even such highly esteemed creative artists as E. M. Forster and David Lean were unable to rise above the dictating and determining power of language and image, and the discourse that it instituted.

The English of adolescent and young adult Vietnamese refugees in the United States

Abstract: Since the fall of Saigon in 1975, significant numbers of Vietnamese refugees have been arriving in the United States. The current situation gives rise to unique laboratory for observing the development of a variety of English, given the social circumstances that led to the abrupt influx of refugees. Based on sociolinguistic interviews with over 90 subjects in Northern Virginia, Christian et al. (1983) have described the ethnographic aspects of language usage and maintenance and the development of particular phonological amd grammatical features of English among four different age groups (10–12, 15–18, 20–25 and 35–55), and two different lengths of residency groups (1–3 and 4–7 years of residency) of Vietnamese immigrants. Language values and attitudes encourage both the use and maintenance of Vietnamese in some situations as well as the development of English proficiency. The specific investigation of English structures such as plural, third person singular absence, multiple negation, and unmarked tense indicates that the emerging variety is resisting diffusion from the nonstandard dialects of English while perpetuating some modification of English structures that may give rise to a unique ethnic variety of English.

Language as power apparatus: observations on English and cultural policy in nineteenth‐century India

Abstract: This paper raises some theoretical issues on language as power and examines the role of English language and media in modern India in terms of the British cultural policies in nineteenth-century India, and Indian reactions to those policies. The power of language is conceptualized as forces of strategic relations supporting and suported by types of knowledge. The British cultural policies in India, based on particular types of knowledge about India, first developed as the Orientalist policy, and later changed to the Anglicist policy. Each of those had a different knowledge-base, each supported a different position regarding English and Western education for the Indians, and each elicited a different response from the Indians. The role of English as a power apparatus was determined by certain relationships between the British colonialists and the Indian intellectuals, as they confronted each other in the context of the cultural policies and reactions to those policies. The net result was the appropriation of English in India as a special cultural resource allocated and used for specific strategies purposes. The development of Indian English was the result of that cultural appropriation.

Second language acquisition research and the study of non‐native varieties of English: some issues in common

Abstract: It is proposed that the study of basilectal and acrolectal Singapore English can contribute to a better understanding of second-language acquisition and use. This proposal is made on the basis of developmental and performance parallels among: the speech continuum of Singapore English (acrolect, mesolect and basilect), dialectal variation in New York City, and the evidence from second-language development and use. This paper particularly emphasizes the operation of the monitor and specifications of the hierarchy of difficulty in the acquisition of syntactic structures. This paper suggests some ways in which the two lines of research (i.e. the descriptions of non-native varieties of English and stages/variability in second-language production) might be combined to enhance the advancement of each. The primary focus is on Singapore English.

Target Language Variation and Second-Language Acquisition: Learning English in New York City.

Abstract: The role of dialect variation in the acquisition of American English by adult second language learners was investigated. Subjects, adult learners of English as a second language in New York City, represented a range of native backgrounds, proficiency levels and socioeconomics status. Learners' reactions to standard English, New Yorkese (New York nonstandard English) and Black English were considered. First, the learners' developing ability to detect dialect differences and evaluate samples in terms of their own preferences and impressions was assessed. Results showed that learners can discriminate between dialect samples at early stages of acquisition but native norms and stereotypes are acquired as proficiency increases. Advanced-level participants in the study paralleled native judgements of standard and nonstandard English speakers. Post hoc interviews, however, showed that learners' impressions of Black English were more clearly defined than those relating to New Yorkese and that personal experience played the crucial role in the development of dialect-related stereotypes. A second series of experiments focused on the role of dialect intelligibility in learning English as a second-language for middle-and working-class learners. Findings indicated that Black English was harder for both groups to understand while New Yorkese was more difficult for middle-class learners than for their working-class counterparts. The standard was the most comprehensible for all subjects. These studies show that dialect differences in a second-language present problems for learners including variable intelligibility and negative learner attitude towards some varieties and speakers which may crucially affect second-language input.

The power of words: pressure, prejudice and politics in our vocabularies and dictionaries

Abstract: The use, nature, impact and general potency of words—whether in their free state or as listed in dictionaries—is too large a subject to cover in a paper of this length. I have therefore limited myself to five areas that I take to be fundamental in the issue of words as tokens or counters in the various power games that we consciously or unconsciously engage in. These areas are: First, bias and centricity (ego-, ethno-, Anglo- and so forth) in our thinking, our sociocultural dispositions, and our linguistic behavior; second, the inherently arbitrary and fictional aspect of words as contrasted with their capacity to influence us for good or for ill; third, the container-like quality of words, through which each word carries a relatively determinate fragment of our sociocultural worldview, with the result that, although technical terms like ‘xenon’ can be easily defined, many other words—such as ‘word’ itself—are virtually impossible to define in a compact and comprehensive manner: fourth, the historical, cultural and technological factors that have predisposed us to make certain (often implicit) assumptions about what words are and what they do; and fifth, the possibility that, with a humane application of the discoveries of linguistics, we can improve our perceptions of such things as sociolinguistic centricity as well as our skill in minimizing the frictions of (often unintended) ethnic, sexist and elitist slurs.

Language as power: Gabriel Okara's The Voice as a paradigm

Abstract: This paper briefly discussses the nature and mode of expression of power as a prelude to stressing the importance of contexts when considering language—with English as the primary focus—as power. That the sense of power varies from culture to culture has implications for the study of how English is used in the non-Anglo-Saxon nations, particularly in connection with the status of English and the new literatures in English that have emerged. Representative attitudes to its use as a literary medium are noted and discussed through a selective analysis of Gabriel Okara's The Voice. Because his approach was systematic, broadly comprehensive and sustained, Okara explores a variety of possible directions of nativisation of creative purposes. Moreover it is undertaken within the larger intention of how the decolonisation of English is to reflect the character of a particular society whose shape and ethos are both distinctive and new to the creative reach of English.

English and a grammarian's responsibility: the present and the future

Abstract: The distinction between descriptive and prescriptive grammars is by no means as sharp as is generally assumed. Descriptive grammars need to take account of prescriptive norms in describing how the language functions since they affect choices in at least certain styles. Descriptive grammarians should indeed offer guidance on prescriptive norms, on clarity in written communication, and on linguistic morality. Descriptive grammars embody value judgments on the scope of the grammar. Grammars of English are grammars of the standard varieties of just the United States and Britain because insufficient research has been undertaken on other standard varieties. Research is particularly needed on the language in the Outer Circle of English users where new standard varieties are emerging. Grammarians in those countries have a responsibility to be language planners: to play their part in both describing and shaping standard varieties for their countries. They can thereby contribute to ensuring that their national standards will take their place as constituents of an International Standard English.

Exploring intercultural communication through literature and film

Abstract: Students of intercultural communication have utilized almost exclusively the writings of social scientists. Literature (prose fiction, poetry and biography) and film have been little used except to illustrate what social scientists have discussed. The potential of literature and film for our understanding of intercultural relations is conisderable, however, and can be explored both through the analysis of cultural patterns expressed in the works, and in the analysis of intercultural themes, of conflicts and resolutions by the characters, in novels, biographies and films. A recent study of the latter kind identified several significant ‘coping mechanisms’ of ethnic minorities in the United States which distinguished those who prevailed in a world of cultural pressures from those who did not. Such attitudes and abilities had been overlooked in the methods and goals of most social-science writings. Moreover, there is evidence that literature majors in college have performed better in some intercultural encounters—as US Peace Corps volunteers—than have graduates of programs in the social or physical sciences. There are many problems, however, in drawing upon literature and film. One problem is the possibility for gross distortion of a people by a writer or filmmaker whose audience has no means of checking against reality. These images, in fact, can receive such wide acceptance that future audiences expect to have this image confirmed in subsequent works (‘standardization of error’). Even very good works, when they achieve the status of ‘classics’, lead readers and audiences to want more books and films which reconfirm a simplified and outdated image. This works against smaller, poorer and non-English-speaking societies especially, as only those works which fit the expectations of English-speaking readers or viewers elsewhere are likely to be translated and published or produced. Literature allows for a much more varied manner of story telling than does the conventional social-science genre. It allows for more varied points of view, more emotional involvement, and the taking of a stand on issues; in addition, it can draw upon all of the resources that evoke an experience rather than being about experiences. We need to utilize more fully the power of the image and word in our understanding of intercultural communication.

Cross-cultural understanding and English literatures from the Other Circles

Abstract: This paper reports on the effectiveness of using creative writing in English to increase cross-cultural understanding. The study involved Japanese businessmen at the Japan America Institute of Management Science in Honolulu, Hawaii, using portions of a Japanese novel (44 pages of Balloon Top, written originally in English by Nobuko Albery) and a Thai novel (22 pages of Little Things written originally in English by Prajuab Thirabutana). The results indicate that this kind of creative writing can be an extremely valuable way to increase the interest in and understanding of other cultures outside the formal classroom.

English in the linguistic transformation of Hawaii: literacy, languages and discourse

Abstract: The event of contact with the West has always been for the Other a moment of violence, rupture and discontinuity. As a colonized Other, Hawaii was not just modernized and modified, but transformed and reformed. The interactive forces that had constituted the dynamic of Hawaiian history before Cook were suddenly and radically skewed, eliminated and replaced by Western forces of power—not the least of these being language. What had been the totality of the world for the Hawaiians was suddenly only a part, a small part, of a global system containing other cultures, other languages, and other epistemes of knowledge and discourse. In this paper I will focus on language and the linguistic transformation of Hawaii, viewing language as socially constitutive, as creative and recreative, as consciousness that is saturated by and that saturates all social activity. Working within this constitutive view of language, the linguistic intrusion of the West takes on a significance, as significance, that is integral to every aspect of the Western penetration of Hawaii. Three fundamental changes in language were initiated with Western contact: (1) the radical shift from orality to literacy, (2) the displacement of Hawaiian by English as the dominant language of discourse, and (3) the repositioning and redefinition of Hawaii, the Hawaiians and their material and symbolizing practices by discourses informed by English, particularly ideologies embedded in American English. The first two involved fundamental changes in cognitive processes and social consciousness; all three reconstituted social relationships. Forms and practices of symbolic representation, including the most basic one of language itself, are never exterior to material forces. They are part of ideological social practices that are inscribed by history and embedded in social praxis. The English language and practices of that language, were integral to the social restructuring of the Hawaiian islands by Western capitalism, the dispossession and alienation of the Hawaiians, and the ultimate redistribution of power. What, then, is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms—in short, a sum of human relations, which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins (Nietzsche, 1968: 46–47).

Film, thought and language

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to identify and clarify some of the ways pictorial images in the form of still photography, illustrated magazines, film, television and computer graphics are changing the way we read, write and think. The single most easily observed and far-reaching change is the way pictorial images are altering the content of our concepts. Pictorial images have become the illustrating exemplars of many base-level concepts—kinds of things, people, places and situations with consequences for Reading: readers, instead of drawing on first-hand experience or imagination, are filling out mental pictures from their vast experience with pictorial images; Writing: contemporary writers of fiction or non-fiction tend to eschew lavish description and key up mental images by a single term or referring phrase; Thinking: although it appears that the heavy influx of photographic images is dulling or inhibiting certain creative activities associated with reading and writing, in fact, pictorial images are stimulating other creative activities of mind that render the thought of a particular time coherent. Further, English as an international language of communication is becoming more universal as photographic or television images go everywhere, but English as a literary language is becoming more parochial as writers, in response to the accelerating number of pictorial images, are turning away from traditional narrative description to explore the possibilities of language itself.

English and Tagalog in Philippine literature: a study of literary bilingualism

Abstract: Attacks on Philippine literature in English have come from left-wing intellectuals, who see the English language as a tool of American neo-colonialism, and literary historians, who see the 80-year-old literature as insignificant in the context of five centuries of Philippine writing in various vernacular languages. Despite these attacks, Filipino creative writers have continued to write in the English language, even during the last 20 years when the nationalist campaign against English was at its height. Ironically, even those who strongly advocate the sole use of Tagalog (or Tagalog-based Pilipino) and, therefore, the rejection of a foreign language, as a medium of creative expression have written extensively in English. Several major Filipino writers today write in both English and Tagalog. Some write in both English and other vernacular languages. These bilingual writers belong to a long line of Filipinos who wrote in both their first and their second languages. Because of the large number of individual literary pieces that can be said to shed light on the phenomenon of bilingualism in creative writing, it is not possible at this time to do a comprehensive survey of writing done by bilingual or multilingual writers. It is more manageable to focus on the poetry of representative writers. Three modern Filipino writers who have published books of poetry in both English and Tagalog can be taken as representative: Cirilo F. Bautista, Edgar B. Maranan and Epifanio San Juan, Jr. Established methods of literary criticism reveal that Filipino writers use English for two main reasons: to capture certain realities not within the lexical capabilities of Tagalog, and to exploit the musical qualities of the foreign language. On the other hand, they use Tagalog primarily to capture nationalist realities. In broad terms, it may be said that English is used primarily to enhance form and Tagalog to enhance content. Because of the international character of English, poetry in English tends to import not only the words of the language, but also literary trends identified with the language. In a sense, then, poetry in English is more ‘Western’ than poetry in Tagalog. On the other hand, because of the ability of Tagalog to express nuances of meaning, especially in the areas of Filipino philosophy, psychology and sociology, poetry in Tagalog tends to be more homologous to Philippine society.

The cross‐cultural dimensions of English in religion, politics and literature

Abstract: The traditional Indian view of ‘power’ is that it is temporal, and therefore, it must seek its source in ‘authority’ which is spiritual. This approach provides a wholeness and annihilates the ego. Similarly, language, ceaselessly abused in daily intercourse and spheres of influence, should be frequently purified by invoking its divine origins. Both Christianity and Hinduism have recognized it as suggested by the Biblical Word and the primeval Vedic Aum, widely cherished by the Indian peasantry in its still living proverbial wisdom: Those who know how to speak have no quarrels like those who know how to eat have no illnesses! The cross-cultural dimensions of English in religion, politics and literature have been studied in their representative manifestations where language is seen as having the potential for enrichment of life no less than for debasement. Illustrations are included from Shakespeare, Milton, T. S. Eliot, Aurobindo and Arun Kolatkar as well as Gandhi and Nehru, with passing references to Western statesmen like Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan to exemplify the dual possibilities of language. While celebrating language, the essay salutes Silence from which all language emanates and to which it ultimately returns.

Input and Foreign/Second-Language Accuracy Order: A Reappraisal.

Abstract: This is a report on a morpheme study conducted with learners of English as a foreign language in Poland. The accuracy order of 11 morphemes obtained from the study was correlated with three other accuracy orders reported for English as a second language. Although the correlations showed some degree of similarity between foreign- and second-language accuracy orders, no definitive conclusions could be drawn from them because of the shortcomings of morpheme research methodology. Some of these shortcomings are discussed and some suggestions for future research are offered.