The Emergence of World Englishes

Kevin Lloyd V. Hijastro, MAED-ELT

World Englishes nowadays is widely used in any part of the globe as

language of everyone. It is true when the phenomenon arises in the twentieth

century where the emergence and acceptance of a single language as an effective

means of communication across the globe. It is widely used in teaching and

learning by over 700 million around Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK,

the USA and other countries of Africa, Asia and Europe. (Crystal, 1985a; B.

Kachru, 1999; Kachru, Y. & Nelson, C., 2006). It is empirical that teachers may

use the teaching of World Englishes in academic institution freely depending on

the schema of the individual learners and their individual readiness on the

acquisition of the language. However, the accepted World Englishes could be

used globally and answers to the exclusive jargonize used of group using those

Global English which is the demonstration of English is spoken in every part of

the world, both among speakers within a particular country who share a first

language, and across speakers from different countries of first languages and

standard English that may considered as exclusivist per se.

Why do we use Englishes instead of English?

The term World Englishes was the center of question during the conference

of “World Englishes Today” held at the 1988 International TESOL convention

where the contexts, sociolinguistic and linguistic, within which English was

discussed both international and intranational during the conferences. The term

symbolizes the functional and formal variations, divergent sociolinguistic

contexts, ranges and varieties of English in creativity , and various types of

acculturation in parts of the Western and non-Western world. This concept

emphasizes. The concept emphasizes the “WE-ness” as describe by Kachru that

is not only limited to the native speakers of the language but also to the non-

native users of the language. English is a valuable linguistic tool used for various

function.

What are the effects of familiarity, either with the individual speaker or

with the variety of the language spoken, on intelligibility, comprehensibility and

interpretability?

Familiarity with variation creates awareness among users of all varieties

of English to the extraordinary ranges of possibilities for expression by those who

can draw on multicultural and multilingual experience. Such awareness makes

demands on monolinguals, as well as on anyone unfamiliar with the variety of

English employed by a speaker/writer from an unfamiliar part of the English-

using world. Variations in genres, styles, and devices have their effects on

English as a whole. It is in this sense that English is becoming an ever more

‘universal’ language, not in the sense that it is one code which can be acquired

in one place and then transferred to another as a whole, unadapt structure (B.

Kachru, 1986b: 170).(Kachru, Y. & Nelson, C. 2006).

There is, however, an equal measure of concern at the perceived variation

among Englishes and the apprehension that ultimately this will lead to the decay

and disintegration of the English language. Of course, what is at stake here is

not English per se, but Standard English, however we may choose to define it.

The last statement is valid in view of the fact that there already is a great deal of

variation in what is known as English, as has already been pointed out; there

are regional variations in, e.g., American and British Englishes, and there are

variations related to age, gender, etc.

In my position, I would agree that the Standard English would vary

depending on its regional variations like Philippines. When do we speak English,

we may often follow the pronunciation of British English nor American English.
It could be a huge opportunity to have a linguistic competence and will mark you

smart in talking and delivering messages. However, according to my linguistic

teacher, Ma’am Bolivia, she emphasized that variations would depend on the

appropriateness on how we would teach it to our students that they could

understand easily. It is important to bear in mind that English is an international

language and there are several cultures which use English as a second language

or as an institutionalized variety. (Kachru, 1992).

Nelson (2011) posited that the variety of words used to talk about kinds of

“understandings” and “meanings” in the epigraph above is undeniably

troublesome. Since English in recent decades has become ever more a worldwide

language, a “language of wider communication,” its forms and uses across

groups have become ever more topics of debate. These exchanges, not

infrequently heated, go on not only among academic specialists, but also in the

media and among people concerned with all aspects of linguistic productivity

and creativity. Discussants may attribute opponents’ stands on given issues to

ideology instead of a desirable pragmatism, or to one or another kind of

“liberalism” instead of a reasonable acquiescence to top-down guidance from

professionals, particularly language educators. Whatever the motivations for the

arguments are, and whatever evidence is amassed for them, and whatever

interpretations are imposed on that evidence, the controversies promise to rage

on for a long, interesting time. The field whose participants concern themselves

with language as it works in societies and cultures is usually called

“sociolinguistics.”

Sociolinguists are not interested in teaching a language as such, but they

are concerned with the complicated and complicating results of that resultant

learning on individuals, on groups, and on a society. Sociolinguistic

investigations range very widely, from analyzing and reporting on elements and

structures in a variety of, say, English that is unique to one locality or population
to concerns about the societal and economic elitism that may become associated

with being “an English speaker.” It is not hard to imagine that this intersection

of language and society will produce many various sets of questions that call for

resolution as we seek to better understand ourselves, and our relationships to

others, Nelson (2011).

Despite the widely-held acceptance of the term "variety" in sociolinguistics

as a neutral, technical term for language description, in fact the label is

somewhat indeterminately applied in practice. Hudson, for example, notes that,

from a linguistic perspective, non-technical labels such as "languages,"

"dialects," or "styles" have little consistency, asserting that this leaves us only

with the label of variety to refer to "a set of linguistic items with similar social

distribution" (Hudson, 1996: 20-1 as cited by Bolton, (2004).

After critically reviewing variety-based approaches to language, and the

use of such terms as "dialects," "registers," "pidgins and creoles," Hudson

registers "essentially negative conclusions" about the use of the term "variety" in

sociolinguistics, noting that (1) the borders between varieties of the same type

(e.g., one dialect from another) are often blurred; (2) similar problems exist

concerning different types of varieties (e.g., languages vs. dialects). For Hudson,

the solution thus is to avoid variety "as an analytical or theoretical concept and

to focus instead on the individual linguistic item":

For each item some kind of "social description" is needed, saying roughly

who uses it and when: in some cases an item's social description will be

unique, whereas in others it may be possible to generalize across a more or

less large number of items. The nearest this approach comes to the concept

of "variety" is in these sets of items with similar social descriptions, but their

characteristics are rather different from those of varieties like languages and

dialects. On the other hand, it is still possible to use terms like "variety" and
 "language" in an informal way ... without intending them to be taken

seriously as theoretical constructs. (Hudson, 1996: 25-6)

In my stand, the variety of World Englishes is based on the the study of

language in relation to social factors, including differences of regional, class, and

occupational dialect, gender differences, and bilingualism which is the form of

sociolinguistics. We do use English as language it could vary depending on its

place and where we are located at. We, Filipinos as the second language speakers

of the English language could pronounce well than the first language users in

the inner circle as describe by Kachru, we have this so called our own variety of

English in the Philippines since we are part of the outer circle as describe as

native-like variety when we speak, (Bolton, 2004).

Is World Englishes a global language in the 21st century teaching?

Proshina ( 2007) opposed to the global emergent and trend of World

Englishes as she claimed that there is no such thing as everyone in the world

speaks English for that is clearly not the case. It is clear however that English

is the language most frequently used when people communicate across

national/cultural borders. To be more accurate, it is recognized that there are

multiple Englishes being used to communicate across these boundaries. That

being the case, it is also acknowledged that information about these varieties as

well as exposure to them is needed if we are to enhance our chances of success

when attempting to communicate across cultures in English. When tracing the

roots of WE, most go back to two international, scholarly conferences which took

place in 1978; one at the East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA (1-15 April),

and the other at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, USA (30 June-

2 July). These two conferences resulted in two publications: English for Cross-

cultural Communication (Macmillan, London, 1981) edited by Larry E. Smith

and The Other Tongue: English Across Cultures (University of Illinois Press
1982) edited by Braj B. Kachru. These conferences and the two volumes marked

a genuinely new phase in the study of English in the international context. In

part, they raised issues which had earlier perhaps been glossed-over if not

entirely ignored. In part, the reorientation in international and intranational

terms provided new insights. Not least, problems previously suppressed were

brought into the open through the growing confidence of the rapidly increasing

numbers of non mother-tongue users of English. These conferences provided the

impetus for a more realistic approach and a new framework for looking at English

in the global context, and for relating concepts such as appropriateness,

acceptability, and intelligibility to the pragmatic factors which determine the

users of English as an international and intranational language. That these

conferences had a dynamic effect is evident from the many activities that have

resulted during the last 30 years all over the world.

Based on the articles who is favor of World Englishes and proponent of it,

I have come up that World Englishes today essential to the 21st century learners

as we faced the global context of paradigm in communication. Proper explanation

in the academic institution of the World Englishes is needed. First, a paradigm

shift in research, teaching, and application of sociolinguistic realities to the

functions of English. Second, a shift from frameworks and theories which are

essentially appropriate only to monolingual countries like countries which is part

of external circle. It is indeed essential to recognize that World Englishes

represent certain linguistic, cultural and pragmatic realities and pluralism, and

that pluralism is now an integral part of World Englishes and literatures written

in Englishes. Knowledge of World Englishes is helpful for people who have a tool

for global communication for it helps to understand people in different culture.

Every variety of world Englishes differs from another variety where it is based on

regional variety.
References

Bolton, Kingsley and Kachru, Braj B. (2005) World Englishes: Critical Concepts
in Linguistics, 6 vols. London: Routledge.

Kachru, B. (1992) World Englishes: approaches, issues and resources,

Language Teaching / Volume 25 / Issue 01 / January 1992, pp 1 - 14,
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Kachru, Braj B. (1986) The Alchemy of English: The Spread, Functions, and
Models of Non-Native Englishes.Oxford: Pergamon.

Kachru, Braj B. (ed.) (1982) The Other Tongue: English across

Cultures.Oxford: Pergamon. 2nd edition 1992, Urbana, IL: University of
Illinois Press.

Kachru, Yamuna and Nelson, Cecil L. (2006) World Englishes in Asian

Contexts. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Nelson, C. (2011) Intelligibility in World Englishes: Theory and Application.

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Proshina, Z. (2007) The ABC and Controversies of World Englishes, Retrieved

from http://www.ffl.msu.ru/img/pages/File/Proshina/the%20abc.doc

Thumboo, Edwin (ed.) (2001) The Three Circles of English. Singapore:

UniPress.