EL1102 New Varieties of English
Lecture No. 11
Organisation
1.The Spread of English in South & South
East Asia
2. New Varieties of English (NVEs) – Some
shared attributes
3. The Cline of Bilingualism
4. Characteristic features of Singapore
English
5. Negative responses to NVEs
6. Pidgins and Creoles
7. Fulguration
8. The SE speech community
Two distinct patterns in the way English was
spread
EUROPEAN IMPERIALISM
(a)
AMERICA, AUSTRALIA - The Mercantile System - Immigration & SETTLEMENT - Civilisations the imperialists
were unable to recognise - <American
English>
(b) ASIA, AFRICA Industrial Growth - Technological Development - Trading Posts through CONQUESTS -
Established civilisations with Great traditions and rich multicultural settings
- <English in Singapore, Malaysia,
India & Sri Lanka>
The spread of English in South and South East Asia
(a) Trade and the development
of trading ports
Trading and commercial activity leads to large-scale immigration.
(b) Administration
A very crucial UTILITARIAN
NEED
- Government and
administration was by the British, who do not learn the indigenous languages
- A major need for lower level
administrators to bridge the gap between the administration and the general
populace, maintain records, etc.
(c) Education and Proselytisation Each of these countries had its own culture and education system – a vernacular schooling system. Supplanted by English-medium education, early in India, a little later in Singapore (Singapore Free School – Raffles Institution, 1834) for the effective running of the capitalist economy and industrialism.
The high premium on English
English was the language of the government, administration, the judiciary and all of the significant spheres of society. Therefore, anyone who did not know English would have been disadvantaged.
The emergence of a new bilingual middle class elite group, an influential western-oriented intelligentsia separate from and privileged over the rest of the community.
- They used English and one or
more indigenous languages in a COMPLEMENTARY fashion.
- English was used at the
higher levels, the other language for different, often less prestigious
functions
- Gradually, however, English also adopted by many in this class for domestic, social, and even expressive purposes, as they assimilate to English culture.
The entrenchment of English in
the post-colonial period
English, therefore, is well
entrenched in these countries, in all of which it functions within an essentially
MULTI-CULTURAL, MULTI-LINGUISTIC context.
Reasons:
- The impossibility of
functioning viably within the ‘global village’ created by empire and of
becoming part of the modern community of nations without it.
- English is the primary
language of science, technology, industry, economic growth, commerce,
development, communications, transport, etc.
- It is the language of
knowledge and, therefore, of power in this world - over 50% of scientific
papers are written in English.
- The ‘impracticality’ of switching from English in many former colonies – eg, the judiciary and the language of the law, the non-availability of teaching materials in the other languages, etc.
- It is claimed to be a neutral, ‘link’ language, the language for communication across different ethnic/ linguistic groups.
- English was the language of advancement and upward social and economic mobility.
- It is the language of an
influential indigenous social group to many of whom it has become more than a
‘foreign’ language and is an important cultural possession. In fact, in
Singapore, it is taken to be a language for ‘the expression of national identity.’
(Mary Tay)
NVEs have emerged in
ex-colonial countries in Southeast Asia, South Asia and Africa. They include:
Singapore English (SgE), Malaysian English (MyE), Indian English (IE), Lankan
English (LknE), Nigerian English (NgE), etc.
Recall Stewart’s X-ised Y:
transplanted à indigenised à transformed
They are also to be
distinguished from Older Varieties of English (OVEs) such as British English
(BrE), American English (AmE), Australian English (AuE), Canadian English
(CnE), etc.
Note: the terms ‘Native’ and
‘Non-native’ in the lit.
1. All of them are used in MULTILINGUISTIC
/ MULTICULTURAL contexts, which are characterised by world views, practices,
even ecologies, etc. which are very different from those which prevail in the
‘home’ country of the language (Britain), or in ex-colonies like America,
Australia, etc. where the cultural influence of the ‘home’ country remains
strong.
2. NVEs were planted in these
new contexts considerably through the CLASSROOM. Therefore, usually learned
through formal instruction. Initially, a high premium was placed on the
standard ‘home’ variety (‘exonormative’ = externally imposed standard)
3. NVEs tend to play COMPLEMENTARY, as distinct from all-purpose roles, in their contexts of use.
- they are the first language in certain significant social spheres (the High variety’), complementing the indigenous languages, which assume a first language role in more domestic, everyday spheres in the larger context (‘Low varieties’).
- In the case of some users, they have begun to assume wider roles, entering into their emotional / imaginative lives, everyday interaction, etc., often alongside other indigenous languages they know.
- i.e., they have social roles beyond the ‘merely’ utilitarian
- In Singapore, in fact, educational and other policies have
assigned its NVE a ‘primary’ role.
4.NVEs are the result of the TRANSFORMATION of the language in
interaction with the life of its new contexts, as it adapts itself to handle
new objects, relationships, experiences, etc. and develops new resources to
carry and express new meanings, perspectives, etc.
They are ‘transplanted varieties with their own distinct
ecologies, contexts and functions’ (Kachru, Alchemy) - acculturated,
indigenised in geographically, ecologically, culturally, linguistically
different contexts
They are used ‘towards maintaining appropriate
(indigenous) patterns of life, culture and education’,
and have blended themselves ‘with the cultural and social complex’ of their new
contexts (Kachru, Indianisation)
5. As a result, they have emerged as NEW LINGUISTIC SYSTEMS, viable entities which have an autonomous existence in their own right
a sense of ownership and social identity - These allow their users to express their OWN meanings,
communicate messages, act, etc. in the ways that make the most sense to them. linguistic innovation and creativity
- OVEs, that is, British
English, American English, Australian English, etc. will not allow them to
communicate in these ways.
The cline of bilingualism
Kachru’s cline of bilingualism ‘ranks bilingualism terms of their proficiency’ along a scale running from absolute monolingualism at one end, through various degrees of bilingualism to absolute ambilingualism at the other.’ (Kachru, ‘Indianness in Indian English’)
Monolingual ————— Central ———— Ambilingual
The cline of bilingualism
The standard Indian speaker of
English is ‘between the central point and the ambilingual point’. This
does not ‘necessarily imply that the user’s command of English equals that
of the native speaker’ (p.394).
Three significant points on
the cline:
1. The monolingual point
(total competence in the user’s own Lg.; zero competence in the other Lg.)
2. The central point (total
competence in the user’s own Lg.; semi-competence in the other Lg.)
3. the ambilingual /
equilingual point (representing equal [total] competence in both Lgs., ‘a
rare if not impossible phenomenon’)
The problem with the cline of
bilingualism It is based on the erroneous
assumption that the linguistic competence of a bilingual is to be looked at as
something made up of the competencies of two monoglot speakers of the
respective languages put together.
|
1 L1 |
+ |
1 L2 |
= |
2 |
The misleading arithmetic of
the cline of bilingualism.
- If this is true, then the English
of NVE bilinguals could validly be judged by the standards / norms observed by
monoglot speakers of OVEs.
- NVE speakers would at best
then be around the 1 ¾ mark, and their English would be a form created by
INTERFERENCE (with the real, proper, correct language by the other
language(s) of these speakers), which prevents it from achieving the ideal
standard.
- This will also allow NVEs to
be characterised as largely unsystematic, random hodgepodges of departures from
the correct norms.
BUT, the multicultural /
multilinguistic realities of our contexts awaken us to the fact that the
competence of bilinguals is NOT the sum of the competence of two monolinguals.
- Out of the interaction of the two linguistic systems and the associated perspectives / world views, etc., bilinguals develop NEW SYSTEMS appropriate to handling their OWN DISTINCT complex understandings of things meanings, etc.
That
is, 1 + 1 = 3.
-
These new systems are RULE-GOVERNED, have their OWN RULES, are based on their
OWN STANDARDS, and are APPROPRIATE for the purpose of handling the distinctive
realities of their users.
-
NVEs are, therefore, ENDONORMATIVE not EXONORMATIVE entities.
Some examples from Singapore English (and other NVEs)
BORROWINGS - ang pow, ang mo, rojak, ulu, malu, kosong,
hantam, kiasu, makan,
kampong, roti-prata
, feng
shui, tahan, ah beng, ah lian, bodoh
LOAN TRANSLATIONS - red packet, five foot way, dining leaf, spring roll, Buddha jumps over the wall, Hungry Ghost Festival
HYBRIDS - ice kachang, mama shop, kaya toast, roti john, Samsui
woman, sarong partygirl, blur like sotong
Hybrids containing local words
with English suffixation - kiasuism,
chimology, kaypohness, buayaing
NEW COLLOCATIONS, COINAGES - cousin sister/brother, hawker centre, shop house,
void deck, neighbourhood school, tuition teacher, branded goods,
grassroots leader, walkathon
NEW MEANINGS - alphabets ( = letters), zap, chop, steamboat,
love letters - cooling, heaty, - bring, take, send, fetch - open, close (switch
off/on), on (vb.), off (vb.) - - cut ( i. stroke of the
cane) ( ii. discount) (R. Koh)
1. He smoked his way
through the exam.
2. No head, no tail
3. Wait list some more
4. Don’t shake legs
5. Catch no ball
6. Don’t play, play
7. Vomit blood
Discourse features (including
greetings, leave taking)
8. So how?
9. Have you eaten? (IE,
LknE)
10. I’ll go and come (IE,
LknE)
Pragmatic particles
11. No, lah.
12. Accident ah?
13. Sorry, ah.
14. It’s here, lor!
15. You know, hor?
16. I don’t understand your
question, what.
Time reference last time, next time, just, whole life
Last time he took it away
STOPS / PLOSIVES
8 -term plosive system,
established not randomly, but on basis of systematic contrasts
/p/ pill pin Poe
/b/ bill bin bow
/t/ till tin toe
/d/ dill din doe
/k/ kill kin Coe
/g/ gill go
/t/ thin /thing (‘ting’)
/d/ though (‘dough’)
RP: /p/, /b/,
/t/, /d/, /k/, /g/ (6-term plosive system)
thin, thing /T/, though /D/ (fricatives)
Lack of final plosives: great, mad, chop, crab, pork,
big
DIPHTHONGS:
write /aI/, crowd /aU/, boy /eI/, here /I@ /, poor /U@/
Cf. RP These elements + parents /e@/ /e:/ go /@U/ /o:/ fate /eI/ /e:/
Rhythm and Intonation
SCE has a syllable-timed
rhythm, i.e. all syllables recur at equal intervals of time, whether stressed
or unstressed – ‘ a machine-gun rhythm’ (Lloyd James)
Note: RP has a stress-timed rhythm , ie, the stressed
syllables recur at equal intervals of time but unstressed syllables are
unequally spaced in time.
Subjectless verb groups
19. Still got fever?
Conditional clauses without
subordinating conjunctions
20. Disturb him again I
call Daddy to come down.
Verbless complements; use of -ing
forms without an Auxiliary
21. Where pain?
22. Robot coming.
Question tags
23. William go home after
class, can? (permission)
24. *William sing very
well, can ? (ability)
Cf. BrE
25. William can go home after class, can’t he?
(permission)
26. William can sing very
well, can’t he? (ability)
Other SCE constructions
27. I wait here two hours already.
28. There were one hundred
over people there.
29. Come back to visit you
all also cannot.
30. There got so many
trees.
31. Don’t shy.
32. I won’t friend you.
33. Yah, loh, our cars don’t
have any wheels one.
He’s a funny person, no?
These are not random or idiosyncratic,
but RULE-GOVERNED
35. Where got so much
money?
36. *Why/When got so much
money
?
37. *I won’t good /
sincerely friend you
38. *Our cars don’t have
any one wheels.
Similarly,
39. It’s here, lor! But not 40. * Lor, it’s here.
41. You know, hor? But not 42. * Hor, you know.
43. I don’t understand your question, what. But not 44. What,
I don’t understand your question.
That is, there ARE rules and norms and these are SHARED by the users. Departures from the norms established will be CENSURED by Singaporean users as incorrect usage.
Different degrees of
PROFICIENCY achieved in the language by different speakers - it is important to
recognise that in a multilingual situation where English exists alongside other
languages, many of those who learn English in addition to the other language(s)
they know, can be expected to acquire it imperfectly, and to have only a
partial control of its (indigenous rules).
45.* No see no frighten, see finish very frighten. (Describing an accident)
46. * No come all no come, one come three four come. (a complaint against the public bus service)
BUT, the non-starred examples above are NOT a reflection of a
lack of proficiency - instead, a viable, indigenised, rule-governed variety of
English, which proficient users are competent in, and which are adapted to
their expressive and communicative needs.
The socially rule-governed nature of NVEs
NVEs are NOT to be characterised SIMPLY in terms of such
‘different’ expressions.
NVEs, like all languages, are FUNCTIONALLY VERSATILE and show
VARIATION. They have a RANGE OF STYLES APPROPRIATE to different situations
(extending from colloquial to formal) and to corresponding functions.
Colloquial———Informal———Formal
Negative responses to / evaluations of NVEs
Clifford H. Prator’s (‘The British Heresy in TESL’) harsh criticism against the attempt to ‘set up the local variety of English as an ultimate model to be imitated by those learning the language.’
i. NVEs are ‘L2’ varieties, cannot legitimately be equated with
‘mother tongue’ varieties
ii. They are mastered only by a minority who ‘have a
very imperfect command
of only a limited portion
of the language’.
iii. They are ‘reserved for use with specific individuals
in a narrowly restricted range of situations’.
iv. They are not coherent, homogeneous, stable linguistic
systems, which may be described in the ways that the speech of an identifiable
social group may be described.
v. They show ‘widely shared ‘aberrancies’
vi. ‘ each individual typically adds in his own speech a
large and idiosyncratic
collection of features
reflecting his (sic)
particular native language,
educational background
and personal temperament.’
vii. They represent chains of imperfect imitations of imperfect
imitations of the original model. The end-product is a ‘pidgin’ / ‘jargon’
which is ‘nobody’s language’.
viii. Intelligibility can be reduced ‘to a point at which
no reliable communication can take place.’
ix. Phonological changes which take place in them can, in each
case, change other parts of the language sweepingly.
x. They are fossilised ‘interlanguages’ (i.e., showing
‘attempted’ rather than ‘successful’ learning.) (J.B.Pride)
xi. They display lower standards. (The refusal of the French to
accept local varieties) (R.B. Le Page)
xii. They are used for only a narrow range of purposes. (Quirk, also Prator)
xiii. They are ‘L2s’ which do not have ‘a status equal to
those varieties of
English which are used as
primary or first languages’
(Kachru, Indian English: A Study in Contextualisation)
The general conclusion to be
drawn from all this is that NVEs are LESSER forms of the language, the results
of DEVIATIONS from the original, ‘proper’ / ‘correct’ language, which are
UNSYSTEMATIC, RANDOM collections of ERRORS, ABERRATIONS, etc., made by those
who do not know the rules and lack proficiency. The same low linguistic and
social status usually accorded to Pidgins and Creoles.
Pidgins and Creoles
1. What is a pidgin? A makeshift language, which comes into being as a lingua franca when groups of people who share no common language but need to communicate for some common practical, and often RESTRICTED, purposes come into contact.
- such as trade – as on the West African coast, Papua New Guinea, the Pacific islands
- in the case of Black slaves in America, communicating among themselves and with the white crews on the ships that brought them and with their white masters on the plantations (sugar, cotton, tobacco)
- these slaves often came from areas which used different, mutually unintelligible languages.
- the ships’ crews themselves
were a motley crowd, who had different languages, and spoke a mixed language
often. They might have used a version of the much older, Portuguese-based
Mediterranean lingua franca, Sabir – eg, pickaninny, savvy in Black English very few words in Black English from their own,
original languages - voodoo,
okra English-based,
French-based, Portuguese-based , Dutch-based pidgin and creole languages in
different parts of the world.
Over 60 varieties of
English-based pidgins /creoles in the world.
2. The composition of pidgins:
One theory: Pidgins = features of the lang. of the dominant group (the SUPERSTRATE
lang.) + features of the lang. the subordinate group (the SUBSTRATE
langs.)
- usually, the lexis usually, the grammar
3. The internal structure of
pidgins
Drastically reduced in structure and lexicon - simplified, with all redundancies eliminated, but it is RULE –GOVERNED (ie, not a broken language, has consistent rules).
For example:
Absence of the copula verb
(be), affixes, & other morphological markings which show grammatical relations
among words, prefers to replace them with items which in the source of language
are full words. E.g.,
i big = he is big
i big pas mi = he is bigger than me
i big pas wi all = he is the biggest among all of
us [Tok Pisin, Papua New Guinea]
Absence of tense distinctions
in verb forms. Instead time indicated by markers such as now, after, by and
by, etc.
i di kam = he is coming
i bin kam = he came
i bin di kam = he was coming
Use of a single word ‘ no’ for
negatives, and signalling of differences between statements and yes/no
questions not syntactically but phonologically.
You no wan kam ? = You don’t want to come? Do you not want to come?
Limited vocabulary, with words
shifting in meaning to broaden their reference, made necessary by the smallness
of the number of words available. E.g.,
gras = anything which grows bladelike
out of a surface
gras bilong head = hair
gras bilong fes = beard [Tok Pisin]
Wantaim, wan man en ha wan
gyal-pikni nomo. Im ena wan priti gyalfi-truu. Im neba laik fi taak tu eni an
eni man. Im laik a nais buosi man fi taak to. Im taak taak tu wan man, bot im
get kalops aafta im taak tu di man. [West African pidgin]
‘Once upon a time, there was a
gentleman who had an only daughter. She was a carefree and dandy girl. She
didn’t like to talk to just any man. She wanted a pleasant, fine man to talk
to. She started to talk to a man, but she got pregnant by talking to the man.’
4. Status of Pidgins
An auxiliary vernacular
language which belongs to no one and has no native speakers of a speech
community to sustain it.
Creoles If the contact situation which gave rise to pidgin is sustained for a period of time, that pidgin becomes the mother tongue of the group. Children born to parents who have no common language of communication other than the pidgin learn it from them and begin to use it for ALL their communicative needs, beyond the restricted purposes it originally was intended to serve. The pidgin thus develops into a CREOLE, through a process of CREOLISATION. Creoles have speech communities of native users. This involves a process of elaboration of grammar, vocabulary, style, etc. since its use is no longer highly restricted.
Creoles around the world are
found to be very similar:
Theory 1: In the development of pidgins and creoles, the substrate
languages play a major role in determining the grammar, etc. - the influence of
Sabir
Theory 2: It is immaterial whether the influence is from the superstrate
or the substrate languages – creoles are formed on the basis of a
UNIVERSAL GENETICALLY SPECIFIED BIOPROGRAMME, which is built into the mind of
the human species and helps humans form new languages along certain
genetically-determined lines –explaining how creoles across the world share
certain basic features.
Decreolisation The next step: the creoles which emerge in this way often
co-exist in the larger community with the (standard) base language which
defines a model for the community.
This causes it to begin to
modify in the direction of the standard language (Centripetal force).
The post-creole continuum - refers to the stages of development when speakers of a creole
or pidgin are introduced to the standard language on which the creole or pidgin
was originally based.
In this case the various
stages of social and stylistic variation may be modified by a version of the
standard language at the upper end of the continuum and by the pidgin or the
creole at the lower end.
Centrifugal Centripetal
Basilect ——— Mesolect ——— Acrolect
The post-creole continuum
Some examples The Caribbean - Bahamian Creole, Jamaican Creole, Bajan
(Barbados).
In America: Gullah – the Florida coast and the Sea Islands - about 300, 000 speakers - a forerunner of Black Vernacular English?
Black (Vernacular) English - has much in common with West African creoles - developed out
of 18th c. plantation Creole - is markedly decreolised because of regular
contact with White American English but maintains itself intact, possibly
because of Black consciousness, and is even diverging further from the White
standard (Centrifugal force).
Fulguration
NOT to be explained simply in
terms of INTERFERENCE or TRANSFER but INTERACTION.
Often the rules ARE taken
fairly directly from the indigenous language(s). But an interesting process is
going on that helps in the creation of a NEW SYSTEM, different from either of
the systems interacting with each other, but immediately adapted to and
appropriate for the communicative needs of these bilingual users.
The notion of FULGURATION -
the emergence in contact situations of new systematic entities which involves
elements and strategies without pre-histories, so that they cannot be traced
back in any DIRECT way to features of either of the languages in contact. Examples of fulguration:
Lexis
1 The use of the word uncle
(also aunty) (LknE, SgE) - brother of parents (as in BrE) - various
other male relatives of parents - older male adults (from point of view of
children) of equal social status - adult male in position of higher authority
whom the speaker views with affectionate identification even while recognising
distance (respect)
e.g. Not to worry, uncle will look after the problem.
This is NOT just a matter of
transferring indigenous relationships and their cultural and other meanings
into the NVE word.
Examples of fulguration:
Syntax
2. The use of the tag ‘can’
e.g. i. William go
home after class, can? (permission)
ii. *William sing very well,
can? (ability)
These seem to bear quite a
direct relationship to the Chinese tag, keyi ma, observing the same
restrictions and communicating the same meanings.
However, note that SgE has nothing corresponding to the particle ma.
3. The question tag, is it
in SgE
a) John fell down, is it?
b) John is coming, is it?
c) John cannot cook, is it?
d) The surgeon will be here soon, is it?
Cf. BrE i) John fell down, didn’t he?
ii) John is coming, isn’t he?
iii) John cannot cook, can he?
iv) The surgeon will be here soon, won’t he?
These ask for confirmation of
the truth of the preceding proposition / statement. The is it? tag in
SgE is not like these tags but like the Chinese tag shi ma, which asks
for confirmation of the existence of the state of affairs expressed by the
preceding statement .
BUT, there are certain
significant differences between the Chinese tag and the SgE tag, and these
differences cannot be traced back directly to the ‘mother’ English.
That is, whereas Chinese has
no such question structure, SgE creates a pronominal it element for the
tag, even though in other places it shows that pronominal elements are not
essential in tags.
e.g. She come(s), can or not?
Also SgE is considerably more
mobile than the Chinese tag, allowing itself to be moved to the front or appear
as a full question in its own right in sentence fragments in a way that the
Chinese tag does not allow.
Is it you eat fish? A: I eat fish. B: Is it?
The system has its own norms,
by which it needs to be judged.
Users of SgE NATIVELY control
these norms and apply them with a COMPETENCE that users of other varieties of
English lack. They are, in other words, NATIVE USERS of SgE.
Two categories of SE speakers:
Category 1: Adults who use English in a wide range of circumstances and who show evidence of a substantial shift between StdE and SCE as the occasion demands. Some of these people are also members of Category 2.
Category 2: Persons who have learnt
SCE as a native language but who may not (or not yet) have developed competence
in StdE. (Gupta)
The Singapore English speech community
This gives evidence of a further very major consideration, which is that this variety of English sustains and is sustained by a SPEECH COMMUNITY, whose members SHARE its norms, and together command its linguistic rules of use and interpretation. Note, in addition, these users have acquired the variety much as any first language variety is learned, in its ‘arrived form’, through INTERACTION among themselves IN COMMUNITY. There is no question of individuals repeating whatever processes of interaction among relevant languages took place initially, as is often assumed by those who subscribe to the interference notion. Therefore cannot be considered a pidgin or creole. The symbiotic NVE experience and world view
The NVE system
expresses the distinctive voice of the community, their understandings of
things, their views and perspectives, the meanings they wish to express, their
modes of behaviour, action and experience, their identity.
This identity / experience / view of reality is SYMBIOTIC .
It is not ‘pure’, but it is authentic, real, experienced.
The need to describe and
codify NVEs –
Std. SE
1. Got choice?
2. You know or not?
3. You are going, aren’t you?
4. You need my permission is it?
5. That’s what you want no?
6. Sawdust inside ah?
7. Is he going?
All 7 are devices that would be seen as part of the system available to the SE speaker. The next step is to discover in what contexts – formal/informal, written/ spoken – these items are used, with the formal/written Contexts providing the basis for a description of the standard. If, for example, we find that sentences 1, 3, 4 and 7 are used fairly frequently in both contexts all four ways of question-formation should be accepted as Std.SE regardless of whether 1 & 4 occur in British English
‘ . . . Speakers of the different subsystems are not just conformers (or aspirants) to the norm; they are also stake-holders in what comes to be (or continues to be) regarded as the norm, and have the power to change it. Now if the norm for Singapore is a subsystem in Singapore, speakers of different subsystems in Singapore will indeed have a stake in the choice of that norm, and the power to change it. If instead, the norm for Singapore is the norm in Britain, it is difficult to see what stake or power any speaker of any Singapore subsystem will have in the matter. All speakers in Singapore will only be (more or less successful) conformers with no participation in the choice or change of the norm. This would be a very prescriptive approach to the questions of a norm. (N.S. Prabhu, Descriptive and Prescriptive Approaches to the norms of English in Singapore)
© 2001 R Rubdy