Language change and variation - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Language change and variation

For use with Chapter 2 of:Galloway, N. and Rose, H. (2015). Introducing Global Englishes. Routledge.© Dr. Heath Rose and Dr. Nicola GallowaySlide2

Review of Lecture 1English has been under constant change, particularly when coming into contact with other languages:

e.g. Olde English changed considerably after contact with Norman French.As English spread around the world, changes happened as English came in to contact with new languages.Globalization has caused further linguistic change.Estimates of numbers and categorizing speakers is problematic.This lecture continues to introduce key introductory concepts for subsequent lectures.Slide3

OverviewSlide4

Introductory activities

Look at the examples of variation in English in the introduction to Chapter 2, then discuss the questions below.Why do you think English vocabulary is often different in different parts of the world? What are the origins of the following words? (Answers are in Section 2a.)Do you know of other loan words from your own first language, or other languages you know?Lexical change does not only involve single words, but can involve longer phrases and idioms. Some context-specific English phrases include

‘

lucky money

’

in Hong Kong. Can you think of any examples from your own context that people unfamiliar to your context may have difficulty understanding?

How

is variation in the

Englishes around the world perceived, in a positive or negative manner?

passport,

rucksack,

agenda, coffee, species, mathematics, castle, skipper, cliché, keel,

guerrilla

(warfare), nationalism, piano, pyjamas, shampoo, gymnasium, hamburger,

algebra,

skySlide5

Language change and contactPart 1Slide6

Language changeLanguage change affects:

Pronunciation, orthography (spelling), grammar, vocabulary, and pragmatics (language in use).Rate of change can be:Substantial or smallSudden or gradualOn one occasion or incremental.Diachronic change refers to changes over a long period of time:e.g. the inflectional changes in English:work, wrought, worked cwen, queen, cwenescip, ships,

scipu

hund

,

dogs

,

hundas 1600 – choice of forming the plural was made simpler to mainly -(e)s and -(e

)

n.

formula

,

formulas

,

formulae

datas

,

datumSlide7

Diachronic language change

Language change can be:Internally driven changes (endogenous) Externally driven changes (exogenous). Examples of endogenous change involve:Making optimal use of the available articulatory space, stabilization, regularization and simplification, and giving distinct formal expression to distinct meanings – hlafordum, lord, dropping of ‘s’.Examples of exogenous change involve deliberate changes in language:Attitudes of what is ‘correct’, ‘acceptable’, ‘incorrect’, ‘unacceptable’

Great Vowel

Shift (driven in part by regional accents in contact with more upper class accents)

Thus

,

exogenous language

change is also related to social prestige and desirability and, therefore, to identity.

Trudgill’s (1986) accommodation theory suggests people vary language to increase or decrease social distance.

Language change also happens when new realities require description:

science and empiricism

– borrowing

from Latin

(

altitude

)

, Arabic (e.g

.

alcohol

and

algebra

),

Greek

(

diagonal

). Slide8

Synchronic language change

Code-switching occurs when multilingual speakers switch between different languages or varieties.Code-mixing is the transfer of linguistic items from one language into another in multilingual speech. Borrowing is when items from another language or variety might begin to be used with increased frequency and undergo some kind of assimilation into the new language.

French (

army

,

nationalism

,

court

)Latin (agenda, September, mile, species)

Greek (

mathematics

,

democracy

)

Old Norse (

sky

,

troll

)Norman (castle, kennel)Dutch (skipper, keel)Spanish (guerrilla warfare)Italian (piano, balcony, umbrella)Indian (pajamas, bungalow, shampoo)German (hamburger, rucksack) Arabic (coffee, muslin)

Changes are still taking place as English comes into contact with other languages. Different realities are also experienced in different contexts, which results in lexical change – new physical, environmental, social, or cultural situations.

Language

contact can come in a range of

intensity

‘Light

, superficial

contact’

(Schneider, 2011, p.

27–28) + influence

= lexical borrowing.

More

intense contact = structural interferences, as well as changes in morphology and syntax. Slide9

Contact-induced change:The emergence of the ‘New’ Englishes

Englishes – English is a dynamic, multifarious, and pluricentric entity: Investigation and description of various national varieties (see Kachru et al., 2006), particularly in the OC Phonology, lexicon, syntax, pragmatics, discourse, and literary creativityDistinct from native or ‘

standard

’

norms,

i.e. ‘accepted’

norms

Attempts

at codification provide a formal record of a variety – significant process in legitimizing WE varieties‘English Language Complex’ (

Mesthrie

and Bhatt, 2008

)

–

core

lexicon, shared pronunciation features

and grammatical

structures

Differences

that attract attention. Slide10

Characteristics of ‘New’ Englishes

New Englishes are far from uniform in their characteristics and current use, although they do share certain features:Usually developed through the education system in places where English was not the main language.In these postcolonial territories, English was initially only spoken by the colonizers.Once schools were established and English was used as a medium of instruction, and as time went on, local English teachers were recruited who used varieties of English influenced by their mother tongue, causing the differences in English varieties to become more marked.(Platt, Weber and Lian, 1984)

Kachru

(1992b, p. 56) outlines

three phases

(

not mutually exclusive

):

Non-recognitionLocal variety side by side with imported one but viewed as ‘inferior’

Local

variety becomes

recognized

as the

norm

.Slide11

The status of ‘New’ EnglishesEnglish ‘is not

distributed, as a set of established encoded forms, unchanged into different domains of use’ (Widdowson, 1997, p. 139); not a ‘franchise language’ (Widdowson, 1997, p. 140).Shaped by contact with indigenous languages – localized, nativized.Are ‘New’ Englishes: varieties, Englishes, dialects, or languages?Kirkpatrick (2007), Mufwene (2001) and Schneider (2003): all varieties of English develop in similar ways – problem with labelling the ‘New’ Englishes as

‘

nativized

’ and IC varieties as

‘

native’ – ignore the existence of languages that preceded it, e.g. Celtic

language.

Varieties of English are often classed as ‘native’ if they have been around for a long time and have influenced younger varieties of English in some way (Kirkpatrick, 2007). But what is ‘a long time?’ A third criterion may relate to prejudice and one’s image of a ‘native speaker

’ (Kirkpatrick, 2007

, p. 6

): all

varieties as ‘

nativized

’ – influenced by local

cultures and

languages.Slide12

WE: identification of varieties of English in specific geographical regions.ELF:

no focus on ‘fixed’ speech communities, but on how English is used in more virtual and transient contexts worldwide. English is seen as a contact language where ‘both the community of speakers and the location can be changing and are often not associated with a specific nation’ (Cogo and Dewey, 2012, p. 97) and speech communities are ever-changing; no focus on geography or on identifying core features.GE: includes both the WE and the ELF research paradigms. Variation in the EC and ELF usageSlide13

Levels of variationPart 2Slide14

Variety, dialect, accent, language, or register?

Variety: group-specific, nation-based language forms.Dialect: a geographical subdivision of a language form, usually associated with a region (‘regional dialect’) or a class or a group (‘social dialect’) – class, ethnic group, age group, and gender. Dialect cannot be used to describe the various Englishes worldwide. African American English, for example, does not fit the criterion of regionality.Accent: pronunciation (dialect includes its grammar and vocabulary) – the two often go hand in hand, but dialect often has negative connotations.Register: stylistically defined language varieties or situational contexts.Slide15
Slide16

Phonemic variationInner Circle

Many phonemic mergers and splits: In Britain (except south-west England), the vowel in bother and lot is a rounded low back vowel, symbolized as /ɒ/. This is distinct from the /ɑː/ in father and

palm

.

However, in most varieties of

North American English

these vowels are pronounced the same so that

bomb and balm have identical pronunciations and bother rhymes with father

(

Seigel

, 2010, p. 14).

D

espite

having the same number of

phonemes

, RP and GE sound very different.  

Outer and Expanding Circles

Kachru and Smith (2008, p. 81):many varieties simplify the diphthongs and triphthongs of the British variety, e.g.: ei>e as in paid ou>o as in bowlstressed and unstressed vowels are not distinguished, i.e. there is no reduction of vowel in the unstressed syllableindividual consonants are also pronounced differently throughout the world, e.g.: ‘t’ sound often sounds like a /d/ In India, the ‘t’ sound may not be aspirated and they frequently retroflex.

Variation in prosodic (suprasegmental) features:

Added vowels to pronounce

consonant clusters

(

sutopu

)

Rhythm

is also characteristic of Indian

English.Slide17

Lexical variationSlide18

Slide19

Locally coined idioms and word-by-word

translations of indigenous phrases (to shake legs in Malaysia, coming from the Malay idiom goyang kaki, meaning to be idle (Jenkins, 2009b).Variation in the use of NES idioms (e.g. gift of the gap in Singapore instead of the British gift of the gab (Platt et al., 1984, cited in Jenkins, 2009b). Creativity through a combination of English and indigenous forms (e.g. to put sand in someone’s gari in Nigeria).ELF creativity –

we should not wake up any dogs

(‘let sleeping dogs lie’).Slide20

Spelling variationThe process of simplification in English spelling slowed down after the

seventeenth century as a result of the standardizing influence of printing and the spread of dictionaries. Further influenced by the American lexicographer Noah Webster, who proposed an ‘American Standard’ in 1789. Many differences between British and American spellings. However, regulated by authoritative dictionaries, in most published written texts that are at least published in ‘standard’ English, there is little variation in spelling in the Englishes of the world. Slide21

Other levels of variation

Grammar-syntactic variationInflectionSubtractive differences (omit their verbal ‘-s’ endings)Additive differences (informations, staffs etc.) Tense and aspect (e.g. Did you eat yet? Have you eaten? I am knowing very well)

Question formation

(

You know it isn’t it?)

Article-omission

(

He is very good person) Concord with collective nouns (The government is/are …) The use of auxiliaries

(

shall

and

should

)

Irregular verb form

(

spoiled

,

spoilt)Pragmatic differencesGreetings and address vary (e.g. in some Asian countries people may greet you by asking Have you eaten?) Gestures vary (e.g. Indians signal yes by nodding their head sideways, which is often mistaken for a no elsewhere) Formality (e.g. Jenkins (2009b) points out that several ‘New’ Englishes are more formal than IC varieties)Slide22

Pidgins and creolesPart 3Slide23

What are pidgins and creoles?A pidgin is usually defined as a language that emerges in situations where a simple language is needed to communicate between two communities.

A creole usually develops from a pidgin, among a second generation of speakers of the pidgin for whom the pidgin is a first and primary language of communication. As a result, the pidgin develops more grammar and vocabulary until the pidgin is developed into a complete working language. The process of language development from a pidgin to a creole is called creolization. Pidgins and creoles are not broken English. Singh (2000) states that, ‘a lack of linguistic structure is not a characteristic of pidgin’ (p. 2) as they develop their own grammatical rules.Slide24

English pidgins and creolesEmerged due to the spread of English to diverse corners of the world where it was used as a contact language. There are two main situations:

Fort situations where English was used alongside other languages in trading posts (e.g. east African nations, Singapore).Plantation situations where English quickly became a first language due to displaced slave populations from linguistically diverse backgrounds (e.g. Caribbean nations).Slide25

Characteristics of pidgins and creoles

Pidgins and creoles have:A superstrate language, which is usually the contact language or imposed language, such as the English language for the pidgins spoken along coastal trading routes of west Africa or on plantations in the Caribbean. A substrate language, which is usually the local language, such as the West African languages spoken along these trading routes and on plantations. Simplification of grammatical features of the superstrate language, such as verb irregularities (

throwed

instead of

threw

)

and unnecessary grammatical features such as the third-person ‘s’ (she say instead of she says).

The incorporation of substrate language grammatical features with

superstrate

language vocabulary (although this is not always the case).

If

the creole develops in a way that it loses those characteristics that makes it a creole, or moves back

towards

the

superstrate

language through educational or policy, it can be said to undergo

decreolization. Slide26

Examples of Jamaican creoleUnno

nuh fe heat de green mango dem. You all are not to eat the green mangoes.Mi nuh wan nutten fe eat. I don't want anything to eat.Memba mi haffi lef Chewsday. Remember I will have to leave on Tuesday.Mi

was

suh

mad mi almost

drap

dung!

I was so mad I almost fell down!

Source: http://

www.jamaicans.com

/

speakja

/

patoisarticle

/

sound.shtmlSlide27

Attitudes towards creole Englishes

Until recent decades, education systems of creole communities sought to decreolize the languages spoken due to a view that they were ‘incorrect’.Because a ‘correct’ English was enforced in schools in many creole communities, most speakers of creoles in ENL countries today can speak both an acrolectal form of English (in formal settings) and a basilectal form of English (for everyday vernacular use). In Jamaica these forms are viewed as different languages (English and Patios).Creoles these days are viewed more and more as languages in their own right, rather than languages that

need to be

‘fixed’.

Winford

(

2011,

p. 419) states:‘Changes in attitudes have been due to several factors: the growing sense of nationalism in these communities since independence; the emergence of a substantial body of scholarship that demonstrates the validity of the creoles as languages in their own right; the growing tendency to use creole in literary works; and the readiness of the powers-that-be to allow use of creole in contexts such as education.’Slide28

Standard language ideology, ownership, and identity

Part 4Slide29

Standard language ideology relates to the way society thinks about language standards in terms of what is ‘correct’ or ‘acceptable’. ‘Language Ideology can be defined, in broad terms, as the structured and consequential ways we think about language’ (

Seargeant, 2009, p. 26). Slide30

Standard language ideology in history

The belief in the existence of a ‘standard’ English is deeply rooted in the history of the English language. Lecture 1 recap:British rulers sought a ‘standard’Chancery Standard English instigated as the language of court (1300s)Invention of the printing press.Spelling standardization was first:Samuel Johnson’s (1755) Dictionary of the English LanguageNoah Webster’s (1828) American Dictionary of the English Language. Standard language ideology also emerged through accepted usage and not through printed matter. As Kachru and Smith (

2008, p. 3)

explain:

‘

Codification

is not a prerequisite for legitimizing a language. For instance, Australians spoke Australian English for years before a dictionary of Australian English (

The Macquarie Dictionary, 1981) was compiled and a grammatical description of Australian English (Collins and Blair, 1989) appeared.’Slide31

Ideas of a spoken standardIn the UK: The case of RP

Wealthy, educated class. Compulsory schooling in the UK also allowed contact between people of different classes and different English dialects. The introduction of radio and the BBC in 1921 caused RP to become even more prevalent as the ‘standard’ English: McIntyre (2009, p. 29) writes: ‘The prestige associated with it [RP] led to many people adapting their own accents (either consciously or subconsciously) in order to avoid the stigma that was increasingly associated with regional

pronunciations.’

Only spoken by 3% of population but still often classed as the ‘standard’.

Its prestige has been in decline.

In America: General American

Ideology is less intense.

Does

not assign strong positive, or prestige, value to any particular dialect of American English.

In other ENL countries

RP historically held prestige in former British colonies but this has been changing quickly. For example, in

Jamaica,

‘recent

years have seen the

“functional dethronement”

of Standard English as the exclusive language of public-formal domains and there is a shift toward a local variety as the new

standard’

(Melchers and Shaw,

2011, p

. 123). Slide32

Standard language ideology in the EC

Debate on standards has increased with global spread.Concept of a ‘standard’ English continues:American or UK English desirable  influences hiring practices (e.g. Middle East, Asia).Native speakers as the ‘owners’. Non-IC Englishes as ‘illegitimate’.Implications for ELT where ‘standards’ of RP and American are over-represented.Mufwene (2001, p. 107) states that the indigenized Englishes of the OC are treated as the ‘illegitimate’ offspring of English, while NES varieties are regarded as the ‘legitimate’

offspring because of the (mistaken) belief that they have evolved from

Old

English without

‘contamination’. Slide33

The problem of ‘standard’ language

Language is always changing:In terms of vocabulary standardization, even the first dictionaries recognized that the English language was always changing, and thus the dictionary would not be an ever-lasting account of English (see Samuel Johnson’s English dictionary of 1755). Milroy (2007, p. 138) writes, ‘there is usually a tradition of popular complaint about language, bewailing the low quality of general usage and claiming that the language is degenerating’ (quoted in Garrett, 2010). Thus, for many years ‘standard’ English was confined to a written standard of grammar, vocabulary, and spelling.Slide34

Conclusions: Why standard language ideology is a fallacy …

The idea of a standard implies stability, but language is unstable (Widdowson, 2003). English ‘belongs to everyone who speaks it, but it is nobody’s mother tongue’ (Rajagopalan, 2004, p. 111). To support the notion of ‘standard’ English is incompatible with the complex reality of how English is used worldwide (Saraceni, 2009). ‘Standardisation is never complete because ultimately, a language is the property of the communities that use it … It is not the exclusive property of governments, educators or prescriptive grammarians, and it is arrogant to believe that it is’ (Milroy and Milroy, 1999, p. 45).

ELF research highlights that

NNESs

do not speak a ‘standard’ version of the language and it is increasingly difficult and irrelevant to define a NS in multilingual societies

(

Kirkpatrick, 2007

).Slide35

Summary of Lecture 2

Language is always changing, and thus a view that English is a monolithic entity that is impervious to variation is an incorrect assumption. English language is a living entity which feeds off other languages, speakers, cultures, and societies:In areas/times of extreme contact with speakers of other languages, the English language has sometimes undergone massive changes. English can vary on a number of linguistic levels including: sound, vocabulary, grammar, syntax, and pragmatics.Pidgins and creoles were historically viewed as broken English, but there are now shifts in opinion and modern recognition of them as national independent languages. Negative attitudes toward variation and change are not limited to pidgins and creoles. Standard language ideology of English has existed for a

millennium, and thus is difficult to sway.

‘New’ Englishes struggle

for recognition as legitimate

Englishes

:

However, the

WE paradigm, with its investigation and codification of Englishes, has done much to raise awareness of the normalness, and therefore validity, of variation in the English language. ELF researchers have done much to highlight the fact that ownership of the English language is no longer with NESs

but

with

speakers across the IC, OC, and EC. Slide36

Key terms

CreolizationExtended pidginLanguage ideologyLanguage standardization

Received Pronunciation (RP)

Jargon

Plantation

creoles

Fort

creoles

Maroon

creole

Decreolization

Superstrate

language

Substrate language

Language universals, or universal grammar

Internally driven

(endogenous)

Externally driven

(exogenous) Synchronic changeDiachronic changeAttitudes

Borrowing

Codification

World

Englishes

‘

New’

Englishes

Nativized

Dialects

Accents

Varieties

Registers

Remetaphorization

Stereotypes

Ownership

General American

Global

Englishes

Consonant clusters

Mergers

Split

Diphthongs

Interlocutors

Code-mixing

Code-switching

Englishes

Standard

Phonemes

 Slide37

Further readingOn language variation and change: Chambers, J. K.,

Trudgill, P. and Schilling-Estes, N. (2004). The Handbook of Language Variation and Change. Malden, MA: Blackwell. On variation in World Englishes: Chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7 of Introducing Global Englishes.On pidgins and creoles: Singh, I. (2000). Pidgins and Creoles. London: Hodder Arnold.

On standard language ideology:

Milroy, J. and Milroy, L. (2012).

Authority in Language: Investigating Standard English

.

London: Routledge

.