An Introduction to International Varieties of English Edinburgh University Press Laurie Bauer An Introduction to International Varieties of English Laurie Bauer Edinburgh University Press 01 pages i-viii prelims 6/8/02 1:25 pm Page i © Laurie Bauer, 2002 Edinburgh University Press Ltd 22 George Square, Edinburgh Typeset in Janson by Norman Tilley Graphics and printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0 7486 1337 4 (hardback) ISBN 0 7486 1338 2 (paperback) The right of Laurie Bauer to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. 01 pages i-viii prelims 6/8/02 1:25 pm Page ii Disclaimer: Some images in the original version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. Contents Acknowledgements v Abbreviations and conventions used in the text vi To readers vii 1 Background notions 1 1.1 Accent, dialect, language and variety 2 1.2 Home and colony 4 1.3 Colonial lag 5 1.4 Dialect mixing 6 Exercises 11 Recommendations for reading 12 2 English becomes a world language 13 2.1 The spread of English 13 2.2 Models of English 19 2.3 English in Scotland and Ireland 25 Exercises 28 Recommendations for reading 29 3 Vocabulary 32 3.1 Borrowing 33 3.2 Coining 40 3.3 The results 42 Exercises 44 Recommendations for reading 45 4 Grammar 46 4.1 Morphology 46 4.2 Syntax 48 4.3 Discussion 58 Exercises 59 Recommendations for reading 60 01 pages i-viii prelims 6/8/02 1:25 pm Page iii 5 Spelling 61 5.1 Lexical distributional differences 62 5.2 Variation in the system 62 5.3 Conclusion 66 Exercises 67 Recommendations for reading 68 6 Pronunciation 69 6.1 Describing varieties of English 69 6.2 Input varieties 71 6.3 Influences from contact languages 73 6.4 Influences from other colonies 74 6.5 Influences from later immigrants 75 6.6 Influences from world English 75 6.7 Differences between varieties 76 Exercises 82 Recommendations for reading 83 7 The revenge of the colonised 84 7.1 Vocabulary 86 7.2 Grammar 86 7.3 Pronunciation 88 7.4 Conclusion 90 Exercises 91 Recommendations for reading 92 8 Becoming independent 93 8.1 British Englishes 95 8.2 North American Englishes 97 8.3 Southern hemisphere Englishes 98 8.4 Discussion 99 8.5 The break-up of English? 100 Exercises 102 Recommendations for reading 103 9 Standards in the colonies 104 9.1 Moving away from the standard in vocabulary 104 9.2 Moving away from the standard in grammar 105 9.3 Moving away from the standard in pronunciation 108 9.4 Discussion 110 Exercises 112 Recommendations for reading 112 Discussion of the exercises 113 References 127 Index 133 iv INTERNATIONAL VARIETIES OF ENGLISH 01 pages i-viii prelims 6/8/02 1:25 pm Page iv Acknowledgements Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this book previously published elsewhere. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to make the necessary arrangement at the first opportunity. Cambridge University Press and Tom McArthur for Figure 2.4 on p. 22, from McArthur (1987). Contact, for the text published on 27 February 1992 reproduced on p. 103. Max Niemeyer Verlag GmbH for Figure 2.3 on p. 21, from Görlach (1990a). The New Zealand Listener, for the letter to the editor of 12 March 1983 reproduced on p. 102. Professor D. Throsby for the text from The Sydney Morning Herald of 9 August 1999 reproduced on p. 67. Times Newspapers Limited for Eleanor Mills’s Column, The Sunday Times, 7 January 2001. © Times Newspapers Limited 2001, reproduced on p. 90. The author would like to thank Carolin Biewer for searching corpora for data for Chapter 5, and the following people who have commented on earlier drafts: Winifred Bauer, Derek Britton, Jack Chambers, Vivian de Klerk, Manfred Görlach, Edgar Schneider. None of them is respon- sible for any errors of fact or interpretation. v 01 pages i-viii prelims 6/8/02 1:25 pm Page v Abbreviations and conventions used in the text /…/ enclose a phonemic transcription […] enclose a phonetic transcription, where the actual sounds made are the focus of attention <…> enclose an orthographic representation; enclose URLs small capitals indicate lexical sets, see section 6.1 * not a grammatical sentence/construction Aus Australia(n) CDN Canada/Canadian GA General American, see section 6.1 NAm North American NZ New Zealand RP Received Pronunciation, see section 1.1 SA South Africa(n) Transcription systems for RP and GA are those used in the companion volume, McMahon (2002). vi 01 pages i-viii prelims 6/8/02 1:25 pm Page vi To readers The title of this book, International Varieties of English, requires some comment. It might be expected that this would refer to varieties of English which are used internationally, but this is not its normal field of use. Instead, it is a well-established label for varieties of English which are used nationally in different places in the world. Although ‘national varieties of English’ might be a more transparent term, this widely accepted though slightly peculiar use of ‘international varieties’ is main- tained in this book. While most books on international varieties of English take each variety in turn and discuss the vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation which is special to that variety, this book aims to seek out generalities which determine the ways in which English will diverge in different locations. Accordingly, there are chapters dealing with matters such as vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation, but in each it is shown how the same fundamental principles apply to a number of different varieties with disparate outcomes. So the question is not How do they speak English in X? where ‘X’ is some Anglophone country, but rather Why have the varieties of English round the world turned out the way they have? Corres- pondingly, the exercises are designed to make students think about what it means to speak Australian or Falkland Islands English, what the his- torical influences on any given variety are, and how familiar notions such as ‘standard’ apply outside Britain or the USA. I hope that this book will complement and be complemented by books which take a more traditional approach, and that this volume will be useful for courses which aim to consider the English language as used in a particular area or country as well as for courses which are intended to explore the linguistic principles underlying linguistic colonisation and globalisation. Teachers and students alike are encouraged to go beyond the book by studying texts from various countries round the world, listening to speakers from these countries, and talking to them if at all possible. That, after all, is the best way to get a feel for how different the international Englishes can be, and how much they have in common. vii 01 pages i-viii prelims 6/8/02 1:25 pm Page vii Edinburgh Textbooks on the English Language General Editor Heinz Giegerich, Professor of English Linguistics (University of Edinburgh) Editorial Board Laurie Bauer (University of Wellington) Derek Britton (University of Edinburgh) Olga Fischer (University of Amsterdam) Norman Macleod (University of Edinburgh) Donka Minkova (UCLA) Katie Wales (University of Leeds) Anthony Warner (University of York) An Introduction to English Syntax Jim Miller An Introduction to English Phonology April McMahon An Introduction to English Morphology Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy An Introduction to Middle English Simon Horobin and Jeremy Smith An Introduction to Old English Richard Hogg viii 01 pages i-viii prelims 6/8/02 1:25 pm Page viii 1 Background notions Th is book is about the characteristics of the English language as it is used in various countries around the world. It is restricted, however, to those varieties of English spoken predominantly by native speakers of English. This means we will consider the kinds of English spoken in Britain, the USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and the Falkland Islands, but will have little to say about the varieties spoken in Nigeria, Jamaica, Singapore, Hong Kong or the Philippines. This distinction will be spelt out in greater detail and justified further in section 2.2 and immediately below. Here I merely draw attention to this self-imposed limitation, and make the point that this book does not attempt to provide in-depth coverage of English in all the countries in which it has a significant place. To some extent, this limitation is a consequence of the introductory nature of this text. The cases dealt with here are all the easy ones: they arise by putting speakers of different varieties of English together and letting a new variety emerge, influenced by surrounding languages in ways which will be explored in this book. These relatively simple processes also apply in more complex situations, but other factors also play important roles there. To deal with the situation in Nigeria or Singapore, we would need some understanding of the contact situation in which the varieties of English there developed, including the political and educational conditions. In particular we would need to know about the principles affecting languages in contact, especially where the language we are interested in remains a minority one for a long period. We would also have to know a lot more about the languages spoken in these areas at the time English was introduced – in both these cases, this means several languages. If we wanted to look at pidgin and creole languages such as Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea or Krio in Sierra Leone we would need to know about the general principles which govern the process of simplification (producing pidgins) and the prin- ciples of reconstructing grammatical complexity (producing creoles). These are interesting issues, but not elementary ones. 1 02 pages 001-136 6/8/02 1:26 pm Page 1 . pronunciation 10 8 9.4 Discussion 11 0 Exercises 11 2 Recommendations for reading 11 2 Discussion of the exercises 11 3 References 12 7 Index 13 3 iv INTERNATIONAL VARIETIES OF ENGLISH 01 pages i-viii. readers vii 1 Background notions 1 1 .1 Accent, dialect, language and variety 2 1. 2 Home and colony 4 1. 3 Colonial lag 5 1. 4 Dialect mixing 6 Exercises 11 Recommendations for reading 12 2 English. English? 10 0 Exercises 10 2 Recommendations for reading 10 3 9 Standards in the colonies 10 4 9 .1 Moving away from the standard in vocabulary 10 4 9.2 Moving away from the standard in grammar 10 5 9.3