Mugglestone - The Oxford History of English

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inclination. The dominant role of English in Singapore is therefore home-grown, and to prove it there is a widespread younger-generation patois called Singlish which, while distressing the Lion City’s elders, oVers a vivid, home-grown, multiethnic sense of being safe in one’s in-group, while at the same time facing the older local generation and the wider world, while also—and simultaneously— drawing on the resources of all of Singapore’s native languages.

Also close to the global West is a range of territories variously associated with Europe or the USA or both. All are Westernized and fully aware of it, many use English for external and often internal purposes, but none has any particular wish or need to be regarded as ‘Western’ in the sense that Australia or indeed Japan is Western (despite their Asia-PaciWc locations) or that Singapore is Westernized. These include: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Fiji (all formerly British Asian ‘possessions’ with strongly indigenous cultures); the Gulf States (formerly British protectorates every bit as Arabic and Islamic as their neighbours); Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Uganda (all former British colonies in which there was, apart from Kenya, no large-scale permanent British settlement, but where there has been a strong British presence and considerable acculturation). These Westernizing territories form a penumbra to the global West, and proof of their close ties to that West is the long-term, often permanent residence of large groups of their own citizens in such Western territories as the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. All such countries have substantial diasporas in the preceding Wve ‘Anglo-Celtic’ nations (as the Australians might put it), and the likelihood that such diasporas will simply fade into the local populations in the early twenty-Wrst century, in the process forgetting their roots, is low.

However, the use of English in the global West and the greater circle of Westernization is by no means tidy. Other languages than English are used there, just as in the earlier Wests, a range of Anglo-hybrids exist, and English is also being put to work in places that could never be reckoned ‘Western’ or traditionally ‘Westernized’ as, for example, Kyrgyzstan and China. Three points are, however, worth noting in this connection:

1English and the global West share a vast area, but are not co-terminous: English is used beyond this West as, for example, in India, and there are areas

of the global West where English is not (yet) massively present as, for example, in France and Mexico.

2By and large, within the global West, there is a shared although non-uniform and sometimes uneven standardness of English usage, particularly in education and the media. Thus, while Americans spell and punctuate diVerently

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from the British, Canadians may be caught between the two; US and UK dictionaries of English diVer considerably on many points of usage, style, and presentation; and works of language reference often, necessarily, provide diVerent representations of the pronunciation of the ‘same’ words in British and American English.

3Beyond this area, varieties of English tend to be more divergent, notably, say, where West African Pidgin English (WAPE) is in wide use, or in South Asia, where a range of highly distinctive Indian Englishes can be found alongside the normative usage of, say, The Times of India and All India Radio (AIR). One is, for instance, unlikely to hear someone who works as an announcer or continuity person on AIR saying to a friend in the street, regarding some colleagues, that ‘They are working hard, no?’, although this is an otherwise fairly common construction in which the non-standard question speciWcally relates to habitual (not current and continuing) activity. Although this is therefore a widespread construction in everyday Indian English, AIR professionals would say, to indicate habituality, ‘They work hard, don’t they?’, as would their equivalents elsewhere. In this they use an internationally viable professional Indian English which is comparable to professional British or American English, and their local accent will, as it were, be set in an equivalent social position to the accents of media people in the rest of the English-using world.

It can be argued that such diVerences in India and elsewhere are no more remarkable than dialect and social-class diVerences in the UK and the USA. Whenever lines are drawn (as I have drawn them over the course of this chapter in the image of a global West and a range of English-using and non-English-using territories), we cannot assume that in the process anything absolute and Wnal has been described. Models of this kind are only models, and such a complex reality as English world-wide will never quite be pinned down, especially when we consider how mobile populations became in the course of the century.

Finally, it is a curiosity of English world-wide that, while it is used on an enormous scale in such non-Western (though varyingly Westernized) regions as India and indeed China (including the special case of Hong Kong, with its own distinctly institutionalized English), the language itself continues to be identiWed as fundamentally Western. The ancient West knew nothing of English; a later Atlantic West was the incubator for the language as we know it; and much of the global West now uses it, along with much of the rest of the world, in a wide spectrum of ways. Indeed, the notion ‘the rest of the world’ poses the question of whether there will, at some point, be an Alice-in-Wonderland universalized West

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(although presumably not called by that name) in which English and other very large languages co-occur with a range of medium to large regional languages that are in no danger of extinction and may be expanding in their own right. In such a world, the word cluster West, Western, Westernize, Westernization might, in relation to the use of English and other matters, become a term whose original directional meaning no longer has any relevance. At that point, English would beyond any doubt be a world or international or global language.

At that point, of course, the issue of modernity returns, in as much as the term Westernization has tended to Xirt with both modernization and modernity. A non-Western society engaged in Westernization is ipso facto also engaged in modernization—and a modernization in which English, especially in its US form, is profoundly involved. In many parts of the world, children of the Wnancially secure may not be sent to conventional local schools but to private and fee-paying international schools instead (reminding us of the public schools in England). A key subject in such schools (if not indeed their sole or primary medium of instruction) is English. When children leave such schools, in India, Hong Kong, Singapore, or elsewhere, they may proceed to local English-med- ium universities or to universities in the global West whose sole medium may be English or (as in parts of mainland Western Europe, such as the Netherlands) where English can be used as the medium of instruction and discussion, if by so doing foreign students are likely to be attracted in greater numbers, and if no local students object. An example is the Netherlands, now virtually an English-using country in which Dutch has to date lost no signiWcant ground.

In such situations, English (already perceived and received as the global lingua franca) has become in eVect, and paradoxically, a ‘second Wrst language’, a phenomenon that seems likely to spread in the twenty-Wrst century. Traditionalists and protectionists in many parts of the world, including people of good will and wide experience, who also know English, may fear for the health and integrity of their national traditions and object, at times strongly. But the tide, for good or ill or something else, seems to be running against them, and within their own communities. The unarguable utility of English may win out globally as it won out (amid pain) in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales in the eighteenth century. There may be regrets, but the medium will be used by some (with manifest gain), and as a result cannot fairly be denied to others. In this, in the early years of the twenty-Wrst century, access to English comes (perilously?) close to a human right.

Schools that oVer such global qualiWcations as the International Baccalaureate tend to have strong local reputations for quality of education, and not only in English. This inevitably strengthens parents’ hopes for a strong and safe educa-

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tion for their children, at the same time as such a system leads to, or expands, an e´lite whose aim is to ensure (through endowments, prizes, and other means) that such schools achieve even more in future. For some, this is a virtuous circle, creating the best of futures; for others it is vicious, because it may sap the strength of indigenous languages, cultures, and traditions; for others still it is simply there, to be used if possible, or to become a source of envy and resentment if not. In the meantime, however, such schools thrive like the green bay tree, and, in their own right, are a signiWcant element in the socio-economic process known world-wide, in English of course, as globalization.

References and Suggestions for Further Reading

English, Englishes, English languages

Useful introductory works are Elmes (1999–2000) whose Routes of English provides a set of four books (each with a foreword by Melvyn Bragg) relating to a BBC Radio 4 series of the same name (see also <http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/routesofenglish>), illustrated and with eight CDs (non-academic in style and focusing strongly on English as the world’s lingua franca); Jenkins (2003), a relaxed and wide-ranging source book, with many examples, specimens and quotations, and Trudgill and Hannah (1994), now in its third edition and a virtual classic on the subject of international English. McArthur (1998a) and McArthur (2002a) are also useful. The first views English as a family of languages or a ‘language complex’ rather than taking a traditional ‘one language’ view, while the second offers a detailed survey of the language, both continent by continent and in global terms. Relevant journals are English Today: The International Review of the English Language (edited by Tom McArthur, Cambridge University Press), World Englishes, Journal of English as an International and Intranational Language (edited by Braj B. Kachru and Larry E. Smith, Oxford: Blackwell) and English World-Wide (John Benjamins: Amsterdam &Philadelphia), edited by Edgar Schneider.

A debate at the start of the century

For images of ‘good English’ at the start of the century, especially in terms of the public schools and education, see Mugglestone (2003a), Chapter 7, and Honey (1988). Beal (2004) provides a good overview of modern English (up to 1945) and changes within it. For recent changes in RP (and dialect levelling), see, for example, Trudgill (2002). An excellent biography of Daniel Jones can be found in Collins and Rees (1999); his English Pronouncing Dictionary, first published in 1917, is now in its 16th edition (2003, edited by Roach, Hartman, and Setter). For Henry Cecil Wyld, see Milroy (1998). For the BBC and its influence on spoken language, see Mugglestone (2003a), Chapter 8. For the changing

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English and ‘the global West’

See Melchers and Shaw (2003) for an overview of global variation in vocabulary, grammar, phonology, and usage (with recordings on an accompanying CD). Maurais and Morris (2003) provide a useful survey, discussing ‘a new global linguistic order’, English hegemony, and the current condition of the world’s (especially larger) languages. McArthur (1998b) offers a collection of papers on language teaching, reference materials, the possibility of a global library-cum-database, and the lexicography of a universalizing English, while Graddol (1997) looks at the recent situation of, and possible futures for, English as a world language.

14

INTO THE TWENTY-FIRST

CENTURY

David Crystal

IT is a widespread literary trope to anthropomorphize English—to talk about its ‘remorseless advance’ (around the world) or its ‘insatiable appetite’ (for new words). If we were to continue this trope at the beginning of the twenty-Wrst century, we would have to select much less assertive metaphors. For, as a result of the unprecedented trends which aVected the language during the twentieth century, and especially during its Wnal decade, we would need to talk of ‘tentative steps’ and ‘uncertain directions’. We can see these new perspectives chieXy in

relation to three themes: globalization, the Internet, and education.

the long-term consequences of globalization

As the preceding chapter has stressed, the impact of globalization brought a widespread acknowledgement during the 1990s that English had achieved a genuine world presence, receiving special status in the usage or educational systems of every country. Books and journals whose titles described English as a ‘world language’ or a ‘global language’ became ubiquitous. But because there has never been a language of such global reach and magnitude, it is unclear what happens to one in the long term when it achieves this status, or what happens to other languages as a consequence. Certainly, we saw during that decade an increase in the number of concerned reactions from other-language communities

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Although futurologists have varied opinions about the very-long-term role of English as a global lingua franca, we are unlikely to see a reversal of current trends in the course of the present century. All the evidence at present points to a steady growth in the number of New Englishes, and—within these—an increase in new forms, new functions, and new literatures. There is one main reason for this, which has been acknowledged in Chapter 13: the increasing global presence of non-native speakers, now outnumbering native speakers in a ratio of three to one. But the nature of the non-native speaker bias is changing. Whereas Wfty years ago most nonnative speakers of English belonged to ‘second-language’ nations, where the British Empire had left a legacy of oYcial language use, today most belong to countries which have had no political relationship with Britain or any other English-speaking nation. This seems to be the pattern for the future. Because there are more of these nations, we must therefore anticipate a considerable increase in the kind of interlinguistic eVects which have been repeatedly observed in earlier contact situations. Just as South African English displays large numbers of words borrowed from Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu, and other local languages—such as Afrikaans agterkamer (‘back-room’), Zulu ngoma (‘type of drum’), and a distinctive range of pronunciations which reXect the syllable-timed pattern of those languages (the name South Africa, for example, being pronounced by many speakers as four equally stressed syllables)—so we must expect to Wnd an evolving linguistic distinctiveness in China, Egypt, Sweden, and the other 120 or so countries where English has status only as a ‘foreign language’ (‘EFL countries’).

At a colloquial level, this inXuence, seen in lexical borrowing or more extensive code-mixing, has already been institutionalized through the use of such names as ‘Spanglish’ and ‘Japlish’. These labels, however, have to be used with caution because they have been applied to a variety of diVerent language situations on the ground, and they are often used stereotypically. The term ‘Spanglish’, for example, has been used in four main senses: for a balanced mixing at all levels between Spanish and English; for the use of a large number of Spanish loan words in English; for the use of a large number of English loan words in Spanish; and for a situation where any kind of mutual inXuence, no matter how small, generates a public outcry from purists. For the present chapter, it is the Wrst two senses that are relevant, such labels drawing attention to the way English vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, or patterns of discourse have altered under the inXuence of other languages. Once upon a time, such variations would have been dismissed out-of-hand as ‘interference errors’ produced by people whose command of the standard language was imperfect. Today, as increasing numbers of highly educated people accommodate to each other in the use of such features, these ‘errors’ gradually take on the character of regional spoken standards. For example, in

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Egypt, the universal greeting ‘Welcome in Egypt’ was once perceived to be an error, displaying the inXuence of Arabic. Today, it is in universal use, produced by native English speakers living in Egypt as well as by native Arabic speakers. Its status has even been sanctioned by its appearance in some English-language textbooks written for the Egyptian market. This process is no diVerent, of course, from the emergence of quarter of instead of quarter to in American time-telling, or any other distinctive local use, such as toward vs. towards, which has achieved status as a regional standard.

However, the fact that such a usage has emerged in Egypt, an EFL country, and has moreover crossed the native/non-native divide, is highly signiWcant. It is, I believe, a sign of things to come. The driving force is probably the need for linguistic accommodation. The language of people in rapport with each other readily converges. It is only natural for native speakers of English, living as a (less powerful) minority in a non-native community, and wishing to integrate within that community, to accommodate in the direction of the linguistic norms which they hear around them. And it is only a matter of time before features of this integration—vocabulary, most obviously, but also subtle features of grammar and even pronunciation—begin to be institutionalized, written down by those who listen most carefully: the novelists, poets, dramatists, and short-story writers. While at the outset these writers produce styles which are personal and idiosyncratic, over the course of time shared features inevitably emerge, and these then become models for other kinds of written language use. The similarities in vocabulary and grammar are often obscured by the diversity of spelling prac- tices—as in the case of contemporary Scots or Caribbean writing—but we might expect a gradual standardization of spelling to emerge in the course of time.

‘New Literatures’ do not develop overnight. The evidence from earlier Commonwealth manifestations is that fresh literary voices take a considerable while to mature. Authors are always at Wrst somewhat uncertain about the way to handle the non-standard or innovative varieties of English evolving in the community about which they are writing. But over time the writing gains in conWdence. In relation to the presentation of non-standard varieties, there seem to be four stages:

1All characters express themselves in standard English, whatever their linguistic background; the author makes no comment. Example:

‘How long do you intend to stay with us,’ said the Colonel. ‘As long as you will have me, sir,’ replied Manuel.

2 Characters express themselves in standard English; the author tells the reader what variety or language they are really using. Example:

‘I’ll leave as soon as I can,’ said Manuel in pidgin.