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World Englishes
Jennifer Jenkins
A resource book for
students
Strand 4: Variation in English across
the world
New Englishes
Four defining criteria by Platt, Weber and Ho (1984)

1.
2.
3.
4.
It has developed through the education system.
It has developed in an area where a native variety of English
was not the language spoken by most of the population.
It is used for a range of functions among those who speak or
write it in the region where it is used.
It has become ‘localised’ or ‘nativised’ by adopting some
language features of its own (e.g., sounds, intonation patterns,
sentence structures, words, expressions).
A4
Innovation in English

Five internal factors to decide the status of an
innovation (Bamgbose 1998):
1
2
3
4
5
Demographic factor (how many speakers use it?)
Geographical factor (how widely dispersed is it?)
Authoritative factor (where is its use sanctioned?)
Codification (does it appear in reference books?)
Acceptability factor (what is the attitude towards it?)
A4
Levels of variation

Main levels of variation: pronunciation, grammar,
vocabulary/idiom, discourse style

Pronunciation
Consonant sounds, e.g., dental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/
-
Vowel sounds: vary across the New Englishes in
terms of both quality and quantity
A4
Levels of variation

Grammar
-
a tendency not to mark nouns for plural
a tendency to use a specific/non-specific system for nouns
rather than a definite/indefinite system, or to use the two
systems side by side
a tendency to change the form of quantifiers
a tendency not to make a distinction between the third person
pronouns he and she
a tendency to change the word order within the noun phrase
(cf. Platt, Weber and Ho 1984)
-
-
-
A4
Levels of variation

Grammar

limited marking of the third person singular present tense form
limited marking of verbs for the past tense
a tendency to use an aspect system (which shows whether an
action is finished or still going on) rather than tense system
(which shows the time an action takes place)
a tendency to extend the use of be + verb + ing constructions to
stative verbs
the formation of different phrasal and prepositional verb
constructions
(cf. Platt, Weber and Ho 1984)




A4
Levels of variation

Vocabulary/idiom

Locally coined words/expressions
Prefixation (e.g., enstool, destool)
Suffixation (e.g., teacheress, spacy)
Compounding (e.g., key-bunch, high hat)
Borrowings from indigenous languages
Idioms
Direct translations from indigenous idioms (e.g., to shake legs)
Variation on native speaker idioms (e.g., to eat your cake and
have it)
Combination of English and indigenous forms (e.g., to put sand
A4
in someone’s gari)


Levels of variation

Discourse style
-
Formal character
Complex vocabulary and grammatical structure
Specific expressions of thanks, deferential vocabulary and the
use of blessings
Greeting and leave-taking
-
-
-
A4
The legitimate and illegitimate
offspring of English





The naming of the New Englishes
World Englishes scholar Mufwene (1997)
Criticism of western linguists’ terminology
Based on mistaken belief of language contact:
mother language gives birth to daughter language
without any language contact
Language contact also a feature of ‘legitimate’
Englishes
B4
The legitimate and illegitimate
offspring of English





Innovation – Deviation – Mistake
Distinction by Kachru (1992)
Innovation: concerned with creativity, which is often
not granted to Outer and Expanding Circle speakers
Deviation: involves a comparison with another
variety
Mistake (‘error’): relates to acquisitional deficiency
B4
Emerging ‘sub’-varieties: Singlish
Singlish = Colloquial Singapore English (CSE)
 Differs from Standard Singapore English (SSE)
 Not clear whether CSE and SSE are continuum or
two distinct varieties (Deterding 2007)
 Fear that use of Singlish among children might affect
literacy
 Main difference from Standard English is syntactic,
lexis is dominated by English (Gupta 1999)
C4
Singlish

Grammar
–
–
–
Verb features: e.g. past tense not marked, no present tense
-s suffix, copula dropped to describe states
Noun features: e.g. non-count nouns treated as count,
indefinite article dropped, relative clause with different word
order and one
Sentence structure: e.g. subject dropping, conjunction
dropping, use of pragmatic particles lah and ah
C4
Singlish

Pronunciation
e.g. avoidance of th-sounds, less distinction between long
and short vowels, rhythm very syllable-timed

Lexis
–
–
–
–
Borrowing from other Singaporean languages (e.g. Hokkien,
Malay)
Shifted meaning (e.g. stay for long-term residence)
Conversion: verbs to adjectives (e.g. blur ‘confused’), nouns
to verbs
Idiomatic forms peculiar to Singapore (e.g. love letters
C4
‘flaky, tube-shaped biscuits’)
The politics of Singlish

Speak Good English Movement (SGEM) (2000)
–
–
–
–
–
–
Promotion of SSE
Use of Singlish discouraged
Concerns about international intelligibility  economic
imperative
Sociolinguists (e.g. Schneider 2007) have different view:
concerns about falling standards are common in
postcolonial contexts
Rubdy (2001): Singlish is symbol of cultural identity
Wee (2002): SGEM is an attempt to eliminate Singlish 
breach of linguistic human rights
C4
Estuary English (EE)
Roswarne 1996
 Accent variety between Cockney and RP
 Pronunciation features
–
–
–
–
–
–

Word final ‘t’ replaced with glottal stop
L-vocalisation
Lengthening of final vowel sounds
Dropping of yod in words like ‘assume’
Syllabic consonants avoided by insertion of schwa
th-fronting
Might replace RP or be absorbed into RP (thus
changing RP)
C4
Estuary English (EE) – a variety?
Challenges to Rosewarne’s account of EE:





Fails to take into account intraspeaker variation, i.e. adjusting
accent to context (Maidment 1994)
EE is StE with non-RP, London-influenced accent (Wells 1998)
EE as ‘inaccurate myth’ (Trudgill 2002): not a variety but a
lower middle-class accent, unlikely to replace RP because not
taught in schools
Not a variety but a set of levelled accents or dialects (Kerswill
2007)
A number of distinct accents, not a single and definable variety,
is part of more general changes which are not exclusive to the
British Isles (Przedlacka 2002)
C4