World Englishes
The concept of World Englishes has been receiving a lot of attention since the past few years. This literature review presents some of the recent studies that were focused on this topic.
The local forms of English that gets developed because of the local language blended with English, which eventually turns into the standard language of a particular society or a religion, are defined as World Englishes. Also, the terms ‘World English’ & ‘World Englishes’ are different from each other. While the term ‘World English’ denotes English language as a lingua franca (ELF), the term ‘World Englishes’ is something which denotes different forms of English adopted by various global societies.
World Englishes vary drastically from the Standard English language – the world’s highly popular form of English. Standard English possesses specific grammar and terminology, because of which it is different from the World Englishes. Standard English is the global language that is extensively used in education, business, aviation, entertainment and many other industries that have global establishments.
This Standard English is also known by the name EIL (English as International Language), which is popularly referred to as EAL (English as Additional Language). EAL typically is based upon the either the American Standard English or the British Standard English. The primary objective of EIL is to learn and teach English with various intelligible forms – rather than relying or following one standard form and this form of teach is believed to equip learners with the necessary accommodative ability that would further enable them to communicate globally.
The contemporary concept of EIL is not a new one that has emerged overnight, but is rather a subject that has evolved in a progressive manner in English language’s history. Language and culture, being relatively independent phenomena, are connected via the meaning of the linguistic signs that ensures the ontological entity of language and culture. Each language is the unique system that produces significant impact on the consciousness of its speakers and forms their linguistic world-image that reflects reality via the cultural world-image.
International English is typically used to denote the local Englishes of those non–mother tongue nations where it has an intra-national institutionalized role, despite a few researchers also having included the nations having English as mother tongue in their definitions. Contrary to this, international English is also referred to in a different connotation wherein English is used as a medium of global communication across national as well as language boundaries.
As English gets its existing status at a global level and creates for itself a pivotal role that is being acknowledged by each and every global nation, different terms related to its various features appeared, encompassing English as an international language. “English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), World Englishes (WEs), and English as an International Language (EIL) are a few such variants of the English language.”
With each of these variants of the English language focusing on different features of the role played by English, EIL is achieving the status of a global standard and is being established as the most suitable form used to refer to the most of the usages of the English language.
References
Aimin, L. (2013). The Study of Second Language Acquisition Under Socio-Cultural Theory. American Journal of Educational Research, 1(5), 162-167. Retrieved January 17, 2016, from http://pubs.sciepub.com/education/1/5/3/#
Ecclestone, J. D. (2008). English - Language Literature Review. In O. Publishing, Teaching, Learning and Assessment for Adults: Improving Foundation Skills. OCED Publishing. Retrieved January 26, 2016, from http://www.oecd.org/edu/ceri/40046731.pdf
Elyas, A. M. (2014). English in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. World Englishes, 33(1), 128-142.
Gorlach, M. (1990). Studies in the history of the English language. Heidelberg: Germany: Carl Winter.
Haghani, M. F. (2012). Sociocultural Perspectives on Foreign Language Learning. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 3(4), 693-699.
Jenkins, J. (March, 2006). Current Perspectives on Teaching World Englishes and English as a Lingua Franca. TESOL Quarterly, 40(01), 157-181. Retrieved January 26, 2016, from http://people.ufpr.br/~clarissa/pdfs/EFL_ESL_ELF_Jenkins2006.pdf
Melchers, e. a. (2010). Varieties of English. English Language and Linguistics, 14(3), 485-506.
Rudby, R. (2011). "A Review of “Contending with globalization in World Englishes”". Language and Education, 25(5), 467.
Saraceni, R. R. (2006). Introduction. In R. R. Saraceni, English in the world: Global rules, global roles (pp. 5-16). NY: Continuum.
