What
are the criteria for a ´New English´1?
It
has been taught in education systems in regions ´where languages
other than English were the main language.´
English
has often been established through a period of colonial stability.
Most
of the population do not speak this variety of English
It
has developed characteristic language features., i.e. sounds,
sentence structures, expressions. “It has become localised
or nativised.”
(Jenkins 2011:
Bangbose
names five internal factors that show how well established a New
English is:
the
demographic factor:
how many speakers of the acrolect, or standard variety, use it?
the
geographical factor:
how widely dispersed is it?
the
authoritative factor:
where is its use sanctioned?
codification:
does it appear in reference books such as dictionaries and grammars?
the
acceptability factor:
what is the attitude of users and non-users towards it?
According
to Bangbose, codification
and acceptability
are ´the most crucial as, without them, any innovation will be
regarded as an error rather than a legitimate form characteristic of
a particular New English variety.
A
common evolution of a New English can be observed in former British
colonies in Asia and Africa, for example. Colonisers built schools
”to provide a local workforce able to communicate“ in English. In
order to keep up with the growing number of student ”the
English-medium schools began to recruit local non-native teachers“,
who of course spoke a different English than their native speaker
teachers, ”and the differences grew still more marked among the
children who were taught by non-native speakers.“
”In
this way, the New Englishes (...) developed their own character.“
(Jenkins 2011:
New
and new Englishes differ from British English on the following main
levels:
-
pronunciation
-
grammar
-
vocabulary/idiom
-
discourse
style
Pronunciation
Many
New English consonant sounds differ from what is called British
English Received
Pronunciation (RP).
Consonant
sounds
Examples:
dental
fricative sounds //
and //
as in thin
and this
turn to /t/ and /d/ when pronounced by speakers of Indian Englishes,
they say ´tin´and ´dis´.
/w/
pronounced as /v/ , ´wet´ and ´vet´. (Lankan and some Indian
Englishes).
Vowel
sounds
Vowel
quality (movements of tongue and lips) and quantity (length of
sound)
Examples:
RP
/a:/ pronounced without the length, ´staff´sounds like ´stuff´
Minimal
distinction between / ��
/ and / ��:/,
´seat´ sounds like sit´ (in Lankan, Phillipine, Singapore, Indian
and Jamaican Englishes)
Schwa
sound /ǝ/
as the full vowel a
at the end of words in African Englishes, so ´matter´would be
pronounced mata
Grammar
Main
grammatical tendencies according to Platt:
People,
things and ideas
no
plural mark for nouns
up
to twelve year
of
schooling (India)
no
distinction between third person pronouns he
and she.
When
I first met my husband, she
was a student (East Africa)
Change
of word order within the noun phrase
Ninety
over
cheques (Singapore/Malaysia)
use
of specific/non-specific system rather than a definite/ indefinite
system.
Everyone
has car
(India)
Changing
the form of quantifiers
Don´t
eat so much sweets
(Singapore)
Verbs
-
lack of subject-verb concord. Singular nouns are sometimes assigned
a plural verb or plural nouns a singular verb
My
marriages was
typically arranged marriages (India)
limited
marking of the third person singular present tense form:
She
drink
milk (Phillipines)
limited
marking of verbs for the past tense:
My
wife she pass
her Cambridge (Singapore)
use
an aspect system rather than tense system:
I
still
eat ( I am/was eating in Malaysian English)
tendency
to extend the use of be + verb + ing constructions to stative verbs:
She
is
knowing
her sience very well (East African English)
formation
of different phrasal and prepositional verb constructions:
I´m
going to voice
out
my opinion (West African English)
Vocabulary/idiom
Speakers
of New Englishes create words
by
adding a prefix or a suffix to existing British or indigenous words
by
compounding from English items
These
creations are called coinages.
Examples
of locally coined words
First
kind of coinage
a)
stingko colloquial
Singapore English: ´smelly´
teacheress Indian
English: ´female teacher´
enstool Ghanaian
English: ´to install a chief´
Second
kind of coinage
b)
peelhead Jamaican English: ´a bald-headed person´
key-bunch Indian English: ´bunch of keys´
high hat Phillipine English: ´a snob´
Borrowings
from indigenous languages
East
African English: chai ´tea´
Indian
English: crore ´ten
million´
Phillipine
English: kundiman ´love
song
Idioms
Speakers
create New English idioms
by
pronouncing inner circle idioms in a different way.
For
example: ´gift of the gap´
(British English: ´gift of the gab´)
b)
by translating directly from indigenous idioms.
For
example: Malaysian English :´to shake legs´ comes from the Malay
idiom ´goyang kaki´, meaning ´to be idle´.
c)
by combining elements from English with indigenous forms.
For example:
Nigerian English: ´to put sand in someone´s gari´(a type of
flour)
Meaning
´to threaten someone´s livelihood´.
d) by
using variations on native speaker ones.
For
example: Singapore English: ´to eat your cake and have it´.
British
English: ´to have your cake and eat it´.
There
is debate over wether these coinages and idioms are a result rather
of errors than of creativity.
Jenkins
argues that ”most linguistic innovation begins life as something
that would be considered as an error in the standard form”.
(Jenkins 2011:
Therefore,
errors are part of the creative process.
Discourse
style
New
Englishes tend to exaggerate the formal style of Inner Circle
Englishes.
For
example, Indian English uses the past tense of ´can´ and ´will´
more often than British English when being polite.
´We
hope that you could
join us´or
´We
hope that the ice-Chancellor would
investigate this matter´ (Trudgill and Hannah 2002: 132).
Also,
the indigenous culture has influences on a discourse style, mainly
in
-
expressions of thanks,
-the
use of blessings,
-greeting
and leave-taking.
Examples:
Indian
English: ´I am bubbling with zeal and enthusiasm to serve as a
research assistant´.
´I offer myself as a candidat for the post of Research
Assistant. Thanking you´. (Platt et al. 1984: 150-1)
Lankan
English greeting: So how? (translation from Sinhala)
West
African English greeting: How? How now?
Lankan
English leave-taking: I´ll go and come
Malaysian
English leave-taking: Walk slowly ho!
”Using
words, phrases, and longer stretches of speech in two or more
languages is characteristic of the speech of bi- and multilingual
people”(Jenkins 2011: 33).
It
is called code-mixing/code-switching.
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