Asian Englishes

Teaching  English  in  East  Asia:  A  Teacher’s  Guide  to  Chinese,  Japanese,  and  Korean  Learners  will  be  a  welcome  read  as  a  practical  and  reassuring  guide  for  those  in  the  field of English as a Foreign Language (EFL),  particularly in East Asia. With its up-to-date  insights  and  a  detailed  examination  of  prevalent  pedagogical  trends  as  well  as  information  on  English  language  employment,  it  provides  clear,  no-nonsense explanations of relevant underlying philosophies and the expectations of learners.

The findings of previous language attitude studies have demonstrated consistently that public evaluations of speech forms reflect stereotypes of and attitudes towards the perceived group(s) of speakers of the language or variety under consideration. Folk perceptions of speech varieties are particularly impactful in educational contexts (Ryan and Giles, 1982). However, despite the volume of studies measuring attitudes towards variation in L1 varieties of the English language, it is only relatively recently that researchers began to investigate folklinguistic perceptions of specific forms of English spoken in Asia, including within higher education contexts. This is surprising given the considerable diversity within and between spoken forms of Asian Englishes, the growing numbers of students from Asian countries studying in English at overseas universities as well as the increasing importance of the English language throughout the Asian continent.

This talk details the results of a series of large-scale studies, investigating attitudes towards forms of UK, US, Japanese, Chinese, Thai and Indian English speech, amongst large cohorts of university students in the UK (McKenzie, 2015a, 2015b) Japan (McKenzie and Gilmore, 2017) and Thailand (McKenzie, Kitikanan and Boriboon, 2016). Fine-grained multivariate analysis of the data collected demonstrated that whilst differences exist between the UK, Thai and Japanese university students’ speech evaluations, there was a general tendency amongst all three student cohorts to rank speakers of both standard and non-standard UK and US English varieties significantly higher in terms of competence than the three Asian English speech forms. In contrast, the analysis generally indicted significantly more favourable ratings for the university students’ ‘local’ forms of English in terms of warmth. The findings of these studies are discussed in relation to university internationalisation agendas, and for English language policy more broadly, in UK and Asian contexts. A number of suggestions for the future methodological investigation of language attitudes are also offered.

References

McKenzie, R.M. (2015a) UK university students’ folk perceptions of spoken variation in English: The
role of explicit and implicit attitudes. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 236: 31-53.

McKenzie, R.M. (2015b) The sociolinguistics of variety identification and categorisation: Free
classification of varieties of spoken English amongst non-linguist listeners. Language Awareness 24(2): 150-168.

McKenzie, R.M., P. Kitikanan and P. Boriboon (2016) The competence and warmth of Thai students’ attitudes towards varieties of English: the effect of gender and perceptions of L1 diversity. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 37(6): 536-550.

McKenzie, R.M. and A. Gilmore (2017) “The people who are out of ‘right’ English”: Japanese university students’ social evaluations of English language diversity and the internationalisation of Japanese higher education. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 27(1):152-175.

Ryan, E.R. and H. Giles (1982) (eds.) Attitudes towards Language Variation. London: Edward Arnold.

In this paper, the /r/ production of adolescent Anglo-English and Punjabi-English Bilingual speakers in West Yorkshire was analysed from speech data collected in 2000. A clear difference was found between Anglo-English speakers who used the standard British rhotic, the postalveolar approximant [ɹ̠ ], exclusively, and the Punjabi-English Bilingual speakers who used both British rhotics and a number of different variants influenced by the Punjabi retroflex flap [ɽ]. The influence of the retroflex flap [ɽ] was proven by formant and duration results, as well as qualitative observations of the speaker spectrograms. It is predicted that Punjabi-English speaker preference for either Punjabi influenced rhotics or British rhotics depended on if they identified as culturally integrated “British Asians” or culturally alienated “Asians”. This study also considers the possibility of a progression in the rhotic production of West Yorkshire Punjabi-English speakers over the last 15 years. As well as expanding on the findings of West Yorkshire Asian English, the findings implicate that social identity is a key aspect affecting the speech of bilingual speakers who are often part of more than one culture.

This study examined the acoustic correlates of primary and secondary stress in Indian English. Together with the patterns of lexical stress placement, the parameters of syllable duration, pitch slope, intensity and spectral balance were examined in six noun-verb pairs. Two L1 backgrounds (Hindi and Malayalam) were examined. Results showed that lexical stress placement varied substantially across the speakers, but was in the majority of cases on the same syllable as in American or British English. Second, speakers relied on (in order of importance) differences in intensity, spectral balance, duration, and pitch slope to distinguish primary from secondary stress. The results also showed that Indian English differs from other varieties in the phonetic realisation of the primary-secondary stress distinction.

Abstract : This paper examines some of the ways in which foreign language education has been affected by corrupt practices and various other distortions of best teaching practice. Particular attention is paid to South Korea. The nature of corruption and its social origins are identified. Pressures affecting students, teachers and institutions are all seen to play a part. It is noted that mass education is a simulation which leaves space for fraud, whereas actual live language performance is its own test. Perhaps as a consequence, the gradual insertion of a new language code like English into a speech community might succeed over the long term even where immediate educational practices suggest failure.

The Philippines is a nation of 7107 islands located in Southeast Asia. The country is home to an estimated 99,809,100 people who thrive in a rich linguistic climate, which hosts 181 living languages (Lewis, Simons, & Fennig, 2014), an English variety (Philippine English) that has reached the fourth phase of Schneider’s dynamic model (Borlongan, 2011), and a rich tradition of applied linguistics (henceforth, AL) research that is aptly captured in Dita’s (2011) Issues and trends in applied linguistics in the Philippines: a decade in retrospect.

Pitch range (difference between maximum and minimum pitch), pitch dynamism and mean pitch level have been shown to differ between varieties of English, and such differences can lead to (un)favourable judgements about a speaker's attitude and like-ability. Little is known about pitch range in nativised varieties of English, which are spoken in postcolonial countries. While in many functional and structural ways they are similar to native varieties, in other ways they resemble learner varieties. Since learners commonly have a compressed pitch range compared to native speakers, this paper investigates pitch range and level in 20 speakers of Educated Indian English (IndE) in order to determine whether IndE is similar to British English or more like learner varieties in this respect. The analysis reveals that IndE has a smaller pitch range than British English in read speech, but a wider pitch range in spontaneous speech, which is not compatible with results for learner varieties. Moreover, IndE has a higher pitch level than BrE. These prosodic differences might explain reports of cross-cultural communication difficulties. Finally, the comparison of four different L1 backgrounds in IndE also shows small L1-based differences, which, however, are not significant.

This paper details the development of the Extremely Short Story Competition [ESSC] for non-native users of English. The ESSC began as a 50-word writing competition, using e-mail, between students of the Literature Club Zayed University and has since been successfully adapted for delivery via a website to involve tertiary students at federal education institutions (Zayed University, UAE University & Higher Colleges of Technology) throughout the United Arab Emirates. Examples and explanation will be given of how the web-version of the ESSC is used to encourage creativity in classroom and out-of-class language learning and has also been implemented throughout the GCC (+ Yemen) and in the Far East centering on Japan.

"Most research on speech rhythm has focussed on duration.
For example, [1] suggested the normalised Pairwise Variability Index for vocalic intervals (nPVI-V) in order to measure
the variability of vocalic durations. This paper argues that
speech rhythm research should also take into account other
correlates of prominence as well as their interaction. The
duration-based nPVI, or nPVI-V(dur), is supplemented by an
nPVI-V(avgLoud) that measures variability in average loudness. These two metrics account for variability in duration and
loudness, but cannot measure if loudness and duration reinforce
each other by varying simultaneously in the same direction.
This simultaneous variability is accounted for by the combined
nPVI-V(dur+avgLoud), which is higher than the average of the
other two measures, if vocalic intervals that are longer than average are also louder than average. The three metrics are subsequently applied to recordings of a reading task performed by
20 speakers of Indian English (IndE) and 10 speakers of British
English (BrE). Results indicate that IndE has less variability in
duration and less variability in loudness than BrE. In addition,
IndE has less simultaneous variability in duration and loudness
than BrE. This indicates that duration and loudness are less often used together as cues to prominence in IndE than in BrE."

The status of English in Nepal has changed in the last seven decades. Adopted first as a ‘foreign’ language, English, in recent years, has become an indispensable part of life for the Nepalese people. In fact, it is presently used as an additional language,second language and even primary language in many socio-economic and educational domains in Nepal. Even though English had been in use in Nepal for a long time, it was only adopted as a foreign language into the formal education system in the first half of the twentieth century, and it continues to have this status, despite the fact that scholars and users of the language claim that it is anything but foreign. Its current domination in all spheres of life makes the language indispensable and on a par with Nepali, currently the only official language for wider communication.As such, many advocate that English in Nepal deserves greater recognition than the term foreign language offers. The present article makes a sociolinguistic analysis of the English language situation in Nepal and, drawing from research and the available literature, it assesses to what extent the claim that it has many faces is justifiable. In view of the growing popularity and dominance of English, the article examines its role and status in the national language education policy, and points out what implications its changing status has on the national curriculum and pedagogic resources.

Topicalization refers to the sentence-initial placement of constituents other than the subject and is often listed as a non-canonical construction [cf. Ward, Gregory, Betty J. Birner and Rodney Huddleston (2002). “Information Packaging.” Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum, eds. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1363–1447.]. In this paper, tokens of topicalization in the direct conversations in the International Corpus of English for Hong Kong and India and, for comparison, Great Britain are analysed. In order to find out if topicalization is a contact-induced feature, typological profiles with regard to topic-prominence [Li, Charles N. and Sandra A. Thompson (1976). “Subject and Topic: A New Typology of Language.” Charles N. Li, ed. Subject and Topic. New York: Academic Press, 457–489.] are created for three Indo-Aryan, three Dravidian and two Sinitic languages. I suggest that the low frequencies of topicalization in Hong Kong English and the high frequencies of topicalization in Indian English are primarily due to differences in intensity of contact [Thomason, Sarah G. (2001). Language Contact. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.] and variety development [Schneider, Edgar W. (2007). Postcolonial English. Varieties Around the World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.]. Typological interference at the level of information structure is assumed to only come to the fore in further developed varieties and after prolonged contact.

There have been few attempts to introduce a World Englishes perspective into classroom language learning and teaching contexts particularly those involving academic English. This
paper endeavours to redress this imbalance and reports the results of an exploration designed to integrate a World Englishes perspective into an academic English course held on
the Dubai campus of Zayed University, a university in the United Arab Emirates for female UAE nationals. Several main themes are examined: the design of learning experiences to satisfy the stringencies of the curriculum and proposed ‘learning outcomes’; the development of a teaching methodology that will meet students’ language learning requirements and their
communicative and cognitive demands; and the findings of a co-operative study, between teacher and students to investigate student attitudes to their own identity and written language production from a World Englishes perspective. It is hoped that ELT teachers may draw upon the insights presented here to further develop methods and materials relevant to the needs and interests of their students who may have already developed their own distinctive patterns of language use.

Consistent with previous papers (Hassall, 1998, 2006a; Hassall & Ganesh, 1996, 1999), this study utilizes Correspondence Analysis (CA) to compare lexical frequency distribution of corpora compiled by the Japanese Association of Asian Englishes (JAFAE) and Zayed University (ZU), United Arab Emirates (UAE), in response to the 50-word Extremely Short Story Competition implemented in formal and informal educational settings in both Japan and the UAE. In 2007, over five hundred ESSC scripts of exactly 50 words in length were assembled by JAFAE and over nine hundred ESSC scripts were assembled by ZU. Both raw, and mediated corpora (edited ready for publication in the UAE) are considered. It is hoped that this study will complement a parallel study examining individual’s topic choices using the same corpora undertaken by Matsubara (2013), and also previous studies of ESSC corpora carried out by Fujiwara (2008) and Okaura (2007, 2009).

This paper proposes an International Corpus of Creative English [ICCE] as a worldwide corpus particularly suitable for easy implementation in countries which have tertiary institutions with well-defined populations of students possessing similar cultural and/or linguistic backgrounds. The ICCE is contextualized as a World Englishes corpus with reference to the International Corpus of English (ICE) and the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE). Centred round the Extremely Short Story Competition [ESSC], introduced at the 2nd Asia TEFL Conference in Korea (2004), the ICCE will provide potential in terms of intercultural/interlinguistic research and also practical exploitation in the wider community for both educational and commercial purposes. Specifics of the Extremely Short Story Competition [ESSC] are provided in order to introduce a tightly structured contest which has proved to be an extremely efficient instrument for the generation of texts both inside and outside the (language teaching) classroom.
A progress report, is presented which outlines two pilot projects undertaken at Zayed University [ZU] in the United Arab Emirates [UAE] (2004) and at the British Council in Seoul, Republic of Korea [ROK] (2005). This is illustrated with the prize-winning ESSC stories in both locations. In addition, an account describes the compilation of the first component of the ICCE corpus which is currently being undertaken in the UAE (2005) using the ZU website specifically designed to operationalize the ESSC in twenty federal tertiary institutions throughout the country. Discussion is provided of the benefits of the ICCE for language learning and teaching, applied linguistics and the community. The paper calls for academics in other nations to contribute to the ICCE and offers the ZU ESSC website and support to other countries wishing to participate in the project.

A consideration of the Asian region in the history of English must view the element of contact in multilingual contexts as probably the most significant phenomenon affecting the development of English. Several critical factors of contact prompting rethinking what “the English language” has become are discussed, viz. changes in different eras in the sociopolitical contexts, the diversity of vernaculars in Asia that have come into contact with English, the range of input varieties, and the general context of multilingualism. Linguistic features which are shared across a number of Asian languages and which look set to continue their influence on English are highlighted: zero copula, predicative adjectives and topic prominence, discourse particles, and tone. Finally, two contemporary and significant trends in Asia – the rapid spread of English in noncolonial Asian countries, and globalization phenomena such as electronic media, global music, and call centre outsourcing – are also noted for their contribution to contact dynamics and their subsequent impact on the continuing development of English.

Abstract This article seeks to expand the current discussions on the notion of ‘translingual Englishes’ by incorporating the idea of ‘unequal Englishes’ as a way of understanding the role of English in relation to understudied Asian peripheral contexts such as Mongolia and Bangladesh. It is clear that young speakers in these Asian countries are creatively involved with ‘translingual Englishes’, in which various English and other linguistic and cultural resources are in constant interplay. Yet there are also particular local constraints that either limit or expand their usage of English. Translingual Englishes may be creative and playful but they are also associated with differences in one’s unequal social class, wealth and power.

ABSTRACT A range of varieties of English have been developed for communication within or across Australian Aboriginal communities which are collectively known as Aboriginal English. This designation is normally not used to include pidgins or creoles, although pidgins and creoles have, in the past, played a role in the development of Aboriginal English. Research into varieties of Aboriginal English began in the 1960s with a succession of studies of the informal speech of small groups in a number of Queensland communities. Descriptive accounts have now been made of varieties from all states of Australia and from the Northern Territory. Most varieties have many features in common, but the influence of pidgin/creole and of Aboriginal vernaculars is stronger in some locations than in others. Areas of interest in Aboriginal English research include issues of code choice and switching, speech use, discourse, oral narrative, the historical development of the dialect, semantics and lexicography. The role of Aboriginal researchers in research into Aboriginal English has been small but is growing, especially with recent trends towards applied and action research.

ABSTRACT This article investigates split infinitives in 12 World Englishes using Kachru’s concentric circles framework. Beginning with a brief description of split infinitives, the article explores two significant aspects of splitting: the most common ‘breakers’, and split infinitive use across different genres and domains. Sourcing from the International Corpus of English, findings reveal that split infinitive use in Inner Circle and Outer Circle Englishes both exhibit similarities and differences. The seemingly contradicting data indicate that the split between Inner and Outer Circle Englishes is not as defined as Kachru initially hypothesized, but overlapping. While the similarities can partially be attributed to the prevailing first language (L1) prescriptive norms in the Outer Circle, the perceptible divergences in split infinitive use are mainly argued to involve subconscious substratum transfer and identity-formation processes; the deviations from L1 norms can be viewed as a sign of nativization and, perhaps, differentiation from their ex-colonizers or settlers’ English(es).

This article examines the intonation patterns used by Malaysian English (MalE) speakers when asking ‘wh-’ questions and ‘yes/no’ questions. Analysis on recordings of Malay, Chinese and Indian speakers revealed similar patterns in the intonation patterns of MalE wh- questions and yes/no questions regardless of the ethnicity of the speaker: wh- questions and yes/no questions tended to start with a level tone; yes/no questions ended with rises, while wh- questions ended with either falls or rises. These patterns cannot merely be attributed to the influence of the speakers’ first languages nor were they learner errors. However, whether these features are accepted as norms of MalE pronunciation will, to a certain extent, be dependent on the perception of MalE among Malaysians, which at the current point in time is generally inconsistent.

AbstractThis study investigated the extent to which English language teaching in Asia had undergone important changes, in particular with regards to teaching and assessment practices. A sample of 212 English teachers from 10 Asian countries participated in the study by responding to a set of questionnaire items designed to elicit information about their instructional and assessment practices. Analysis of these teachers’ responses indicated that while Asian English teachers were moving toward more communicative, learner-centred approaches to teaching, their assessment practices remained somewhat traditional. Possible reasons for the lack of greater change toward more communicative teaching and assessment are discussed, and suggestions for promoting further changes are offered.

This article provides a brief historical overview of the advent of English in Malaysia and the education policies that impact on English language education. We then discuss the concept of Malaysian English. We show that rather than being seen as an umbrella term for all varieties of English used in Malaysia, the term ‘Malaysian English’ tends to be associated with the more colloquial spoken one and thus viewed negatively. In view of the expanded use of English in Malaysia, we propose a revised model for understanding the different varieties and uses of English in Malaysia.

... Cultural conceptualisations and language : theoretical framework and applications / FarzadSharifian. p. cm. ... I would like to thank Professor Roslyn M. Frank for her encouragement, support and much appreciated advice throughout the develop-ment of ideas and research that is ...