The Concept of World English' and Its Implications For ELT

Braj B.
Kachru is a Professor of Linguistics, of Comparative Literature, of English as

an International xLanguage and of Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana,
IL, USA. He was head of the Department of Linguistics (196879) and director of the
Division of English as an International Language (198591) at the same University.
He has published extensively on World Englishes, sociolinguistics, applied
linguistics, and Kashmiri language and literature. He is co-editor of World Englishes,
editor of the series English in the Global Context (University of Illinois Press), and
associate editor of The Oxford Companion to the English Language (forthcoming).
The concept of World English and its implications for ELT
World English (WE) belongs to everybody who speaks it, but it is nobodys mother
tongue. Although today ever more people accept the idea that there is such a thing
as WE, very few of them seem to have realized that the full implications of
admitting it are much more far reaching than they had hitherto imagined. It may be
that some of these implications will nowhere be felt so strongly in the foreseeable
future as in the sphere of language teaching. At present, we are at best in a position
to make some wild guesses concerning the kind of changes in store for us, and I
would suggest that ELT is poised to undergo some dramatic changes as native
varieties of English give way to WE as the most coveted passport to world
citizenship
http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/content/58/2/111.abstract
Love for Language
Cultural forces defined this linguist and his language.
There are books everywhere in his small office at the UI, spilling from bookshelves
onto worktables, the plush visitor's chair, and the floor. Even his computer monitor
wears a journal, like a hat. A self-confessed book addict, he reads and rereads them
all. Every now and then he writes one of his own and the international academia sits
up, as it has for three decades. Indeed, books are his passion. But language is his
life.
Braj Behari Kachru is a well-known figure in LAS's Department of Linguistics. Since
arriving on campus in 1965, Kachru has written more than a dozen influential books,
coedited the trailblazing journal,World Englishes, and attained some of the
University's highest honors, such as being designated a Jubilee Professor and
serving as head of the Linguistics Department and director of the Center for
Advanced Study. His research specialty, sociolinguistics, is one of the department's
research pillars.
Though now a world-renowned authority on the English language, the India-born
Kachru spoke only Hindi and his mother tongue, Kashmiri, until he was 16. But he
had the advantages of a highly educated family that was part of the Kashmiri Pandit
community renowned for its achievements in language, literature, art, and, above
all, education. Indeed, the term "Pandit" means "revered teacher" in Sanskrit.
Kachru's brother and father, too, were educators.
"It's a complex situation," says Kachru, reflecting on how his heritage has
shaped his own pursuits. "Minority communities need to be
superachievers to have security in jobs and money. Since they are a
minority, they do not find it easy to preserve their identity." Culture and
identity are critical to him and to his linguistics.
Kachru was born in 1932 in Srinagar, a city in the Himalayan region of Kashmir, into
a lively, extended family that eventually consisted of 18 siblings and cousins. Under
this joint family system, the parents share in all the children's upbringing and treat
them equally; however, Kachru was brought up under special circumstances. His
mother died when he was five, after which Kachru's father and aunt reared him.
Because he was diagnosed with a rheumatic heartlater proven wronghe was not
allowed to exert himself physically nor attend school with his cousins. Instead, he
was tutored in art, music, and Hindi. He delighted in the stream of famous
educators, poets, critics, and academics who visited his home to share his father's
love of Kashmiri literature.
In 1947, at 15, he began working toward a bachelor's in English. Later, he received
his master's in English from the Institute of Linguistics in the western city of Poona,
part of the Rockefeller Foundation's Postgraduate and Research Institute.
"That's where he got interested in phonetics, and that's where we met," says
Kachru's wife, Yamuna, who was a UI linguistics professor until retiring last year.
From Poona, Kachru headed to Britain to begin a doctorate in Indian English at
Scotland's University of Edinburgh, where he met Robert Lees, who offered him a
position at the UI starting in 1963. Kachru accepted, but first returned to India for a
year to establish a linguistics program in the Department of English at Lucknow
University. Yamuna joined Kachru at Illinois in 1969.
In the early 1980s he coined the term and philosophy for which he is most famous:
"world Englishes," which describes the dispersion of English across the globe. "The
term was controversial in the beginning," says Marguerite Courtright, a Kachru
student and teaching associate in the Department of English as an International
Language. "There were purists who believed that there should be only one standard
EnglishBritish English. The rest, they said, were deviant. The concept of world
Englishes allows for varieties in English usage; it allows for diverse Englishes."
Kachru postulated that "there were many varieties of English molded by the
influences of the different native languages. World Englishes follow different rules
from the Standard British English," Courtright explains. In India, as in most postcolonial nations, speakers "weave both English and the native language into their
conversations without consciously realizing which language they are using," says
Kachru.
Though he still feels umbilically connected to India and visits each year, Kachru's
family has broken with their homeland of Kashmir. In 1985, Jihadic Muslims began a
policy of ethnic cleansing. "No Pandit lives in Srinagar anymore," says Kachru.
"They...are migrants in their own country." As happened to Kachru when he left
India, his family is now struggling to retain their cultural and linguistic traditions as
they redefine them.
by Anupama Chandrasekhar, a graduate student in the College of Communications
Summer 2001
Source: http://www.las.uiuc.edu/alumni/news/01summer_love.html

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Braj B.

Kachru is a Professor of Linguistics, of Comparative Literature, of English as

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