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Volume
4
August 2009
Book review
Formats
PDF
Authors Mesthrie R., and Bhatt, R M
Title World Englishes: The Study of New Linguistic Varieties
Subtitle/ Series Key Topics in Sociolinguistics Series Editor: R. Mesthrie
Publisher Cambridge University Press, UK, Cambridge
Year June 2008
Affiliation Rajend Mesthrie: Prof. Linguistics, University of Cape town, S. Africa
Rakesh M. Bhatt:Associate. Prof. Linguistics, University of Illinois
Costs
ISBN 978-0-521-79733-7 Paperback (18.99 € or 39.90 US$)
ISBN 978-0-521-79341-7 Hardcover (45.00 € or 90.00 US$)
Summary
In this book, the linguistic underpinnings of the globalisation of the English Language has been addressed in two broad strands: firstly, the historical macro-socio-linguistic view dealing with language-spread and contact influences and overarching into political and ideological studies. Secondly, its role of the spread of English in modernisation, government and schooling, cultural and literary studies including bilingualism and new identities has also been studied. The authors, both professors of sociolinguistics and scholars of South African English (Mesthrie) and English as spoken in Kashmir (Bhatt) have produced a volume that examines both these aspects of English as spoken globally.
Evaluation:
This slim volume constitutes an important contribution to the study of English as an International Language because it evaluates the evolution of English as it is spoken globally and the linguistic consequences of this process. The heterogeneity of English as it is used not only in England, but also in other parts of the UK and the ex-colonies of the Empire is the object of the book’s scrutiny. It also has the added value of discussing its historical and macro-sociological evolution as well as giving relevance to the strictly linguistic aspect of language evaluation without stopping at the political and ideological aspects. The book is published in the series of sociolinguistic volumes on the Study of New Linguistic Varieties and is an “original research-based work that draws on existing studies and extends them via the intellectual leanings and academic stamp of the authors” (pg.xiii) thus its readership is aimed at scholars, academics and graduate students.
Mesthrie & Bhatt delineate the field by starting with a definition of World Englishes and the standards used to describe what is generally known as L1 and the subtypes or sociolects generally recognized. The question of recognition has been masterfully outlined in a historical description of the evolution of English from its very beginnings and the koinisation of dialects which led to the formation of modern English. A substantial section of this chapter is devoted to a description of how colonial policies have advanced not only the spread of English use but also how the agency of language has affected educational and cultural policy in many of the ex-colonies of the British Empire. The authors describe how the consequence of the expanded use of English has led to sociological models of World Englishes such as those proposed by McArthur, Görlach and Kachru. Other developmental, historical and language-contact models have also been proposed such as the 5-stage lectal development model suggested by Schneider.
The next two chapters are invaluable descriptions of recurrent syntactic and morphological variations of mainly Outer Circle Englishes. This variationist corpus study makes for an excellent survey of the main published works of lectal shift published in the literature on World Englishes and it is interesting to note that most of examples collected were by basilectal speakers thus constituted natural speech in the communities studied. The second chapter itself is devoted to below-the-sentence variations in speech such as article use, the noun phrase, pronoun use and aspect in the verb phrase. The third chapter deals mainly with above-the-sentence variations, such as in word-order, questions, passive formation topicalisation, relative clauses and rank reduction. These excellent chapters give an invaluable overview of the lectal shifts seen and the format used in presenting the examples allows the reader to compare Standard English with the variant.
The authors then attempt to explain syntactic variation seen in their examples in terms of Optimality Theory (OT), a general theory of priority of grammar and syntactic constraints on well-formedness (MacCarthy, 1995) Mesthrie & Bhatt propose that speakers of the varieties of English under study have alternative constraint rankings of grammars available to them and meso- or basilectal speakers prioritize these constraint. They describe variations in three examples: direct and indirect questions and in the pro-drop subject deletion
Chapter 4 deals with lexis and phonology variations seen. Many of the examples have found their way into metropolitan English such as ‘bandanna’ and are not only descriptive and culture-specific like ‘cousin-brother’ ( kinship term common in Asia & Africa, pg. 113) but also highly entertaining and metaphoric such as to add sugar to the tea= to offer a bribe,(Nig.Engl: pg 116). Neologisms, re-duplication of words and semantic shifts are also described. This chapter closes with a description of phonological variation of vowel sounds, using the Wells lexical set (1982). Variations in consonant pronunciation are also described and Mesthrie & Bhatt suggest that phonologically, New Englishes often show indigenisation.
The way in which new linguistic forms serve pragmatic discourse functions is discussed in Chapter 5 under three headings: syntactic forms such as tag forms, modal auxiliaries and tag particles; secondly, speech acts including face and politeness and code-switching and finally, variations in discourse structure and moves in informal and formal written English and in literary works having a culture-specific setting.
Chapter 6 discusses the role of substrate pidgins and Creole studies in the context of second language acquisition both by informal contact transmission as well as through the educational system. Mesthrie & Bhatt describe areas for further research in syntax in child-language and interlanguage development.
The recognition of new Englishes within any one specific educational system as a variety in its own right has spawned a debate about resources, attitude, hegemony and perceptions about the role of English. Mesthrie & Bhatt describe this debate which they call the Quirk-Kachru controversy, named after the opposite positions. Quirk holds the position of standard British or American English should be the norm for communication and teaching and Kachru criticises Quirk’s position as “involving applied linguistics as divorced from its context ” (pg. 201) and thus hegemonic. Mesthrie & Bhatt outline some crucial issues, such as teacher training, examination standards, textbook choice and briefly describe some interventions aimed at bringing local varieties of language into the mainstream of schooling, such as the Ebonics effort and the introduction of outer-circle teaching assistants and professors. The closing chapter of this book is devoted to Mesthrie & Bhatt’s opinion regarding several practical issues: the crisp language of language learners’ blogging in internet, problems of communication among non-native users of professional airline English in high-risk situations, call-center training for outsourced businesses in India, advertising in countries like Japan and communication problems among European speakers of English. It is clear that there are purists and those who fear the influence of a ‘killer’ language but the authors posit a pathway by which the influence of English may become mainstream to the point that large swathes of populations become effectively bilingual.
EVALUATION
This is an important book in that it examines the linguistic underpinnings of the globalisation of the English Language in two broad strands: firstly, the historical macro-socio-linguistic view dealing with language-spread and contact influences and overarching into political and ideological studies. Secondly, its role of the spread of English in modernisation, government and schooling, cultural and literary studies including bilingualism and new identities. It is wonderfully indexed and there is fine glossary for beginners. As a teaching tool, it is excellent in that it proposes several study questions, varying from the simple to more thought-provoking issues, which makes it highly suitable as course-work.
The book is well-structured and orderly and I was thoroughly impressed by the analyses of the examples from new Englishes in the first three chapters and would have liked to see more of this. I found that their use of Optimality Theory was rather heavy going and not convincing since I favour Relevance theory (Sperber & Wilson, 1986/95) as a more logical explanation for speakers’ choices: an issue for debate. Despite this, the book is well worth purchasing for its comprehensive and scholarly approach to an issue of growing importance.
Reviewer Citations
Sperber, Dan and Deirdre Wilson, 1986/1995. Relevance: Communication and cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.
About the reviewer
Philippa Mungra is a trained biologist and linguist and has been a lecturer in English at the 1st. Medical School of the University of Rome “La Sapienza” for the past 14 years. Her current research priorities revolve around the structure and evolution of specialist medico-scientific publications from a communicative and textual point of view and she is currently examining metaphors in the medical literature. She has recently published a textbook for reading and writing skills within the new 5-year syllabus for Italian Medical Schools (Reading Skills in Medical English, AntonioDelfino Editore, Rome, 2005). She currently serves on the editorial board for the Asian ESP journal besides being the book review editor for the present journal.
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