back home select an item to the toolbox select an item to the paper's page select an item to the paper's page to the University of Basel select an item back home
to the toolbox not available in the public version to the paper's page
 
Lecture 7: World-Wide English
1 Introduction
1.1 Facts

2 Historical background - The British Empire
2.1 Introduction
2.2 The British Empire & Commonwealth - a gepgraphical overview
2.3 The rise and fall of the Empire - a historical overview
2.4 The first American colonies
2.5 The American revolution
2.6 Slave trade
2.7 James Cook and the 'discovery' of Australia and New Zealand
2.8 The Scramble for Africa
2.9 The East India Company & the 'Raj'
2.10 The decline of the Empire
2.11 New imperialism?

3 The sociolinguistics of Global English(es)
3.1 American English and its dialects
3.2 African American Vernacular English
3.3 English in Australia and New Zealand
3.4 English in India (& Pakistan)
3.5 English in South Africa & former African colonies
3.6 English as a second and foreign language
3.7 Overview - Kachru's three circle model

4 The future of English
4.1 English as a threat
4.2 English being threatened?
4.3 English quo vadis?

5 References and suggestions for further reading
5.1 Internet

1 Introduction
1.1 Facts

About 400 years ago, in Shakespeare’s times, English was spoken by about five to seven million speakers, the vast majority of them living on the British Isles. English was not much appreciated elsewhere in Europe and unknown beyond it.

Nowadays English is used by an estimated 1.8 billion speakers (about 400 million of them being native speakers). In other words, the population of users of English has been multiplied by the factor 250. Today, English is spoken – or rather, Englishes are spoken - on every continent of the world, in both the northern and southern hemispheres.

Various national standards (ENL = English as a native language) can be distinguished (American English, British English, Australian English, etc.). Moreover, English has adopted the status of a second language (ESL) – often used and acquired for official, administrative purposes - in many countries.

The following map taken from Crystal (1995: 107) illustrates the global spread of English (with its centres England and America) in terms of a family tree representation:

Finally, the number of people who use English as a foreign language (EFL) has been growing dramatically within the last 50 years. Due to its function as a lingua franca of international business, technology, science, traffic, and communication, this functionally-defined population of speakers of English is expanding rapidly. Therefore, it is hardly revolutionary to define English as the world language of our times.

Although the number of speakers of English on the British Isles has drastically grown in modern times, the massive increase in users can only be explained on the basis of the explosive spread of English throughout the globe due to the colonial expansion of Britain. This historical context is better known as The British Empire.


2 Historical background - The British Empire
2.1 Introduction

After the Mongol empire, the British Empire was the most extensive territory under a single country’s rule in history.

The British Empire grew from 1600 to reach its height between 1890 and 1900. Its development consists of a complex interaction of trade, settlement and colonisation, cunning diplomatic activity and conquest. Its extent was the result of various forms of cultural contact ranging from commercial, economically-motivated trade relationships to brutal and atrocious military campaigns.

Today’s global social and political structure cannot be understood without some insight into history of the British Empire.

The Empire facilitated and promoted the spread of British technology, industry, commerce, government, and – of course language. In other words, globalisation has its roots in the British Empire.

In addition, modern historical landmarks such as the war in Iraq are the direct consequence of this phase of world history. This war can be seen as the continuation of an imperial hegemony that contributed to Britain’s and, nowadays, to America’s economic growth and resulting power in political world affairs.

2.2 The British Empire & Commonwealth - a gepgraphical overview

The global expansion of the British Empire is illustrated in the following map. Note that the Unites States of America also belonged to it until 1776.

After World War II, the British Empire was replaced by the Commonwealth of Nations, an association of many of the former colonies that now have the status of independent sovereign states.

The Commonwealth maintains some of the former cultural and economic connections, but it has little political weight and influence.

2.3 The rise and fall of the Empire - a historical overview

The history of the British Empire starts before the global expansion of Britain. After the Norman Conquest, England pursued a policy of active involvement in continental Europe – predominantly in France - and it played an important role in European trade (Hanseatic League). The colonial expansion of England started in the British Isles with the conquest of Wales (1282) and Ireland (from 1169 onwards). Scotland was incorporated by dynastic succession: with James I the two crowns were united. Thanks to Sir Francis Drake, England also established itself as a European sea power in the early Renaissance. This made the global expansion of Britain possible.

The international growth of the British Empire is usually divided into two phases:

  1. The first British Empire ~1600 - 1776
  2. The second British Empire 1776 – 1947

The first British Empire was characterised by the colonisation of the Americas starting with the first permanent English settlement at Jamestown (1607) and including the early sugar-producing colonies of the Caribbean. This phase ended with the American Declaration of Independence (1776).

The second British Empire includes British colonisation and settlement in Australia and New Zealand, trade with India and its subsequent colonisation, and involvement in South East Asia. Moreover, the dismal scramble for Africa is also part of this second phase.

Sometimes Britains aggressive involvement in Africa and Asia from 1870 until World War I (1914) are more specifically referred to as the phase of New Imperialism.

The specification of New Imperialism is important because it points to alternative forms of colonial expansion and imperialism that are captured by the distinction of formal vs. informal Empire.

While the former term frames those phases in which Britain established formal rule in its colonies (especially before 1776 in America and after 1870 in Asia and Africa), the latter term describes British expansion through free-trade and strategic pre-eminence. The informal Empire experienced its height in the period referred to as Pax Britannica. This phase lasted from the Battle of Waterloo (1812) until 1870 and showed Britain as the only industrialised power, enjoying unthwarted control of key naval trade routes and overseas markets.

The British Empire was at its climax between 1890 and 1900. It declined rapidly after World War II due to decolonisation, loss of economic and industrial power, and the growing importance of the United States.

2.4 The first American colonies

The first permanent British settlements in America were established in 1607 at Jamestown (after king James I), Virginia (after queen Elizabeth I, ‘the Virgin Queen’).

In 1584 an earlier expedition, commissioned by Walter Raleigh, had failed. Later, in 1620, 35 puritans arrived on the Mayflower to establish the Plymouth Plantation in today’s Massachusetts.

The group of Pilgrim Fathers searched for a land where they could found a religious kingdom free from persecution and the church practices they suffered from in England. The settlement was very successful. By 1640 about 25'000 immigrants had come to this area.

The two early settlements had a distinctive influence on the dialects of the Unites States. However, the informal colonisation of Northern America by British settlers was not restricted to these areas. During the 17th century, shiploads of immigrants from very different English dialect backgrounds swarmed the continent.

The ‘middle’ Atlantic areas, in particular, became the focus of settlement, and England gained control of New Amsterdam (New York) by taking it from the Dutch. In the Midlands the proverbial ‘melting pot’ developed. Thousands of immigrants from Ireland, Scotland, Germany, and Italy found their home in the New World in the 18th century.

The expansion of settlement was extended into the west by the pioneering frontier people most of them being Scots-Irish. Of course, these settlers also took their English language with them and spread its use from Virginia to Southern California.

Canada was not the focus of British settlement for a long time. Some early settlers established farming, fishing, and fur-trading industries along the Atlantic coast; however, they were outnumbered by a vast majority of French speakers.

After the American Revolution of 1776, a great number of loyalist supporters of Britain left the US and settled in today’s Nova Scotia. From there, they spread to many other parts in Upper Canada. Not surprisingly, they came into conflict with French settlers who had been there since 1520. The French influence diminished in the 18th century. However, Quebec has remained a stronghold of French language and culture continuing an uneasy co-existence with English.

2.5 The American revolution

The first British Empire was terminated with the loss of the American colonies after the American Declaration of Independence in 1776. Before this event, the American colonies were not well-regarded and neglected by the British government. An attempt to reinforce original power relations resulted in the American Revolution.

However, although Britain was deprived of its most populous colonies, the loss of the US was not disadvantageous in economic terms because Britain could still dominate trade with its ex-colonies without having to pay for their defence and administration.

2.6 Slave trade

Apart from European settlers, the population of the Americas grew rapidly because of the cruel enslavement of native Africans.

The importation of African slaves was started as early as 1517. More importantly, from the early 17th century onwards, European ships travelled to the West African coast. There they exchanged cheap manufactured goods for black slaves.

Under abominable conditions the slaves were shipped to the Americas – the Caribbean and the American coast in particular - where they were used for work on sugar, tobacco, and cotton plantations. These raw materials were then shipped back to Europe. In this way, an evil Atlantic triangle of global trade was established for the profit of Europe including, very prominently, the British Empire.

The population of African slaves in the US grew rapidly. By 1776 they amounted to half a million. When slavery was abolished at the end of the US Civil War, 4 million African-Americans lived in the states.

2.7 James Cook and the 'discovery' of Australia and New Zealand

Between 1769 and 1777 the famous explorer James Cook claimed Australia and New Zealand for the English crown. In Australia a penal colony was established at Botany Bay to relieve the overcrowded prisons in England.

Most of these prisoners – they first arrived in 1788 - came from London and Ireland leaving traces of both Cockney and Irish English in Australian English.

Free settlers also established themselves in Australia, but their number was insignificant before 1850. Obviously, the European ‘Australians’ came into contact with the native Aborigines. The relationship between these different cultures is a sad story. The Aborigines were largely deprived of their traditional nomadic lifestyles. Nowadays, alcoholism is extremely widespread among them.

New Zealand was settled slightly later than Australia. The first immigrants were whalers, traders, and Christian missionaries most of them of English origin. The official colony was not established until 1840. It was based on the peaceful Treaty of Waitangi between Maori chiefs and the British Crown. In general, the relationships between the Maori and the white settlers was closer and less problematic than its correlate in Australia.

2.8 The Scramble for Africa

The colonial rule of the British Empire showed its most horrible face in what is known as the Scramble for Africa (1870-WW1). In this phase the transition from an informal empire through economic control to direct political control through territorial gains became apparent. Ruthlessly struggling with other European colonial powers (France, Portugal, Belgium, Germany), the English government pursued a strategy of aggressive territorial gains in Africa. Britain’s military occupation of Egypt for the sake of controlling the Suez Channel and the Nile valley being a case in point.

In this period (between 1885-1914), Britain took 30% of Africa’s population under her control. It established colonies in the west (e.g. Nigeria), east (e.g. Kenia and Tanzania) and south of Africa (South Africa and Zimbabwe).

British involvement in South Africa had started in 1806 already. In this region, British cultural influence was, however, successfully thwarted by the strongly established Afrikaans-speaking Dutch population.

2.9 The East India Company & the 'Raj'

The involvement of Britain in India was different from the ones in the other colonies. Namely, the British East India Company (1600 – 1874), the most influential trade company of its time, established a trade monopoly for South Asia. Its mainstay businesses were in cotton, silk, indigo, saltpeter, spices, and, not surprisingly, tea.

However, the company’s influence in India went far beyond commerce and trade: it acquired administrative and military functions in India, in Bengal, Madras, and Bombay in particular. Thus, by 1689, the Company had the function of a ‘nation’ in the Indian mainland from where it played a decisive role in the politics of South Asia. Thus, among other things, the company founded Hong Kong and Singapore: two of the most important economic centres of modern Asia.

The company’s influence in India declined when political control of the region went to the British Crown with the India Act of 1784. This period of direct colonial rule of India is known as the Raj (from reign, Reich). India was decolonised after World War II. Mahatma Gandhi played a decisive role in this process.

2.10 The decline of the Empire

After World War II, the British Empire started to disintegrate. The former white settler colonies had already been given independent home rule before this event:

  • Canada (1867)
  • Australia (1901)
  • New Zealand (1907)
  • South Africa (1910)

The other colonies were also liberated starting from India in 1947, continuing with the African colonies (1957–1968) and Caribbean territories (1960ies) and ending with Hong Kong in 1997.

Many of these states joined the Commonwealth of Nations, a very loose and informal continuation of cultural and economic relations.

The decline of the British Empire was accompanied with the rapidly growing economic, military, and cultural influence of the United States. The US role in world politics can thus be regarded as a continuation of original English leadership, now emerging from the biggest of its former colonies.

2.11 New imperialism?

It is not far-fetched to claim that the cultural, political, economic, and military hegemony of the United States constitutes a new form of informal imperialism.

While the US has not officially established rule outside its home territories, its self-attributed role as the world’s policeman and its economic leadership exert a form of power that is comparable to Britain’s informal empire 200 years ago.

In other words, global economy and military campaigns are not a whole new phenomenon but the continuation of a tradition that started 400 years ago. This has important consequences for the sociolinguistics and sociology of English as a world language.


3 The sociolinguistics of Global English(es)
3.1 American English and its dialects

Besides British English, American English is now regarded as an equivalent standard variety of English. Sociolinguistically, it must be regarded as even more influential than modern British English.

To a considerable extent the linguistic landscape of the US still reflects the settlement history of this country and the corresponding origins of old world dialects. Generally speaking, the US can be divided into three dialect areas: the northern, the midland, and the southern zone. This said, it must be emphasised that due to migration, immigration, and mobility the US dialect picture was never a neat one.

The northern dialects – spreading from New England to the North West of America (Washington) were influenced by the dialect of the Puritans. These people mainly came from counties in the east of England. These eastern dialects were non-rhotic (as is RP), i.e. the r/ was not pronounced after vowels. The tendency not to pronounce /r/ is still a feature of New England dialects.

In contrast, the southern dialects – originating in the earliest settlements in Virginia are rhotic. This is due to the fact that many of these settlers came from England’s ‘West Country’. It is argued that these Tidewater accents are the closest one will ever get to the sound of Shakespeare’s English.

The Midland dialects reflect the cosmopolitan immigration patchwork of the ‘middle’ Atlantic areas. The settlers brought a variety of different linguistic backgrounds with them; this caused regional dialect divisions to be blurred. However, in this region – which now extends into California due to the pioneering into the west – the accent of the so-called Sunbelt emerged. This accent is most commonly associated with present-day American speech and forms the basis of the standard: General American.

General American has retained a great number of features of 17th century English. Thus, for instance, words such as bath, path, grass are pronounced with an [æ] sound, while present-day RP has an [a:].

3.2 African American Vernacular English

When listening to Jazz, Blues, or Hip-Hop a distinct form of American English can be recognised: African American Vernacular English (AAVE), formerly described as Black English. Of course, the development of this variety is closely connected to the dismal history of black slaves.

To prevent slaves from potential riots or rebellion, one policy of slave-traders was to cramp people of very different linguistic backgrounds together in the slave ships. For the slaves this created a linguistic Babylon.

As a result, pidgin forms of communication developed among slaves and between slaves and sailors. These pidgins were also used on the plantations in the Caribbean, where they developed into full-fledged creole languages. Thus, for instance, a Caribbean creole continuum ranging between a reduced pidgin and the prestige variety RP is the actual language spectrum used by African people in present-day Jamaica.

In the US, the West Indian slave pidgins developed into a distinct plantation creole that also contained a great number of features from non-standard dialects of English.

These plantation creoles form the basis of African American Vernacular English, whose actual development is very complex and controversial. With the strong influence of black music, AAVE became known throughout the United States. It also found a very eloquent rhetoric in the speeches of Martin Luther King, the famous proponent of the civil rights movement in the 1960ies.

3.3 English in Australia and New Zealand

The Englishes spoken in Australia and New Zealand were strongly infleunced by its early settlers and the close relationship to the United Kingdom due to their status as white-settler colonies of the British Empire.

Australian English shows a great deal of variation along the sociolinguistic axis. While ‘cultivated’ Australian English comes very close to RP and thus reflects the close bonds to England, broad speech (a stereotype of Australian ‘bloke’ culture) contains many non-standard features including a considerable number of swear-words that were derived from the early influence of prisoner’s Cockney and Irish. Today, American English exerts a strong influence on Australian English.

New Zealand English is fairly conservative as far as its relationship to British English is concerned. Rather than distancing itself from the colonial roots, New Zealand English shows a tendency to establish its own identity in opposition to Australian English.

In both Australian and New Zealand English the influences of indigenous Aboriginal and Maori languages have remained marginal. Cultural contact becomes most obvious in the respective vocabularies which contain a considerable number of loan words: kiwi, kangaroo, haka, etc. However, in New Zealand national identity is increasingly influenced by a certain pride in the Maori culture. This is expressed by the growing number of corresponding loan words.

3.4 English in India (& Pakistan)

Judging from the number of English speakers, India holds the 3rd rank in the world after the US and Great Britain: English is spoken by 30 million, i.e. approximately 4% of the Indian population.

The variety of English spoken is India is called South Asian English. (The variety, which is about 200 years old, can also be found in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan). Because of the influence of the East India Company and British rule, this form of English is based on the model of British English, however, with a distinct Asiatic accent.

During the period of British sovereignty, English was used as a medium of administration and education. This explains its status as an associate official language in present-day India with Hindi being the official one.

Currently, Indian English seems to be going through process of Indianization. The focus on a distinct Indian voice in English is particularly prominent in present-day literature of Indian authors writing in English, Salman Rushdie being a case in point.

3.5 English in South Africa & former African colonies

When British control was established in South Africa in 1806, English became the language of law, administration and education. Nevertheless, it always remained a minority language.

The majority of the white population used and still use Afrikaans, the South African variety of Dutch. Since the decline of the apartheid regime English has gained ground, however.

While Afrikaans is regarded as the language of the oppressor by most native black South Africans, English is regarded as the language of progress and international contact. This becomes quite obvious when one hears Nelson Mandela speak English.

The status of English in West and East Africa is very complex. Very often English acts as a second language used for education, administration, and international communication in the respective countries. However, English often competes with other colonial languages (such as French in Cameroon) and a multitude of indigenous African languages.

3.6 English as a second and foreign language

An overview of English as a world language would be highly deficient if it did not include a paragraph on the global role of English as a second and foreign language.

Nowadays English is used as a lingua franca for scientists across the world. It is the language of commerce, tourism, international traffic (air traffic in particular), the majority of international media. Moreover, it is the undisputed language of the internet.

It is estimated that the majority of speakers using English (around 1 billion) do not have this language as a mother tongue. Given the importance of English for international communication, it is not surprising that many countries – including Switzerland – conceive it necessary to teach English to children in their very salad days.

3.7 Overview - Kachru's three circle model

Braj B. Kachru (1985) has tried to represent the world-wide spread of English with its differing statuses in terms of a three circles model. This model is a good overview of the varying types of English as a world language.

The inner circle includes those countries in which English is spoken as a national standard and is the majority of the population. This circle includes Great Britain, the United States of America, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

The outer cricles captures those countries in which English is a non-native second language, but still counts as an official language of administration or education. Countries such as India, Pakistan, or Singapore belong to this circle.

Finally, the dynamic expansion of English is present in the expanding circle. In many countries English is recognized as an important lingua franca and usually learnt as a foreign language. For countries of this category English does not have a history of colonisation, nor is it given an official status. The expanding circle includes the majority of English speakers, such as people from Japan, Israel, Switzerland, Germany, etc.

The three circles model indicates that the history of English is very dynamic still. We will only see in the future how the status of English develops.


4 The future of English
4.1 English as a threat

There are two main reasons for the present-day world status of English:

  1. the colonial history of the British Empire,
  2. the US American economic and military power.

Given that English has acquired its world-wide reputation due to colonial and globalised power relations, the global spread and status of English is not welcomed by everyone.

On the one hand, the expansion of English and, more importantly, American culture and lifestyles is closely associated with the English language as such. Fearing a disneyfication of the world with a corresponding loss of local cultures, languages, and lifestyles, the spread of English is frequently regarded with scepticism.


This, for instance, can be seen in the ‘game’ of bemoaning the use of English and American loan words in one’s native language (e.g. German).

While it is true that English has ‘conquered’ ground from many other native languages and is not always used for the sake of communicative functionality, this attitude nevertheless neglects that it is the speakers themselves who govern the use and spread of a language.

There is no law that forces the use of English on non-native speakers (ignoring the unwritten laws in business, science, and the internet). In other words, very often, fear is also accompanied with a hidden fascination for English and American cultures. This makes people use this code for badging purposes: they want to be associated with the internationality and prestige of English.

4.2 English being threatened?

Since those speakers who use English as a second or foreign language outnumber its native speakers by the factor 5, it is worth questioning if the English language must not be regarded as being threatened itself.

The world-wide web illustrates this nicely. While English is usually used on this platform, many use it without a great deal of proficiency. Thus, the control of what is right or wrong for English can no longer be regarded as being in the hands (or rather tongues, ears, and fingers) of the minority of native speakers/writers.

Moreover, English is subject to considerable diversification. The great number of different varieties of English make it questionable whether we are still dealing with one language or whether English has already split up into several different languages.

In other words, the global spread of English leads to diversification as much as unification. Speakers use languages to communicate and to establish social relations and identities. As long as communicative purposes, social patterns, and identities are diverse, the use of language will always be varied. This is also true for English

4.3 English quo vadis?

The above discussion points to the fact that English was, has been, and will continue to be a very dynamic language. English has always been subject to a great deal of external and internal influences that have pushed its development forward.

Thus, rather than regarding the history of English as being finished at this point, we should regard ourselves as experiencing and co-shaping its future development. Nowadays we have all become part of the evolution of this language with its fascinating history.


5 References and suggestions for further reading
5.1 Internet
  Varieties of English
   

This dialect site features information on: African-American English, American Indian English, British English, Canadian English, Chicano English, Northeast U.S. and the Southern States English.

  Slanguage
   

Brief samples of dialect usage from 39 American cities, states, and regions rendered in common English spelling. Also contains examples from 5 other English-speaking countries: Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, and South Africa.



Guillaume Schiltz   (02/06/2004)