30.2826, Review: English; Sociolinguistics: Deshors (2018)

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Subject: 30.2826, Review: English; Sociolinguistics: Deshors (2018)

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Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2019 12:57:31
From: Melanie Röthlisberger [melanie.roethlisberger at es.uzh.ch]
Subject: Modeling World Englishes

 
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EDITOR: Sandra C.  Deshors
TITLE: Modeling World Englishes
SUBTITLE: Assessing the interplay of emancipation and globalization of ESL varieties
SERIES TITLE: Varieties of English Around the World G61
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2018

REVIEWER: Melanie Röthlisberger, Universität Zürich

SUMMARY

This volume is edited by Sandra C. Deshors (Michigan State University) and
consists of nine research articles that empirically assess new (and old)
theoretical models of World Englishes thereby testing their reliability,
usefulness, and adequacy to classify 21st century World Englishes. By doing
so, the contributions add to theoretical discussions related to the
developments and current challenges in research on World Englishes at large.
The volume brings together scholars working on English as a second language
(ESL), English as a foreign language (EFL) and English as a lingua franca
(ELF) varieties and on synchronic and diachronic data, using a variety of
methodological approaches and different data sources. The volume itself is
dedicated to the memory of Alexander Kautzsch who himself contributed
considerably to recent modelling approaches in World Englishes.

The introductory chapter by Sandra Deshors provides the theoretical basis for
the nine research articles. It starts off by highlighting the increased
diversity of Englishes in today’s globalized world, which calls for new
theoretical models to comprehend more fully the changes that English is
undergoing in the 21st century. This increased diversity is not only due to a
geographical spread of English into new areas but also due to a linguistic
spread of English into new digital contexts. Since older models (e.g. Kachru’s
circle model, Schneider’s Dynamic model) do not take the dynamism and
complexity (e.g. attitudes towards English) of current World Englishes into
account, other models have recently been proposed. These models pay attention
to forces of globalization, for instance Mair’s World System of Englishes
(Mair 2013) which views American English (AmE) as the most central variety,
Schneider’s Transnational attraction model (Schneider 2014), which focuses on
the Expanding Circle varieties, or Buschfeld and Kautzsch’ Extra- and
Intra-territorial Forces model (EIF, Buschfeld & Kautzsch 2017), which takes
hitherto neglected aspects – for instance, attitudes and language policies –
into account. These later models and the extent to which they can account for
the complexities in World Englishes still remain to be empirically verified, a
gap that is largely addressed by the contributions in this volume. 

The first chapter by Sarah Buschfeld, Alexander Kautzsch and Edgar W.
Schneider – “From colonial dynamism to current transnationalism: A unified
view on postcolonial and non-postcolonial Englishes” –  argues for an
integrated approach of both postcolonial and non-postcolonial Englishes to
capture the current dynamism and spread of English. Since the distinction
between ESL and EFL varieties has increasingly become blurred, the authors
point out that colonialism cannot be a necessary condition for a variety to be
categorized as ESL. Previous models have so far ignored important parameters,
such as language-internal variability, proficiency levels of speakers or
formality of the situation, when defining variety types, a fact that is
remedied with the proposed Extra- and Intra-territorial Forces model (EIF).
The EIF model extends Schneider’s Transnational attraction model by taking
internal variability into account and by offering the granularity needed to
compare and analyse individual varieties. The model is empirically tested in
five case studies presented in the chapter: South-East Asia, English in
Namibia vs Germany, English in Cyprus vs Greece, English Bosnia and
Herzegovina, and Digital Englishes. With this, the authors show that varieties
that are classified similarly due to their historical background (e.g. as EFL
in the case of Namibia and Germany) can actually differ quite widely with
regard to the use and spread of English, while varieties that are classified
differently due to their sociolinguistic situation, can still share a number
of structural features; the discussion of Bosnia and Herzegovina demonstrates
how English can become entrenched in a country due to other forces besides
colonialism, such as the presence of international organizations. With the
final case study, the authors highlight how the EIF model could theoretically
also account for structural features in newly emerging Digital Englishes (e.g.
facebook communication, fanfiction writing, and multiplayer online games) but
they acknowledge that more validation of the model is needed.

Christian Mair’s contribution “Stabilising domains of English-language use in
Germany: Global English in a non-colonial languagescape” focuses on the use of
English by two non-elite groups, namely urban youth culture and recent
arrivals in Germany from anglophone West Africa. Mair applies his World System
of Standard and Non-Standard Englishes (Mair 2013) together with the concept
of languagescape to an analysis of these two groups’ linguistic behaviour. He
finds that popular song lyrics oriented towards Germany’s youth make
substantial use of English slang words, especially also verbs and idiomatic
chunks which originate in African American English. English is also used in
creative language mixing in interviews with the second group, recent arrivals
in Germany, who apply a layered communicative style drawing on all linguistic
resources available. Both cases – song lyrics and the interviews – indicate
highly mobile language practices that transcend national borders. Mair
concludes that his World System of Englishes, which also allows for
non-standard varieties to exert influence on a global scale, can account for
the importance that some varieties carry outside of their national context. 

Bertus van Rooy and Haidee Kruger’s chapter “Hybridity, globalisation and
models of English: English in South African multilingual digital repertoires”
focuses on the complex multilingual setting in South Africa which has, for
this very reason, often defied classification with conventional models of
World Englishes. They analyse data from commentaries that users posted online
on summaries of popular South African television soap operas (“soapie
teasers”). Using a bottom-up corpus-based approach they compare the most
frequent keywords in the online comments to keywords obtained from the British
National Corpus. Their findings indicate that online commentators draw most
heavily first on a common shared knowledge of standard English in online
communication, secondly on non-standard forms of English that are often also
frequently used in Nigerian and Jamaican English, and thirdly on local forms
that originate in indigenous South African languages. Their results suggest
that speakers seem to draw on a multitude of different resources depending on
the degree of intersubjective alignment. These resources may or may not be
available on the net and do not necessarily overlap with the speakers’ own
cultural background. The authors thus demonstrate the extent to which other
languages besides English, non-standard Englishes, computer-mediated
communication, hybridity, multiplex identities and transnationalism can be
incorporated into a model of World Englishes. They conclude that future
studies should analyse representative data which covers all ranges of hybrid
and multilingual settings. 

Turning to ELF, Mikko Laitinen’s chapter “Placing ELF among the varieties of
English: Observations from typological profiling” applies Szmrecsanyi’s (2009)
typological profiling to data sampled from contexts in which English is used
as a lingua franca and compares the degree of analyticity and syntheticity
between ELF, ESL, EFL and English as a native language (ENL) variety types. By
comparing the aggregate number of analytic and synthetic markers in ELF
settings (spoken and written) to the data in Szmrecsanyi (2009), Laitinen
shows that ELF is structurally different from Learner Englishes, nativized L2
varieties and native L1 varieties. A closer look at the different modes and
genres sampled reveals additionally that spoken ELF is comparatively lower on
both scales of analyticity and syntheticity than spoken British English (BrE)
indicating increased transparency and output economy in ELF varieties. Written
genres of ELF (blogs, news, academic and fiction), however, clearly fall in
line with written native (AmE and BrE) and L2 varieties. These findings
suggest that second language acquisition (EFL) needs to be differentiated from
second language use (ELF) as a distinct variety type. On the basis of these
results, Laitinen endorses van Rooy & Kruger’s call for more representative
data that reflect the whole linguistic ecology including multilingual
settings.

Transnational

Peter Siemund’s contribution “Modeling World Englishes from a cross-linguistic
perspective” addresses the issue of modelling World Englishes from a
cross-linguistic, typological perspective rather than from the view of dialect
typology as in Laitinen’s chapter. In his contribution, Siemund explores the
extent to which cross-linguistic patterns in implicational hierarchies (e.g.
the animacy scale) are applicable to standard and non-standard varieties of
English around the world. Siemund thereby compares the use of reflexive
pronouns (e.g. myself), the hierarchy of animacy, the accessibility hierarchy
(for relativization), the use of subject-verb agreement, multiple negation and
copula absence/deletion between different variety types of English. His
comparison highlights that non-standard varieties often follow the
typologically expected pattern while Standard English is rather exceptional
from a typological perspective. This suggests that the standard features can
probably only survive because of the normative pressure exerted by the
hierarchical organization of the World System of Englishes which has standard
varieties at its centre (Mair 2013). 

The paper by Alison Edwards – “’I’m an Anglophile, but…’: A corpus-assisted
discourse analysis of language ideologies in the Netherlands” – explores the
extent to which English is reappropriated in the Netherlands where it is not
just an economic resource but seems to be locally embedded serving the purpose
of meaning-making and identity construction. By way of a questionnaire Edwards
sampled commentaries from 724 respondents to an open question regarding the
respondent’s view about English in the Netherlands. Using keyword analysis and
collocational tools to tap into language ideologies, Edwards finds that
respondents perceive English as a communicative tool for international
communication but are also concerned about the spread of English into the
domains traditionally reserved for Dutch. This narrative conflicts with some
respondents’ normative and critical view that Dutch speakers are not
proficient enough in English. Since this critical view also extends to the way
some Dutch speakers use English to appear cool, clever or cosmopolitan,
Edwards concludes that English seems to play an important role in social
positioning in the Netherlands. Schneider’s Transnational attraction model
hereby constitutes a useful framework that can contribute to a shift in focus
of more traditional models to include attitudinal behaviour also in Expanding
Circle varieties. 

With a similar interest in Expanding Circle varieties, Gaëtanelle Gilquin’s
chapter “American and/or British influence on L2 Englishes: Does context tip
the scale(s)?” aims to empirically test Mair’s (2013) World System of
Englishes model, particularly its claim that American English is the hub
variety influencing all other varieties. Sampling data from the Corpus of
Global web-based English (GloWbE) and the EF-Cambridge Open Language Database,
Gilquin explores 1) the extent to which this claim can be corroborated with
the data, 2) to what extent the influence of AmE might be different on ESL and
EFL varieties, and 3) whether the influence of AmE or BrE varies depending on
the local context (historical background, economic relations/trade, geographic
proximity to AmE/BrE). On the basis of 20 lexical items (e.g. have gotten vs
have got), Gilquin shows that the influence of AmE is greater in EFL than in
ESL or ENL varieties, providing at least partial support for Mair’s claim of
an AmE hub. At the same time, EFL varieties display much more heterogeneity
regarding the Americanness of lexical items with values ranging from 6% to 98%
ratio of AmE vs BrE spelling compared to ENL and ESL varieties. Gilquin
suggests that this points to an item-based preference of American items in ELF
varieties, probably related to the learners’ level of proficiency. Results
further highlight that the local sociohistorical context seems to exert
influence on the degree of Americanness, albeit unsystematically. In all, the
comparatively strong influence of AmE on EFL varieties would justify the
inclusion of EFL varieties and other local contextual factors in Mair’s World
System of Englishes model.

Focusing on ENL and ESL varieties, Marianne Hundt’s chapter “It is time that
this (should) be studied across a broader range of Englishes: A global trip
around mandative subjunctives” zooms in on mandative constructions (the
alternation between subjunctive and should) and investigates variation in this
alternation across some ten varieties of English (five ENL and five ESL
varieties) and across written and spoken registers. The chapter focuses
primarily on the language-external and -internal factors that constrain the
choice between subjunctive vs should. Using data from the ICE-corpora
representing the ten varieties, Hundt analyses the influence of these
constraints with conditional random forests and inference trees. Results
suggest that the lexical item triggering the mandative construction is the
most important factor in the choice of variant, followed by variety. Support
for these results is provided in a follow-up study that compares a sample of
mandative constructions in AmE, BrE and Indian English using data from GloWbE.
Hundt’s analyses further illustrate that Indian, Hong Kong and Irish English
behave similarly to BrE in the British preference for should, while
Australian, New Zealand, Singapore, Philippine, Canadian and Jamaican English
seem to follow the American preference for subjunctives. Results do not fully
fit with Schneider’s Dynamic model nor Mair’s World System of Englishes.
Rather, Hundt suggests that there might be a network of local (norm providing)
centres available which speakers orient towards.

The last research chapter by Stefan Th. Gries, Tobias Bernaisch and Benedikt
Heller entitled “A corpus-linguistic account of the history of the genitive
alternation in Singapore English” investigates real-time changes in factors
influencing the choice of genitive variant (my father’s book vs the book of my
father) in Singapore English (SinE) from the 1950s until the 1990s using data
from the Historical Corpus of Singapore English, ICE-Singapore and ICE-Great
Britain. The authors apply a recently developed method by Gries and colleagues
– MuPDAR/F (Multifactorial Prediction and Deviation Analysis with
Regression/Random Forests): First, they draw a synchronic comparison between
BrE and SinE to assess the extent to which SinE speakers deviate from BrE
speakers in their choice of genitive variant. Secondly, they apply MuPDAR on
SinE data from the 1950s, 1960s and 1990s to trace the diachronic development
in the factors governing genitive choice and to investigate to what extent the
observed deviations in the synchronic data matches with the changes observed
in real time. Their results show that not all changes observed in the
apparent-time (i.e. synchronic study) matches real-time changes (from the
diachronic study), which challenges the long-standing assumption in research
in World Englishes that synchronic deviations from BrE equals structural
changes in new varieties of English.

The concluding chapter by Sandra Deshors and Gaëtanelle Gilquin “Modeling
World Englishes in the 21st century: New reflections on model making” brings
together the nine contributions to the volume and the challenges that these
contributions have highlighted in the model-making process of World Englishes.
The authors propose that future theoretical models need to take the different
modes of communication (especially computer-mediated communication), and the
multilingual settings of communicative events into account, shifting the focus
away from static boundaries, such as ENL, ESL and EFL, or genre distinctions,
to acknowledge the fluctuations of the use of English in new (non-elitist)
domains. Specifically, the authors propose the ‘communicative event’ as the
new focal point for theorizing in World Englishes since such a focal point
could account for the individual globalized speaker (and his/her linguistic
background) as well as for the numerous functional factors that influence the
development of Englishes. The authors conclude by pointing out some of the
methodological implications this approach might have and the practical and
statistical knowledge required of researchers who move in that direction.

EVALUATION

The aim of this edited volume is to revise and update current theoretical
models of World Englishes, a goal that the volume clearly accomplishes. The
nine contributions highlight not only the diversity of communicative
situations in which English is used in the 21st century but also the
heterogeneity of speakers taking part in these communicative events. The
volume is thus a perfect read for researchers interested in the hybridity and
fluidity of speech situations in which English is used as a day-to-day medium
of communication in the 21st century: it provides the research community with
a desperately needed first attempt to move away from a homogenetic view of
World Englishes and to probe these Englishes’ intravarietal heterogeneity (see
the contribution by Buschfeld et al.). The volume constitutes thus a strong
step forward in the typology of World Englishes by acknowledging and
empirically investigating the multi-faceted nature of linguistic ecologies
around the world. 

Interestingly, the fluidity and hybridity of speakers’ linguistic repertoire
referred to repeatedly by the various contributors fits in neatly with recent
research in variationist sociolinguistics, specifically this field’s increased
focus on shifting styles and performance and on the interplay between
individual vs community-level grammars (see Eckert 2012; Guy & Hinskens 2016).
This shift in focus from the linguistic practices of a stable, larger social
group (the speech community) to an individual’s fluid, more dynamic use of
language seems to lie at the core of both recent modelling approaches in World
Englishes and current debates in variationist sociolinguistics. This also
shows in Deshors & Gilquin’s final chapter where the authors propose to focus
on the ‘communicative event’ to categorize English varieties and to
“allocat[e] a central part of our theories to the speaker” (Deshors & Gilquin,
p. 288). In that vein, this volume not only advances research in World
Englishes but also adds to the ongoing discussion in other linguistic areas,
indicating that it addresses pressing issues of our times. 

Overall, while some chapters take a clear theoretical focus aiming to
establish the usefulness of Schneider’s Dynamic or Mair’s World System of
Englishes models, other contributions seem more interested in the linguistic
phenomenon under study and only in a second instance discuss their findings
against the backdrop of models of World Englishes. This creates a rather
diverse, at times seemingly incoherent set of chapters, which only underscores
the diversity of speech situations in which Englishes are used today. The last
chapter (Deshors & Gilquin) successfully brings together the converging lines
of argumentation and combines the chapters into a unified proposal as to how
model-making in World Englishes should move forward in the future. Crucially,
the final chapter by Deshors & Gilquin points out that new annotation schemes
and a shift in focus from morphosyntactic phenomena to pragmatic,
discourse-specific phenomena is clearly needed. It will be seen in future
studies to what extent other researchers can address these suggestions and
advance the field further.

REFERENCES

Buschfeld, Sarah & Alexander Kautzsch. 2017. Towards an integrated approach to
postcolonial and non-postcolonial Englishes. World Englishes 36(1). 104–126.

Eckert, Penelope. 2012. Three Waves of Variation Study: The Emergence of
Meaning in the Study of Sociolinguistic Variation. Annual Review of
Anthropology 41(1). 87–100. doi:10.1146/annurev-anthro-092611-145828.

Guy, Gregory R. & Frans Hinskens. 2016. Linguistic coherence: Systems,
repertoires and speech communities. Lingua 172–173. 1–9.

Mair, Christian. 2013. The world system of Englishes: Accounting for the
transnational importance of mobile and mediated vernaculars. English
World-Wide 34(3). 253–278.

Schneider, Edgar W. 2014. New reflections on the evolutionary dynamics of
World Englishes. World Englishes 33(1). 9–32.

Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt. 2009. Typological parameters of intralingual
variability: Grammatical analyticity versus syntheticity in varieties of
English. Language Variation and Change 21(03). 319–353.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Melanie Röthlisberger is a Senior Research and Teaching Associate at the
University of Zurich. Her research interests include World Englishes,
Cognitive Sociolinguistics, and language variation and change, especially with
regard to morphosyntactic and pragmatic variation using corpus-linguistic
methods.





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