35.2630, Review: Is English an Asian Language?: Kirkpatrick and Lixun (2023)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-35-2630. Thu Sep 26 2024. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 35.2630, Review: Is English an Asian Language?: Kirkpatrick and Lixun (2023)

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Date: 27-Sep-2024
From: Caroline Hutchinson [hutchinson.caroline at nihon-u.ac.jp]
Subject: Applied Linguistics: Kirkpatrick and Lixun (2023)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/34.3299

AUTHOR: Andy Kirkpatrick
AUTHOR: Wang Lixun
TITLE: Is English an Asian Language?
PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press
YEAR: 2023

REVIEWER: Caroline Hutchinson

SUMMARY

In “Is English an Asian Language?”, Andy Kirkpatrick and Wang Lixun
provide a far-reaching survey of the roles played by English in Asia.
They outline the many contexts in which English is used, such as law,
literature and religion, the different local varieties of the language
and its use as a lingua franca. The book concludes by discussing the
role of English in education, considering the rise of English-medium
instruction, structural challenges such as teacher proficiency, and
the impact that English has on local languages.

Kirkpatrick begins with several vignettes illustrating the widespread
use of English as a lingua franca in Asia, and introducing his
upbringing as an expatriate in Malaysia and Singapore, his return to
the United Kingdom and subsequent study of Chinese. He then outlines
Braj Kachru’s ‘English as an Asian Language’ (1998), which argues for
the need to move away from a monolingual, English native-speaking
paradigm to one in which multilingual, multicultural societies use
English autonomously. Kachru lists five uses of English in Asia: (1)
as a tool for communication between distinct groups; (2) as a means of
articulating local identities; (3) as a pan-Asian language of
creativity; (4) as a language with diverse subvarieties; (5) as a
language many hold strong feelings about, but which nevertheless
retains function and prestige.

Chapter 1 considers how English came to Asia. In British colonial
India, English became a language of government and administration
taught to a small, elite group. With independence, attempts to switch
to Hindi were resisted by non-Hindi speakers, leading to a
three-language model in which English is recommended in primary school
and English-Medium Instruction (EMI) is widespread in higher
education. While China has at times in its history been officially
hostile towards English, there have been moves to increase EMI courses
and introduce the language before primary 3. Research suggests that
while English is still not widely used in daily life or socialising,
there has been a shift away from heritage languages to the national
language, standard Chinese (putonghua).

ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) adopted English as its
sole working language in 2009. Despite differing degrees of
proficiency, English is the first foreign language in all ten
countries. Brunei, Malaysia, Myanmar and Singapore were British
colonies, but while Myanmar has seen proficiency decline due to
international isolation, English was chosen as a medium of instruction
in Singapore in 1965 and has become the country’s lingua franca,
seeing the development of a local English form. The Philippines and
Indonesia are multilingual nations in which many students must master
national languages along with English; English proficiency levels are
higher in the Philippines, where English was the medium of instruction
beginning in the American colonial period. English has displaced
French in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, yet this recent change brings
concerns over teacher proficiency. While the picture is mixed, English
is a clear priority in all countries, not least because of its role as
a lingua franca and in ASEAN settings, while also being adapted to the
local cultural needs of its speakers.

Chapter 2 introduces the Asian Corpus of English, which collects
naturally occurring English used as a lingua franca in five major
settings in Asia: education, leisure, business, professional
organizations, and research/ science. It was designed to be used as a
complement to the Vienna Oxford International Corpus of English
(VOICE), which focuses primarily on European settings. The chapter
introduces data collection and transcription methods, and provides a
step by step guide to using the online platform. Examples from the
corpus are included throughout the book.

In Chapter 3, the authors turn to a comparison of two broad English
usage types in Asia: local varieties of English and English as a
Lingua Franca (ELF). Former colonies of English-speaking empires have
developed local forms of English usage which reflect the identity and
shared culture of their speakers. Increasingly, English is also used
to communicate across linguistic and cultural boundaries, as a lingua
franca. English usage within a community tends to include more
cultural references and code-mixing, while the primary goal of ELF
speakers is communication. Asian varieties of English adapt the
language to meet their cultural needs: through the borrowing of
Islamic religious terms in Malaysia or Brunei, the use of discourse
markers from the first language, or through extensive code-mixing. In
examples of English used as a lingua franca, in contrast, less
code-mixing is seen.

Chapter 4 considers the topics of discussion found in the Asian Corpus
of English, along with issues of register and formality. Formal
interactions demonstrate little deviation from standard English, but
the authors suggest that they demonstrate ‘the ASEAN way’ of smoothing
over potential awkwardness through humour and avoiding awkward topics,
a notion that speakers explicitly refer to in the examples given.
Discussion topics range widely from economic ties between nations,
making refusals in a professional context, police interrogations in
Hong Kong, exchange students’ experiences of studying English, and
informal discussions about history or daily life. Interestingly, a
number of speakers make explicit references to culture and the nature
of communication in English.

In Chapter 5, the transfer of pragmatic norms from speakers’ L1 is
discussed. While errors in grammar and pronunciation are likely to be
noticed and corrected, utterances going against pragmatic norms are
often interpreted as rudeness. Examples are given of Chinese speakers
of English placing reasons for a request before the request itself, a
rhetorical structure that may allow a superior to save face in the
event of a refusal. This can seem vague and overly indirect to native
English speakers, who expect the request up-front, potentially
softened by “could you…?”, followed by the reasons. When English is
used as a lingua franca, speakers negotiate norms on an ad hoc and
cooperative basis, rather than referring to the norms of their first
languages. They utilise strategies of turn-taking, repetition, and
anticipation of meaning; and they either let information pass or
request clarification on a flexible basis.

Chapter 6 describes the borrowing of words from local contexts into
the local English, and potentially beyond: Indian English has given
the world words such as calico, chintz, juggernaut and dungarees. In
addition to words taken directly from the language, we also find
English terms for local phenomena, such as “minor wife” (not the first
or most important wife). We find neologisms coined to describe local
politics and culture, and words that come to have different
connotations, such as “confident” which in Bruneian English carries
only the negative connotations of “arrogant”. It is only in the late
twentieth century that varieties of English came to be seen as worth
recording in dictionaries, and there remains reluctance among writers
to use the language of former colonizers. Nevertheless, examples are
given of the use of local words and idioms in literature written in
English, giving a sense of place and culture, beginning to
“acculturate” English on “Asian terms” (Kachru, 1998).

In Chapter 7, the use of non-standard forms is considered. First, the
authors make the points  that non-standard forms are present in the
vernaculars of native speakers, and that many non-standard forms are
found in multiple vernaculars, in both native and non-native varieties
of English. Corpus data suggests that grammatical norms in speakers’
L1, such as non-marking for tense, are not reflected in their use of
English. This finding also holds true for English used as a lingua
franca. The authors call for further studies comparing vernaculars,
rather than those comparing standard Englishes with non-native
vernaculars, as a way to investigate the features of authentic spoken
English in various contexts rather than comparing these features with
an idealized norm.

Chapter 8 considers the use of English in law, religion, and popular
culture. Due to the legacy of British colonial rule, several nations
retain a system based on English Common Law and use  English as one of
the languages of justice. In Singapore, English remains the language
of legislation and court proceedings, while in other cases English is
retained partly due to the need to cite precedents using cases
recorded in the language. In religion, English acts as a lingua franca
between Asian practitioners and as a means of attracting visitors.
Naturally there is great diversity in how the language is viewed, with
some in the Islamic world seeing English as an external threat
contrary to the values of education, and others viewing English as a
means to strengthen local identity and proselytise more widely. In
popular culture we can find creative uses of local vernaculars
combined with influences from overseas music, such as the influence of
African American Vernacular English on Mongolian rap.

In Chapter 9, the authors turn to the role of English as a language of
education. Asian nations seek to strike a balance between diverse
local languages, national languages, and English. Highly multilingual
Indonesia focuses on its national language, Bahasa Indonesia, as a
medium of instruction, and does not introduce English until secondary
school; in contrast Singapore has English-medium classes from the
first year of primary school, with local languages taught in foreign
language class. At the university level, English-medium courses are
increasing in number. Malaysia has been a forerunner in encouraging
credit transfer, study abroad, and the establishment of offshore
campuses in the country; yet the nation has reversed plans to teach
maths and science in English from primary 1. While the experiences of
Asian nations have been quite different, the common trend has been to
promote the national language and English at the expense of local
languages.

Chapter 10 sets out some of the implications for the teaching of
English in Asia. First, within ASEAN English users clearly see the
language as a tool for defending their own interests, rather than as a
language culturally tied to the USA or UK. This has increased
motivation to learn the language, and spurred its use in education.
Second, given the cognitive difficulties of learning complex subjects
in English and the potential to delay the learning of disadvantaged
children, children should learn English as a subject before using it
as a medium of instruction. Third, unlike first language learners who
benefit from immersion in a natural learning environment, the majority
of Asian language learners lack access to the resources, teachers and
environment that would allow them to learn subjects in English.
Furthermore, the home language should be viewed as a resource rather
than an impediment.
The authors call for the development of an ASEAN-wide teacher training
and qualification system, maintaining standards and allowing for
teacher mobility. While English teaching in Singapore maintains high
standards, low teacher proficiency levels in Myanmar render the
nominal policy of English-medium instruction in higher education
impossible in practice. It is argued that an ASEAN-wide effort to
train teachers and teacher trainers is needed, along with facilitating
teaching practice and observation, producing Asian-focused teaching
materials and developing standardised assessment methods. In line with
this, the authors call for a lingua franca approach with the goal of
mutual intelligibility rather than native speaker norms, and
intercultural competence rather than familiarity with a given native
speaker target culture.

In conclusion, the book reiterates that English is playing an
increasing role in Asia, even in expanding circle countries that were
not part of Anglophone empires. English functions both as a means of
communicating between cultures and a medium for local identities. It
is a language of Asian literature and popular culture, retaining its
influence in the legal systems of former colonies while developing new
roles, becoming the working language of ASEAN. Unfortunately, in many
instances this has come at the expense of local languages, and when
introduced into education too soon can lead to pupils dropping out of
primary school. By focusing on local languages at the primary level,
and teaching English as an Asian language when students are ready, it
is hoped that Asian nations can balance multilingualism and identity
with the benefits of English.

EVALUATION

This book provides a wide-ranging analysis of the current situation
regarding the roles and usage of English in Asia, based on examples
drawn from corpus data. Using Kachru’s (1998) five uses of English as
an Asian language, the authors demonstrate that English is indeed an
Asian language: both a language used extensively in Asia within and
between communities and a language created by Asian people to express
their identities without reference to native speaker norms.

In collecting real-world corpus data and capturing and analyzing
English as it is used, this book makes a compelling case for English
as a language decoupled from its countries of origin and their
empires, used with agency and ownership to express the needs of
speakers worldwide. Chapter 7’s discussion of non-standard forms in
the vernaculars of both native and non-native varieties further
supports a World Englishes paradigm in which communication is the
focus, rather than adherence to the norms of an idealized standard
English.

In the final chapters, the book turns to language education in Asia,
and the implications both of the increasing role of English within
Asia and the acknowledgement that communication in English
increasingly occurs between multilingual Asian speakers. Many of the
issues raised here are familiar to me: concerns persist in Japan over
levels of English proficiency, with calls to introduce classes at an
earlier age (and fears that this will negatively impact Japanese
proficiency) and to increase provision of English in higher education.
English-medium instruction is often presented as ‘two for the price of
one’, with students developing both content understanding and language
skills. Nevertheless, there are clear challenges, not least the need
to train educators able to provide effective English-medium education.
These challenges are only intensified in multilingual nations which
aim for proficiency in home and national languages in addition to
English.

English-medium instruction, especially at primary level, also carries
the potential to widen the attainment gap. In Japan, students with
experience of overseas travel, residence and study, or access to
extracurricular English resources, tend to thrive in English-medium
classes where others struggle. Especially in multilingual nations
where primary education is crucial in establishing identity and
literacy in local languages, burdening students and teachers with
English-medium instruction may be counterproductive. Given these
issues, the authors make a logical call for a Lingua Franca approach
in which native speaker norms are replaced with the goals of mutual
intelligibility, intercultural competence and learning in multilingual
environments with multilingual teachers, starting in secondary school.

It is an impossible task to fully reflect and dissect all contexts in
which speakers in the diverse nations of Asia might use the English
language. Nevertheless, much as I may have wished to linger on
conversations or contexts that particularly sparked my interest, this
book successfully weaves diverse examples into a coherent whole,
providing engaging analysis of language in use and the history of
language policies in the region. I believe that this book reinforces
the importance of capturing vernacular language in use, encourages the
acceptance of diverse identities expressed in diverse Englishes, and
supports the case for developing English as a Lingua Franca (ELF)
pedagogy, teacher training and assessment standards.
Note: In the electronic version which I reviewed, there appears to be
an error in the table on page 54, which shows “identity” and
“communication”, ostensibly at opposite ends of a continuum, occupying
the same position.

REFERENCES

Kachru, B. B. (1998). English as an Asian language. Links & Letters,
5, 89-108.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Caroline Hutchinson is an Associate Professor at Nihon University
College of Economics, Japan. Her interests include English-Medium
Instruction (EMI), Content-Language Integrated Learning (CLIL),
intercultural communicative competence and learner identity. She is
currently considering student attitudes about cultural identity and
global citizenship.



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