Values And Attitudes Towards English As New Englishes Emerge - Essay Example

Values and Attitudes towards English as New Englishes Emerge Contents Introduction 2 2. English as a Secondary Language 3 2 Belief and language 3 2.2 Values and language 4 2.3 Traditions and language 6 3. Colonialism and language acquisition 8 3.1 Forced learning 8 3.2 Cultural changes and language 9 3.3 Cultural deconstruction and learning English 10 4. Culture and language acquisition 11 4.1Phraseology 11 4.2 Ritual and framing sentence structures 12 4.3 Defining old culture through new language ideas 13 5. Conclusion 13 Bibliography 14 Values and Attitudes towards English as New Englishes Emerge 1. Introduction The English language grew from having speakers that numbered at about five to seven million to over 250 million speakers between the years of 1603 and 1952 (Sergent and Swann 2012, p. 114). The development of the proliferation of the English language stemmed from the dominance that the British Empire gained from the policies of colonialism. Through colonialism, the development of trade through the power of the British Empire required English speaking interactions between nations so that the dominance of economic power could be conducted within a universal language. Economic power has always been at the base of English speaking dominance within the world. Through first the vast nature of the British Empire and then through the superpower status of the United States, the English language has held a powerful and transformative place within the business world. Colonialism allowed for the creation of New Englishes through which dialects and meaning shifted, supporting the cultural needs of the occupied nations. Colonialism was defined through the needs of the dominant culture, which was primarily English in nature. French did hold a great many colonies, but it was still English that dominated the nations through which the proliferation of the English language took hold. Economic power means that in order to conduct business, a unifying language was needed so that intent of each party could be more fully understood. The language of business was the primary purpose of the New English, with the facilitation of colonial presence supporting that need whether it was through servitude or commercial need. Therefore, attitudes, values, and belief systems developed that were based upon English speaking occupation of lands whose cultures were changed by the infusion of English speaking variances to their own language. In order to survive in the world of occupation, the indigenous cultures had to change, their existence no longer based upon those aspects of their lives that had once existed separate them from the English speaking world. The fusion of English speaking colonists into indigenous cultures meant that meaningful change took place, creating a complex belief system and cultural feelings towards the occupying nation. The way in which those who use English as a secondary language reflect values and beliefs from their origins in the reconstruction of their use of secondary language skills supports the traditions of the adaptation of New Englishes from colonized histories. 2. English as a Secondary Language 2.1 Belief and language Hewings and Tagg (2012, p. 262) introduce the confounding of language as having mythically stemmed from the building of the tower of Babel in which God saw the arrogance of man and struck down this tall building, confusing the speech of those participating so that they could no longer communicate under one tongue. This myth suggests that a singular language was the desirable state of communications where the confounding of the language into multiple tongues was a punishment. Conversely, when the Holy Spirit descended, those who received the Holy Spirit began to speak in a variety of tongues without the need of interpretation between each other. Language, as it relates to the Judeo/Christian heritage, is a vital part of how the religion is expressed, the interpretation of belief, and as a part of the stories within the writings. Belief is defined or embraced upon the interpretation, identification with, or the simple gift of language. Language and communication is an essential part of how belief is developed in any language. As demonstrated through the two stories, the one of Babel and the one of the descent of the Holy Spirit, the ability to communicate is an essential part of culture no matter whether it is given or taken away. In a modern context, language as it has become translated from cultures that are ‘other’ into English bring with them the nuances of their own culture, captured in differences within the scope of the English language in order to reinterpret aspects of their belief systems. If examined from the metaphorical perspective of the contradicting examples provided by the Judeo/Christian heritage, the concept of language can be a gift when communication is given, but as interpretation is allowed, it can also be a gift. Meaning comes from understanding. 2.2 Values and language English is now part of the education of children on six continents, which comprises much of the known world (Allington and Mayer 2012, p. 103). English language is considered a necessity in educational systems that support globalisation. In order to communicate in the business world, there is an expectation of English as a language through which to support inter-communication. Media communication throughout the world is globalised through the use of English. English is the language of the internet, providing the viewer with a broader level of content if one speaks and can read the English language. There is a limited amount of content in each of the various languages that exist throughout the world, but a wealth of content in the English language. Business, media, and education all become more easily distributed and used when the use of the English language is used in order to unify communications. Using English brings values into a globalised world through opening up the valve of understanding between cultures. There are drawbacks to the use of one language within the world, but from the perspective of creating world order and understanding, using one language as the link between people goes a long way towards building bridges and creating globally accepted values systems of human rights and freedoms. Values as they are expressed through the subject of class position and the stereotypes of individuals can be seen through the matched guise test as reported by Hewings and Tagg (2012, p. 299). This test asked participants to evaluate speakers for their personality attributes in relationship to how they sound reading a passage. What was discovered is that the way in which the passage was read created value association to the reader. In other words, the way in which a person speaks provides cultural cues to their position within the social dynamic. Value for language is not only in what it contains, but in how it is delivered. In order to attune language to its meaning, the proper delivery will change how that interpretation is received. The value of the English language within the world is placed on a number of factors and those factors determine how it is received and how it is used. The value of a communication device that unites is high, but the value of how it is received in relationship to class designation through how it is delivered may be lowered. Language value is complex and multi-layered, spreading the beliefs of individuals through how it is used to communicate those beliefs, but also being valued based upon prejudices that define how it is received. 2.3 Traditions and language Allington and Mayer (2012) discuss the meaning of talk practices and how they are enacted within society. Communication can be viewed in terms of “routines or activities in which people take part for particular purposes” (Allington and Mayer 2012, p. 6). When studying talk, anthropologists relate the creation and expression of culture into the way in which language has evolved. Different ways of communicating develop in order to express culture as well as to express a purpose. As an example, one culture may provide for an individual to say ‘I’m going to watch the telly’, while another may say ‘I’m going to watch TV’, thus expressing the same intent through two very different forms of expression. The practice of talking is not formal, but comes from acculturation within a society through which forms of expression are common. A soft drink, as an example, may be called a soda, a pop, or merely a drink when the reference to getting one is used. The expression that is used can vary within a very small space of locale, the local circumstances and trends affecting how an individual expresses their intention. Traditions that are more formal can come when language is used in a more academic environment. Academic English is taught in universities around the world as English is the foremost often used language in which academic research is conducted. Presuming for a moment that this discussion focuses on those students who already speak English as a first language, the need will still exist to learn how to write about a subject from within a framework of the specific academic expectations that are applied to a discipline. These expectations are a part of traditions that support the use of the language within the framework of academic expression. This comes back to the two stories of the Tower of Babel and that of the descent of the Holy Spirit. In the story of the Tower of Babel, the loss of the ability to communicate was a punishment for the arrogance of trying to reach God uninvited. In the descent of the Holy Spirit, a host of languages sprung from the mouths of those who received the Spirit, but no interpretation was necessary. Understanding is the key concept that connects the two events and provides for the development of an understanding of how language affects the listener. It is not how something it said that makes it purposeful, but how the listener receives and understands it that makes the communication a connection. As in the case of academic use of English, the listener may not speak English as a first language and the speaker may not speak English as a first language, but what is communicated is interpreted and understood between them because they share some knowledge of a common language through which to create a connection between thought and the dissemination of that thought. A common language provides for connections between those whose language barriers may not otherwise allow for that connection. 3. Colonialism and language acquisition While the use of the English language as a method of unification can be seen as a connective device through which larger scales of peace can be bridged, there are historical narratives that discard the idea of peace and institute memories of oppression and abuse upon other nations through the development of colonialism. The remnants of colonialism still haunt a number of cultures through which the idealism that can be seen through the proliferation of the English language is tainted. 3.1 Forced learning Brad Kachru defined three circles of English as the inner circle, the outer circle, and the expanding circle. The inner circle consists of the UK, the USA, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. This circle consists of places in the world in which English is the natural language that is used by people who occupy those regions. The outer circle is where English serves as a second language. These regions include Bangladesh, Ghana, India, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, and Zambia. Through long periods of colonization English is classified as a second language within the culture. The expanded circle includes China, Egypt, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Korea, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Russia and Zimbabwe. In the expanded circle the language is used outside of an official capacity (Sergent and Swan 2012, p. 30-31). In some capacities, the learning of English has been a benefit, but in the case of colonized nations, the infusion of the English language has been through forced use of it to integrate the colonizing forces with the labor resources of the occupied nation. 3.2 Cultural changes and language Cultural changes took place on a wide scale as the British Kingdom began to take over non – European landscapes, re-sculpting them to fit into frameworks of English need that defied the logic or construction of indigenous populations. The study of English as it has been reconstructed to fit into the cultures of occupied territories have become languages that are unique to those territories while sub-sets of the English language. Nesselhauf (2009, p. 1) writes that “it is in such postcolonial settings of the 20th century that New Englishes as institutionalized second-language varieties have emerged, marked by their own variety-specific features, linguistic preferences and norms, the English language having been appropriated by its non-European users and changed to reflect their own experiences". In inserting English culture into otherness, the nature of language reflects that nature of other. Nesselhauf (2009) calls these new languages that are similar to English but with slight and sometimes barely recognizable differences as New Englishes in which the indigenous population has reconstructed the linguistics of English to fit into the cultural affects that exist within the culture of the past and present of the locale. The change and shift in language was not defined merely by infusing culture with a new language, but through developing a need to communicate on a playing field that had some naturalistic affectation without disrupting the purposes of colonization. The New Englishes erupted from the economic need of the occupying culture to utilize the occupied for purposes of commerce, trade, and the development of resources. Being the dominant culture meant that the submissive culture had to adapt to their oppressors, becoming servants on their own lands and accepting changes without meaning to their own development. 3.3 Cultural deconstruction and learning English A reading by Ngugi wa Thiong’o discusses the beating of a child for speaking his native language. The story speaks of the child being held on his side down on a table and struck repeatedly until his blood was splattering on those who were around the table witnessing the beating. The writing discusses how the child, barely able to walk and so traumatized by the event walked out of the school and was never seen again. He was used as an example of what would happen should the language that he was speaking be used within the walls of the schoolhouse again. The metaphor that can be seen through this child and the beating that he took from teachers is that in many cases the infusion of English into some cultures was done at the tip of a whip, forced upon them and destabilizing the culture that had existed before colonisation came to destroy not only the existing culture, but to replace it with subservience and the imposition of inferiority on men and women as they struggled under a economically more sophisticated leadership of a differing culture that destabilized their means of survival and created dependence. 4. Culture and language acquisition 4.1Phraseology The result of the fusion of cultures that were outside of the cultural adaptation of English speaking societies was the phraseology of a whole new language in which meanings were shifted to adaptation to the indigenous culture that was struggling under the yoke of colonialism. Nesselhauf (2009, p. 7) writes that “An interesting case in point at the lexis-grammar interface is the use of so-called new ditransitives, i.e. the use of verbs in the ditransitive complementation pattern (subject – verb – indirect object – direct object) in New Englishes that are not admissible in this construction in British English”. She goes on to state that these new forms of phraseology can be seen in public works, showing shifts in how language is presented. 4.2 Ritual and framing sentence structures The development of sentence structures then become a way in which to communicate meaning that is cite specific in relationship to how the culture develops their use of the English language as it becomes a part of defining ritual through adaptation of use. Rituals of the culture are seen in the way in which English is used, sentences making the New English specific to a region and defining their culture through the subtle, but clear use of the language within a new structure. Nesselhauf shows that the development of Indian based English can be traced through the centuries of colonisation towards understanding how sentence structure is reflective of Indian language acquisition as it preceded English acquisition. The relationship between the colonized and the colonizer is represented in the value through which it is presented and in the interpretation of class level that is associated with the phraseology and sentence structure of the New English that has emerged within the Indian social structures. Nesselhauf (2009, p. 7) discusses how the use of language in the 17th century when it was first introduced into the Indian culture is not readily available and therefore cannot be traced in order to understand the shifts of grammar usage throughout the development of the language structures and uses within the nation. What is obvious is that there was a cultural influence from the origins of India through which the development of the language took place, designating it as both ‘other’ and familiar. 4.3 Defining old culture through new language ideas As a result of how language developed in other cultures through the influences of both the positivism of modern globalisation and the negative influences of colonialism that hangs over deconstructed cultures, the emergence of New English has changed the overall status of the language within the world. Cultures are now embracing the English that has developed within their nation as a part of their cultural history, colloquialism a part of their beliefs, their values and their system of communications through which they experience their cultural identity. What was a part of the fusion of West and ‘other’ has become a part of the experience of modern society within those regions. The cultural narrative now includes the nature of colonialism and all that it brought to the societies that were held in its yoke, language part of the way in which the new culture supports the New English. 5. Conclusion Belief systems, traditions, and values are all a part of how English has become a part of the overall development of the world. English in modern contexts provides for business, academics, and the use of the internet to be accessible across borders. From a historical perspective, English has been recreated through the influences of colonialism. As it exists within the world, the inner circle provides overflow into the outer and expanded circle in which English is spoke, developing a core resource through which modern bodies of people can find peace and understanding through economic interdependence and cultural homogenisation. Bibliography Allington, Daniel, and Barbara Mayer. (2012). Communicating in English. Abingdon: Routledge. Hewings, Ann and Caroline Tagg (2012). The politics of English: Conflict, Competition, Co-existence. Abingdon: Routledge. Nesselhauf, N. (2009). Co-selection phenomena across New Englishes. English Worldwide. Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 1-26. Sergent, Philip and Joan Swann. (2012). English in the world: History, diversity, change.Abingdon: Routledge. Read More