Newsletter No. 139

CUHK Newsletter No. 139 19th January 1999 3 English -from a Cross-cultural Perspective Champion of Plural Language on World Englishes Prof. Braj B. K a c h u joined the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1963 and has been a professor of linguistics since 1970. Currently he holds joint appointments in the College of Education, the Program in Comparative Literature, and the Division of English as an International Language. Prof. Kachru's research on world Englishes, the Kashmiri language and literature, and theoretical and applied studies on language and society has resulted in more than 20 authored and edited volumes and over 100 research papers, review articles, and reviews. He has held editorial positions in over a dozen scholarly journals and is associate editor of The Oxford Companion to the Eng l i sh Language and a contributor to The Cambridge History of the English Language. A Multi-cultural Language In Asia the estimated English- using population adds up to 350 million, approximately the same as the total population of the US, the UK , and Canada. Mainland China has over 200 m i l l i on users of English. And India is the third largest English-using country after the US and the UK. Many literatures in the world written in English are not p r o d u c ed i n countries where English is a mother tongue, but in countries where it is an official language, e.g., India, Singapore, Kenya, the Philippines, by writers for whom English is not a mother tongue. The contact of English with other languages and cultures has resulted in its nativization through the lexical borrowing from and hybridization with other languages and cultures. English has become a multicultural language. Prof. Braj B. Kachru, renowned linguist who has championed non-native varieties of English and defined a new area of study known asWorld Englishes, visited the University in early December at the invitation of the Department of English. Prof. Kachru is currently director and professor of the Center for Advanced Study at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Jubilee Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The Concept of World Englishes According to Prof. Kachru, what gave rise to the concept of world Englishes was the need felt by a group of linguists and literary scholars in the 70s to look at English from a cross-cultural point of view, from the perspective of the kind of literatures, ideologies, national identities English reflects as there was no formal articulation of this character of English at that time. In 1978 the international and intranational functions of English became the focus of two international conferences, held three months apart, at respectively the East-West Center in Honolulu and the U n i v e r s i ty o f I l l i n o i s at U r bana- Champaign. Prof. Ka c h ru was the organizer of the second conference. At the conferences linguists, literary scholars 一 both native and non-native users of English from India, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, New Zealand, Britain, Germany, the US etc. discussed the global use o f English in various sociolinguistic contexts and explored cross-cultural perspectives regarding the understanding of English in a global context, language variation, language acquisition, and the bilingual's use of English. Future research areas were also identified. In the 80s the term ' wo r ld Englishes' was coined to reflect the ranges and varieties of the language and to symbolize a doing away with the native and non-native dichotomy. There is now an International Association for World Englishes and a journal called World Englishes, of which Prof. Kachru is a co- founder, published by B l a c kwe ll in Britain. Indigenization of English and Associated Innovations 'In the print media,' said Prof. Kachru, 'what happens is there are national newspapers such as the London Times and Times of India, in wh i ch r eg i onal variations in English are not reflected because the newspapers are meant for a large audience. But in a newspaper written in English meant for a small locality or where a certain ethnic group lives, it would take pride in articulating the local identity of that region and vocabulary from that area would appear which would not be intelligible to people from other regions. Should we treat such English as a living language or not? I ' m saying we should; ...it is dynamic, changing, and also reflects native identity. ’ Yet he pointed out that in the different varieties of English, distinction has to be made between what is 'acquisitional deficiency', i.e., syntactical incorrectness, and lexical innovations and discoursal strategies that have crept into English as a result of contact with other cultures and languages. Are writings in these varieties of English judged using the conventional criteria? Linguistic innovation can mean stretching the limits of grammar, what is traditionally deemed 'correct', 'good', or 'bad'. 'There's a concept of what is, say, educated Chinese English, and I don't think it's very difficult to judge,' said Prof. Kachru. 'There is Singaporization or Indianization of English etc. due to the cultural input from South Asia into English and the way the Chinese or Indians design their texts, their notions of politeness and of compliment, which are recreated in English. To me that is a legitimate form of creativity. So we have to d i s t i n g u i sh b e t w e e n w h a t is innovation and what is grammatically incorrect. T he one s h o u l d be encouraged, the other, improved upon. ’ Problems of Legitimization English has been in Asia for over 150 years, a long period for it not to be influenced by Asian cultures and be r e f l e c t i ve o f, say, I nd i an, Ma l a y s i a n, Singaporean, Chinese identities, albeit colonized identities. Prof. Kachru believes that wo r ld Englishes signify the end of colonized identity: 'We have taken [English] out of the hands of the colonizers, twisted it back and are using it for our modes of living, our own creativity, and our own identity. So in that sense the colonized identity ceases because the medium may be British or American... but the messages we are creating are our own.' Yet are the judges of that creativity still the colonizers, so to speak? A student from Hong Kong taking the SSAT has a very different cultural experience of English than students in America, yet he is evaluated using the same criteria as they are. Prof. Kachru conceded that the channels and paradigms of control, e.g., the dictionaries, models for pronunciation, grammar have yet to be changed and English departments should play a role in pushing for this new perspective of language and for giving legitimacy to local innovations. The Hong Kong Context Whatever the po s i t i on towards English, English-related issues are pertinent to postcolonial Hong Kong. The large majority of the local population speak a variety o f Cantonese that's sprinkled with English and have had to learn English from kindergarten. Yet their command of both languages has been criticized by native English and native putonghua speakers alike. Does Prof. Kachru have a word for people who are tearing their hair out over the English standard o f Hong Kong students? ' I 'm really not sure the standard of English is going down. English used to be an elitist language. English learners came from the middle class, their parents knew some English, .. .they usually went to very good schools. Now more and more people from different backgrounds and social levels are learning English. The numbers of good and bad learners are equally increasing. I ' m not one of those who feels that the decay of the English language has come and the Asians and Africans are causing it. You only have to see how many awards are given to creative writers from Asia and Africa. And then you realize maybe something is going right. Not everything is going wrong,' observed Prof. Kachru. Pinpointing Asian Englishes During his visit to the University, Prof. Kachru gave a talk entitled 'Asian Englishes: Contexts, Constructs and C r e a t i v i t y' wh i ch exami ned As i an Englishes from the different perspectives. D i s t i n c t i on was made be t ween a language's 'genetic nativeness', the genetic mapping of the language, and 'functional nativeness', determined by the functional range of the language and its depth in social penetration. He then briefly outlined the Asian profile of English in terms of its uses and users, and illustrated some shared characteristics of Asian En g l i s h es that c o n t r i b u te to the Asianization of the language. Lastly he discussed two paradigms, i.e., 'contact literatures' and 'contact linguistics' that provide conceptual and methodological frameworks for understanding literary creativity in Asian Englishes and the Englishization of Asian languages. Piera Chen (The complete text of Prof. Kachru's talk is available at the general office of the Department of English.)