Chapter 6 English and other languages Kay McCormick.

Chapter 6English and other languages

Kay McCormick

Introduction :

• English has co-existed throughout its history with other languages across nations, institutions and communities.

• Bilingual individuals and communities commonly deploy their languages in complementary ways, using one language for some functions and others for other functions.

The selections, of one language, are often made unconsciously and are shaped by:

a) Circumstances under which English came into the communities, by particular considerations;

b)Qualities associated with each language progress or conservatism

c) Cultural rootedness or neutrality

d)Particular religion, ethnic group or social class

Encounters with English:

• In countries where English is a foreign language, such as those in Kachru’s ‘Expanding Circle,’ the school classroom is the main site where speakers of other languages meet up with, learn and use English.

Encounters with English :

Other means of ‘accessing’ the language are:o the English language radio and television programs,

available through satellite technology. o Formal teaching and learning favors standard Englishes,

whereas radio, television and the internet are more hospitable to other varieties of English.

o Other means ; For example, Japanese rap groups come to be, in an attempt to incorporate the English of American culture.

Encounters with English :

• In the ‘Inner Circle’ countries, English has become a mother tongue for the vast majority of the population and therefore has a very important position.

• In the ‘Outer Circle’ countries Where English is not the majority home language, the position of English and its relative status to other languages usually has been achieved through ‘legislation to implement government policy decisions’ .

Regulating English: Policy and planning

National language policy and planning in multilingual countries:

• Language policy is the set of broad goals – political, social, economic, linguistic – that policy developers hope to achieve by focusing on aspects of the use of languages in particular countries or institutions.

• Language planning identifies the processes of policy implementation.


Typically, legislation regulates which languages are to be used for official purposes in government at all levels (national, regional and local), in the civil service, educational institutions, the legal domain, and relations with other countries.

1. Official languages, are given high status. 2. Some countries also identify an indigenous

language as a National language. Its main value is symbolic.


• Status planning is the process of planning how to give effect to these decisions.

• Acquisition planning, is planning for how people will learn the official languages and other languages which the government regards as necessary for economic and other reasons.


• corpus planning is to equip the language to handle the range of new functions that come with being an official language.. its linguistic ‘body’ or corpus has to be developed

Pakistan 1947 Britain relinquished control; West Pakistan & East

Pakistan (now Bangladesh) split into independent countries at the end of 1971.

English was used as formal language of education during British rule. As it was not involved with identity symbols for various ethno-nationalist and religious movements, the Pakistani government saw it as a useful tool, post-independence, to unify the newly established political entity while at the same time carrying out the day to day activities such as education, administration… so these factors favored keeping English as an official language

Pakistan

• Yet its retention was strongly opposed by religious parties ‘who felt that maintaining the status of English symbolized a new form of colonization).

• Desire was that in an Islamic state, a local language used by the Muslim community should be promoted. Urdu received the strongest support.

Pakistan :

- 1977, when General Zia-ul-Haq led a military coup, that paved the way for a more comprehensive Urduisation of the state.

- Schools for the elite continued to teach English and the demand for English as medium of education grew, even– covertly- among government supporters.

Pakistan

• By 1987, it was clear that political will for Urduisation was losing strength, the policy had been too hasty about implementing, without proper planning, and subsequent governments promoted English for its value in linking the country’s development into global political and economic spheres. Urdu (in2012) is the national language while both Urdu and English have official status.

TanzaniaBritish colony in East Africa, for only 40 years; it gained its independence in 1961; English was already firmly established as the language of the colonial government; Post-independence government wanted to turn away from Western

The unifying vehicle was Swahili, rather than English. 1967-1974 was a strong period of antagonism towards Britain and other capitalist countries and Swahili was strongly promoted.

After 1976 English regained its post prestige and both English and Swahili had equal status.

Langaue policy in Namibia

Namibia a not ex-colonies of Britain

English and other languages in communities and families

• What are patterns of bilingualism? How is an original language maintained? What role does the new language adopt?

• Language policies do not necessarily determine how people will use language, and the resources that come with them. Communities and families are key sites where relationships between languages are established and challenged.

Bilingual Pattern-:

• When changes of language policy or changes in circumstances (such as alterations to national borders, new trade opportunities, or migration) bring a new language (N), within reach of a community or family, members of the community or family will learn and use it only if they perceive that they will benefit from doing so.

Bilingual Pattern:-

• They may continue using their other languages (O) for most functions, while using (N) exclusively for interactions emanating from the change in circumstances. . .[Gradually] N may start to be used increasingly alongside O in established domains such as schools and later also in homes … if this co-existence persists over a long period, we describe it as stable bilingualism. . . Stable bilingual communities or families are usually characterized by a strong sense of the importance of their heritage and of O, the language originally associated with it.

Bilingual Pattern:-

• stable bilingualism: co-existence persists over a long period. Stable bilingual communities or families are usually characterized by a strong sense of the importance of their heritage.

• language maintenance. The beliefs and daily practices promote the language maintenance in regard to O

• language shift it may gradually come to use only N for functions that O used to perform, until over three or more generations O is abandoned and N is taking its role.

• language death if no communities speak the language.

Bilingual Pattern-:

• English is in high demand as a source of job, education and technological advantages, but there are also concerns about its effects on other languages and the cultures with which those languages are associated. There is a fear that the global spread of English may lead to the eventual death of native languages; ‘invasion’ by English into the territories of other languages has caused English to be labeled as a “killer language” and the process has been described as “linguicide”

Speaking Bi-lingually: Switching between English and other languages

• Bilinguals do not always choose one language or another for a conversation. They may switch between their languages within one conversation. The moment by moment alteration between languages is termed code-switching

‘code’ refers to a distinct language or language variety’

• Codeswiching, especially in the case of switching between

English and other languages, may happen:- for just one phrase, or form much longer- within the same sentence or between sentences.


• The briefest switch to another language would be for a loanword or borrowing; for example, borrowing French words into English such as haute couture, de rigueur, or from English into French such as un scoop, un squat, un lifting.

These borrowings of vocabulary words have many types and functions:

The most common is to fill in gaps in the language they are borrowed into.


Recent borrowings retain signs of their origins, as well as their social functions. “English may be seen as fashionable, particularly by young French (and other) people who wish to identify with the prestigious dynamic Anglo-American culture conveyed to them through TV, the Web, pop music, and films”

Switching to another language can signal particular ‘belonging’.


The primary function of that process is sometimes termed emblematic switching, that is symbolic switching. It is often used to indicate ancestry especially when the speaker(s) are no longer completely familiar with their ancestral language.

Idioms from the ancestral language may be used, and this process gives access to concepts which the speaker feels cannot be adequately rendered in English.صحتين


When speakers pick up and use words or phrases which are not part of their heritage, that is called language crossing; that defines the use of a language, or language variety, that isn’t generally felt to ‘belong’ to the speaker. The speaker lacks proficiency in the language he/she is switching to, and unlike emblematic crossing, also lacks any insider status in the group whose language she or he is drawing on.


Switching between languages may be deeply involved in the enactment of identity. Consciously or unconsciously through the way we speak in various interactions, we signal something about ourselves, or about how- we would like to be seen: as learned/ cool/ exotic/ working class, etc. People sometimes switch to try to present themselves favorably.


• Piaget & Tabouret-Keller refer to three main questions relevant in the process of switching and its relation to identity:

o Who am I? o How am I perceived? o How do I want to be perceived?

• None of us has a single identity. Social scientists talk of people ‘enacting identities’ rather than ‘having an identity.’ We construct identities in interaction.


One function of switching is the negotiation of identities between speakers, according to the examples of switches between English and Swahili in a Nairobi company, especially the higher status of English and its speakers (Carol Myers-Scotton’s example(s)).


Switching can be triggered by ‘big’ factors such as shifts in topic or situation; they can also be more fluid, and serve subtle interpersonal, stylistic or rhetorical functions… evoking a different role or aspect of one’s own identity, or that of an interlocutor(267-8).


• Prolonged language contact can result in a weaving of languages which is tighter than seen in examples of code-switching

• At some level, the two languages can become sufficiently integrated in the minds of speakers for them to be able to draw on both without always attending to their being different systems. The local varieties of the two languages may converge sufficiently in phonology and syntax to facilitate combination into one code – a hybrid or mixed code.

• • This is mostly common in “Outer Circle” communities where

there is a long history of prolific language borrowing and code-switching.

Chapter 6 English and other languages Kay McCormick.

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