Issues, Attitude, Tension between Elitism and Grassroots_English Around the World_ Edger W. Schneider

1. Issues and Attitude, Tension
between elitism and grassroot
Schnieder
AMNA FAYYAZ

2. • India, Nigeria, Kenya, or South Africa this is definitely no longer the
whole story. There is a huge demand for English also among those
with little formal education, precisely out of this instrumental
motivation, because knowledge of English promises some degree of
social mobility and access to better paid jobs. So English, in practice
means indigenous forms of it, is also spreading rapidly among the less
educated, often for specific purposes such as to achieve a limited
communicative ability in trade or tourism.

3. Issues
• So, while much of the public and scholarly attention is attracted by
issues of education and by standard and educated usage, relatively
little is known about the grassroots growth, the natural (if informal)
acquisition and rapid, uncontrolled spread of English in many
countries. It may happen completely naturally, through unguided
natural second language acquisition in contact with speakers of
English, and also, probably more regularly, in some sort of schooling
context, though in comparison these tend to be schools with little
funding and of limited quality.

4. • What is important here is the expansion of English into primary
school education in many countries – also a problematic and
controversial issue, because education in one’s native language at
least through the first few years of schooling is an elementary human
right, but at the same time the demand for English is brought forward
by many parents.
• More documentation on the grassroots spread of English in many
countries would be desirable – this seems a neglected subject,
perhaps because of the traditional emphasis on “good usage” and the
need for it. It remains to be seen where this process will lead, but it
seems clear that it is a very powerful one and adds an important
component to the top-centered, official views of Englishes

5. Attitude
• These varying patterns of transmission, acquisition and use have
produced an equally wide range of possible attitudes and reactions.
Authorities and politicians everywhere promote the standard variety,
partly for fear of loosing competitiveness in international
communication, notably business. Singapore’s “Speak Good English
Movement,” run since 2002, is a classic case in point, and a
phenomenon known as the “complaint tradition,” public laments
about standards of English declining, can be observed in very many
countries (and is characteristic of a specific developmental stage, the
threat which conservative observers perceive in nativization).

6. • But governments may be able to prescribe language policies and
school standards but they do not control people’s minds – and I am
convinced that in the long run what people really think and want to
do. The strong and stubborn defense of the use of Singlish against an
official government position in Singapore, a country not really known
for its grassroots democracy, is a very telling case in point.

7. • It remains to be seen whether attitudes towards English will move
beyond purely utilitarian considerations on a larger scale. Only if
indigenous varieties of English will grow to be the language of
people’s hearts, expressions of their regional identities and of
community solidarity, will these varieties ultimately survive and
stabilize in many Outer Circle countries.

8. • There is also the opposite possibility, the perception of English as
purely elitist (whether this is to be viewed as a danger is open to
discussion). If it becomes the property of an upper stratum of society
only and is felt to be elitist and socially exclusive, it may be rejected
by the population at large. Again, this is more a question of
perception than of reality.

9. • Who are the primary users of English in Outer Circle countries today?