Help us to increase the English Language.

1. VARIETIES OF ENGLISH:
Phrases & Sentences
Readings:
Y. Kachru & L. Smith, Ch 6;
Zuengler on Kenyan English

2.  Who is Rush Limbaugh?
 Why was he in the news last year at this time?
 What’s your opinion of his actions in this
particular case? Why do you feel that way?
 Who are Terry Gross and Geoff Nunberg?
A four-letter word
 Why did people find it offensive?
◦ What’s the difference, if any, between ‘slut’ and ‘player’?
◦ What’s the difference, if any, between ‘slut’ and ‘queer’?
 What’s the original meaning of ‘slut’?
 What’s the difference between a ‘naughty word’
and a sexist slur
From NPR’s ‘Fresh Air’ with Terry Gross

3.  Understanding can be thought of in terms of
Intelligibility (test = repetition, dictation)
Comprehensibility (test = paraphrase)
Interpretability (test = understand speaker/writer’s
intent)
 Differences in pronunciation among varieties
of English can lead to lack of intelligibility,
comprehensibility and interpretability.

4.  Misunderstanding can result from differences in
pronunciation:
◦ Stress patterns
 REcognize ~ recogNIZE, sucCESS ~ SUCcess
◦ Spelling pronunciations
 Comb, climb
◦ Distribution of given & new information
 JOHN did it ~ It was John who did it.
◦ Simplification of initial & final consonant clusters
 ‘desk’ > /dɛs/, ‘school > /ɛskul/
◦ Loss of other phonological distinctions
 ‘then’ > /den/, ‘thin’ > /sin/

5.  These differences in pronunciation are often
the result of transfer of ways of pronouncing
words from the speaker’s first language into
English in Outer and Extended Circle contexts.
 This is called ‘language transfer.’
 When we speak with others whose dialect we
don’t share, our own speech becomes more
like theirs.
 Often, attitudes toward particular accents may
become a greater barrier than pronunciation.

6.  As interlocutors get familiar with each other’s
system of phonological organization, they
accommodate their habitual patterns to those
of the other speaker(s).

7.  Differences in varieties of English extend
beyond pronunciation to phrases and
sentences as well.
 These differences involve the use of articles,
count vs. mass nouns, verb tenses,
prepositions, modals and the organization of
given and new information, among other
things.

8.  Some basic concepts in historical linguistics
◦ Languages differ in innumerable ways.
◦ Languages can be said to be ‘related to each other’
based on as assumed common ancestry.
◦ This is determined through a process called
‘historical reconstruction,’ a method of comparing
similarities and differences among languages.
◦ English belongs to a large language family called
‘Indo-European.’
◦ There are other large language families around the
world.

10. Indo-European: outline of family tree
Indo-European
Italic
Germanic Celtic
Balto-
Slavic
Indo-
Iranian
Indic Iranian
........
10
Possibly a third co-ordinate branch within Indo-Iranian
— Nuristani in N.E. Afghanistan (e.g. Ashkun, Prasun)
Western Eastern
Farsi=Persian,
Kurdish,
Baluchi,
......
Pashto,
Ormuri,
Ossetian,
Yagnob,
......
N.Western S. Western Central Eastern
Panjabi,
Sindhi,
Kashmiri,
Romani,
.....
Gujarati,
Marathi,
Konkani,
Sinhala,
.....
Hindi-Urdu,
Marwari,
Maithili,
Nepali,
.....
Bengali,
Assamese,
Oriya,
.....
Many difficulties in deciding Indic grouping

12.  Articles and determiners (‘function words’)
◦ Articles
 a / an, the, Ø
◦ Determiners
 this, that, these, those, any, each, etc.
 Count / Mass & Singular / Plural
◦ Count / Mass
 Cars, shoes, balls, etc. / gas, water, rice, etc.
◦ Singular / Plural
 Car / cars, shoe / shoes, ball / balls

13.  Indefinite article ‘a, an’
◦ Signals a singular entity of a count noun?
 I bought a computer and a modem, but the modem was
the wrong model.
BUT
 ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ created an oppressive atmosphere
for gays in the military.
◦ Signals the ‘first mention’ of a count noun in a
connected text (as in the example above)?
BUT
 Cells are the building blocks of life. A cell is composed of a
nucleus and cytoplasm.

14.  Many languages of the world have no articles.
 The article in English has three sets of
functions:
◦ Grammatical
◦ Semantic
◦ Pragmatic

15.  A count noun in the singular must be preceded by
an article or by some other determiner.
◦ A dog is a man’s best friend.
 A predicate nominal in the singular must be
preceded by the article a or an.
◦ My friend is a student.
 Certain proper nouns must be preceded by the
article the.
◦ The Rockies, the Nile, the United Nations

16.  Related to reference
 Definite / Indefinite
◦ I bought a computer and a
modem, but the modem
was the wrong model.
 Specific / Non-specific
◦ I bought a new motor scooter; it’s a Vespa.
◦ I need a new motor scooter. Any suggestions?
 Generic / Non-generic
◦ Ø Bats are Ø mammals. ~ The bat is a mammal. ~ A
bat is a mammal.
◦ A bat flew out of the cave.

17.  Related to the conventions of use
 Summary:
◦ A(n): indefinite non-specific, or indefinite specific,
or generic (with count nouns in the singular);
◦ The: definite specific (with count and mass nouns),
or non-specific generic (with count nouns only);
◦ Some: indefinite non-specific, or indefinite specific
(with count nouns in the plural with mass nouns);
◦ Ø: generic (with count nouns in the plural, with
mass nouns).

18.  Other varieties (Outer Circle and Expanding
Circle varieties) of English do not use articles in
the same way as Inner Circle varieties because:
◦ Their use in Inner Circle varieties is neither transparent
nor internally consistent.
◦ The first languages in many Outer or Expanding Circle
societies do not use articles at all, or use them in
different ways (‘language transfer’).

19.  It’s not a matter of
meaning
It has to do with a noun’s ability to combine with
various determiners!

20.  Huddleston: Six classes of nouns –
◦ Equipment (fully mass)
◦ Knowledge (almost mass, i.e., ‘a good
knowledge of Latin’)
◦ Clothes (fuzzy quantifiers; i.e., many, few,
etc.)
◦ Cattle (fuzzy quantifiers & large round
numbers)
◦ People (collective noun; occurs with plurals
but not fully countable)
◦ Dog (fully countable)

21.  In African, Caribbean, East, South, and
Southeast Asian varieties of English, the
complex system of marking count / mass
distinction in English is simplified.

22.  Stative / Dynamic
◦ I know him. He has two cars.
BUT
◦ I’m meeting him. He is buying a new car.
 Factive / Non-factive
◦ Bill doesn’t regret that he was rude.
BUT
◦ Bill doesn’t believe that he was rude.
 Volitional / Non-volitional
◦ He (deliberately) lost the key
AND
He (accidentally) lost the key.

23.  In the first languages of Outer and Expanding
Circle societies, these distinctions are marked
differently from English
 So, those varieties of English often include
characteristics that are present in the first
languages of those societies (‘language
transfer’).

24.  Verbalization strategies
◦ Your behavior tantamounts to disrespect.
◦ It doesn’t worth the price.
 Tense / Aspect
◦ I was knowing him then.
◦ He was having two cars.
 Modals
◦ Rain is expected in the morning but would give way to
sun by noon.

25.  Yes / No Questions
◦ Q: Hasn’t the President left yet?
A: Yes, he hasn’t.
◦ Q: Didn’t you see anyone there?
A: Yes, I didn’t see anyone there.
 Tag Questions
◦ You want it by six, isn’t it?
◦ He didn’t go home, isn’t it?
 Complementation
◦ They were interested to grab power.
◦ She is prepared for filing a law suit.

26.  Prepositions
◦ We can give some thought on the matter.
◦ The police are investigating into the case.
◦ The committee was discussing about politics.
◦ She has gone to abroad.

27.  Focus and Theme
◦ Q: Where did Sue go yesterday?
A: She went to the beach.
Theme Focus
◦ Certain medicine we don’t stock.
◦ And weekend (emphasis) you can spend with your
brother.
◦ My daughter she is attending college.
◦ Tswana, I learnt it in Pretoria.

29.  As an access to education during and after
British rule (1895-1964)
 As a catalyst for Kenyan nationalism through
Kenyan intellectuals’ access to “habits of
thought of [English-speaking] people”
 There are still no institutionalized varieties of
English in Kenya.
 But it has become ‘nativized,” i.e., influenced
by Kenyan (Kiswahili) cultural and linguistic
patterns.

30.  Direct lexical transfer: use of Kiswahili words
in Kenyan English, e.g. baraza ‘an official
meeting’
 Semantic shifts: English words taking on new
meanings, e.g., brat ‘illegitimate child’
 Syntactic shifts: Items taking on new
grammatical forms, e.g.,
◦ Nouns as verbs, e.g., school, tone
◦ Mass > Count nuns, e.g., ammunitions,
hardwares

31.  Nativization of speech functions:
◦ Greetings, e.g., Is it well with you?
◦ Forms of address, e.g., mwalimu ‘teacher’, bwana
◦ Abuses/threats, e.g., go away and eat ashes
◦ Riddles/proverbs, e.g., the oilskin of the house is
not for rubbing into the skin of strangers (?)
 Kenyan English Register:
◦ I have to alight now.
◦ This system should be stopped forthwith.
 Stylistic devices: metaphors and similes

32.  Kenyan English is not taught in schools.
 Kenyans shift between the RP taught in
schools, Kenyan English and Kiswahili,
depending on the context, i.e., participants,
topic, setting, etc.
 Kenyan English is not yet popularly accepted as
a variety on its own, like Indian, South African,
Singaporean, etc. English.
 Question: Will it some day become one? What
would need to happen for that to occur?

33.  What often appears to be ‘incorrect English’
by the norms of Inner Circle standard
varieties is often consistent with the norms of
Outer and Expanding Circle varieties of
English.
 These characteristics are often the result of
language transfer from the indigenous or first
languages of the areas in which those
varieties of English are spoken.