John Benjamins Publishing Company
A discourse-historical approach to the English native speaker
Abstract
The concept of the native speaker, once viewed as “a common reference point for all branches of linguistics” (Coulmas 1981: 1), has increasingly come under criticism, particularly in connection with the study of World Englishes, where it has been pointed out that, while there may be linguistic differences between native and non-native speakers of English, the native speaker is really a political construct carrying a particular ideological baggage. The following paper presents a close reading of Marsh (1859), the text in which the term first occurs, in order to retrace some of the discourses surrounding the concept’s emergence. It will be shown that, just like its contemporary counterpart, the 19th-century English native speaker was employed to “other” particular speaker groups and assert ownership over the language.
Abstract
The concept of the native speaker, once viewed as “a common reference point for all branches of linguistics” (Coulmas 1981: 1), has increasingly come under criticism, particularly in connection with the study of World Englishes, where it has been pointed out that, while there may be linguistic differences between native and non-native speakers of English, the native speaker is really a political construct carrying a particular ideological baggage. The following paper presents a close reading of Marsh (1859), the text in which the term first occurs, in order to retrace some of the discourses surrounding the concept’s emergence. It will be shown that, just like its contemporary counterpart, the 19th-century English native speaker was employed to “other” particular speaker groups and assert ownership over the language.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Series editor’s preface ix
- Acknowledgements xiii
- Introduction xv
-
1. Focus on
-
1.1 Africa
- Deracialising the GOOSE vowel in South African English 3
- Codifying Ghanaian English 19
-
1.2 The Caribbean
- Corpus linguistics meets sociolinguistics 39
- Rhoticity in educated Jamaican English 61
- Standard English in the secondary school in Trinidad 83
-
1.3 Australia and New Zealand
- Australian English as a regional epicenter 107
- Finding one’s own vowel space 125
-
1.4 Asia
- Language in Hong Kong 143
- The roles of English in Southeast Asian legal systems 155
- Not just an “Outer Circle”, “Asian” English 179
- “Where’s the party yaar !” 207
- Innovation in second language phonology 227
- Intelligibility assessment of Japanese accents 239
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2. The global perspective
-
2.1 Comparative studies
- World Englishes between simplification and complexification 265
- Global feature — local norms? 287
- The shared core of the perfect across Englishes 309
- Word-formation in New Englishes 331
-
2.2 New approaches
- The indigenization of English in North America 353
- Perspectives on English as a lingua franca 369
- A discourse-historical approach to the English native speaker 385
- World Englishes and Peace Sociolinguistics 407
- New voices in the canon 415
- Index 433
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Series editor’s preface ix
- Acknowledgements xiii
- Introduction xv
-
1. Focus on
-
1.1 Africa
- Deracialising the GOOSE vowel in South African English 3
- Codifying Ghanaian English 19
-
1.2 The Caribbean
- Corpus linguistics meets sociolinguistics 39
- Rhoticity in educated Jamaican English 61
- Standard English in the secondary school in Trinidad 83
-
1.3 Australia and New Zealand
- Australian English as a regional epicenter 107
- Finding one’s own vowel space 125
-
1.4 Asia
- Language in Hong Kong 143
- The roles of English in Southeast Asian legal systems 155
- Not just an “Outer Circle”, “Asian” English 179
- “Where’s the party yaar !” 207
- Innovation in second language phonology 227
- Intelligibility assessment of Japanese accents 239
-
2. The global perspective
-
2.1 Comparative studies
- World Englishes between simplification and complexification 265
- Global feature — local norms? 287
- The shared core of the perfect across Englishes 309
- Word-formation in New Englishes 331
-
2.2 New approaches
- The indigenization of English in North America 353
- Perspectives on English as a lingua franca 369
- A discourse-historical approach to the English native speaker 385
- World Englishes and Peace Sociolinguistics 407
- New voices in the canon 415
- Index 433
