From International to Local English - And Back Again

280 Pages·2010·0.86 MB·English

by  Roberta Facchinetti

li95 li95
li
Linguistic Insights
95
Studies in Language and Communication
All languages encode aspects of culture and
every culture has its own specifi cities to be proud –
h
of and to be transmitted. The papers in this book s
explore aspects of this relationship between lan- gli
n
guage and culture, considering issues related al E
to the processes of internationalization and lo- c
o
calization of the English language. The volume is L
o
divided into two sections, complementing each t
other; the fi rst one (Localizing English) focuses nal
on
on the signifi cance of ethnic knowledge, local tiai
ag
culture, and tradition wherever English is used. nA
The second one (Internationalizing English) deals terck
na
wizaitthio tnh eo fd Eenggreliessh adnedri vpiantgt efrronms o ift si nctoenrntaacttio wniathl- om Ind B
diverse cultures and its adaptation to different FrA
•
professional settings and communicative pur- s)
d
poses. e
r (
e
f
o
h
dl
ei Roberta Facchinetti, David Crystal &
David Crystal is a writer, broadcaster, lecturer S
a
and editor. He is Honorary Professor of Linguis- r Barbara Seidlhofer (eds)
a
tics at the University of Bangor, received an OBE b
r
a
in 1995 for his services to the study of the English B
language, and was made a Fellow of the British & From International
Academy in 2000. He has published extensively tal
s
on English language and Linguistics. ry to Local English –
C
d
Roberta Facchinetti is Professor of English vi
a
Language and Linguistics at the University of D And Back Again
Verona, Italy. Her research fi eld and publications ti,
t
e
are mainly concerned with language description, n
hi
textual analysis and pragmatics. This is done c
c
mostly by means of computerized corpora of a
F
both synchronic and diachronic English. a
t
r
e
b
Barbara Seidlhofer, Professor of English and o
R
Applied Linguistics at the University of Vienna,
g
is the founding director of the Vienna-Oxford n
a
International Corpus of English (VOICE). She
L
has published widely in international journals r
e
on English language, discourse analysis and t
ISBN 978-3-0343-0011-7 e
language education. P
www.peterlang.com
li95 li95
li
Linguistic Insights
95
Studies in Language and Communication
All languages encode aspects of culture and
every culture has its own specifi cities to be proud –
h
of and to be transmitted. The papers in this book s
explore aspects of this relationship between lan- gli
n
guage and culture, considering issues related al E
to the processes of internationalization and lo- c
o
calization of the English language. The volume is L
o
divided into two sections, complementing each t
other; the fi rst one (Localizing English) focuses nal
on
on the signifi cance of ethnic knowledge, local tiai
ag
culture, and tradition wherever English is used. nA
The second one (Internationalizing English) deals terck
na
wizaitthio tnh eo fd Eenggreliessh adnedri vpiantgt efrronms o ift si nctoenrntaacttio wniathl- om Ind B
diverse cultures and its adaptation to different FrA
•
professional settings and communicative pur- s)
d
poses. e
r (
e
f
o
h
dl
ei Roberta Facchinetti, David Crystal &
David Crystal is a writer, broadcaster, lecturer S
a
and editor. He is Honorary Professor of Linguis- r Barbara Seidlhofer (eds)
a
tics at the University of Bangor, received an OBE b
r
a
in 1995 for his services to the study of the English B
language, and was made a Fellow of the British & From International
Academy in 2000. He has published extensively tal
s
on English language and Linguistics. ry to Local English –
C
d
Roberta Facchinetti is Professor of English vi
a
Language and Linguistics at the University of D And Back Again
Verona, Italy. Her research fi eld and publications ti,
t
e
are mainly concerned with language description, n
hi
textual analysis and pragmatics. This is done c
c
mostly by means of computerized corpora of a
F
both synchronic and diachronic English. a
t
r
e
b
Barbara Seidlhofer, Professor of English and o
R
Applied Linguistics at the University of Vienna,
g
is the founding director of the Vienna-Oxford n
a
International Corpus of English (VOICE). She
L
has published widely in international journals r
e
on English language, discourse analysis and t
e
language education. P
www.peterlang.com
From International to Local English – And Back Again
Linguistic Insights
Studies in Language and Communication
Edited by Maurizio Gotti,
University of Bergamo
Volume 95
ADVISORY BOARD
Vijay Bhatia (Hong Kong)
Christopher Candlin (Sydney)
David Crystal (Bangor)
Konrad Ehlich (Berlin / München)
Jan Engberg (Aarhus)
Norman Fairclough (Lancaster)
John Flowerdew (Leeds)
Ken Hyland (Hong Kong)
Roger Lass (Cape Town)
Matti Rissanen (Helsinki)
Françoise Salager-Meyer (Mérida, Venezuela)
Srikant Sarangi (Cardiff)
^
Susan Šarcevi´c (Rijeka)
Lawrence Solan (New York)
Peter M. Tiersma (Los Angeles)
PETER LANG
Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • Frankfurt am Main • New York • Oxford • Wien
Roberta Facchinetti, David Crystal &
Barbara Seidlhofer (eds)
From International
to Local English –
And Back Again
Norms and Practices in Genre
PETER LANG
Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • Frankfurt am Main • New York • Oxford • Wien
Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek
Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche National-
bibliografi e; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at
‹http://dnb.ddb.de›.
British Library and Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data:
A catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library,
Great Britain.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
From international to local English and back again / Roberta Facchinetti,
David Crystal & Barbara Seidlhofer (eds).
p. cm. --
(Linguistic insights : Studies in language and communication; v. 95)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-3-0351-0062-4 (alk. paper)
1. English language--Variation. 2. Language and culture. 3. Sociolinguistics.
4. English language--Globalization. I. Facchinetti, Roberta II. Crystal, David
III. Seidlhofer, Barbara.
PE1074.7.F76 2010
427--dc22
2010014347
ISSN 1424-8689
ISBN 978-3-0351-0062-4
US-ISBN 0-8204-8382-6
© Peter Lang AG, International Academic Publishers, Bern 2010
Hochfeldstrasse 32, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
[email protected], www.peterlang.com, www.peterlang.net
All rights reserved.
All parts of this publication are protected by copyright.
Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without
the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution.
This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfi lming,
and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems.
Printed in Switzerland
Table of Contents
ROBERTA FACCHINETTI, DAVID CRYSTAL,
BARBARA SEIDLHOFER
Introduction.................................................................................... 7
Section I
Localizing English
DAVID CRYSTAL
The future of Englishes: going local..............................................17
JILL HALLETT
Code switching in diasporic Indian
and Jewish English language media...............................................27
CRISTIANA CHIARINI
Israeli politeness in English:
an intercultural perspective ...........................................................51
WANNAPA TRAKULKASEMSUK and NAMTIP PINGKARAWAT
A comparative analysis of English feature articles
in magazines published in Thailand and Britain:
Linguistic aspects...........................................................................79
FRANCA POPPI
Investigating ELF group membership:
A case study focusing on The Baltic Times....................................93
6 Contents
MARA LOGALDO
‘Only the immigrants can speak the Queen’s English
these days’ but all kids have a Jamaican accent:
Overcompensation vs. urban slang in multiethnic London .........115
Section 2
Internationalizing English
BARBARA SEIDLHOFER
Giving VOICE to English as a Lingua Franca........................... 147
MARTA DEGANI
The Pakeha myth of one New Zealand/Aotearoa:

An exploration in the use of Maori loanwords
in New Zealand English...............................................................165
IRINA KHOUTYZ
The pragmatics of anglicisms in modern Russian discourse.......197
MARIA CRISTINA GATTI
A ‘persuasive’ upturn. Textual and semiotic variations in
the intercultural recontextualisation of financial discourse.........209
ELISABETTA ADAMI
ELF and sign-making practices on YouTube:
Between globalisation and specificities.......................................235
Notes on contributors...................................................................265
7
Introduction
And who, in time, knows whither we may vent
The treasure of our tongue, to what strange shores
This gain of our best glory shall be sent,
T’enrich unknowing nations with our stores?
What worlds in th’yet unformed Occident
May come refin’d with th’accents that are ours?
Or who can tell for what great work in hand
The greatness of our style is now ordain’d?
What powers it shall bring in, what spirits command,
What thoughts let out, what humours keep restrain’d,
What mischief it may powerfully withstand,
And what fair ends may thereby be attain’d?
(Samuel Daniel, c.1562-1619,

From Musophilus)
All languages encode aspects of culture, and every culture has its
own specificities to be proud of and to be transmitted. This is the core
of the present book, stemming from a conference on Global English
held in Verona in 2008 and providing a survey of issues related to the
processes of internationalization and localization of the English lan-
guage.
The volume, consisting of eleven chapters, is divided into two
main sections which complement each other; the first one (Localiz-
ing English) focuses on the significance of ethnic knowledge, local
culture, and tradition wherever English is spoken and used. The sec-
ond one (Internationalizing English) deals with the degrees and pat-
terns of internationalization of English deriving from its contact with
diversified cultures and its adaptation to different professional set-
tings and communicative purposes.
8 Introduction
1. Localizing English
Section One opens with David Crystal’s introductory chapter, high-
lighting the fact that being aware of every culture’s specificities avoids
cultural mistakes and misunderstandings which give rise to mis-
communication. Conventional dictionaries and mainstream grammar
books are quite frequently unable to deal with aspects of the local
environment, since what they describe does not cover the local know-
ledge or culture that has become an important feature of regional
varieties of English. However, account needs to be taken of such
localizations to keep pace with the way the language continues to be
culturally enriched.
The other chapters of this section develop Crystal’s main tenet
by investigating the changes English is undergoing in different parts
of the world, including Britain. Jill Hallett discusses the way culture
and tradition are strongly present in a variety of English spoken by
Jewish and Indian immigrants to America. The author describes how,
despite the repertoire of languages available to the speakers of these
two communities, when they resort to English they enrich it with
code switching and code mixing from their native languages and dia-
lects, thus emphasizing their cultural background and traditions. This
allows them to speak English and at the same time express their cul-
ture and heritage in order to keep their identity.
Variation in the use of English can be seen even within the
geographical boundaries of Israel, as shown by Cristiana Chiarini in
her chapter on the key role of local knowledge and culture in Isra-
English, arising from the contribution of Arabic and Hebrew to Eng-
lish. Her study of a corpus drawn from oral, written, and visual texts,
covering both formal and informal language settings, shows how
strongly entrenched the cultural background is in the two main eth-
nic groups coexisting in Israel: Jews and Arabs. The data testify to
the fact that a Jew tends to shun politeness principles, since polite-
ness is generally considered close to artificiality and hypocrisy, while
communicating ‘in a direct way’ is viewed as more ‘honest’. As a
result, the English spoken in Israel by Jews may come across as more
face-threatening than the Isra-English spoken by Arabs living in the