A Quantitative Survey on Iranian English Learners' Attitudes toward Varieties of English: World English or World Englishes?

Abstract

This empirical study seeks to investigate Iranian English learners' attitudes toward different varieties of English in relation to the perspective of the theory of "World Englishes". Making use of a modification of matched guise technique, 165 English learners were asked to listen to a text read by native speakers of the following accent groups: British, Persian, American, and Arabic. Subjects, then, recorded their attitudes toward each of the readers using a semantic differential scale. Based on the results, the learners considered American accent to be quite superior to the others. They, also, considered people with American accent to be better teachers. These findings reveal the fact that Iranian English learners still believe in the existence of a World English rather than World Englishes.Keywords: Attitude, Native speaker, Standard English, World Englishes IntroductionEnglish as the language of international communication has for long been, and still is, spreading all over the world, and since any transmission of language brings about transformation (Widdowson, 2003), this spread has resulted in the existence of different varieties of English, each as a consequence of English contact with a certain language, culture and people. The interesting point is that the speakers of these new Englishes who use English to communicate with fellow non-native speakers far outnumber its native speakers (Widdowson, 2003).The coinage and promotion of the term World Englishes is mainly associated with Kachru (1982). The underlying philosophy of Kachruvian approach argues for the "importance of inclusivity and pluricentricity in approaches to linguistics of new varieties of English" (Bolton, 2004, p. 367). In addition, in an attempt to empower new Englishes, this theory calls the labels native speaker and native and standard English into serious question and denies any special status for them.As for the context of ELT, the learners all over the world are, today, faced with different varieties of English and naturally develop attitudes toward them. Now, what is the significance of such attitudes to the theory of "World Englishes" and why should they matter? Timmis (2007) argued that the variety of a target language a learner acquires and prefers to speak in is influenced by his or her attitude towards that variety. In other words, the more positive your attitude is toward a certain variety, the more motivated you get in conforming to it. The problem here, based on the ideology of World Englishes, pops up when such conformity is not in line with your needs and motivations for learning English, i.e., you do your best to learn that variety with all its details simply because it is said to be the native and standard one. Still, a more important problem is that of identity. It follows that when a learner considers a certain variety to be the best or standard one and thus emphasizes on sounding like its native speaker, his or her cultural identity gets at stake.The present study seeks to investigate Iranian English learners'...

Raising High School English Teachers’ awareness of EIL

“…These studies aim at describing and interpreting attitudes. They all registered how positive teachers and students of English regard American, Australian and British varieties (Zhang & Hu, 2008), favouring the variety they have been more exposed to and/or how negatively they regarded other varieties or their own accented variety (Pishghadam & Sabouri, 2011;Tukomoto & Shibata, 2011) in comparison to native speakers' varieties. However, there is very little research on teachers' awareness of world Englishes.…”

World Englishes: How Differently Canadian English Native Speakers and Iranian EFL Learners Make Yes/no Question Variants

“…In this respect, Pishghadam and Navari (2009) believe that cultural enrichment is not necessarily the result of contact between two languages; on the contrary, one of the two languages is at risk and its culture may experience deculturation. Pishghadam and Sabouri (2011) argue that imitating English is what is achieved via linguistic imperialism and it limits people's creativity in using the language. Yet, English must be considered as a valuable tool at the disposal of people with different nationalities so as to express their thoughts and their culture.…”

“…Proficiency is assessed based on the extent of proximity to the native-like accent. Pishghadam and Sabouri (2011) maintain that Iranians assume that British and American Englishes are the best varieties as these two varieties exhibit the Standard English which native speakers use.…”

“…The United States, Britain, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand belong to this circle. The Outer Circle encompasses countries with long history of colonization, where English is utilized both officially and institutionally (Pishghadam and Sabouri, 2011). This circle covers India, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Malaysia, the Philippines, Zambia, Pakistan, Tanzania, and South Africa, among others.…”

“…English is learned in the language institutes as an extracurricular activity besides their attendance in primary schools and junior and senior high schools; those interested in English can even continue to learn it as a major at universities. English is learned and evaluated regularly concerning the most dominant varieties of English in Iran: British and American Englishes (Pishghadam and Sabouri, 2011). Imitation plays a significant role in learning the language and its assessment.…”