English in Costa Rica

Abstract

Spanish-speaking Costa Rica has been in contact with English for more than a hundred years, not only through education, but also through contact with native English speakers both foreign and domestic. The interaction of native and non-native speakers of English has triggered several media outlets to evolve in order to fulfill the need of a local English network. Furthermore, the Costa Rican government has implemented several policies to establish English as the first foreign language because of the rapid growth of tourism and foreign investment in the country. The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the phenomenon of language contact occurring in Costa Rica, where Spanish is the official language but English is spoken as a first language by a small part of the population. As a native variety in these communities, English has been neglected for many years. However, now that English is spoken worldwide there is much work to do to recover this variety. This article uses Moag's life cycle and Kachru's Model for Non-Native Englishes to give a parallel description of the life of English both as a native and as a foreign language in Costa Rica. The English spoken as a first language by a small number of Costa Ricans has gone through the four processes of Moag's life cycle of Non-Native Englishes, and the one spoken by Spanish-speaking Costa Ricans is, according to Kachru's Model for Non-Native Englishes, classified as a foreign, integrative, instrumental, and international language. It is argued that this introduces us to a new interaction of world Englishes where an Inner Circle variety competes with an Expanding Circle variety and thus we should rethink the naming process we have used so far.

China English or Chinese English

“…Berns’ sociolinguistic profiles of English in the Expanding Circle highlights the plurality of realities for English around the world and challenges the adequacy of differentiating ESL and EFL as two separated contexts for English teaching (1990). Afterwards, sociolinguistic profiles of English have been developed by numerous scholars to depict sociocultural realities in various nations of multiple continents such as Europe (Petzold, 1994; Pulcini, 1997; Fonzari, 1999; Dimova, 2005; Reichelt, 2005; Ustinova, 2005; Selvi, 2011; Kasztalska, 2014), Asia (Shim, 1994; Yong & Campbell, 1995; Matsuda, 2000; Gil & Adamson, 2011), South America (Friedrich, 2001; Aguilar-Sanchez, 2005; Nickels, 2005), and Africa (Bamiro, 1991; Schaub, 2000; Michieka, 2005).…”

“…She also deploys the profile to challenge the reality of linguistic imperialism (see Phillipson, 1992) in this Expanding Circle context. Aguilar-Sanchez (2005) offers a detailed portrayal of how English in Costa Rica is integrated with both Inner circle and Expanding Circle contexts. In her illustration of English in Puerto Rico from historical and political perspectives, Nickels (2005) argues that coining the term ‘Puerto Rican English’ can much more accurately capture the sociolinguistic realities of English in Puerto Rico.…”

Enmarcando y comprendiendo la situación lingüística en Limón, provincia de Costa Rica a través del estudio de actitudes sobre la lengua

“…English of the inner circle variety (i.e. American or British) has been a target language in the Costa Rican educational curriculum as a foreign language for nearly one hundred years (Aguilar-Sánchez, 2005). This peculiarity serves as ground for language attitudes, both positive and negative, towards the two varieties of English that are found in Limón.…”

The Importance of Nonnative English Teachers in Costa Rica

“…eople become interested in studying English as a foreign language because it helps them to increase their job opportunities mainly due to the influence that this language has on tourism development, international communication, and on the world of business transactions. Aguilar-Sánchez (2005) argued that "one of the trends setting into motion this academic and economic expansion is the influence of tourism and international investors in the country, which piqued great interest in the English language among Costa Ricans" (p. 164). Additionally, learning English is helpful not only for ways of expression but also for the open-minded development of individuals because English provides a broad concept of the world.…”