Modeling world Englishes from the perspective of language contact

Abstract

Research into world Englishes has continued to expand and diversify since the publication of foundational studies in the late 1970s and early 1980s. From then on, the question of how to model the plurality of Englishes has inspired a range of answers given in different theoretical models. After tracing some of the major approaches to classifying the diversity of Englishes in the world, this paper explores the notion of language contact as an underlying mechanism for all Englishes. A model of language contact is developed, which forms the background for proposing the Language Contact Typology (LCT) of world Englishes. The LCT offers a new way of categorizing Englishes, providing an alternative framing to existing models in the field. It also bears some implications on the controversial notion of 'native speaker' in the world Englishes paradigm.

Irish English as a World English

“…And moreover what is meant by influence, or who the influencer is. A more recent top-down classificatory model-the "Language Contact Typology of world Englishes", by Onysko (2016) reproduced in Figure 7-is based on the premise that all variation arises from contact. Here, the early foundation of English in Ireland may be classified as an "English in multilingual constellation".…”

“…In his model, Onysko (2016) applies Van Coetsem (1988, 2000 distinctions between a "source language" (in this case Irish) and a "recipient language" (in this case English). Onysko's claim is that, if the source language is dominant in the contact situation, its impact on the recipient language will go beyond basic lexical influence (assumed to be borrowing) and be significant.…”

“…Several possibilities regarding status within Ireland and between Ireland and Great Britain have been proposed. This chapter will consider the status which has been accredited to Irish English in those top-down models of varieties of English around the world, especially those by McArthur (1987), Görlach (1990), Mesthrie and Bhatt (2008), Mair (2013), Siemund (2013), and Onysko (2016), among a few others on the one hand, and on the other by the quite different approach taken by Schneider (2007). Schneider (2007) Dynamic Model will then receive a short summary of an interpretation by Ronan (2020).…”

Where are WEs Heading to?

“…3 to name just a few). Th e inclusion of ELF among the uses and instantiations of Englishes across the world also follows from a theoretical perspective when adopting language contact as an underlying criterion of describing world Englishes ( Onysko 2016 ).…”

Second-generation Persians’ Participation in the Oklahoma Dialect

“…In a multilingual context, contact across language boundaries occurs when two or more languages are used at the same time and a majority/dominant language serves as the lingua franca connecting ethnic groups (Onysko 2016). Under such circumstances, migrants' speech hold a lower status which might lead to surfacing of certain linguistic features of their L1 in their L2 phonology as identity markers.…”