ASIAN ENGLISHES BEYOND THE CANON Asian Englishes Today Series Editor: Kingsley Bolton Professor of English Linguistics, Stockholm University Honorary Professor, The University of Hong Kong The volumes in this series set out to provide a contemporary record of the spread and development of the English language in South, Southeast, and East Asia from both linguistic and literary perspectives. Volumes in this series reflect themes that cut across national boundaries, including the study of language policies; globalization and linguistic imperialism; English in the media; English in law, government and education; ‘hybrid’ Englishes; and the bilingual creativity manifested by the vibrant creative writing found in a swathe of Asian societies. The editorial advisory board comprises a number of leading scholars in the field of World Englishes, including Maria Lourdes S. Bautista (De La Salle, Philippines), Susan Butler (Macquarie Dictionary), Braj Kachru (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), Yamuna Kachru (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), Shirley Geok-lin Lim (University of California, Santa Barbara), Tom McArthur (editor of English Today), Larry Smith (co-editor of World Englishes), Anne Pakir (National University of Singapore), and Yasukata Yano (Waseda University, Japan). Also in the series: Hong Kong English: Autonomy and Creativity Edited by Kingsley Bolton Japanese English: Language and Culture Contact James Stanlaw China’s English: A History of English in Chinese Education Bob Adamson ASIAN ENGLISHES BEYOND THE CANON Braj B. Kachru Hong Kong University Press 14/F Hing Wai Centre 7 Tin Wan Praya Road Aberdeen Hong Kong © Hong Kong University Press 2005 ISBN 962 209 665 4 (Hardback) 962 209 666 2 (Paperback) All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Secure On-line Ordering http:// www.hkupress.org British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Printed and bound by United League Graphic & Printing Co. Ltd., in Hong Kong, China Dedicated to scholars and educators and creative writers whose inspiring and pioneering research and innovative teaching contributed to contextually realistic constructs of Asian Englishes: Ahmed Ali; Mulk Raj Anand; Maria Lourdes S. Bautista; Robert J. Baumgardner; Kingsley Bolton; A. C. Burnell; Susan Butler; Phiroze Edulji Dustoor; Nissim Ezekiel; Lloyd Fernando; John Rupert Firth; Andrew Gonzalez; Nobuyuki Honna; Yamuna Kachru; P. Lal; Shirley Geok-lin Lim; Teodoro A. Llamzon; Ramesh Mohan; C. D. Narasimhaiah; Anne Pakir; John T. Platt; Raja Rao; Larry E. Smith; Tariq Rahman; Salman Rushdie; S. N. Sridhar; Mary W. J. Tay; Edwin Thumboo; Arthur Yap; Henry Yule; Yan Zhiqiang ... English is an international language in the Commonwealth, the Colonies and in America. International in the sense that English serves the American way of life and might be called American, it serves the Indian way of life and has recently been declared an Indian language within the framework of the federal constitution. In another sense, it is international not only in Europe but in Asia and Africa, and serves various African ways of life and is increasingly the all-Asian language of politics. Secondly, and I say ‘secondly’ advisedly, English is the key to what is described in a common cliché as “the British way of life”. — John Rupert Firth (1956: 97) But language must serve, not overwhelm [...] mastering it involves holding down and breaching a body of habitual English associations to secure that condition of verbal freedom cardinal to energetic, resourceful writing. In a sense the language is remade, where necessary, by adjusting the interior landscape of words in order to explore and mediate the permutations of another culture and environment. — Edwin Thumboo (1976: ix) [The English] language needs to be decolonized, to be made in other images, of those of us who use it from positions outside Anglo-Saxon cultures are to be more than artistic “Uncle Toms.” And it is this endeavor that gives the new literatures of Africa, the Caribbean, and India much of their present vitality and excitement. — Salman Rushdie (1982: 7) Contents List of illustrations xi Series editor’s preface xiii Preface xv Acknowledgements xxi Phonetic symbols and transcription xxiii Map of Greater Asia xxiv 1. Introduction: Anglophone Asia 1 Part I: Contexts 7 2. Asian Englishes 9 Introduction 9 Epistemological concerns 11 Language and nativeness 12 Contexts of the Asian presence of English 13 Asian Englishes within the Three Circles 13 The albatross of mythology 16 Mythology and the Asian context 19 Current strategies 20 Decolonizing text and context 21 Canonicity, diversity, and Asian Englishes 22 English on Asian terms 23 Institutionalization of Asian Englishes 26 Conclusion 27 3. South Asian schizophrenia 29 Introduction 29 The South Asian linguistic repertoire and English 30 Types of variation 39 viii Contents The South Asianness of South Asian English 43 South Asian lexical stock in English 51 Models of English 55 Bilinguals’ creativity in South Asian English 56 English in post-1947 language policies 61 Attitudes and schizophrenia about English 68 Current issues 69 Conclusion 71 4. Past imperfect: The Japanese agony 73 Introduction 73 Perspectives on English in Japan 74 Eikaiwa ‘English Conversation Ideology’ 76 Dimensions of paradigm shift 78 Marginalization, ideology and paradigms 93 Japanese without Eikaiwa 94 Conclusion 95 Part II: Convergence 97 5. Englishization: Asia and beyond 99 Introduction 99 The spheres of Englishization 101 Deficit versus dominance hypothesis 102 Exponents of Englishization 103 Lexicalization 104 Grammar 106 ‘Great Tradition’ versus ‘Little Tradition’ 111 Thematic range and literary experimentation 112 Englishization and code development 113 Englishization and linguistic schizophrenia 116 Englishization and contact linguistics 117 Englishization and language policies 118 Conclusion 120 6. The absent voices 121 Introduction 121 ESP: Presuppositions 122 ESP: Beyond the canon 122 Acceptability and local contexts 123 Anglophone Asia’s language policies and ‘loose 124 canons’ of Englishes Contents ix Asian Englishes as codes of communication 125 Pragmatic success and ESP 126 Asian Englishes and instructional resources 129 Localized varieties and English for international communication 130 Towards a shift in paradigm 131 Conclusion 134 Part III: Mantras 135 7. Medium and mantra 137 Introduction 137 The caste of English 138 Anatomy of the mantra 139 Structure as the puranic form 145 Rao’s credo in a historical context 146 Caliban’s canon and the Western canon 148 Rao’s mantra 150 Conclusion 151 8. Talking back and writing back 155 Introduction 155 Three basic questions 156 What are the solutions? 157 Creativity, pluralistic contexts, and standards 160 Conclusion 162 Part IV: Predator 163 9. Killer or accessory to murder? 165 Introduction 165 The wave of doom 165 Obiturial terminology 167 Hypotheses and rationalizations 168 Culprits and killers 170 The leaking model 171 Killer English? 173 Language attitudes 174 Linguists and the war of words 176 The rescue brigades 179 Language reincarnation 181 The Asian context 182 Conclusion 183 x Contents Part V: Pedagogy 185 10. Contexts of pedagogy and identity 187 Introduction 187 Approaches to South Asian English 190 The Inner Circle and issues of identity 196 Research agendas 197 Conclusion 201 Part VI: Afterword 203 11. Present tense: Making sense of Anglophone Asia 205 Introduction 205 The heart of the matter 205 Constructing constructs 207 Flogging a dead horse 209 On getting the Three Circles Model backwards 211 Identity markers and location 220 Pidgins and creoles in the constellation 221 Life-cycle hypothesis and ‘reincarnation’ 221 Lingua franca, again! 222 Codification and standardization 224 The cauldron of ‘empires’ 228 World Standard Spoken English (WSSE) and the real world 230 Futurology and the crystal ball 231 Asian voices in repositories of knowledge 233 The victimology of English and Asia’s response 236 ‘A different ... uh, kettle of fish’ 238 Barking up the wrong tree 239 Shared strands of ongoing debates 250 Conclusion 254 Notes 257 Bibliography 265 Index 319 List of illustrations Maps Map of Greater Asia xxiv 3.1 Map of South Asia 31 Figure 2.1 Three Concentric Circles of Asian Englishes 14 Tables 2.1 India’s English-language press 16 2.2 Functional domains of English across the Three Circles 17 3.1 The main languages of South Asia 30 3.2 Indian faculty preference for models of English for instruction 56 3.3 Indian graduate students’ attitude towards various models of 56 English and ranking of models according to preferences 3.4 Indian graduate students’ self-labelling of the variety of their 56 English 4.1 Courses in English studies 84 4.2 Summary of TESL programmes in the USA 87 4.3 Asia in Japan’s trade 92 4.4 Japanese tourists visiting Asia 92 4.5 Japanese tourists visiting Asia and USA 92 5.1 Parallel lexical sets 105 9.1 Examples of endangered languages in South Asia 167 9.2 Number of languages spoken in each Indian state 172 9.3 Number of languages spoken in Union Territories 172 9.4 Percentage of minority language speakers by states and Union 172 Territories 11.1 China’s English proficiency distribution 206 11.2 Asia’s English-using populations 208 11.3 The architects of knowledge 235 Series editor’s preface A new book from Professor Braj B. Kachru is nothing less than an event. The contribution of Braj Kachru to linguistics and English studies over the last three decades has been legendary. That academics today routinely talk about the ‘Englishes’ of the world is due in no small measure to the fact that when Braj Kachru and Larry Smith assumed the co-editorship of the Pergamon journal World Language English in 1985, they insisted that its title be changed to World Englishes (now published by Blackwell, UK).