Sociolinguistics and Language Education.pdf

94 Part 2: Language and Society
She argues that since these features have the greatest potential for causing
breakdowns in communication between speakers of different L1 backgrounds,
the pedagogical focus in ELT classrooms should be on the
production of most consonant sounds, initial consonant clusters, vowel
length and nuclear stress. Less attention needs to be given to word stress,
rhythm, and features of connected speech. While the World Englishes paradigm
has highlighted the pluricentric nature of English standards, the
ELF perspective has contributed to our understanding of some of the
pragmatic, grammatical and phonological features of L2 speakers of
English in contact with other L2 speakers.
English as an international language
In sorting through various perspectives on present-day English use, it
is helpful to consider Pennycook’s (2003) categorization of current views
toward the spread of English. The fi rst is what he calls the homogeny position,
which views the spread of English as leading to a homogenization of
world culture. For some, this homogenization is viewed favorably and
almost triumphantly. Crystal (2003), for example, cites various statistics to
document the pervasiveness of English today and tends to view this pervasiveness
as a positive characteristic of globalization. Others, however,
see homogenization as essentially a negative feature of globalization,
refl ecting imperialism and colonization (Phillipson, 1992), and leading to
the loss of other languages (Nettle & Romaine, 2000). What is lacking
in this perspective is an account of the agency of individuals to react to
imperialism and language loss, a point raised by Brutt-Griffl er (2002),
Canagarajah (2005) and Pennycook (1998, 2007).
The second position delineated by Pennycook (2003) is the heterogeny
position in which individuals like Braj Kachru describe the features of
World Englishes as a sign of the pluricentricism that has been brought
about by globalization. The goal of the World Englishes paradigm has
been to describe the manner in which English has become localized, creating
different varieties of English around the world. The ELF perspective,
by and large, shares the same goal. For Pennycook (2003), there is a major
shortcoming with these perspectives. As he puts it,
While the homogeny argument tends to ignore all these local appropriations
and adaptations, this heterogeny argument tends to ignore
the broader political context of the spread of English. Indeed there is a
constant insistence on the neutrality of English, a position that avoids
all the crucial concerns around both the global and local politics of the
language. Furthermore, by focusing on the standardization of local
versions of English, the world Englishes paradigm shifts the locus of