Gibson Ferguson Language Planning and Education Edinburgh ...

154 Language Planning and Education
6.2.1 An overview of linguistic characteristics of the New Englishes
Study of the linguistic features of the New Englishes dates back to the 1960s, and
possibly earlier, and so a large body of descriptive literature has accumulated in
journal and book form (see e.g. Burchfield 1994; Cheshire 1991; de Klerk 1996;
Gorlach 1995, 2002; 1992a, 1994; McArthur 1998; Platt, Weber and Ho 1984;
Pride 1986; Schmied 1991; Schneider 1997). It would be uneconomical, therefore,
to attempt a summary of this large body of work, nor appropriate, as our focus here
is on language education policy rather than linguistic description. That said, a brief
review of some of the more prominent linguistic features of the New Englishes is
useful to give a flavour of the nature of the divergence from British and American
standard English and indicate what exactly it is that is at stake in debates over
pedagogical models.
Because they are particularly well documented, we mainly draw our examples
from Singapore English and Indian English, noting in passing by way of justification
that Singapore English has been regarded (Platt and Weber 1980) as a classic case of
‘indigenisation’. Divergence from British or American standard English takes place
at various linguistic levels – phonological, grammatical, lexical and discoursal. Let us
start, then, with phonology.
6.2.1.1 Phonology
Unlike British English, which is stress-timed, 1 Singapore English is syllable-timed,
with a tendency to fewer intonational patterns – both characteristics reflecting
transfer from the tone-based Chinese languages natively spoken by the majority of
the population (Tay 1982: 65). At the segmental level, vowels tend to be shorter
and less tense than in RP (received pronunciation) or GA (General American), and
there are numerous consonantal differences, the most commonly cited being the
realisation of /θ/ and /ð/ as [t] and [d]; the stereotypical lack of differentiation
between /r/ as /l/; and the reduction of final consonant clusters to the first consonant
of the cluster (see Gramley and Pätzold 1992: 449).
There are also significant phonological differences between Indian English on the
one hand and British or American English on the other. Word stress, for example,
tends to fall on the penultimate syllable – whatever its location in British English. At
the segmental level, Indian English has a seventeen-vowel system consisting of eleven
pure vowels and six dipthongs (Kachru 1994: 515), though, as Jenkins (2003: 24)
observes, Indian English speakers, in common with those of other New Englishes
varieties, tend to a minimal distinction between the short and long vowels /i/and
/i:/ (the vowels in sit and seat being rendered by /i/). The principal consonantal
differences can be summarised as follows (see Kachru 1994: 514–15):
1. A tendency to retroflection of alveolar consonants (t, d);
2. The replacement of fricatives /θ/ and /ð/ by plosives [th], [d], or [dh];
3. No distinction between clear and dark /l/;
4. The modification of initial consonant clusters (not found in North Indian