Written language, standard language, global language

By Michael A. K. Halliday (2003)

1 Language within Britain - Standard English, dialect and accent
-This parade descends from an ancient ceremony.
-I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
-Small local shops are intrinsic to the town’s character.
-Monophthong is a speech sound that consists of only one vowel sound, for example the sound /u:/ in queue /kju:/.
-He ascribes his poverty to his parents.
-Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols and of their meaning and use.
-Salary will be commensurate with experience.
-Plough is used for digging and turning over soil, especially before seeds are planted.
-The war was paradigm of the destructive side of human nature.
-The term ‘cardboard city’ was coined to describe communities of homeless people living in cardboard boxes.
-The building stands as the last remaining relic of the town’s cotton industry.
-War provided impetus for the development of aircraft.
-The book is heavily skewed towards British readers.
-As a matter of fact, Japan is not an ethnically homogeneous nation.
-The group made a production prototype and then conducted a product test using it.
-The whole ship turned easily with a small rudder.
-A griot in West Africa is a repository of oral tradition.
-Diphthong is a combination of two vowel sounds or vowel letters, for example the sound /ai/ in pipe /paip/ or the letters ou in doubt.
-Dialect is the form of a language that is spoken in one area with grammar, words and pronunciation.
-Accent is a way of pronouncing the words of a language that shows which country, area or social class a person comes from.

2 Process of inventing new English words
-She contrived to spend a couple of hours with him every Sunday evening.
-Semantics is the study of linguistics meaning.
-The teacher drew an analogy between the human heart and a pump.
-He and I moved in totally different social spheres.
-Paradigm is the set of inflectional forms of a word.
-He considered how the sign was to be construed.
-You need to marshal your thoughts.
-His speech presented racist ideas under the guise of nationalism.

3 English history – borrowings from Latin and Greek
-They began to lose momentum in the second half of the game.
-Her story sounded perfectly plausible.
-‘Happiness’ is a derivative of ‘happy’.
-She went on to elaborate her arguments.
-He has been late on numerous occasions.
-The company needs an infusion of new blood.
-The riots are a clear manifestation of the people’s dissatisfaction.
-Interest will accrue if you keep your money in a savings account.
-Ophthalmologist is a doctor who studies and treats the diseases of the eye.
-The 2% loading for using the card abroad has been removed.
-The girls learn exactly what is entailed in caring for a newborn baby.
-In many countries, education is still the prerogative of the rich.
-There were too many layers of management in the company.
-The skin of amphibians permeable to water.
-She felt insulted by the low offer.

4 Possibilities of changing in written language, standard language, global language
-They were concomitants of an examination.
-Feudalism is the social system that existed during the Middle Ages in Europe which people were giving land and protection by a noble man, and had to work and fight for him in return.
-Filth engenders disease.
-The ship steered a course between the islands.
-I need ten people to help me implement the sales plan.
-The company started to deploy robot clerks in the shop.
-He believes in divination by means of dreams.
-The Emancipation Proclamation was written by Abraham Lincoln.

5 Grammatical metaphor
-Lexeme is the smallest contrastive unit in a semantic system.
-He exploited his father’s name to get a job.
-The oscillation in the stock market was unexplainable.
-Communities in the island depended on fishing for their livelihood.
-A rhetorician is a person who is skilled in the art of formal rhetoric.
-The grass was wet with early morning dew.
-The two companies have been fused into a single organization.
-A chemist dispenses a prescription.
-She always provided us with a sense of reassurance.
-The children are caught in the crossfire of a dysfunctional relationship between the parents.
-Herbs are used for medicinal purposes.
-Her teeth alignment is bad.

6 English as an international language or a global language
-He was the progenitor of a family of distinguished actors.
-Vernacular is the indigenous language or dialect of a community.
-Discourse is a continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language longer than a sentence.
-The government decreed a state of emergency.
-She wields enormous power within the party.
-This system perpetuated itself for several centuries.
-Sexism is deeply entrenched in our society.
-People were deprived of their political rights.
-Research has been constrained by a lack of funds.
-A disastrous business venture lost him thousands of dollars.
-The trajectory will continue to rise through 2008.

Michael A K Halliday

I have to read an article written by him and discuss in the seminar next Monday. But I don’t know who he is. So I read the website.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O29-HALLIDAYMichaelAK.html

Now I know he is a great linguist.

The linguistic character of New Englishes 4

English as a Global Language by David Crystal

-Other domains-

New Words
-The symptoms of the disease manifested themselves ten days later.
-The prisoner was subjected to systematic torture.
-Notwithstanding the bad weather, the event was a great success.
-The newspaper gave prominence to his statement.
-You can cruise from Cairo to Aswan or vice versa.
-She is competent to teach Spanish.
-Nomenclature is a system of terms used in a specialized field.
-Phoneme is the smallest contrastive unit in the sound system of a language.
-Linguistics is in my particular domain.
-Pragmatics is the study of the factors influencing a person’s choice of language.
-He lived in the Highlands as a constituency home.
-The singer surprised people in the street with a rendition of his new song.

Summary
Pragmatic and discoursal domains are also important in New Englishes. English is basically stress-based speech, which is having a regular rhythm of primary stresses. On the other hand, the majority of New Englishes is syllable-based speech, which is having a regular rhythm of syllables. Syllable-based speech cannot be ignored because it has widespread in Africa, South Asia, South-East Asia and the Caribbean. It has also caused problems when both speakers communicate. Individual words, grammatical patterns and lexical items can be misunderstood. Studies in this domain are limited. Attention should be paid more.

The linguistic character of New Englishes 3

English as a Global Language by David Crystal

-Code switching-

New Words
-Africaan is a language that has developed from Dutch and spoken in South Africa.
-‘Latte’ is a loanword from Italian.
-The student tried to give utterance to her thoughts in the seminar.
-Syntax is the study of word combination or sentence structure.
-A compound word is usually contrasted with a simple word.
-She still retains a passion for studying English.
-The name was used as a scornful appellation.
-The suspect sneered at the police and suddenly pulled out the gun.
-I decided to try a more subtle approach.
-New mothers usually draw upon child care books.
-A New English is not a homogeneous entity.
-The price of gold is in flux.
-The twins are indistinguishable from one another.
-Contact language is used in close geographical or social proximity, which thus influence each other.
-Hybrid is a word composed of elements from different languages (television, from Greek and Latin).
-Creol is a language that has become the mother tongue when a European language is mixed with a local language.
-Flames radiated in eight directions.
-It is fun working there at first but the novelty soon wears off.
-He tends to blur the distinction between his friends and colleagues.

Summary
Code switching is the use by a speaker of two or more languages during a conversation. Varieties mixed with English and a language start to be found in the situation where New Englishes are emerging. The varieties are called using a compound name such as Tanglish and Singlish. It used to be though that they were used by unintelligent people, but they have achieved the status. Standard English has influenced a great number of languages and has emerged many kinds of English. As a result of this, complexity and confusion has been brought in communication.

The linguistic character of New Englishes 2

English as a Global Language by David Crystal

-vocabulary-

New Words
-Morphology is the study of word structure, especially in terms of morphems.
-Morpheme is the smallest contrastive unit of grammar such as de-, -tion and -s.
-The kangaroo is indigenous to Australia.
-Vocabulary borrowings are usually known as loan words.
-Many words have become obsolete or survived only in local dialects.
-We coexist with the naturally occurring bacteria.
-He pointed out the salient features of the new design.
-Hana anglicizes her name to Hannah.
-Urdo is the official language of Pakistan and also widely used in India.
-The shopping centre is very convenient because it is adjacent to the tube station.
-The car has its little idiosyncrasies.
-A nonce word is one that is invented for one particular occasion.
-Although the theory is widely accepted, this has never been substantiated.
-The ceremony had no religious overtones.

Summary
When a language meets other languages, vocabulary borrowings from indigenous languages start to be used. The borrowings have achieved the status especially in multilingual countries such as South Africa and Malaysia. Two types of borrowings are found in New Englishes. One is word-formation. Distinctive affix and word-class conversion are identified in Pakistani English. The other is lexicon which has a different meaning or use from the original one. In Jamaican English, beverage means only ‘lemonade’. These borrowings are used in only one country or nearby countries. Therefore, they usually cause a problem outside the area.

The linguistic character of New Englishes 1

English is a Global Language by David Crystal

-grammar-

New words
-It is difficult to differentiate between the twin sisters.
-Sporadic gunfire could be heard in the town.
-It may well be that children younger than seven years lack the ability to explain.
-Intranational dialects are bound up with issued of local identity.
-Corpora will provide us with data that reveal what is usual and typical about the language.
-The inversion of word order is identified in New Englishes.
-I count him as one of my best friends.
-Poverty is pervasive in Africa.
-The author of the article has a biased opinion.
-His research was fuelled with government grants.
-This sentence is incorrect prescriptively.
-The country has started exploratory drilling for oil.
-This watch is expensive. Accordingly, it should keep the correct time.
-Colligation is a kind of lexical collocations in specific grammatical contexts.
-The student read a multiplicity of books for her essay.
-This report is about a contrastive analysis of British and American English.
-Global warming may be the cumulative effect of human activity on the world environment.
-The teacher offered him impressionistic criticism.
-The police succeeded in eliciting a confession from the criminal.
-Variant is a linguistic form from that is one of a set of alternatives in a given context, as in the plural forms /s/, /z/ and /iz/.
-People living with AIDS were stigmatized in society.
-He told anecdotes about his film work.
-The man intrigued the authority.
-Historical linguistics is the study of the development of language and is also called diachronic linguistics.
-Typology is the study of the system of dividing something into different types.
-Synchronic linguistics is the study of language at a particular point in time.
-The book is written in a colloquial style.
-We saw a constellation of Hollywood talent.
-Code switching is the use by a speaker of more than one language, dialect, or variety during a conversation.
-He is very susceptible to crying women.

Summary
The grammar of the written English has been focused in schools. However, new varieties of spoken English, which is called New Englishes, cannot be ignored because they are linked to local identities. The differences between British and American English are much smaller than those of New Englishes. Especially in a multilingual country, English has been influenced by other languages. Take, for example, why + you construction is identified in colloquial Singapore English. Why you eat so much? implies that you should not eat so much unless there is a good reason. In British and American English, Why eat so much? suggests that I do not think you should and Why do you eat so much? means that I really want to know. Such studies are limited. Further diachronic typological research is needed.

New Englishes

English as a Global Language by David Crystal

New Words
-Diamonds that have fewer inclusions are rarer, hence being more valuable.
-American English has diverged from British.
-Pottery and porcelain are markedly dissimilar in a lot of respects.
-She is so beautiful that she is prominent in this picture.
-Japanese language has three types of orthography.
-The book gives details on the endangered flora and fauna.
-Japan developed its own distinctive culture.
-The media reinforces the female’s sense of body dissatisfaction.
-He is preserving and activating the various indigenous languages in Africa.
-Web-based work is embedded in the company.
-The robbery and burglary has been remorseless in this area.
-The law privileges wealthy people.
-Her performance generated a lot of response from the audience.
-The books are Japanese myths and legends for children.
-“Lord of Rings” is the saga of Frodo.
-Loss of identity became a social problem of global dimensions.

Summary
English has spread all over the world and new varieties of English, which is called New Englishes, has emerged. The varieties consist of four groups; English speaking countries, South Asian countries, the former British colonies in West Africa and, Caribbean and parts of South-east countries such as Singapore. Even in the English speaking countries, there are a great number of differences in the words, pronunciation, spelling and forms. Especially, New Englishes have unique vocabulary of collocations and word formations. Take, for example, biographical words and words for literature, technology and lifestyle. The varieties are important to show identities and nationalities.