VARIETIES OF ENGLISH:
Phrases & Sentences
Readings:
Y. Kachru & L. Smith, Ch 6;
Zuengler on Kenyan English
Who is Rush Limbaugh?
 Why was he in the news last year at this time?
 What’s your opinion of his actions in this
particular case? Why do you feel that way?
 Who are Terry Gross and Geoff Nunberg?
A four-letter word
 Why did people find it offensive?

◦ What’s the difference, if any, between ‘slut’ and ‘player’?
◦ What’s the difference, if any, between ‘slut’ and ‘queer’?

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What’s the original meaning of ‘slut’?
What’s the difference between a ‘naughty word’
and a sexist slur
From NPR’s ‘Fresh Air’ with Terry Gross

Understanding can be thought of in terms of
Intelligibility (test = repetition, dictation)
Comprehensibility (test = paraphrase)
Interpretability (test = understand speaker/writer’s
intent)

Differences in pronunciation among varieties
of English can lead to lack of intelligibility,
comprehensibility and interpretability.

Misunderstanding can result from differences in
pronunciation:
◦ Stress patterns
 REcognize ~ recogNIZE, sucCESS ~ SUCcess
◦ Spelling pronunciations
 Comb, climb
◦ Distribution of given & new information
 JOHN did it ~ It was John who did it.
◦ Simplification of initial & final consonant clusters
 ‘desk’ > /dɛs/, ‘school > /ɛskul/
◦ Loss of other phonological distinctions
 ‘then’ > /den/, ‘thin’ > /sin/
These differences in pronunciation are often
the result of transfer of ways of pronouncing
words from the speaker’s first language into
English in Outer and Extended Circle contexts.
 This is called ‘language transfer.’
 When we speak with others whose dialect we
don’t share, our own speech becomes more
like theirs.
 Often, attitudes toward particular accents may
become a greater barrier than pronunciation.


As interlocutors get familiar with each other’s
system of phonological organization, they
accommodate their habitual patterns to those
of the other speaker(s).

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Differences in varieties of English extend
beyond pronunciation to phrases and
sentences as well.
These differences involve the use of articles,
count vs. mass nouns, verb tenses,
prepositions, modals and the organization of
given and new information, among other
things.

Some basic concepts in historical linguistics
◦ Languages differ in innumerable ways.
◦ Languages can be said to be ‘related to each other’
based on as assumed common ancestry.
◦ This is determined through a process called
‘historical reconstruction,’ a method of comparing
similarities and differences among languages.
◦ English belongs to a large language family called
‘Indo-European.’
◦ There are other large language families around the
world.
Indo-European: outline of family tree
Indo-European
Germanic
BaltoSlavic
Celtic
Italic
Possibly a third co-ordinate branch within Indo-Iranian
— Nuristani in N.E. Afghanistan (e.g. Ashkun, Prasun)
N.Western
S. Western
Panjabi, Gujarati,
Sindhi,
Marathi,
Kashmiri, Konkani,
Romani, Sinhala,
.....
.....
Central
Eastern
IndoIranian
........
Indic Iranian
Western
Eastern
Farsi=Persian, Pashto,
Hindi-Urdu, Bengali,
Kurdish,
Ormuri,
Marwari,
Assamese,
Baluchi,
Ossetian,
Maithili,
Oriya,
......
Yagnob,
Nepali,
.....
......
.....
Many difficulties in deciding Indic grouping
10
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Articles and determiners (‘function words’)
◦ Articles
 a / an, the, Ø
◦ Determiners
 this, that, these, those, any, each, etc.

Count / Mass & Singular / Plural
◦ Count / Mass
 Cars, shoes, balls, etc. / gas, water, rice, etc.
◦ Singular / Plural
 Car / cars, shoe / shoes, ball / balls

Indefinite article ‘a, an’
◦ Signals a singular entity of a count noun?
 I bought a computer and a modem, but the modem was
the wrong model.
BUT
 ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ created an oppressive atmosphere
for gays in the military.
◦ Signals the ‘first mention’ of a count noun in a
connected text (as in the example above)?
BUT
 Cells are the building blocks of life. A cell is composed of a
nucleus and cytoplasm.
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
Many languages of the world have no articles.
The article in English has three sets of
functions:
◦ Grammatical
◦ Semantic
◦ Pragmatic

A count noun in the singular must be preceded by
an article or by some other determiner.
◦ A dog is a man’s best friend.

A predicate nominal in the singular must be
preceded by the article a or an.
◦ My friend is a student.

Certain proper nouns must be preceded by the
article the.
◦ The Rockies, the Nile, the United Nations


Related to reference
Definite / Indefinite
◦ I bought a computer and a
modem, but the modem
was the wrong model.

Specific / Non-specific
◦ I bought a new motor scooter; it’s a Vespa.
◦ I need a new motor scooter. Any suggestions?

Generic / Non-generic
◦ Ø Bats are Ø mammals. ~ The bat is a mammal. ~ A
bat is a mammal.
◦ A bat flew out of the cave.


Related to the conventions of use
Summary:
◦ A(n):
indefinite non-specific, or indefinite specific,
or generic (with count nouns in the singular);
◦ The:
definite specific (with count and mass nouns),
or non-specific generic (with count nouns only);
◦ Some: indefinite non-specific, or indefinite specific
(with count nouns in the plural with mass nouns);
◦ Ø:
generic (with count nouns in the plural, with
mass nouns).

Other varieties (Outer Circle and Expanding
Circle varieties) of English do not use articles in
the same way as Inner Circle varieties because:
◦ Their use in Inner Circle varieties is neither transparent
nor internally consistent.
◦ The first languages in many Outer or Expanding Circle
societies do not use articles at all, or use them in
different ways (‘language transfer’).

It’s not a matter of
meaning
It has to do with a noun’s ability to combine with
various determiners!

Huddleston: Six classes of nouns –
◦ Equipment (fully mass)
◦ Knowledge (almost mass, i.e., ‘a good
knowledge of Latin’)
◦ Clothes (fuzzy quantifiers; i.e., many, few,
etc.)
◦ Cattle (fuzzy quantifiers & large round
numbers)
◦ People (collective noun; occurs with plurals
but not fully countable)
◦ Dog (fully countable)

In African, Caribbean, East, South, and
Southeast Asian varieties of English, the
complex system of marking count / mass
distinction in English is simplified.

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
Stative / Dynamic
◦ I know him. He has two cars.
BUT
◦ I’m meeting him. He is buying a new car.
Factive / Non-factive
◦ Bill doesn’t regret that he was rude.
BUT
◦ Bill doesn’t believe that he was rude.
Volitional / Non-volitional
◦ He (deliberately) lost the key
AND
He (accidentally) lost the key.

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In the first languages of Outer and Expanding
Circle societies, these distinctions are marked
differently from English
So, those varieties of English often include
characteristics that are present in the first
languages of those societies (‘language
transfer’).

Verbalization strategies
◦ Your behavior tantamounts to disrespect.
◦ It doesn’t worth the price.

Tense / Aspect
◦ I was knowing him then.
◦ He was having two cars.

Modals
◦ Rain is expected in the morning but would give way to
sun by noon.

Yes / No Questions
◦ Q:
A:
◦ Q:
A:

Hasn’t the President left yet?
Yes, he hasn’t.
Didn’t you see anyone there?
Yes, I didn’t see anyone there.
Tag Questions
◦ You want it by six, isn’t it?
◦ He didn’t go home, isn’t it?

Complementation
◦ They were interested to grab power.
◦ She is prepared for filing a law suit.

Prepositions
◦
◦
◦
◦
We can give some thought on the matter.
The police are investigating into the case.
The committee was discussing about politics.
She has gone to abroad.

Focus and Theme
◦ Q: Where did Sue go yesterday?
A: She went to the beach.
Theme
Focus
◦ Certain medicine we don’t stock.
◦ And weekend (emphasis) you can spend with your
brother.
◦ My daughter she is attending college.
◦ Tswana, I learnt it in Pretoria.
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As an access to education during and after
British rule (1895-1964)
As a catalyst for Kenyan nationalism through
Kenyan intellectuals’ access to “habits of
thought of [English-speaking] people”
There are still no institutionalized varieties of
English in Kenya.
But it has become ‘nativized,” i.e., influenced
by Kenyan (Kiswahili) cultural and linguistic
patterns.

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Direct lexical transfer: use of Kiswahili words
in Kenyan English, e.g. baraza ‘an official
meeting’
Semantic shifts: English words taking on new
meanings, e.g., brat ‘illegitimate child’
Syntactic shifts: Items taking on new
grammatical forms, e.g.,
◦ Nouns as verbs, e.g., school, tone
◦ Mass > Count nuns, e.g., ammunitions,
hardwares

Nativization of speech functions:
◦
◦
◦
◦

Greetings, e.g., Is it well with you?
Forms of address, e.g., mwalimu ‘teacher’, bwana
Abuses/threats, e.g., go away and eat ashes
Riddles/proverbs, e.g., the oilskin of the house is
not for rubbing into the skin of strangers (?)
Kenyan English Register:
◦ I have to alight now.
◦ This system should be stopped forthwith.

Stylistic devices: metaphors and similes
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Kenyan English is not taught in schools.
Kenyans shift between the RP taught in
schools, Kenyan English and Kiswahili,
depending on the context, i.e., participants,
topic, setting, etc.
Kenyan English is not yet popularly accepted as
a variety on its own, like Indian, South African,
Singaporean, etc. English.
Question: Will it some day become one? What
would need to happen for that to occur?


What often appears to be ‘incorrect English’
by the norms of Inner Circle standard
varieties is often consistent with the norms of
Outer and Expanding Circle varieties of
English.
These characteristics are often the result of
language transfer from the indigenous or first
languages of the areas in which those
varieties of English are spoken.