The future of

Englishes
DAVID CRYSTAL
Does an increasing awareness of the sheer
international variety in the English language complex
necessitate a new pedagogy for a new century?

[The following article is a slightly adapted version Press's Canto series (1998). 'Is English Really a
of a paper given to the British Council Conference Family of Languages?' was the title of an article
'Innovation and Best Practice in British ELT, at in the International Herald Tribune a few years
Oxford, July 1998.] ago (Rosen, 1994). And I have no doubt that
we shall soon hear all the jargon of compara-
tive philology turning up in the domain of ELT
THE PACE is hotting up. Reluctant as I have - daughter languages, sister languages, and the
been to be swayed by the fashionable neologiz- like. The question we all have to face, of
ing of recent years, my title shows capitulation. course, is how a concept of 'best practice' sur-
Like many since the early 1970s I have become vives in the face of such massive and unprece-
used to the steady pluralization of the noun dented innovation. This must be part of what
English, in such phrases as 'new Englishes' or the present conference is intending to explore.
the journal title 'World Englishes'. Associated But such explorations are likely to succeed only
locutions, such as 'an English' and 'each if we are clear in our theoretical thinking about
English' are also now routine. 'The English lan- what might be going on, and are clear about
guages' is a phrase which has been used for the facts of language change which motivate
over a decade, most recently by Tom McArthur that thinking. Both levels of clarity are in short
as the title of his book for Cambridge University supply, at the moment.

Part 1: Language is the traditional criterion, and when that has

been applied to the case of English, there has
matters hitherto been little justification for the notion
of an English language family. Although there
are several well-known instances of English
Intelligibility and identity regional accents and dialects causing problems
I begin by exploring the metaphor of 'family1 of intelligibility to people from a different
a little. What could an English 'family' of dialect background, especially when encoun-
languages possibly mean? The term 'family", of tered at rapid conversational speed - in Britain,
course, arose with reference to such domains Cockney (London), Geordie (Newcastle),
as 'Indo-European', 'Romance' and 'Slavic' - Scouse (Liverpool) and Glaswegian (Glasgow)
domains where there exists a clearly identifi- are among the most commonly cited cases -
able set of entities whose mutual unintelligibil- the problems largely resolve when the speaker
ity would allow them to be uncontroversially slows down, or they reduce to difficulties over
classified as different languages. Intelligibility isolated lexical items. This makes regional vari-

10 English Today 58, Vol. 15, No. 2 (April 1999). Printed in the United Kingdom © 1999 Cambridge University Press
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 eties of English no more problematic for lin- language'. A similar story can be found in any
guistic theory than, say, occupational varieties part of the world where language is an emer-
such as legal or scientific. It is no more illumi- gent index of socio-political identity.
nating to call Cockney or Scouse 'different That is the point: if a community wishes its
English languages' than it would be to call way of speaking to be considered a 'language',
Legal or Scientific by such a name, and anyone and if they have the political power to support
who chooses to extend the application of the their decision, who would be able to stop them
term 'language' in this way finds a slippery doing so? The present-day ethos is to allow
slope which eventually leads to the blurring of communities to deal with their own internal
the potentially useful distinctions between policies themselves, as long as these are not
'language', Variety", and 'dialect'. perceived as being a threat to others. However,
The intelligibility criterion has traditionally to promote an autonomous language policy,
provided little support for an English language two criteria need to be satisfied. The first is to
family (whether it will continue to do so I shall have a community with a single mind about the
discuss below). But we have learned from socio- matter, and the second is to have a community
linguistics in recent decades that this criterion is which has enough political-economic clout to
by no means an adequate explanation for the make its decision respected by outsiders with
language nomenclature of the world, as it whom it is in regular contact. When these crite-
leaves out of consideration linguistic attitudes, ria are lacking, the movement is doomed.
and in particular the criterion of identity. If
intelligibility were the only criterion, then we
would have to say that people from Norway, Ebonics
Sweden and Denmark spoke a single language An illustration of a movement's failure is the
- 'Scandinavian', perhaps - with several Ebonics controversy in California in 1996. This
regional varieties. The socio-political history of incident received widespread publicity during
these nations, of course, disallows any such December 1996, most reports sharing the con-
option. Swedes speak Swedish, Norwegians tent and tone of this New York Times editorial
Norwegian, and Danes Danish - or at least (as a (24 December), under the heading of 'Linguis-
Dane glumly remarked to me the other day), tic Confusion':
they do when they are not speaking English. Or,
to take a more recent example of how language The school board in Oakland, Calif., blundered
nomenclature can change (and rapidly): at the badly last week when it declared that black
slang is a distinct language that warrants a
beginning of the 1990s, the populations of place of respect in the classroom. The new
Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia would all be policy is intended to help teach standard
described as speaking varieties of Serbo-Croat- English and other subjects by building on the
ian. Today, the situation has polarized, with street language actually used by many inner-
Croatians considering the language they speak city children and their parents. It is also
to be Croatian, and Serbs Serbian, and efforts designed to boost self-esteem for
being made to maximise the regional differ- underachievers. But by labeling them linguistic
ences between them. The 'Croatian variety of foreigners in their own country, the new policy
will actually stigmatize African-American
Serbo-Croatian' has become 'the Croatian children - while validating habits of speech that
bar them from the cultural mainstream and
decent jobs.
DAVID CRYSTAL read English at University College
London, and has held posts in linguistics at the The name Ebonics - a blend of Ebony + phon-
University College of North Wales, Bangor, and at ics - was being given to the variety of English
the University of Reading, where he taught for spoken by African Americans, which had previ-
twenty years. He works currently as a writer, ously been called by such names as Black Ver-
lecturer, and broadcaster on language and nacular English or African-American Vernacular
linguistics. Among his publications are 'Listen to English. Although the intentions behind the
Your Child', Who Cares About English Usage?', move were noble, it was denounced by people
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language', The
Cambridge Encyclopedia', The Cambridge
from across the political and ethnic spectrum,
Encyclopedia of the English Language', 'English as a including such prominent individuals as Edu-
Global Language', and 'Language Play' (seep.21). cation Secretary Richard W. Riley, the black
civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson, and

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 writer Maya Angelou. Quite evidently the two [My translation: But for myself, I'd crossed a
criteria above did not obtain: the US black little bit [of] Rubicon all on my own - and,
community did not have a single mind about after all the years that separated my father and
the matter - indeed they seemed largely to me, I started to feel a considerable amount
oppose the suggestion, for such reasons as surer about my own overlooked mother
tongue.]
were mentioned in the Times editorial - and
the people who had the political-economic How does Scots stand in relation to the two cri-
clout to make the decision respected were also teria referred to above? The situation is
against it. The school board withdrew its pro- unclear, because the Scots community does not
posal a month later. have a single mind about the matter, nor has it
had enough political-economic clout to make
any decision respected by outsiders. In relation
Scots to the former point, the case in favour has been
By giving a distinct name, Ebonics, to what had strongly argued by the leading scholar on
previously been uncontroversially recognized Scots, the late Jack Aitken. After reviewing the
as a variety of English, a hidden boundary in arguments, he concluded (1985: 44):
the collective unconscious seems to have been All the phenomena just recounted - the
crossed. It is in fact very unusual to assign a distinctiveness of Scots, its still substantial
novel name to a variety of English in this way, presence in daily speech, the fact that it was
other than in the humorous literature, where once the national language, its identifiably
such names as Strine (a spelling of an imagined distinct history, its adoption (some Gaels would
casual Australian pronunciation of the word call it usurpation) of the nation's name, and the
'Australian') can be found. With just one excep- massive and remarkable and still vital literature
tion, within Britain and America, there has in it, mutually support one another and one
never been a situation where a specific regional further and remarkable phenomenon - the
variety of English has acquired a new name as ancient and still persistent notion that Scots is
indeed 'the Scottish language'.
part of its claim to be recognized as a standard
in its locality. That exception is Scots. Here is But the missionary tone of this quotation, along
McArthur's summary of the situation (1998: with the indication that at least one section of
138): the Scottish community thinks differently, sug-
gests a complex sociolinguistic situation; and
The people of Scotland occupy a unique
historical and cultural position in the English- at the end of his article even Aitken pulled back
speaking world. They use the standard from the brink:
language (with distinctive phonological, I believe what I have written suggests that if
grammatical, lexical, and idiomatic features) in Scots is not now a full 'language' it is something
administration, law, education, the media, all more than a mere 'dialect'. A distinguished
national institutions, and by and large in their German scholar once called it a Halbsprache - a
dealings with Anglophones elsewhere, but in semi-language.
their everyday lives a majority of them mix 'the
King's English with what in an earlier age was In relation to the second criterion, it remains
called 'the King's Scots'. to be seen whether the changing political situ-
ation in Scotland (the 1997 referendum on
What would Scots look like, if it were written
devolution agreeing the formation of a new
down? A little later in the chapter (p. 149),
Scots Assembly) will produce a stronger voice
McArthur tells the story of a time when he was
in favour of Scots. McArthur is doubtful
filling in an annual form which asked him to
(ibid.):
state his modern language skills. The first few
times he wrote 'English' and 'French'; then, as Any political change in the condition of
he says, having 'grown a touch mutinous', he Scotland is unlikely to have a direct influence
added 'Scots' (he is from Glasgow). He adds: on the shaky condition of Scots or Gaelic,
because the movement for Scottish autonomy
Nobody commented on the change; perhaps (within the EU) does not have a linguistic
nobody noticed it. But fur masel, Ah'd crossit a dimension to it.
wee bit Rubicon aa on ma lain - an, efter aa the
years that separatit ma faither an me, Ah stertit If he is right, then that eliminates the strongest
tae feel a gey wheen shairer aboot ma ain traditional contender for a separate identity
owrelookit mither tongue. within an English 'family of languages'.

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 The changing situation Different degrees of language mixing are
apparent: at one extreme, a sentence might be
But new contenders are entering the ring - an used which is indistinguishable from standard
inevitable consequence of the emergence of English. At the other extreme a sentence might
English as a genuine global language. 'Genuine' use so many words and constructions from a
is used here in order to reflect the reality that contact language that it becomes unintelligible
English is now spoken by more people (as a first, to those outside a particular community. In
second, or foreign language) than any other between, there are varying degrees of
language and is recognized by more countries hybridization, ranging from the use of a single
as a desirable lingua franca than any other lexical borrowing within a sentence to several
language. This is not the place to recapitulate borrowings, and from the addition of a single
the relevant statistics, insofar as they can be borrowed syntactic construction (such as a tag
established: this information is available else- question) to a reworking of an entire sentence
where (for my own estimates, see Crystal, 1995, structure. In addition, of course, the pronunci-
1997; see also Graddol, 1998). But it is impor- ation shows similar degrees of variation, from a
tant to recognize that the unprecedented scale standard British or American accent to an
of the growth in usage (approaching a quarter accent which diverges widely from such stan-
of the world's population) has resulted in an dards both in segmental and nonsegmental
unprecedented growth in regional varieties. (intonational, rhythmical) ways (Crystal,
Variation, of course, has always been part of 1996).
the language, given that Angles, Saxons, and For example, within a few lines from less than
Jutes must have spoken different Germanic half-a-minute of Malaysian conversation, we
dialects. The emergence of Scots can be traced can extract the following utterances (for the
back to the beginning of the Middle English original conversation, see Baskaran, 1994). At
period. In the 18th century, Noah Webster was the top of the list is a sentence which could be
one of many who argued the need to recognize called Standard Colloquial English; below it are
a distinct American (as opposed to British) other sentences which show increasing degrees
tongue. And the issue of identity has been cen- of departure from this norm, grammatically and
tral to debate about the nature of Creole and lexically. At the bottom is a sentence (in this
pidgin Englishes around the world. But it is English dialogue) which is entirely Colloquial
only in recent decades (chiefly, since the inde- Malay.
pendence era of the 1960s) that the diversity
has become so dramatic, generating a huge lit- Standard colloquial English
erature on 'world Englishes' and raising the Might as well go window-shopping a bit, at
question of linguistic identity in fresh and least.
Grammatical hybrids
intriguing ways. My case going to be adjourned anyway.
[auxiliary verb omitted]
Okay, okay, at about twelve, can or not?
Hybrids [distinctive tag question in English]
The chief aim of McArthur's book is to draw You were saying you wanted to go shopping,
attention to the remarkable 'messiness' which nak perga tak? [addition and tag question in
Malay 'Want to go, not?']
characterizes the current world English situa- Can lah, no problem one! ['I can'; lah is an
tion, especially in second language contexts. emphatic particle]
Typically, a 'new English' is not a homogeneous Lexical hybrids
entity, with clear-cut boundaries, and an easily No chance to ronda otherwise. [Malay 'loaf]
definable phonology, grammar, and lexicon. You were saying, that day, you wanted to beli
On the contrary, communities which are some barang-barang. [Malay 'buy ... things']
putting English to use are doing so in several But if anything to do with their stuff - golf or
different ways. As McArthur puts it (p. 2), 'sta- snooker or whatever, then dia pun boleh
bility and flux go side by side, centripetal and sabar one. [Malay 'he too can be patient']
Colloquial Malay
centrifugal forces operating at one and the Betul juga. [True also']
same time'. And when actual examples of
language in use are analysed, in such multilin- Continua of this kind have long been recog-
gual settings as Malaysia and Singapore, all nized in Creole language studies. What is novel,
kinds of unusual hybrids come to light. as McArthur points out, is the way phenomena

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 of this kind have become so widespread, hap- development from Old English. French has
pening simultaneously in communities all over nothing to do with it - but the fact that the
the world. After reviewing several speech situ- story is reported in terms of French clearly sug-
ations, he concludes (p. 22): gests the extent to which there was pressure on
Worldwide communication centres on Standard the contemporary consciousness.
English, which however radiates out into many As a second example, there is the comment
kinds of English and many other languages, of 16th-century scholar Thomas Wilson, in The
producing clarity here, confusion there, and Arte of Rhetorique (1553), objecting to the
novelties and nonsenses everywhere. The result 'inkhorn terms' (i.e. learned terms) that were
can be - often is - chaotic, but despite the being widely introduced into English at the
blurred edges, this latter-day Babel manages to time (again, spelling and punctuation have
work. been modernized).
Some seek so far for oudandish English that
they forget altogether their mother's language.
Outlandish English And I dare swear this, if some of their mothers
I imagine there would have been a similar were alive, they were not able to tell what they
sense of chaos during the periods of rapid say; and yet these fine English clerks will say
change in English language history, notably the they speak in their mother tongue, if a man
should charge them with counterfeiting the
early Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The King's English.
arrival of thousands of words and expressions
from French, for example, would not have 'Certainly it is hard to please every man by
passed without comment. Indeed, we do occa- cause of diversity and change of language'? -
sionally find such a comment. There is the 'Counterfeiting the King's English'? Hybridiza-
famous 'egg' story of Caxton (Prologue to Vir- tion has been a feature of English since Anglo-
gil's Book of Eneydos, c.1490), for instance (I Saxon times. Any history of English shows that
have modernized the morphology, spelling and the language has always been something of a
punctuation, apart from the two critical words: Vacuum-cleaner', sucking in words and expres-
for the original, see the text in Crystal, 1995: sions from the other languages with which it
57): has come into contact. (This point has often
And certainly our language now used varies far been neglected by countries who complain
from that which was used and spoken when I these days about the extent to which they have
was born. For we English men are born under been affected by 'Anglicization'. English has
the domination of the moon, which is never been 'Frenchified' in the past far more than
steadfast but ever wavering, waxing one season French has recently been 'Anglicized'.) But
and waning and decreasing another season. today, with more contact being made with
And that common English that is spoken in one other languages than ever before, the scale of
shire varies from another. In so much that in the borrowing is much greater than it has been
my days [it] happened that certain merchants
were in a ship in Thames for to have sailed over in the past. A wider range of languages is
the sea into Zealand, and for lack of wind they involved: there are over 350 modern languages
tarried at the Foreland and went to land for to listed in the etymology files of the Oxford
refresh them. And one of them named English Dictionary. And the borrowing is now
Sheffield, a mercer, came into a house and found in all varieties of English, and not just in
asked for meat, and specially he asked after the more academic or professional domains.
eggys. And the good wife answered that she
could speak no French. And the merchant was
angry, for he also could speak no French, but Novel developments
would have had egges, and she understood him Moreover, we have by no means exhausted the
not. And then at last another said that he would novel kinds of hybrid which linguistic change
have eyren. Then the good wife said that she
understood him well. Lo! What should a man in has in store for us. Consider, for example, the
these days now write, egges or eyren? Certainly situation which is appearing with increasing
it is hard to please every man by cause of frequency around the world in regions where
diversity and change of language. there are high immigration or 'guestworker1
populations. A man and a woman from differ-
Egges was a northern form, a development ent first-language backgrounds meet, fall in
from Old Norse. Eyren was a southern form, a love, and get married, using the English they

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 learned as a foreign or second language as their have no information on what their US counter-
only lingua franca. They then have a baby, who parts do) were not 'talking down' to their col-
learns from them - what, exactly? The child leagues, or consciously adopting simpler
will hear English as a foreign language from its expressions: this was unconscious accommo-
parents, but will learn this as its mother dation, which they were able to reflect upon
tongue. What form will this take? Will there be only after considerable probing on my part.
a linguistic growth analogous to that which
takes place when a pidgin becomes a Creole -
though beginning, one imagines, at a much WSPE and WSSE
more advanced level of structural develop- A philosophy of diversity, recognizing the
ment? What kind of English will be the out- importance of hybridization, does not exclude
come? We are faced with the notion of foreign- the notion of a standard, of course. This is a
language (or second-language) English as a point which the oversimplifying prescriptive
mother tongue. Our nice models of World pundits of the world consistently get wrong: in
English - for example, in terms of concentric honeyed tones, they think that a focus on diver-
circles - will need some radical overhaul to sity must mean a dismissing of standards. On
cope with this. the contrary: the need to maintain interna-
Or, to take another example: the corridors of tional intelligibility demands the recognition of
power in such multinational settings as Brus- a standard variety of English, at the same time
sels. Although several languages are co-official as the need to maintain local identity demands
in the European Union, pragmatic linguistic the recognition of local varieties of English. My
realities result in English being the most widely fundamental principle is that we need both, in
used language in these corridors. But what a linguistically healthy world. And our theoret-
kind of common English emerges, when Ger- ical as well as pedagogical models need to
mans, French, Greeks, and others come into allow for the complementarity of these two
contact, each using English with its own pat- functions of language.
tern of interference from the mother tongue? There are two complications which we need
There will be the usual sociolinguistic accom- to anticipate. First, the emergence of new vari-
modation, and the result will be a novel variety eties is very likely going to increase the pace of
of 'Euro-English' - a term which has been used change in what counts as standard usage. It
for over a decade with reference to the distinc- would be surprising if, at least at a spoken
tive vocabulary of the Union (with its level, the trends which we see taking place
Eurofighters, Eurodollars, Eurosceptics, and so simultaneously all over the English-speaking
on: for a few recent examples using the Euro- world did not at some point merge, like sepa-
prefix, see Knowles (1997}; for earlier exam- rate drops of oil, to produce an appreciable
ples, Mort (1986)), but which must now be normative shift. What long-term chance has
extended to include the various hybrid accents, the tag question got, for example, in its full
grammatical constructions, and discourse pat- array of grammatical concord, faced with the
terns encountered there. simplifying tendencies which can be heard
On several occasions, English-as-a-first- everywhere - and which have their analogues
language politicians, diplomats, and civil ser- in such first-language contexts as Estuary
vants working in Brussels have told me how English (right?) or Anglo-Welsh English (re?).
they have felt their own English being pulled in Would you place good euros on the long-term
the direction of these foreign-language pat- survival of interdental fricatives in standard
terns. A common feature, evidently, is to English, in a world where there will be five
accommodate to an increasingly syllable-timed times as many English speakers for whom th is
rhythm. Others include the use of simplified a pain as those for whom it is a blessing?
sentence constructions, and the avoidance of The second complication is that we seem to
idioms and colloquial vocabulary, a slower rate be moving towards a global situation in which
of speech, and the use of clearer patterns of English speakers will have to operate with two
articulation (avoiding some of the assimila- levels of spoken standard. This is not some-
tions and elisions which would be natural in a thing which people have had to cope with
first-language setting). It is important to stress before. Standard English, as it currently exists,
that this is not the 'foreigner talk' reported in is a global reality only with reference to the
an earlier ELT era. My British informants (I written language: it might more accurately be

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 called World Standard Printed English tus as educated standards. Using myself as
(WSPE). The comparison of international writ- an example, I already have my original
ten varieties in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Welsh/Scouse mix functioning as a marker of
the English Language (1995: 300ff.) showed local identity, and my educated (Standard)
WSPE to be pretty well the same wherever it is British English functioning both as a means of
encountered. This is what one would expect. national communication within Britain and as
That is what a standard is for. It would not be a marker of national identity outside. The sce-
able to fulfill its role as an international (writ- nario I have outlined suggests that one day
ten) lingua franca if it were riddled with there will additionally be an international stan-
regional idiosyncrasies. And, apart from a few dard of spoken English, to be used as a means
instances of literature and humour involving of international communication in an increas-
the representation of regional dialect, and the ingly diversified world (as well as, possibly, a
occasional US/UK spelling variation, WSPE has marker of Earthly identity, once we have a
no regional manifestations. community presence on other planets). In fur-
But if a spoken equivalent to WSPE develops ther due course, the different kinds of standard
-World Standard Spoken English (WSSE), as I may evolve their written equivalents, and we
have elsewhere called it (Crystal, 1997), a will end up with two educated standards in
regionally neutral international spoken stan- writing as well. To call this situation a kind of
dard, acting as a stabilizing force on global spo- diglossia (or triglossia) is probably not too mis-
ken diversity - this situation will change. I have leading, although the kind of functional dis-
drawn attention to its emergence elsewhere tinctions involved are not really the same as the
(Crystal 1998), having encountered interna- 'High' vs 'Low' functionality seen in the case of
tional gatherings where people are using such languages as Greek or Arabic. It antici-
English as their spoken lingua franca, while pates a day when learners will have to adapt
trying to avoid the idiosyncrasies associated their British Standard English to an interna-
with national varieties of expression. At one tional norm - or perhaps vice versa, learning an
international seminar, for example, a casual international norm first, and modifying it to
use of a baseball idiom (out in left field) by an British (or US, etc.) English. The situation may
American led to the temporary disruption of not be unlike the kinds of shift which learners
the meeting (as non-Americans debated what have to make these days when they visit
it meant) and resulted in the selfconscious Britain, and find that the Standard British
side-stepping of further regional expressions English they have been taught needs adapta-
by all the participants. It might not have gone tion if it is to work to best effect in, say, Scot-
that way, of course. On another occasion, the land or in Wales. But a world in which there are
participants might have decided to adopt the two educated standards of spoken English
US idiom - using it back to the American, and - seems inevitable.
by definition - turning what was an American-
ism into a global usage. That has been the pre-
dominant practice in the past. Whether WSSE Part 2: Teaching
will prove to be predominantly American in its
historical origins, in the long term, or whether matters
other varieties from around the world will
'gang up' on American English, swamping it by MUCH of the evidence presented in this paper
weight of numbers, is currently unclear. But is anecdotal. It can do little more than provide
some sort of WSSE, I have no doubt, will motivation for hypotheses. There is a real need
emerge. for empirical research into these hybrid
language situations. But it is plain that the
emergence of hybrid trends and varieties raises
An international norm all kinds of theoretical and pedagogical ques-
Whatever the eventual character of WSSE, it tions:
will occupy a world which, as far as its use of • They blur the long-standing distinctions
English as a spoken lingua franca is concerned, between 'first', 'second', and 'foreign' language.
will be a multidialectal one. Many of us will • They make us reconsider the notion of 'stan-
have three dialects at our disposal, and - unlike dard', especially when we find such hybrids
the WSPE situation - two of these will have sta- being used confidendy and fluently by groups

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 of people who have education and influence in RP accent, this argument goes, then one should
their own regional setting. continue to do so, for a whole range of familiar
• They present the traditionally clear-cut reasons - the linguistic knowledge base is there
notion of 'translation' with all kinds of fresh in the various analyses and descriptions, there
problems, for (to go back to the Malaysian are copious course-books and materials, and
example) at what point in a conversation there is a well understood correspondence
should we say that a notion of translation is rel- between the norms of spoken and written
evant, as we move from 'understanding1 to expression (important for examination pur-
'understanding most of the utterance precisely5 poses as well as for reading literature). In
to 'understanding little of the utterance pre- short, there is a general familiarity with this
cisely ("getting the drift" or "gist")' to 'under- variety which must breed a modicum of con-
standing none of the utterance, despite its con- tent.
taining several features of English'? But from the viewpoint of listening compre-
• And, to move into the sociolinguistic dimen- hension, there is an equally strong case for ped-
sion, hybrids give us new challenges in relation agogical innovation. It is a fact that RP is
to language attitudes: for example, at what changing (to be precise, continuing to change),
point would our insistence on the need for and that many forms of 'regionally modified
translation cause an adverse reaction from the RP' are now to be heard among educated peo-
participants, who might maintain they are ple in Britain and abroad. It is a fact that sev-
'speaking English', even though we cannot eral regional accents (e.g. Edinburgh Scots,
understand them? Yorkshire) are now more prestigious than they
This is the Caxton situation again. used to be, and are being used in settings which
would have been inconceivable 20 years ago -
such as by presenters on radio and television,
Towards a new pedagogy or by switchboard operators in the rapidly
'O brave new world, That has such people in't'. growing domain of telemarketing, or for that
Miranda's exclamation (from The Tempest, V. i, matter by keynote lecturers at British Council
88) is apposite. It is a brave new world, indeed; conferences. It is a fact that new regional first-
and those who have to be bravest of all are the language standards, in dialect as well as
teachers of English. I am never sure whether to accent, are emerging in such countries a s Aus-
call language teaching or translating the most tralia and South Africa.
difficult of all the language tasks; both are It is a fact that new regional second-
undeniably highly demanding and professional language standards are emerging in such areas
activities (and it is one of the world's greatest as West Africa and the subcontinent of India
scandals that such professions can be so badly though less obvious how far these are country-
paid). But in a world where traditional models restricted: see Crystal (1995: 358ff.). And it is
and values are changing so rapidly, the task a fact that there are new hybrids emerging in
facing the teacher, in particular, is immense. foreign-language contexts all over the English-
Keeping abreast of all that is taking place is a speaking world.
nightmare in itself. Deciding what to teach,
given the proliferation of new and competing
models, requires metaphors which go beyond Flexibility and variety
nightmares. Is there any consensus emerging If this is the case, teachers need to prepare their
about what a teacher should do, in such cir- students for a world of staggering linguistic
cumstances? diversity. Somehow, they need to expose them
My impression, as I travel around and listen to as many varieties of English as possible,
to people reporting on their experiences, is that especially those which they are most likely to
this situation - one of rapid linguistic transition encounter in their own locale. And above all,
- is demanding an increased recognition of the teachers need to develop a truly flexible atti-
fundamental importance of distinguishing tude towards principles of usage. The abso-
between production and reception skills in lutist concept of 'proper English' or 'correct
language teaching. English', which is so widespread, needs to be
From a production point of view, there is a replaced by relativistic models in which literary
strong case for pedagogical conservatism. If and educated norms are seen to maintain their
one is used to teaching standard English and an place alongside other norms, some of which

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 depart radically from what was once recog- RP are increasingly the norm, and regional
nized as 'correct'. accents, as we have seen, are increasingly
Yes, familiarity breeds content - but also accepted in educated contexts which would
contempt, when it fails to keep pace with social have rejected them a generation ago.
realities. All over the world there are people If you want to hear good classical RP spoken
losing patience with what they perceive to be by whole communities, you will more likely
an irrational traditionalism. You will all have find it in Moscow or Copenhagen than in Man-
your own stories of the uncertainties and chester or Reading. In Britain itself, diversity is
embarrassments generated when accepted the reality. 'Real Britannia: What Does it Mean
local usages come into conflict with traditional to be British?' shouts a headline in The Indepen-
standards. While there are still some parts of dent earlier this week, and the author Suzanne
the world where there is a reverential attitude Moore comments, towards the end of a piece in
towards British English in general, and RP in which 'a nation in search of an identity1 is the
particular, this attitude is rapidly being theme:
replaced by a dynamic pragmatism. If people in The question, then, is how do we create a
a country increasingly observe their own high- modern version of Britishness that is inclusive
ranking, highly educated people using hybrid rather than exclusive, that is based in the
forms, if they increasingly hear linguistic diver- present rather than in the past, that is urban
sity on the World Service of the BBC and other rather than rural, that is genuinely
channels, if they find themselves being taught multicultural, that does not reside in 'middle
by mother-tongue speakers who themselves England' but amongst a society of hybrids and
reflect current trends in their regionally tinged mongrels.
speech, then who can blame them if they begin
to be critical of teaching perspectives which
reflect nothing but a parochial past? Linguistic diversity and language
health
Our linguistic past has been shaped by recog-
The new reality nizing the value of linguistic diversity; and I
Britain leads the world in ELT. I believe this, believe the same should be true for our linguis-
and over the past 35 years, since my first close tic future. ELT policy-making, accordingly,
encounter with the British Council, I have should make diversity its central principle -
repeatedly seen the effective role of that orga- removing it from the periphery to which it has
nization in fostering language-teaching hitherto largely been assigned. No country has
methodology. But no-one was predicting such dared do this yet. It would be another first for
world language scenarios for English in the British ELT if we did so. But to do so may make
1960s. And the biggest challenge facing British many feel uncomfortable. Could the British
ELT in the millennium, and thus the Council - Council ever stand up and say, openly, 'There is
at least in its linguistic persona - is how to nothing wrong with teaching American and
come to terms with the new global situation. other varieties of English'? One wonders what
And the future I see for British English might happen to its grant-in-aid if it did!
Language Teaching requires a reanalysis of the Even a statement recognizing the value of
phrase: it must not be BE(LT); it has to be competing linguistic standards is too much for
B(EL)T. some. I was a member of the panel which dis-
The emphasis has got to move away from cussed English language issues at the Council's
'British English' or, at least, to a revised concept launch of David Graddol's book The Future of
of British English which has variety at the core. English? earlier this year [1998], and I hinted
For what is British English today? The spoken at this view in a contribution I made there.
British English of Britain is already a mass of Afterwards, at the buffet, someone came up
hybrid forms, with Celtic and immigrant and asked me if my notion of linguistic toler-
language backgrounds a major presence. ance of English diversity extended to such
Accent variation is always the clearest index of things as the errors foreigners made. I said it all
diversity, because it is a symbol of identity: depended on what you mean by an error. / am
What we might call 'classical' RP (as described knowing, for example, is not allowed in tradi-
by Gimson, et at) is probably down to about 2% tional standard English, but it is normal in
of the population now; and modified forms of some parts of the world, such as the Indian sub-

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 continent (and also, incidentally, in some may have a new variety of English which has
British dialects). Would you correct a French- achieved some viability. If this happened in
man who said / am knowing, then, he asked? It Britain - we arrive in a Glasgow pub, shall we
all depends, I said. Not if he was learning say, and find we are unable to follow the
Indian English. My interlocutor's face told me speech of a group at the next table - do we turn
that the concept of a Frenchman wanting to to them with a beatific ELT smile, and ask them
learn Indian English was, at the very least, to speak more clearly? We all know what is
novel. likely to happen. The acronym BELT now has a
There was a pause. Then he said, 'Are you different force.
saying that, in the British Council, we should The assumption, of course, is that if my
be letting our teachers teach Indian English, Glaswegian group were to achieve higher lev-
and not British English?' els of education, their speech would in the
'If the occasion warranted it, yes,' I said. process become more diglossic - they would
'I don't like the sound of that,' he said, and he acquire a more standard kind of spoken
literally fled from me, upsetting a glass of wine English, alongside their original dialect. But in
in the process. He didn't hear me add: 'Or even the Ghanaian type of case, the higher levels of
other languages.' education are already present in the speakers.
For in some parts of the world, the wisest Any motivation to change must therefore come
advice would be to recommend that we divert from their felt need to make themselves under-
some of our resources to maintaining the life of stood to outsiders: If- to put it succinctly- they
minority languages. Identity and intelligibility need us more than we need them, then there is
are both needed for a healthy linguistic life. such a motivation - and this has traditionally
And the responsibility of doing something to been the case, with the centre of economic and
try to minimize the ongoing damage to the political power lying outside their country.
world's ecolinguistic environment - with a But we know from the predictions of David
language dying somewhere in the world, on Graddol and others that power centres are
average, every fortnight or so - belongs to ever-changing - and in 50 years time, who
everyone, whether they are ELT specialists or knows whether we will not want them more
not. than they want us? In which case, maybe we
will have to take pains to accommodate to their
dialect (or, of course, language), if we want to
A change in mindset make inroads into their markets. It will never
There is indeed a radical change of mindset be a simple question of code-switching - I
here. To go back to the example of RP. Even chose the word 'accommodation' carefully.
abroad, the many cases of successfully There will, I imagine, be give and take on both
acquired RP - where the influence of the sides. Trade - whether in products or ideas - is
mother-tongue is negligibly present in a per- a double-sided notion. But we need to begin
son's speech - are far outnumbered, these days, now thinking about how such scenarios of
by the cases where the RP is being filtered mutual respect would relate to our current
through an overlay of local segmental phonol- teaching models and policies. At present I do
ogy and syllable-timed prosody. not think they do at all. I am quite sure that
This overlay, as we all know, can be so dom- most people still feel that, in the Ghanaian-type
inant that it can make a person's speech unin- case, there is blame to be assigned; that the
telligible to outsiders. And here we face the teaching has been unsuccessful.
crux of the matter. If we observe a group of
well-educated people from Ghana, or India, or
Japan, talking happily together in their country 'Best practice' in a new century
in English, and we find we can understand lit- I am aware that this kind of talk is controversial
tle of it, what are we to say? Are we to blame - treasonable, probably. Perhaps I am already
the teaching methods, the educational system, staking my claim to being the shortest-serving
the motivation of the learners? Do we continue member of the Board in British Council history.
trying to make their speech improve towards I hope not. For we have to address these issues.
the standard British model (or US, or Aus- They will not go away. We cannot stick our
tralian, or whatever model we are using)? Or heads into the sand, and pretend they are not
do we recognize the possibility that here we there. Nor are we alone in having to address

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 them. Everywhere else is in the same boat. Or, English has it strongly- and perhaps this feature
to be more accurate, they are all in their own has been an element in its global growth. As has
boats, each taking on board the waters of diver- often been observed, people who have learned
sification and hybridization at its own rate. English as a foreign language have been known
American English, with over 350 significant to comment on the way in which they were
foreign language inputs (according to the last helped by the presence in English of words which
census), is at a particularly waterlogged stage, they already recognized as deriving from dieir
with over a million people now panicking for own.
the US English lifeboat (Crystal, 1997: Ch. 5); Any move to a new mind-set is never easy,
the last decade has seen unprecedented and some will not wish to make it, for old habits
amounts of water slopping into the Australian die hard. We should perhaps bring to mind the
English boat; and otherfirst-languageareas are wise words of Igor Stravinsky, in his Poetics of
beginning to find the waters choppy. So indeed Music (Ch. 5): 'A renewal is fruitful only when
are second-language areas. There is no longer it goes hand in hand with tradition'. But there is
(if there ever was) a nice, neat variety called no doubt in my mind that the concept of 'best
Singapore English. The only reason we ever got practice' for the next century will need to be
the opposite impression is that, when linguists grounded in a dynamic linguistic relativism,
first began to describe these new Englishes, recognizing as axiomatic the notions of varia-
they were working with individual informants, tion and change. This is the chief challenge fac-
and their descriptions inevitably presented a ing ELT specialists as we move into the new mil-
monolithic picture. As the linguistic viewpoint lennium, and it is a challenge which, I believe,
widens, following more empirical research, British ELT - B(EL)T, as I think of it - is in an
diversity gradually comes into focus. excellent position to meet. ED
In my view, the chief task facing ELT is how
to devise pedagogical policies and practices in References
which the need to maintain an international Aitken, A. J. 1985. 'Is Scots a language?' In £73, 41-5.
standard of intelligibility, in both speech and Baskaran, Loga. 1994. "The Malaysian English mosaic'
writing, can be made to comfortably exist In £T 37, 27-32.
alongside the need to recognize the importance Crystal, David. 1995. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the
of international diversity, as a reflection of English Language. Cambridge:University Press.
identity, chiefly in speech and eventually per- —. 1996. 'The past, present and future of English
rhythm.' In M. Vaughan-Rees, Changes in
haps also in writing. Pronunciation, Summer 1996 Issue of the Newsletter
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Language Teaching is in the best position to do 8-13. Whitstable: IATEFL.
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has been coping with diversity for centuries. It University Press.
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collective community awarenesses); but the vac- Al Ayn, March.
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must somehow be present in the subconscious Knowles, Elizabeth, ed. 1997. The Oxford Dictionary of
of each of us - a readiness to assimilate new New Words. Oxford: University Press.
forms. It is a thousand years since the publica- McArthur, Tom. 1998. The English Languages.
tion of thefirstELT conversation - the Colloquy Cambridge: University Press.
Moore, Suzanne. 1998. 'Real Britannia: What Does it
of Aelfric, in c.1000 - and already by that stage Mean to be British?' In The Independent (Monday
English had readily borrowed hundreds of words Review), 20 July.
from other languages, chiefly Latin and Norse. Mort, Simon, ed. 1986. Longman Guardian New Words.
This readiness has been with us ever since. It is London: Longman.
a readiness which is conspicuously lacking in, Rosen, Barbara. 1994. 'Is English Really a Family of
say, the modern French langue - at least, as it Languages?Tn the International Herald Tribune, 15
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has developed over the last 200 years. But

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