LOCAL VARIETIES AND ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

Abstract

This article discusses the issues surrounding the phenomenon of Local (or
“Nativised”) Varieties of English, those developments which take place
characteristically in ex-colonial territories where forms of the ex-colonial language have
evolved and developed in their own right independently of their metropolitan sources.
As they evolve, the issue of their acceptability often arises, and their use in classrooms
will frequently cause misgivings. Add to this the relatively common occurrence of
“code- switching” and the teacher who works in such an evolving linguistic scene is
faced with decisions not only as to which language, but also which version or variety to
use. Examples of local varieties are examined and their pervasiveness and usefulness is
discussed. Finally a call for policy to support teachers’ practices in classrooms,
complex both linguistically and socio-politically, is made.

1. Aims

English Language teachers are frequently prey to doubts arising from changes in
the language itself, its effects on those languages with which it frequently comes into
contact and the classroom implications of these linguistic phenomena.
They are also, possibly unwittingly (Ricento and Hornberger 1996), involved in issues of
Language Planning and Policy, hence the importance of the issues raised in this paper.
First, this paper tries to show some of the changes to the language itself in what
have come to be called (Kachru 1992, Platt Weber and Ho 1984) Local (or
Nativised)Varieties of English or New Englishes. These evolved forms of English do
not necessarily conform to the norms of the metropolitan varieties (those generally
accepted as standard in, say, Great Britain, the USA, Australia, etc.). Kuo and Jernudd
(1993, p. 8) comment on the development in Singapore of "a vernacular norm (which)
may be in the process of being formed, although it is as yet vague and highly variable".
Second, the paper examines the fact that English commonly co-occurs with
indigenous languages in a wide range of situations. "Code- switching" (e.g., Myers-
Scotton, 1992) and "-mixing" (Bokamba, 1989) [-1-] is frequently viewed as "sub-
standard" language behaviour and teachers seldom feel at ease with this phenomenon in
their classrooms.
Third, after these points have been discussed, the need is indicated for guidelines
on classroom language use to enable English Language teachers to form consistent
perspectives on the issues surrounding the medium of instruction for English and, where
appropriate, for other curriculum subjects when taught in English (c.f. Canagarajah,
1995).
The remainder of this paper will focus on how different varieties develop and the
vital issues that concern English Language Teachers which surround that development.

2. Sociology of World Englishes

2.1 Local Varieties

It is now a commonplace to say that languages change over time and space (e.g.,
Aitchison, 1981) and that this change is, indeed, an essential characteristic of human
language. The view that language should be fixed and unchanging for all time is now
thoroughly discredited, at least among applied linguists and language teachers. How
entirely natural, therefore, that English used in environments different from those in
which it grew up, so to speak, should mutate to suit its new environments. Thirty-plus
years ago, Halliday, MacIntosh and Strevens (1964) and Greenberg (1964) remarked
that it was a natural development that the residents of English speaking countries could
no longer claim ownership of the language and that local varieties of the language were
developing and would continue to do so. As long ago as 1892, Edward Morris in
Australia was noting the need for a specifically Australian dictionary (Ramson,
1989).H.L. Mencken refused to refer to the language of his country as English,
preferring to call his work The American Language. The idea of divergent kinds of
English, then, is hardly a new one.
There is, however, a difference between acknowledging language development
and change in a developing society in which the main force for change comes from first
language speakers and accepting the same kind of changes and developments occurring
in an environment where English is seldom used in the home and where another
language or languages may directly or indirectly influence those processes.

The situation I am describing is common in many former British colonial

territories, among them, for example, Anglophone Africa, the Indian Sub-
Continent,Malta and Singapore. In these environments, English may be used for any or
all of a variety of official purposes, such as policing, military activities, the
CivilService, etc. English may also be the medium of education for any or all levels of
state and/or private education. (Indeed, this situation is also found in some countries
where Britain had no colonial interests; for example, Ethiopia.) [-2-]
A fairly typical example is seen in Ghana, where roughly 9 million inhabitants
share some fifty-plus languages (Sey, 1973). English is officially the medium of
secondary and tertiary education and virtually all the public services. Major
newspapersare published in English and there is considerable exposure to English on the
public broadcasting service.
This exposure has been in place since well before World War II; it is therefore
the case that, particularly in ethnically mixed urban environments, many Ghanaians
have grown up in situations encouraging the acquisition both outside and inside the
classroom (though not necessarily in the home) of a local variety of English. It is not
theoretically adequate to explain, therefore, the development of these Local Varieties
(LV's) in individual speakers solely by reference to "interference" or "transfer"
from the various other languages spoken in the environment; the evolved forms of
English in common currency must also be taken into account here (See, for example,
Norrish, 1983).This is not to say that there is now no influence at all from these other
languages (see, e.g. Lehiste, 1988). Rather, the acquisition processes relating to LV's of
English are qualitatively different from those experienced by a German or a Japanese
learner of English, since the opportunities to acquire the language outside the classroom
in Germany or Japan are fewer. There is, however, often a greater availability of the
native speaker model (on language learning tapes, etc.). The influence of the L1 is that
much more direct given the more restricted access to any forms of the target language;
the target variety is almost certainly a metropolitan version. Kachru (1992) calls the
latter
"Performance Varieties" (where the learners' output is influenced hardly at all by
English in use locally), as opposed to "Institutionalised Varieties" (where locally used
English has a profound effect) in Second Language environments.[1]
The four criteria he advances for the existence of Institutionalised Varieties
are: an extended range of uses, as described above an extended range of registers or
styles (for example, the English used in a market between fellow nationals not having a
common language as compared to that of an undergraduate lecture)nativisation of
registers and styles, formal and contextuala body of nativised English literature, marked
linguistically as localised (for example the writings of Amos Tutuola or Gabriel Okara
in Nigeria) [2]
A further point is that noted by Ure as long ago as 1974. She indicat ed that the
localised forms of English, together with the local language(s), form a 'register range'
for bi-lingual speakers such that certain contexts call forth different languages and
different varieties of each. This register range will include mixing both the two codes
(code switching) and/or, for effect, two or more varieties.[3] [-3-]

2.2 Attitudes to LV's

Kachru (1992) notes that LV's are often barely accepted in their own
environment ,where it seems that the interaction between language and that environment
is not seen as an adequate reason for deviation from the metropolitan norm, the so-
called Prestige Variety. Sey points out, not surprisingly, that one way to discourage
Ghanaians from using "Ghanaian English" is to tell them they are doing just that.

Recognition of Local Varieties comes mainly from local scholars in linguistic and
literary fields, with public opinion lagging well behind. The metropolitan "norm" is
taken as a reference point by most of the non-linguistically involved.
This issue of localised forms surfaced in Singapore (and was reported in an
edition of Asiaweek about that time) in the mid 1980's with a high profile dispute
between the applied linguists in the University and establishment figures who saw the
tendency to accept localised forms as the first step on the way to linguistic anarchy, an
English that was in some way "second best".
Data from other areas of the world tend to support this suspicion of local forms;
for example, Dabo (1993) indicates that parents of school children in Sierra Leone are
deeply concerned about the pronunciation and forms of English spoken by teachers. Sey
(1973) in Ghana indicates how public speakers are judged at least as much by the
grammatical correctness of their speeches and that a politician who seemingly errs in
using English will forfeit much of the impression that s/he may have made, whatever
the correctness of the political content. Sato (1991) recalls a language survey conducted
in Hawaii: attitudes to Hawaiian Creole, a form of English widely used there, were
surveyed in a wide-ranging piece of research. Almost universally correspondents felt
Hawaiian Creole to be "bad" when used for local radio weather forecasting. A very fine
line must be trodden by public figures using English in such environments between
sounding too local on the one hand and too ex-patriate on the other. An illustrative case
is that of a Ghana Broadcasting Service continuity announcer, educated in the UK, who
proved unpopular with listeners, not for producing sounds that were too localised, but
rather for sounding too "English", this leading to his R.P. induced redundancy.

The devaluation of home-grown language forms is strengthened by the effects of

both local and international examining boards (c.f. Lowenberg, 1992). These set up
models of English phonology and syntax that not many teachers who use the language
as a medium to teach curriculum subjects, or even local teachers of English would
adhere to, except in very careful speech. Assiduous teachers will vainly attempt to teach
out locally recurring forms (for a classic example of a text designed expressly for this
purpose, see Crewe, 1979) thus using time that could appropriately be devoted to more
productive activities, exposing learners to more of the target language, and developing
their communicative ability (c.f. George, 1972). [-4-] The issue of "localisms" is a
salient issue with teachers in many countries. It is not uncommon for teachers to feel
that the worst errors are those which either infringe a rule taught early in the learner's
career (the classic example being the third person present indicative -s) or which show
interference from the pupil's main language.

2.3 Code Switching

A further feature of multilingual societies is code-switching: the relatively rapid

switching from one language (code) to another. Switching may occur in a number of
guises, from the occasional lexical item inserted into largely monolingual text (where
the matrix text can be either L1 or L2) to alternating clauses (Huang and Milroy, 1993).
The attested incidence of switching is wide (e.g., McArthur, 1993) but it is frequently
derided by both speakers and listeners (when made aware of it) as indicative
of"semilingualism". The claim that speakers who use switching or mixing speak neither
language well is palpably untrue. Both Cook (1991) and Bokamba (1989) claim that
switching indicates not only proficiency in both languages, but often to a high level.
Bokamba makes the useful distinction between code-switching (at the intersentential
level) and code-mixing (at the intra-sentential level), and points out that to successfully
code mix shows an even higher level of linguistic sophistication since it necessitates
simultaneous processing of the rules of both languages and relating them to each other.

2.4 Attitudes to Code Switching

Both code-switching and -mixing take place between speakers at many levels,
frequently among those perfectly capable of making themselves understood in either
code. It has been observed that at a level of near equilingualism, switching may be
interpreted by some listeners as carrying a social message.
When questioned about the use of English in Malta, a class of 16 and 17 year old
students reported that it was not the use of English (the official medium of instruction in
Maltese Secondary Schools) itself that was felt to indicate snobbery, but rather the
constant mixing of it with Maltese, giving rise to the so-called "Sliema English." They
perceived this as a desire to demonstrate
social superiority. [4]
McArthur (1993) catalogues many examples of this linguistic phenomenon,
pointing out that speakers who comfortably use two languages in their daily lives have a
choice of four systems rather than two:
1. A 3. AB (where A is the matrix)
2. B4. BA (where B is the matrix)

As he points out, these bi-linguals will be uncertain in which language the

desired expression will emerge when talking to other bi-linguals. As Ure indicates
above, their register range is extended [-5-] to incorporate both codes. However, when
talking to speakers whom they do not perceive as also bi-lingual, they will normally
stay within the bounds of the interlocutor's chosen code. It is not hard to imagine that to
a less skilled speaker, this kind of linguistic behaviour, especially when overheard in a
public place, could appear as exclusive and unnatural, and thus performed for some
special effect.
 However, it is clear that history shows us that mixing and switching are not
unusual; the major East African language, Swahili, arose through just such a process of
merging Arabic and the local coastal languages.
Histories of Modern English invariably recount the same process: a series of
changes occurred to the language both before and after the Conquest of 1066 and the
admixture of Norman French (e.g., Baugh, 1978). In Medieval Europe, the Maccaronic
verse form mixed Latin with vernacular languages. There is an interesting contrast here
between popular attitudes towards speakers who can efficiently move from one
language to another and those who can do so between styles of what is recognised as
"one language", with the latter being highly valued. It would seem that, linguistically at
least, there is little difference between these two phenomena.
Why, one wonders, should the ability to switch between languages not be
equally highly valued?
Henry Widdowson, in a plenary address to IATEFL in 1993 on the topic of The
Ownership of English, partly answers this last question, suggesting that the issue that
appears to exercise the linguistic purists is not one of communication but rather
community. "Language is naturally used to define social identity; and conformity to the
norms of a particular language variety is an expression of group membership" (1993, p.
7). Among other issues (for a detailed exposition of these, see Schiffman 1996) it is
surely the notion of membership that spurred French authorities into their recent and
somewhat quixotic attempt to legislate against the use of certain English loan words.
Membership is also what explains the generally negative attitudes toward code-
switching around the world; the status of the community itself may appear to be
threatened when the layman's "pure language" becomes diluted, though there appear to
be areas of experience where quite the reverse seems true; the world of fashion and
design is an obvious example, with English terms strongly in evidence[5].
Indeed, it is precisely this invasion which appears threatening to some as cultural
values and economic power may come as part of the package (Phillipson, 1992).

3. Implications and Pedagogic Issues

3.1 Socio-Political Issues

It would be naive to claim that the role of English both in and outside the
classroom in situations where it is exoglossic is not tied to socio-political issues . There
has been much written on these issues over the past few years, although it must also be
said that not [-6-] every writer is in agreement with the views expressed in Phillipson
(1992). A case against the view that English necessarily carries with it a tide of cultural
imperialism is well put by Bisong (1995), who regards the view as patronising to users
of English in the Third World; cf. also Schiffman (1996, p. 277) who states, "it is
possible for some analysts to label the English Language 'imperialistic' because some
behaviours exhibited somewhere by some English speakers appear to result in the
subjugation of other languages (or their speakers)". A clear distinction needs to be made
between the users of the language and the code tout court. Pennycook (1996, p. 58)
sums the issue up neatly by pointing out that the Third World needs to take English and
construct new discourses--"for English to become english'. In Kachru's terminology,
'nativised' varieties would seem to move towards this end, where English loses much of
the metropolitan cultural load and takes on local attributes.
 3.2 Implications for English Language Teaching

We have described some aspects of language use in areas where English and
other languages find themselves cheek by jowl in a community. What of teaching
English to speakers from or in these communities?

3.2.1 Teacher Education and Development

The first essential is surely that teachers themselves need to be linguistically

aware of these aspects of language use. Elements of Knowledge About Language
(KAL) need to be built in to any teacher education course in situations where these
linguistic phenomena are likely to occur. A judgmental approach to what is surely an
inevitable linguistic phenomenon, the main purpose of which is to ease communication
between speakers familiar with more than one code, would not be constructive.
Developing a more tolerant approach may seem rather a long-term aim, but encouraging
evidence of this has emerged recently. This happened in an exam paper seen by the
writer in a major teacher training institution in Kuala Lumpur, where a question for a
first year Initial Teacher Training (TESOL) programme dealt with the issue of
Malaysian English in a purely descriptive manner. A teaching approach involving the
study of language forms and their development in Malaysia from the perspective of
appropriateness to context and user had been used and students' answers reflected a
good and balanced understanding of the issues involved. Further evidence of this
approach is to be found in a recent article published in Kuala Lumpur in The Star
(1996), in which "Batu Api" made it clear that (s)he was in support of local forms; the
title reflected the speech forms of the local variety itself: "OK to speak like that one-
lah!".
In the light of the above, teachers will need to rethink the notion of "error" since
issues of this nature will no longer be clear cut (if, indeed, they ever were). Just as
"different to" or "different than" are now clearly parts of many varieties of English so
the memo [-7-] from the Vice Chancellor of an Anglophone African University to a
visiting academic telling him that the car would pick him at the arrivals gate of the
international airport would hardly be considered "incorrect," since it reflects
institutionalised educated usage in that country.

3.2.2 Language Teaching Policy

Local language teaching policy would (quite apart from political issues) ideally
take into account both teachers' and learners' abilities when determining the medium of
instruction. Code switching is, as we have seen, commonplace outside classrooms; it
also takes place in classrooms, particularly where teachers find it difficult to adjust their
output to the learners' level or where they are unclear as to which language to use as a
medium of instruction. Teachers may doubt the learners' ability to learn in English but
are nevertheless constrained to use textbooks in that language. This results (for example,
in Malta) in an often unsystematic mix of the two languages, leaving both teachers and
learners uneasy, with teachers feeling the necessity to translate much of the lesson into
Maltese. Decisions need to be made on the status of English and its use in classrooms,
or teachers will continue to feel they are failing both linguistically and as far as the
curriculum subjects are concerned. There is little research into unsystematic
bilingualism in classrooms; both approaches (monolingual, using only the target
language as medium and a bilingual approach, using both the L1 and the target
language) have been used at different times and both have their devotees. Adherence to
one or the other is more a matter of faith than hard evidence. [6] A distinct policy here
would at least assist teachers in their own decision-making. A further distinction must
be made here between accepting that code-switching and mixing will take place and
inadvertently teaching such language use. The fact that schools in many countries
perforce use English language textbooks, since local versions do not exist, can lead to
use of a level of English beyond the learner's stage of development. This invites
translation and conscious code switching as a teaching approach, as in the case of Malta
above. It would be hard to see how this approach would ultimately benefit the learner in
clarifying the concepts of any discipline. Yet, this will remain a problem as official
translation of texts into an endogenous language is expensive, time consuming and
frequently not a practical alternative. The other problem here is the need not to devalue
the local language by implication as additive biligualism (c.f. Phillipson and Skuttnab-
Kangas, 1996), where both the learners' mother tongue(s) and the target language are
assigned equal 'value', has been generally shown to be a better setting for language
development.

3.2.3 Language Levels

A point relating to language levels was made by Adebisi Afolayan (1984) it can
certainly be generalised beyond Nigerian higher [-8-] education to which it originally
referred. He stresses the importance of the appropriateness of the level of language use:
This appropriateness can be demonstrated with reference to the three entities involved in
the higher educational process. These are the student, the teacher and the instructional
material" (p. 45).He goes on to make the point that the student's level of understanding
and the teacher's level of output need to coincide. The former would need some careful
study and the latter some kind of INSET (In-Service Education for Teachers) to
sensitise the teacher to the problem and to ways of overcoming it. Finally he remarks
that "the instructional materials and textbooks need to be written in language that the
students can easily follow". In countries where English is a medium of education it is
clear that thought needs to be given to levels and learners' real abilities in the language,
especially where students with a wide range of academic abilities and backgrounds
study in English.

4. Conclusions and Recommendations

It is time that language teaching policy, tests and exams should all take due
account of the ways in which English forms a part of the local language ecology.
Teachers, testers and administrators should not seek to penalise for reasons of a
chimerical "linguistic purity" what are inevitable linguistic developments in the wider
interests of communication. We would therefore recomend that: Channels of
communication need to open in both directions between the examining boards in the
metropolitan variety countries and those institutions that use the exams. Learners,
teachers (both in training and in service) and examiners need to be made familiar with
the relative regularity with which languages evolve and are mixed and shifted in
multilingual environments; educational establishments can then begin to relax about
these phenomena.
Teachers will need to ask questions about who needs English (or english) for
international purposes and when and to whom this variety (much closer to a
metropolitan norm) needs to be taught. They can then concentrate on ensuring that
learners can (a) develop the complex skills of language use in multilingual settings
without the guilt which frequently seems to accompany this and (b) master the concepts
needed for academic success in whatever language or variety of language may suit their
purposes best. [-9-]

NOTES

[1] The distinction being made here suggests impermeability in Institutionalised

Varieties. This can never, of course, be absolute as:
a) when children are learning/acquiring language, whatever it may be, the forms
are essentially permeable (and may thus be close to Performance Varieties), and
b) when, for example, students travel from a second language environment to a
first language one, it is not uncommon for them to change their linguistic output when
the need arises.
The term Institutionalised refers rather to the fact that certain forms and registers
are hallowed by custom and are thus more available for acquisition than others not so
hallowed.
[2] Here, as an example, is a passage from Tutuola's (1954) The Palm Wine
Drinkard.
Now we started our journey from the Deads' Town directly to my home town
which I had left for many years. As we were going on this road, we met over a thousand
deads who were just going to the Deads' Town and if they saw us coming towards them
on that road, they would branch into the bush and come back to the road at our back.
Whenever they saw us, they would be making bad noise which showed us that they
hated us and also were very annoyed to see alives. These deads were not talking to one
another at all, even they were not talking plain words except murmuring.
[3] Two passages from Achebe's (1987) Anthills of the Savannah , will serve to
illustrate the writer's use of register variation here.
In the first passage, one of the protagonists, Beatrice, is asking another, Ikem,
some questions about a man she is interested in; the first pair of utterances are in a
standard variety, but in the second, both speakers drop into a more local variety showing
a bantering solidarity on a rather delicate subject.
The second passage shows exactly the reverse, where Ikem, who is being
victimised by the police department, refuses to join in the discussion with the officer in
the same variety, and thus maintains an aloofness using his original standard variety.
i. All I asked you was where your friend parks his wife.

There is no wife, my dear, so you can rest easy.

Me wetin concern me there?

Plenty, plenty. I been see am long time my dear. [-10-]

ii. Na you get this car?

Yes, anything the matter?

Why you no put parking light?

Well, I didn't see any need with all this light around.
 So when you see electric for somebody's wall, it follow
say you no go put your parking light? What section of
traffic law be that one?

Well, it's a matter of common sense, I should say.

[4] Sliema is the area on the coast of Malta developed by the expatriate British
and a Maltese middle class.
The following examples of code-switching were overheard in a staff common
room of a Maltese secondary school among trainee teachers on a teaching practice
discussing their recent lessons. While the matrix language was in every case Maltese,
there were numerous examples of phrases both long and short and more complete
utterances in English:
Take out the lesson plan and take it out of the file.
You ask for help and you don't get it - here's a good book.
I had to arrange mine as well.
Marushka's sweet, she's quiet.

While number 1 is almost certainly a quotation from the tutor (English is the
official medium of instruction in the University of Malta where the students were
following their courses), 2 to 4 appear to be comments on the teaching practice itself.

[5] Helmut Seitz (1993) draws attention amusingly to the importance of English
fashion terms in marketing German outdoor leisure wear, quoting such phrases as
Outdoor Fun, Windbreaker, Outdoor Thermo-Parka, Streetball Pant Sweat Hose mit
Streetball Patch and many more. For those, he concludes who wish to stay indoors in
the cooler weather, a furniture company is recommending its Indoor Design. Here are
some examples collected in Austria: (1) in a newspaper supplement advertising shoes
(... mit trendiger Profilsohle, Abendpumps, Business Look), (2) Shop names (e.g.,
Fashion Touch) and (3) advertisements for cigarettes (e.g,. Think Big Maverick). [-11-]

[6] Auerbach (1993) situates 'English Only' in ESL classrooms in the USA. In
that environment, she relates it to issues of power in light of the English Only
movement in that country. However, in contexts where English is not the dominant
language (for example, Sri Lanka or Malaysia) the issue is still far from clear. Both of
these governments have indicated that a drop in the standard of English resulted from a
move to a different medium of instruction, the former by approving a move back to
English medium and the latter by encouraging teachers to use English in their English
language classrooms.