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Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

There's a nice article in this week's Newsweek on all of us and our students, perhaps nice material for classwork.

and you don't even need to shell out for the mag.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7038031/site/newsweek/

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

Thanks, Guy.

Don't know about you or anyone else, but I found the syrupy-sweetness and upbeat flavor of the article rather depressing. Read between the lines?

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

Not much mentioned there of the teachers save for China's 'appetite' towards the 2008 Games.

Does anyone know Carla Power, the lead writer?

thelmadatter · Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 4:45 pm Post subject: Englishes

What I got was that if the article is correct about the idea that English is breaking into local Englishes... it may not stay the lingua franca of the world. I remember an interview with an American woman after the tsunami. She said what she was principally doing was "English-English" translation. The German speakers of English couldnt understand the Thai speakers of English and vice versa.

So what about us native speakers just speaking our local "patois"? Will we be left out like the article says?

The thing is that the native speaker varieties still have more prestige and probably more utility than the so-called "Chinglish" Japlish" etc... However, we might see some things spill over into native speaker English (Long time no see ... is a literal translation of a Chinese phrase from the days of Chinese railroad builders in the US)

The article was a bit syrupy but I will use it for my classes. If nothing else it will show my Mexican students that English is for a lot more than just "speaking to the gringos."

Deconstructor · Joined: 30 Dec 2003 Posts: 775 Location: Montreal

I read the article and what I understood was that English in the future will take on as many colors as there are those who speak it. For an international language to stay as such, it must be understood by all. This means that English must remain as is. However, since the native speakers of international languages have always been the powerful, it is conceivable that the Chinese version will prevail in the future.

On that day I shall put a gun to my head and blow my standard English brains out.

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

In other words Decon, can we say that your infamous whipping boy, British, is ahead of his time? Laughing

Cardinal Synn · Joined: 01 Nov 2004 Posts: 586

Very interesting. It's funny, I can actually earn more money by teaching students who come to stay at my house in the UK. Mainly business 1-1 stuff and ESP. The thing is, it's really boring. I much prefer living and teaching in Asia.
As for the "new" speakers of English "shaping" the language - if they speak it in their own community, fair enough, they can speak their own version and be understood. If, however, they learn it to speak to foreigners, they have to learn something similar to what us geezers on this forum use (God help them). Local forms of English have existed for eons in a lot of ex-colonies like Jamaica, most of Africa and a load of other places.

Deconstructor · Joined: 30 Dec 2003 Posts: 775 Location: Montreal

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

A few claims in this article disturbed me somewhat:

In future, we shall have to consider as "correct" a Chinese English sentence such as "she look very sad" or "the person which". There is no rason to put up armed resistance to some Chinese or other influences infiltrating English, for example pronuncation variations (the author said that cockpit crews now officially say 'tree" instead of "three"), but changing basic grammar is another matter.

The article rightly pointed out that English is big business; sad that people from Britain and America only see that side of the picture, and not the responsibility that comes along with this challenge: there should be international coordination and standardisation. Instead, each anglophone nation is pushing its very own brand of English - creating a confused market.

There was an education fair held in Shenzhen recently; European tertiary institutes were promoting their places of study. Their selling point: "we use English as the medium of instruction". But which English? Their big advantage: their courses are virtually free as tuition is not normally collected from students, making these universities a lot cheaper than those in the U.S.A. or Australia.