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The concept of ‘World English’ and its implications for ELT.

It has become more or less a cliché these days to refer to English as a world language. At the 1984 conference to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the British Council there was a debate between Sir Randolph Quirk and Professor Braj Kachru on the (literally) million dollar question of ‘who owns English’, and hence whose English must be adopted as the model for teaching the language worldwide. Since then, much has been written on the role of English as a language of international communication, and the desirability or otherwise of adopting one of the Inner Circle varieties of English (to all intents and purposes, either British or American) as the canonical model for teaching it as a second or foreign language. The position vigorously defended by Quirk in that debate — succinctly captured in the phrase ‘a single monochrome standard’ — no longer appeals to the majority of those who are involved in the English Language Teaching (ELT) enterprise in one way or another. Instead, Kachru’s equally spirited insistence that “the native speakers [of English] seem to have lost the exclusive prerogative to control its standardization”, and his plea for a paradigm shift in linguistic and pedagogical research so as to bring it more in tune with the changing landscape, have continued to strike a favorable chord with most ELT professionals. And the idea that English belongs to everyone who speaks it has been steadily gaining ground.

Though still resisted in some quarters, the very idea of World English (henceforward, WE) makes the whole question of the ‘ownership’ of English problematic, not to say completely anachronistic. Widdowson expressed the idea in a very telling manner when he wrote ‘It is a matter of considerable pride and satisfaction for native speakers of English that their language is an international means of communication. But the point is that it is only international to the extent that it is not their language.’

Source: RAJAGOPALAN, Kanavillil. The

concept of ‘World English’ and its implications for ELT. ELT Journal Volume. [s.l.] v 58, n 2, pp 111-117, Abril 2004. (Adapted)

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