Native speaker Englishes

[Richard]

Is, say, British English just one variety among many or does it have some sort of special status? If so, what's special about British English?

[stevelouw]

It is interesting that in our faculty we have only one representative of England, and perhaps that is some sort of metaphor for how English has moved on in the last century. In that sense, British English can't really hold any special status, since it is so hugely outnumbered now. However, in South Africa when I was a student, British English was our goal- a symbol of learning and culture. SA had been British territory, some of our leaders had been educated in England, and there other strong historical links to the British. Anything and everything 'good' came from England. Our teachers tried desperately to drill out of us our misguided South African English, like saying 'milk' with a schwa, so we could sound more 'proper' and perhaps make something of ourselves. Just to say, though, they didn't succeed - I still can't say milk properly.

[sgtowns]

Is, say, British English just one variety among many or does it have some sort of special status? If so, what's special about British English?

One of my take-aways so far this week is that American and British English hold a special status mostly because of marketing and brand-name awareness. We have strong global publishing houses, brand names like IELTS and TOEFL, and evangelists like the British Council. Through this marketing and brand recognition, we have convinced the rest of the world that our way is the best way.

Along the same lines, I was also thinking that if we are going to say "Global Englishes" (with the emphasis on the "es") then we should also say British Englishes and American Englishes. But that would definitely dilute the brand.

It would be more interesting, however, to hear from L2 English speakers about why they choose a certain English to learn. What are the reasons for wanting to speak with a British accent? Like Richard asked, what's so special about it?

[daronloo]

Perhaps it is the (long-lost) prestige that is tied in with the accent. Whenever I'm back in Sabah, watching the English news (operate by the government), their news reporters speak with a (variation) of the British accent. It seems to exude some sort of exclusivity, especially Malaysia where multilingualism and linguistic diversity is eroded.

This is quite the contrary to when people are engaged in face-to-face conversation. Any attempt of sounding less Malaysian is ridiculed. This is perhaps a reason why I never picked up any Australian enunciation (or slangs, for that matter) even when all my other coursemates went full-on Straya after 2-3 months of residing down under.

Us vs. Them, and the barriers or bridges an accent may bring is probably what makes it special, such as that reported in a recent study on Malaysian undergraduates' perception on local and 'native' accents of English (Tan, Lee, Kasuma, & Ganapathy, 2018).

Reference:
Lin, D. T. A., Choo, L. B., Kasuma, S. A. A., & Ganapathy, M. (2018). Like That Lah: Malaysian Undergraduates’ Attitudes Towards Localised English. GEMA Online® Journal of Language Studies, 18(2).

[donparo]

From an L2 English speaker like myself, speaking with a British, American or Australian accent projects an image of a learned individual. It draws the line as to where someone who speaks with an accent can position himself/herself in society. Based on my observations, however, most working Filipinos do not have this ardent desire to speak a specific accent instead they mimic elocution for several purposes (i.e. talking to clients of BPO [Business Process Outsourcing] companies from the USA). But, in one BPO company where I had an opportunity to attend a series of workshops, the language manager emphasized a neutral accent. Something that is intelligible.

[Woravut]

The best place that I can hear global englishes is a hostel where travellers from different parts of the world come into contact.

[sgtowns]

The best place that I can hear global englishes is a hostel where travellers from different parts of the world come into contact.

That makes sense. Sounds like we need to create a "World Englishes for Backpackers" course.

Just out of curiosity, does the topic of communication in World Englishes come up in hostel chats? Of course, young backpackers wouldn't call it "World Englishes", but do topics like accents and understandability come up in conversation? It seems like a lot of WE research is done in educational or work settings, but interviewing/surveying backpackers and other travelers might give some interesting insights as well. (Plus they would be an easy group to locate in Thailand.)

[Jansompatu]

The question is about the special status of British English. Is it okay for me to talk about the special status of American English as well?

My guess is the American accent is the preferred one in Thailand. For example, 15 years ago the university (for my BA degree) taught English majoring students (implicitly and explicitly) to conform to the American accents. I had to try my best to conform to the so called norm back then.

In an English class, I asked the students to do the peer evaluation of their own presentations, they tended to give the higher score to those who they think have American accent rather than focusing on the content (British accent was rarely found in my classes).

[Richard]

One interesting point from the Department session last week is a comment in the survey of KMUTT alumni about their language needs. For listening, one need identified is 'Listening to non-native speaker accents'. This suggests an awareness once people are in work of the limits of focusing on native speaker Englishes, yet in most coursebooks 90% of listening passages are native speakers only (and even then not clearly regional accents). There's clearly a need for greater exposure to a range of accents but there are so many possible accents that it is difficult to see how this can be done. So two questions:
1. Should we be trying to find listening passages with non-native accents to replace the typical native accent passages that are used?
2. Are there any generic strategies for understanding non-native accents that can be taught (i.e. strategies that are generalisable to numerous accents)?

[sgtowns]

There's clearly a need for greater exposure to a range of accents but there are so many possible accents that it is difficult to see how this can be done. So two questions:
1. Should we be trying to find listening passages with non-native accents to replace the typical native accent passages that are used?
2. Are there any generic strategies for understanding non-native accents that can be taught (i.e. strategies that are generalisable to numerous accents)?

Luckily, it appears that we might not have to worry too much about which accents to use in class or which strategies to teach. Studies seem to be showing that if people are exposed to various accents, their brain learns to deal with the variety and automatically improves the ability to understand accents that they have never heard. The last paragraph of one of these studies states: "In summary, the results of the current study demonstrate that accent-independent adaptation to foreign-accented speech is possible after exposure to multiple talkers with different foreign accents. We show that listeners are able to generalize to novel talkers from a novel language background as well as from a language background included in training. We suggest that this generalization is a result of exposure to systematic variation during training." (For more information, the paper can be found at: https://asa.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1121/1.4789864?class=pdf)

So now we just have to figure out how to best bring multiple accents into the classroom. Perhaps we should also bring in more exposure to the background concepts of "Global Englishses" that Heath Rose was sharing with us a few weeks ago.