Chapter 8 consider a selection of functions that English is playing in Asian countries. First, consider the role that English is playing in the legal systems of many postcolonial countries, even though these countries have been independent for several decades. The recent widespread protests in Hong Kong against a proposed law that would allow the extradition of people from Hong Kong to face the court system of Mainland China is a prime example of how people may still regard the colonial legacy of English law to be more transparent and just than local systems of law. This chapter also looks at how English has been adopted for use in religion; for example, how certain schools attached to mosques in Indonesia now teach courses in ‘English for Islamic Values’, providing further evidence of how its new users are adopting English for their own cultural practices and purposes. The chapter concludes with examples of how English is being used in popular culture across Asia.

Using empirical data from ACE and from a selection of Asian varieties of English, how local and regional cultural and pragmatic norms are realised in the English being used by Asian multilinguals will be illustrated. We also investigate whether there is empirical evidence for the idea that there is an ‘Asian’ way of communication which is marked or characterised by dialogue and consensus. In an earlier study (Kirkpatrick 2010), fifteen speaker and listener strategies were identified which were adopted by Asian multilinguals while using English as a lingua franca. These findings supported other findings using more European-based data, illustrating that English as a lingua franca is characterised by its speakers’ adoption of specific communicative strategies to ensure successful communication and the preservation of their fellow interlocutors’ face. It will be argued, however, that context is the crucial variable, as there are occasions when speakers, far from seeking to preserve the face of their fellow interlocutors, were happy to threaten their interlocutors’ face.

Chapter 1 will first provide an introduction to how English was introduced and then developed in India. The role of the East India Company and the influence of Macaulay’s famous 1835 Minute of Indian Education will be described. The current three-language policy will be reviewed and India’s continued thirst for English explained. The chapter then compares the development of English in India with its development in China and key stages of its adoption in China are reviewed. It will be pointed out that China now has more users of English than India. Chapter 1 will also provide a brief comparative account of how English developed in the ten nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and how it came to be ratified in the 2009 ASEAN Charter as the sole working language of the group.

Chapter 7 will investigate the use, environment and frequency of non-standard morphosyntactic forms in English (i) when used as a specific variety of Asian English and (ii) when used as a lingua franca by Asian multilinguals. Major questions to be considered when dealing with distinctive morphosyntactic features include an investigation into the role of the speakers’ first languages in the creation of distinctive/non-standard forms or whether there is evidence for the existence of vernacular universals. The importance of corpora for investigating the comparative frequency of distinctive morphosyntactic features and the crucial significance of context and levels of formality will be stressed.

Chapter 3 discusses and contrasts Asian varieties of English with the use of English as a lingua franca in Asia. Examples from selected varieties of Asian Englishes are presented. These examples will show how Asian varieties of English are typically code-mixed varieties as speakers use their shared linguistic resources as markers of identity. It must be underlined that the great majority of users of Asian varieties of English have learned English as an additional language and are speakers of other languages. Their variety of English will include linguistic features and items from their speakers’ other languages. These Asian varieties of English are then compared and contrasted with the use of English as a lingua franca in Asia, illustrating, for example, how code-mixing from other languages is reduced, as the primary function of the use of a lingua franca is communication across cultural and linguistic boundaries.

Chapter 6, using data primarily from Asian varieties of English, will describe, illustrate and analyse the use of words and idioms from the speakers’ first languages when they use English. It thus considers further evidence for English used in these contexts being an Asia-centric or Asian language. Questions to be considered when dealing with distinctive lexical features include the role of words/idioms from the speakers’ first language and/or code mixing and a comparison of their use when speakers are using their Asian variety of English and when English is being used as a lingua franca. If code-mixing is used, what might the reasons for this use be? If code-mixing is not used, what might the reasons for the lack of use be? Chapter 6 also provides examples from Asian literatures written in English to show how Asian writers have ‘stretched’ and ‘adapted’ English to reflect their cultural values and lived experiences.

Chapter 4 provides empirical evidence for the claim that English is an Asian and Asia-centric language. Using data from ACE, topics that Asian multilinguals typically talk about when using English as a lingua franca are described. A preliminary study into this, using a small subset of the ACE corpus, found that common topics were, perhaps not surprisingly, Asia-centric. The topics discussed ranged from the relatively light hearted – such as comparing in a jokey fashion the various qualities of different brands of Thai and Malaysian rice and the importance of coffee to the Vietnamese – to more serious topics such as the treatment of Burmese refugees, ways of raising Islamic finance and the prejudice shown towards ethnic minorities in Hong Kong. This chapter will also introduce the fundamental concepts of register and levels of formality by illustrating how different levels of formality call for different speech styles and types of interaction. The chapter will include a critical discussion on the implications of the topics commonly discussed by Asian multilinguals for English language teaching, in particular their implications for relevant teaching materials and curricula.

The Introduction describes how the main author became interested in the use of English in Asia as a child and describes a number of contemporary vignettes which illustrate how English is being used by Asian multilinguals. Kachru’s proposal that English is a language of Asia rather than simply in Asia is reviewed. The Introduction then provides brief summaries of each of the book’s chapters.

Chapter 9 will consider the role of English as a language of education across the region, including brief reviews of its role in primary, secondary and higher education in selected settings. It will review and critically consider language education policies that have been adopted in a range of Asian countries. The second half of the chapter will turn to a review and critical discussion of the increasing use of English as the medium of instruction in higher education across universities in the region. The chapter will conclude by arguing that language education policies need to be considered holistically and be coherent from primary to tertiary education. Otherwise there is a danger of English replacing local languages as languages of education and scholarship.

Chapter 10 will present a proposal based on the findings and data discussed earlier for a lingua franca approach to English language teaching for the region. This will extend the proposal made by Kirkpatrick (2014, 2018), in which principles of the lingua franca approach to English language are presented and discussed. The lingua franca approach is proposed as a way of both ensuring that English is successfully learned by Asian multilinguals while, at the same time, ensuring the preservation of local languages as languages of education.

Middle Chinese phonology is mainly based on the information from the phonological system of the Qièyùn 切韻, a rhyme dictionary compiled in 601. The literary standard represented by the Qièyùn and its later revisions served as the rhyming standard for centuries, even up until modern times. The phonological system of the Qièyùn as a rhyming standard is closely related to the imperial examination. In a country with many local dialects, a national standard had to be established for the examination. Once the phonological standard was established, it became almost impossible to change it in the context of the imperial examination for both the examinees and examiners. It is worth noting that unlike the phonology of Old Chinese, the categorical information of Middle Chinese has been thoroughly analyzed in the rhyme tables. The reconstruction of the phonetic values of the phonology of Middle Chinese was started in the early twentieth century by Western scholars, spearheaded by Bernard Karlgren’s Études sur la Phonologie Chinoise (1915–1926). In all the proposals of phonetic reconstructions, the categorical contrasts of the Qièyùn are strictly preserved and the phonological labels of the rhyme tables are consistently followed.

Starting in the Tang dynasty, as an effort by the government, decisions were made to merge rhyming categories. The final result can be found in the Guǎngyùn, in which each rhyme is labeled either as dúyòng 獨用 ‘independent’ or some tóngyòng 同用 ‘shared’. The simplification of the rhyming categories of the Qièyùn represents the realization of the impractical details of said rhyming categories. Middle Chinese phonology, as a period of the Chinese language, also has its variants in time and space. It has been proposed that Middle Chinese should be further divided into two periods: Early Middle Chinese and Late Middle Chinese. The former is represented by the Qièyùn 切韻 and the latter by early rhyme tables such as the Yùnjìng 韻鏡. The Shēngyīn Chànghè Tú by Shào Yōng 邵雍 (1011–1077) displays a number of phonological characteristics which seem to be “Mandarin”, although it is still not clear whether the Shēngyīn Chànghè Tú is a description of Shào Yōng’s home dialect, the Luoyang dialect, or a system including the characteristics of both.