Some observations relating to the development of a South African model for teaching, learning, using, and identifying with the language

When it comes to Englishes in Singapore, two terms come to the fore: Singapore English, and Singlish. As part of the methodology and motivation for this paper, I compiled 500 published works on Englishes in Singapore ranging from the 1970s to 2021. These published works include monographs, edited volumes, chapters in edited volumes, and articles in major peer-reviewed journals. 85% of the 500 publications used the term Singapore English, 27% of them had Singlish, and only a mere six publications (around 1%) used the term Singaporean English. One would expect that for a term that speaks of and to the being of the nation, the term Singaporean English would certainly be used with far more frequency. This is especially so when there is in fact nothing morphologically awkward in attaching the suffix -ean to ‘Singapore’. There are immensely more examples of Englishes around the world that have the suffix (or its near equivalent) than those without (American, Tanzanian, South African Englishes are just some of numerous examples); and the two well known Englishes that remain suffix-free are New Zealand English and Hong Kong English, which we can explain by way of a morphological misfit: the -er suffix does sound rather awkward. Since Singapore does not have this problem, why then does Singapore English resist the suffix -ean?

STEVE COFFEY confronts the enigmatic language of a puzzling word game

Research into social roles and conversational gambits is steadily building up a picture of how people behave while talking. Interruptions, pauses, shifts in topic all reflect cultural and social attitudes and can express patterns of dominance, while the picture also includes such linguistic novelties as ‘diffident declaratives’ and ‘genderlects’.

An argument against the concept of a distinctive ‘Ghanaian English’ and in favour of the view that various postcolonial countries share the same nonstandard usages

a subvariety of South African English influenced by Indian English, other languages of India, and life in southern Africa

Is bilingualism an asset or a liability, and how should families in linguistically complex situations handle it?

Euphemism is a concept closely related to taboo or embarrassing topics; classic examples include sex, religion and politics. It has been mainly studied to show how, within a given language, alternative expressions replace other unsuitable ones that, accordingly, may cause offence and discomfort to the audience. While this first approximation to the question of euphemism anticipates a key point in the use of these substitute expressions, namely the relationship between speaker-hearer in communication, the present discussion seeks to push this interdependence a bit further, framing it around English words or Anglicisms in the context of Spanish fashion. Some examples include ‘backstage’, ‘fifties’, and ‘street style’. This brings up some interesting questions: why should fashion, a clearly non-taboo topic, resort to the use of euphemistic words? How can English words qualify as good candidates to carry out the euphemistic role?

A review of the needs and opportunities of Chinese university students learning English, with a particular focus on the work of a ‘Foreign Expert’ in a Henan college.

‘C-a-t, cat. Cat mane billi; r-a-t, rat mane chooha’ went a song from a Hindi film of the fifties (mane = ‘means’, billi = ‘cat’, chooha = ‘rat’). The song, enormously popular with Indian youth of that generation, was scoffed at by the then contemporary purists who found it hard to accept such ‘blatant’ dilution of the Hindi language. This song, like a few more of its times, was merely an exception to the largely acceptable language of songs, then largely a mix of Hindi, Urdu and Persian. English was, thus, used in songs either when it depicted (literally, since songs are acted out as autonomous scenes in Bollywood) a comic actor in a light-hearted situation or a semi-literate character desperate to accommodate to the urban ways of life. A celebrated song from Gopi, a Hindi film of the early seventies, goes a step forward with its novel coinage. The hero is a rustic who tries to impress his fellow villagers by dressing up in city (read English) style and sings:

Gentleman gentleman, gentleman/London se aaya mein ban-than ke……
Yeh dekh mera suita/Yeh dekh mera boota/Yeh dekh mera comba

A report on independent ELT undertakings in the world's most populous country. The teaching of English as a foreign language in China has expanded rapidly in the last two decades. In colleges all over China, from key universities to small provincial institutions, non-English majors have to study English for at least two years and they have to pass the College English Test (CET) Band 4 before they can get their graduation certificates. In the year 2000, over 3.5 million candidates sat for the CET in the summer.

The study of the paradigmatic traits of teenage slang has shown that a sense of togetherness is predominant (Eble, 1996; Allen, 1998; Mattiello, 2005, 2008; Smith, 2011). This cohesive linguistic device is not consciously intended to exclude unwished members from conversations or common understanding, but the idea of relying on a preserved sense of solidarity and acceptance is a human urge, especially among teenagers or young adults (cf. Mattiello, 2005: 13). These features are a necessary starting point to understand that the colloquial nature or social restriction of these words and phrases are precisely aimed to ‘establish or reinforce social identity within a group or with a trend or fashion in society at large’ (Eble, 1996: 11).

In the last decade, Azerbaijani universities’ upward implementation of English-medium instruction (EMI) policy has spread among most of the country's universities, public and private. Students are no longer enthusiastic about getting an education in their native language, neither they see Russian as a medium of instruction that used to be a vehicle for a brighter future. Research suggests that the rapid implementation of EMI policy is primarily motivated by the pursuit of internationalization (Williams, 2023), participation in international projects (Mammadova, 2020), and international academic mobility (Mammadova, 2023). As a result, attributed to the mass abandoning of the country by young early career specialists who have recently graduated from Higher Educational Institutions (HEI), the country annually loses a high number of qualified personnel (see Figure 1) who heavily resort to their linguistic competencies and go after a ‘better life’. Figure 1 demonstrates the average value for Azerbaijan to leave the country during the period between 2015 and 2022. With an average of 4.74 points out of 10, the minimum 4 index point was observed in 2016 and a maximum of 4.4 index points in 2022. In turn, the UN Migrant Stocks (2021) reports that by mid-2020 Azerbaijan had an emigration rate of 10.6 percent of its entire population. According to Chaikhana Media (2022), ‘there's a brain drain in Azerbaijan, highly-skilled people do leave their country even though they have had a high salary in Azerbaijan.’

In recent years, the use of foreign loanwords in Chinese has increased significantly. It has been estimated that there are currently about 3,000 foreign words in Chinese, most of which are related to English (Zhang, 2006). Of these, more than 500 words are frequently used, together with their abbreviations and translations. In response to this situation, the Chinese government established the Inter-ministerial Joint Meeting on Chinese Language Translation and Writing Specifications (IJM-CLTWS) in 2012, consisting of ten state-level ministries and institutions such as the State Language Commission, the Central Compilation & Translation Bureau, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Education. Thus far, the expert committee of the IJM-CLTWS has identified four groups of foreign words and their standard Chinese translations.

A 2003 Irish short film called Yu Ming is Ainm Dom (My name is Yu Ming) by director Daniel O'Hara describes the experiences of a young Chinese man called Yu Ming who comes to Ireland in search of work. As he prepares to leave China he reads in a travel guide that Gaeilge (or Irish) is the first official language of Ireland and therefore sets out on an intensive learning course. On his arrival in Dublin Yu Ming is delighted to see public signage in Irish that he can understand. At the airport he finds his bealach amach (Way Out) and catches a bus to an lár (the city centre). However, his initial communication with local people in perfect Irish is met with strange looks and confusion with many Dubliners under the impression that they are listening to Chinese. Yu Ming eventually begins a conversation in Irish with an old man in a pub who explains to a perplexed Yu Ming that “Ní labhraítear Gaeilge anseo, labhraítear Béarla anseo – ó Shasana!” (“Irish isn't spoken here – English is spoken here, from England!”). Yu Ming leaves Dublin and finds work in rural western Ireland where the old man has suggested he should go.

With the spread of English around the globe, academics increasingly seek to figure out what global English means to the world. Some accept English globalisation as a reality and take it as natural, neutral and beneficial for international and intercultural communication (Crystal, 2003). Some recognise English skills as important linguistic capital and must-have global literacy (Park & Wee, 2012; Tsui & Tollefson, 2007). However, others associate the global expansion of English with linguistic imperialism and the death of indigenous languages (Phillipson, 2009). Some regard globally spread English as native English varieties, particularly American and British English (Modiano, 2001; Trudgill, 1999), others argue for the rise of local varieties of World Englishes (WE) (Bolton, 2005; Kachru, 1986) and the international use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) (Jenkins, 2007; Seidlhofer, 2011). Although these generic interpretations of English have solid arguments from their own perspectives, none is sufficient to elucidate all the ‘complexity of ideological ramifications of the spread of English in [any] particular locality’ (Pan, 2011: 79).

SLANG IS characterized by its capacity to shock, startle and amuse: often achieved by manipulating existing lexical material in a playful way. Indeed, this play instinct is at the core of language use at large: cf. Nilsen & Nilsen (1978:28–44), Redfern (1984:6), and especially Crystal (1998). It is however in the realm of informal discourse that all types of ludic word-forming – from malapropisms to homonymic puns – thrive most richly. One such way of manipulating existing lexical items is to expand them implicitly into longer forms so that the original does double (and often facetious) duty. This process is at work not only in such acronyms as S.F.A. – impeccably, Scottish Football Association, but facetiously both sweet fuck-all and its euphemistic variant Sweet Fanny Adams – but also in such elaborations as do-re-mi for ‘dough’ (US slang money), Oswald for ‘an ounce’ of a drug (expanding oz, the abbreviation of ‘ounce’), and Georgie (after the late renowned footballer George or Georgie Best), for ‘best’ itself. The following article seeks to explore the curious realm of curtailed puns formed on the same principle as Georgie.

A survey of the past, present and future of pidgin and creole Englishes, how they have been studied, and how attitudes towards them have changed

An analysis of how Salman Rushdie destabilizes the Western bias in English