Jacqueline Lam Kam-Mei interviews Michael A. K. Halliday on language and linguistics, English and Chinese, Singaporean and Hong Kong English, and machine translation.

A case study of foreign and especially English influence on the language of shop signs and shop windows in three European cities.

PEOPLE have always worried about language purity: ‘No greater harm can be done to a nation than taking away its national character and the idiosyncrasies of its language’ (Immanuel Kant, over 200 years ago). ‘Kein Denglisch in deutschen Wörterbüchern’ is a citation of the German Verein zur Wahrung der deutschen Sprache e.V. (‘Association for the Protection of the German Language’)1, founded in 1997. Theirs is a struggle to keep German free of too much foreign-language influence: most notably English.

Tom McArthur reflects on the life and indefatigable work of the English-language materials writer L.G. Alexander, who died on June 17th this year at the age of 70, after a long and patient struggle with leukemia.

Some reflections on why English is necessary but not enough.

On 11 May 2001, as part of the EU-Japan Friendship Week, and on the occasion of the European Year of Languages, a one-day symposium on ‘The Future of Linguistic Diversity’ was held at the Japan Foundation in Tokyo: see ET67, Jul 01. In his contribution to this symposium, Professor Reinier Salverda of University College London (as the representative of the Netherlands) discussed how it may be possible to work towards successful international communication in a world that is nonetheless marked by great diversity of language. The following adapted and extended version of his EYL presentation discusses both multilingualism today and the view that English, while necessary in global terms, is hardly enough.

A report on German university students learning and working in English.

WHEN A student produces a sentences like “I learn English since ten years” it can be assumed that they haven't had a very good English teacher, that they may not, in fact, be very good in English despite the amount of time they've spent learning the language. However, some of my students may indeed produce a sentence like this. In the English Department of the Freie Universität in Berlin, I teach students who have already studied English for at least ten years by the time they enter university. And in order to study in our department, the students must pass a proficiency-level entrance exam. These students then have English as one of their major subjects, so their knowledge of the language is fairly sophisticated and their contact with the language regular.

A description and discussion of the vast linguistic diversity in the capital of the United Kingdom.

LONDON today is an enormous Tower of Babel, where in addition to the common language, English, many other languages are spoken. On Tuesday 13 March 2001, as part of the Lunch Hour Lecture Series at University College London, Professor Reinier Salverda discussed the linguistic diversity of contemporary London, presenting recent data on the other languages spoken there, as well as focussing on the social aspects of this linguistic diversity, in particular issues of language policy and language management. The following is a slightly adapted version of that presentation.

A report on the impact of English on media advertising in France.

English (in all of its creative manifestations) and images associated with English are extremely popular advertising strategies in France. In order to explore the stereotypical images that French consumers commonly associate with different varieties of English and the reasons for such perceptions, this study compares television data collected in France during the summer of 2000 with data featured in an earlier study (Martin 1998).

A response to Pearl Ntlhakana, ‘People's English’, on the language situation in South Africa, in ET62 (16:2), Apr 2000.

If you have a non-standard local form of English, what do you do with it?

Pearl Ntlhakana gives a bold answer, supporting her arguments by reference to an article by Chick and Wade (1997), also on the South African situation. By “People's English”, Ntlhakana means what is usually referred to as Black South African English (BSAE), the English that is said to be characteristic of the indigenous African population of South Africa. What she suggests is that “a restandardised variety would actually replace the current standard (White South African English with Southern British English as its model), performing the whole range of formal functions”.

A review of the challenges faced by professional translators both in Asia Pacific and worldwide. Translating is a key service in the knowledge economy, an enabler that uses and relies on the new technology of information and communication. But we know that translation and interpreting are processes that can often be by-passed by those who are bi- or multilingually competent. Indeed, if translation and interpreting were always needed, and always used, the sheer cost of global communication in money and time would act as a serious brake on growth.

A comparison between Black English usage in South Africa and the United States

There has been a long tradition of resistance in South African politics, as there has been for African-Americans in the United States. The historical links between African Americans and their counterparts on the African continent prompt one to draw a comparison between the groups in terms of linguistic and social status. This comparison demonstrates that Black South African English (BSAfE) is a distinctive form with its own stable conventions, as representative in its own context as African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is in the United States.

An analysis of ‘public English’ and (not) learning the language in Japan.

Visitors to Japan, whether linguists or laymen, frequently come back with their own collection of quaint uses of English, gathered from public signs, advertising and so on, which vary from the odd to the simply incorrect. This may provide complacent amusement for the native speaker, but is not surprising or unique: Budapest airport until relatively recently sported a large sign reading Welcome in Hungary. What is especially interesting in Japan is not the mistakes but the puzzling function of many such signs. English words and messages are often combined with Japanese, so that, as a non-Japanese speaker, your eye is at first attracted then baffled, until you realise that the English is not aimed at you, a native speaker, but at native speakers of Japanese. But who among the Japanese is it aimed at, and why?

A novel and dynamic approach to teaching English by starting in Chinese.

In China, many schools start teaching EFL to their first graders, aged 6–7. Children have to repeat words and sentences that are meaningless to them. They learn to read EFL not by reading but by going through mechanical drills in letters, words and phonic skills. F. Smith asserts that ‘children learn to read only by reading’. But there is a Catch-22 situation here: to learn to read, you have to read, but you cannot read if you have not learned to read. This situation is, however, being tackled by a new experimental approach over the past five years – a ‘sandwich story’ methodology.

PAUL RASTALL assesses current issues and possibilities in studying the history of English

“…often…in words contemplated singly, there are boundless stores of moral and historic truth, and no less of passion and imagination are laid up – that from these lessons of infinite worth may be derived…”(Richard C. Trench, 1851, 1)

When we think of “English today”, a range of issues naturally springs to mind. Principally, they are “synchronic” issues. They can be matters “internal” to linguistic systems, or viewpoints “external” to English considered as a communication system. Externally, we might consider, for example, the diversity of geographical, generational or sociolinguistic varieties, teaching and learning conditions and problems, the political and economic issues arising from the enormous spread of English worldwide. Internally, there are the many questions of phonology, grammar, lexicon, usage and textual practices, which are more directly “linguistic” in the narrow sense. A little less obviously, we can consider issues of the future of English both from the “external” point of view, looking at – for example – the selection of varieties for teaching or international communication purposes, and from the “internal” viewpoint, the “synchronic dynamics” of English, looking at the ways in which English is currently changing or tending to change. All of those matters and others are well covered in English Today.

How such words are–and might be–handled

The author argues that, with the development of English as a world language and the burgeoning of new varieties of English (‘New Englishes’, or NE's), and with the inclusion of more and more NE words in international English dictionaries, there is a need for systematic and principled solutions to the proper phonetic representation of these words, instead of arbitrarily imposing the same transcription conventions on them as for ‘Old’ varieties of English (‘Old Englishes’, or OE's).

A study in accentual compromise.

There is something in the very name Estuary English which fills certain sectors of British society with horror and fear, as if we were in the presence of a contagious and potentially devastating disease. It can provoke what John Maidment (1994:7) termed the ‘Disgusted-of-Tunbridge-Wells Syndrome’ (DTWS):

“Nothing is likely to enrage DTW more than the suggestion that the standard language which he/she holds so dear, the grail of which he/she sees him/herself the guardian, is usurped by the usage of people who are NOT OUR CLASS. DTW is not going down without a fight, you may be sure.”

This Times-reading, Radio 4-listening guardian of the English language, armed with pen and paper, is ready to pick up on mispronunciations, misspellings, and misusages of grammar and send in a letter of complaint, bemoaning the decline of the language.

An account of the use and teaching of English in one of the world's most isolated and reclusive states.

An introduction, and a brief history of English in Korea before independence from Japan in 1945, then in post–1945 North Korea, followed by a discussion first of how North Korea's ideological and political imperatives gave rise to the elimination of English from the school curriculum, then of the subsequent reinstatement and promotion of the language. In North Korea English is taught not so much as the global lingua franca but as a means of idolizing Kim Il Sung and to promote his brand of Communist ideology. The article closes with brief comments on the future of English in North Korea.

A study of commercial names that extends ET's on-going discussion of ‘shop-sign English’ and similar phenomena from Europe and Asia into Latin America.

A large body of literature describes the use of English loanwords all over the world. When it comes to developing nations, one of the most common explanations for such a phenomenon is the superiority attributed to what is foreign, especially when business and advertising are involved. This article discusses the phenomenon of English loanwords and advertising using the case of Brazil as a scenario. It exemplifies the many motivations that lead to the incorporation of English into the world of business and advertising, and argues for a comprehensive view of this phenomenon, balancing external and internal forces contributing to the use of English.

A consideration of whether EE could conceivably be an alternative to RP as a teaching model.

Since David Rosewarne first coined the term in 1984, much has been written about Estuary English (EE). The definition usually given of Estuary English is that if we can imagine a continuum with Received Pronunciation (RP) at one end and Cockney (an urban accent of London) at the other, then Estuary English is in the middle. This definition is restated by Wells (1998-9) as ‘Standard English spoken with the accent of the southeast of England. This highlights two chief points: that it is standard (unlike Cockney) and that it is localized in the southeast (unlike RP)’. The book English Language for Beginners (Lowe & Graham 1998) contains on p. 156 a diagram giving the actress Joanna Lumley as an example of RP, the boxer Frank Bruno for Cockney, and the comedian and writer Ben Elton for EE. This is ironic, in that Ben Elton himself denies that he is a speaker of EE (John Wells, personal communication).

A dissertation on the essentially easy nature of the English language and in praise of learning tougher tongues.

THROUGHOUT my now rather long life I have frequently heard said, seen written, and even myself somewhat seriously contended, that English is the world's most difficult language. Let me now go on record as saying quite the opposite: English is the world's easiest known [major] language.