This chapter examines the relationship between English as a pluricentric language with multiple varieties and the instruments of codification that stabilize the variation within their individual lexica. It compares the different types of dictionaries published for settler Englishes (Australian, New Zealand, Canadian, US) with those published for indigenized Englishes (South Africa, India, Singapore, the Philippines), finding that the former have several types of dictionaries (historical and contemporary, with partial or comprehensive coverage of the lexicon), whereas the indigenized varieties have few with limited coverage of the varietal lexicon. Other codificatory instruments, e.g. style manuals, are found with settler varieties but not indigenized ones. The range of such instruments for settler varieties thus correlates with their advanced stage of evolution (beyond endonormativity). The research shows that only those dictionaries which are produced by regionally based lexicographers are indicators of endonormativity. Dictionaries compiled by foreign/international publishers are associated with varieties that have yet to attain their endonormativity.

This chapter traces the sequence of smaller and larger dictionaries published in Australia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, drawing attention to the particular aspects of Australian language, society, culture, and environment that they document, and their association with the major phases in the evolution of Australian English. The earlier specialised dictionaries were compiled during the exonormative phases of Australian English, when Australians still deferred to British English as their main linguistic authority. In contrast, the comprehensive national dictionary (Macquarie Dictionary, 1981) benchmarks the endonormative phase, and becomes the reference point for Australian English as it achieves its linguistic independence. Meanwhile, the compilation of the Australian National Dictionary on Historical Principles (1988), through its association with Oxford University Press, has ensured that many Australianisms are registered in the second and third editions of the Oxford English Dictionary and acknowledged as elements of world English. Australian neologisms, especially informal words ending in –ie, have probably contributed to their greater use in northern hemisphere Englishes, and perhaps to the increasing colloquialisation of English worldwide.

The evolution of World Englishes has widely affected and transformed the lives of many people in many countries; it is thus a process of great cultural and political significance. This chapter surveys some social debates and issues which have arisen in this context and attitudes towards new varieties of English, outlining sociocultural contexts and considerations affecting the emergence and acquisition of World Englishes. Topics include the association of English with "elitism", accessible mainly through higher education and thus a class divider, as opposed to its "grassroots growth"; the claim that it is a "killer language" reducing global linguistic diversity; norm orientations (towards a supposed "international English", "English as a Lingua Franca", or endonormative models); the role of new dialects of expressing local identities; the problematic status of the notion of a "native speaker"; the spread of mixed language forms; and pedagogical consequences resulting from all these issues.

This chapter focuses on the relationship between editorial work, endonormativity and convergence in the South African context, presenting a corpus-based quantitative case study of how editing reshapes academic writing by users of the STL (White South African English, or WSAfE) and IDG (Black South African English, or BSAfE) strands in South Africa. An inductive, exploratory quantitative method is used to identify linguistic features that distinguish unedited BSAfE and WSAfE academic writing, and edited BSAfE and WSAfE academic writing, using a corpus of edited texts and their unedited counterparts. Two features are analysed in detail: the use of downtoners and possibility modals. The findings provide support for the endonormativity of BSAfE, with WSAfE more ambiguous. The two strands are largely divergent in their usage of the two individual features. With a few exceptions, editors leave BSAfE usage patterns unaltered but sometimes change WSAfE usage to be closer to British English usage. Editing thus either leaves the stylistic distance between the two varieties unaltered or increases it. These findings support an assessment of (sometimes problematised) endonormativity at the level of the individual strands, but no strong evidence for convergence.