19 1 Chapter 1: An English-Speaking World (9- 45) An English-Speaking World
Dec 19, 2015
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Chapter 1: An English-Speaking World (9-45)
An English-Speaking
World
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The Story of English
By Don L. F. Nilsen
Based on The Story of EnglishBy Robert McCrum, Robert MacNeil
and William Cran (Penguin, 2003)
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English, ESL or EFL is Spoken by about ½ of the People in the World ( about 2 Billion People) (McCrum
24/50)
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English as a Global Language
• ¾ of the World’s Mail• ½ of the World’s technical & scientific journals• ½ of all newspapers• 80 % of the information in computers• All International Air Pilots• All International Sea Captains• Many movies, songs, and much business• ½ of European business deals • 7 of the Largest TV Broadcasters (CBS, NBC, ABC,
BBC, CBC, CNN, C-Span)• TV Televangelism of Christianity (McCrum 10)
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Varieties of Global English, each with its Own Peculiar Flavor
• Deutschlish
• Franglish (la langue du Coca-Cola)
• Indian English
• Japlish (man-shon vs. mai-homu, basaburo, aisu-kurimu, mai-com [my computer])
• Russlish
• Spanglish (McNeal 10, 38-39)
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La Langue du Coca-Cola
• In France, – hot money capitaux fébariles– Jumbo jet gros porteur– Fast food prêt-à-manger
• In Canada, Loi 101 : – English billboards, posters and storefronts
are banned. Many students are not allowed to attend English-language schools. (McCrum 39-40)
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Competing Global Languages
• Arabic
• Russian (before the breakup of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe)
• Mandarin
• Spanish
• French
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Education Act of 1870: RP
• Cockney (Cock’s Egg)
• RP (Received Pronunciation)
• Posh (Portside Out Starboard Home)
• (McCrum 13-21)
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World War II (McCrum 23)
• GI Bases in England, Italy, France, Germany
• GI Language was vivid, profane & abbreviated:
Black Market
Blitz
Flak
Nylons
Pin-Up
R & R
Snafu
Yank
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Pin-Ups and Yank Magazine
• Every issue of Yank Magazine featured a pin-up to remind soldiers of the girls back home.
• A pin-up of Rita Hayworth is said to have been taped to Fat Boy, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
• Compare this with the movie Dr. Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
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Atomic-Bomb Words (McCrum 24)
Atomic Holocaust
Chain Reaction (cf. Vonnegut’s “Ice Nine”)
Fallout
Fireball
Fission
Fusion
Mushroom Cloud
Test Site
(NOTE: The possibility of nuclear proliferation was one of the causes of Postmodernism & Deconstructionism)
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Coca-Colonialism (McCrum 24)
Budweiser
Coca Cola
Gillette
Kellogg’s Cornflakes
Kellogg’s Rice Krispies
(“Snap Crackle and Pop” has to be translated into various languages)
Kodak
Maxwell House Coffee
Schlitz
Lucky Strike
Marlboro
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Korean and Vietnam Wars (McCrum 25-26)
Korean:
Brainwashing
Chopper (Helicopter)
Vietnam:
Defoliate
Domino Theory
Escalation
Firefight
Friendly Fire
Hawks & Doves
Vietnam:
Moratorium
Napalm
Pacification
Search and Destroy
The Silent Majority (ct. the Vocal Minority)
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David Ofgor, Attaché to the US Embassy in Phnom Penh:
• Talking to journalists:
• “You always write it’s bombing, bombing, bombing. It’s not bombing. It’s air support.” (McCrum 27)
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Regional Dialects (McCrum 27-29)
• Franklin D. Roosevelt (Eastern Money)• Harry Truman (Twangy Missouran)• Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon & Gerald
Ford (American Midwest)• Lyndon Johnson (Southern)• Ronald Reagan & Dan Rather (Network
Standard)• Kennedy Family (New England)• George W. Bush (Texas)
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Valley-Girl/Surfer-Dude:
Bitchin
Dude
For sure
Goady
Rad
To the max
Totally
Tubular
Gay Speech:
Gay
Out of the closet
Queer
Queen
Women’s Speech:
Ms.
Letter carrier
JOKE: Mannheim Germany Personheim Gerpersony
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Silicon Valley Words (California) (McCrum 30)
Artificial Intelligence
CD (Compact Disk)
DVD (Digital Video Disk)
Data Processing
Disk(ette)
Flash Drive
Hacker
Input
Interface
Jump Drive
Modem
On-Line
ROM (Read-Only Memory)
Software, Hardware, Wetware
Word Processor
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British vs. American Global English
• bird, bobby, bonnet, boot, drawing pins, flat, lift, lorry, mate, nappy, petrol, pram, sweets, torch, trunk call
• girl, cop, hood, trunk, thumb tacks, apartment, elevator, truck, buddy, diaper, gas, stroller, candy, flashlight, long-distance call
• colour/color, theater/theatre, tyre/tire• advertisement, laboratory, secretary
• (McCrum 32)
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!Disadvantages of English as a Global Language
• /š/ shoe, sugar, issue, mansion, mission, nation, suspicion, ocean, conscious, chaperon, schist, fuchsia, pshaw (spelled 13 ways).
• <sh> <ch> <ph> <th> <gh> • Full, reduced, zero grades of consonants• Long, Short, -r, schwa, and zero grades of
vowels• 15 different vowel phonemes• <c> <g> <q> <s> (/s/ /š/ /z/ /ž/) <x>
• (McCrum 42)
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!!Advantages of English as a Global Language
• Natural Gender, not Grammatical Gender
• Simplified Word Endings resulting in greater flexibility (N V, etc.)
• Teeming Vocabulary (80 % is not Anglo-Saxon) but rather: Arabic, Celtic, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Scandinavian, Spanish, etc. (McCrum 43)
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!!!Nilsen PowerPoints
• “Foreign Words in English”
• “Global English”
• Romance and Germanic Words in English”
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References:
Kachru, Braj B. Models of English for the Third World: White Man’s Linguistic Burden or Language Pragmatics?. New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 1991.
Kachru, Braj B. The Other Tongue: The Spread of English and Issues of Intelligibility. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1982.
McCrum, Robert, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil. The Story of English. New York, NY: Penguin, 1986. (source of map citations)
McCrum, Robert, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil. The Story of English: Third Revised Edition. New York, NY: Penguin, 2003. (source of text citations)