Chapter 4

Variation in ‘Native’ Englishes

Introductory activities

The following introductory activities are designed to encourage the reader to think about
the issues raised in this chapter before reading it.
Look at the list of grammar-syntactical variations in English grammar below.

Example sentences
1 I done eat the ice-cream.
2 I seen something strange.
3 She’s a nice car, that is.
4 I went to town for to see a doctor.
5 You joking!
6 Is it half eight already? I best be going.
7 I was sat here when he came in.
8 The children sings beautifully.
9 I didn’t say nothing.
10 I never knew he had a brother.
11 He swim in that river every day.
12 You sing real good.

Discussion questions
1 Based on the ideas presented in Chapter 2 of a ‘standard’ English, discuss and record
on a scale of 1–4 whether the sentences above fit into an ideology of acceptable
English. (1 = completely acceptable; 2 = acceptable; 3 = unacceptable; 4 = com-
pletely unacceptable.)
2 Are there any forms that you, personally, believe are completely acceptable, but that
standard language proponents might not?
3 Are there any forms that might be more acceptable in certain regions of the world?
4 All the above sentences are typical of native English speakers around the world. How
do you think such differences emerged?
72 Variation in ‘Native’ Englishes

Case study: South Africa – Inner or Outer Circle?

South Africa’s placement in Kachru’s Three Circle Model is highly problematic, as dis-
cussed in Chapter 1. The use of English in South Africa meets the criteria of the Inner
Circle, and South Africa is considered by many to be an ENL nation. English is the main
language for government, administration, and commerce, and is widely understood
alongside Afrikaans. However, English is a first language for only 9.6 per cent of the
population, and is an official language alongside 10 other languages of which Zulu,
Xhosa, and Afrikaans all have more native speakers. Thus, for many English is a second
language, as in Outer Circle countries like Singapore. While some forms of South Afri-
can English resemble other ‘native’ new world varieties (Bowerman, 2008), other forms
have many features that resemble ‘New’ Englishes, such as the existence of acrolect and
mesolect forms and a reduced vowel set (van Rooy, 2008). This is most likely the result
of different channels of spread to the region, via both Channel 1 (settler colonization)
and Channel 3 (trade and exploitation colonization), unlike most other British colonies
where it was predominately one or the other.

Discussion
1 Where would you place South Africa in Kachru’s model?
2 What role did apartheid play in the problematic placement of South Africa in the
Three Circle Model? Without apartheid, what would have been the hypothetical
result of language use in South Africa?
3 How can the four-channel dispersal of the English language, outlined in Chapter 1,
better describe the processes by which the Englishes in South Africa were formed?

Introduction
This chapter is devoted to exploring variations of ‘Native’ Englishes in nations that are
often placed in the first diaspora of the spread of English, or the Englishes that emerged
from Channel 1 (settler migration) and Channel 2 (slavery plantations). As Chapter 1
points out, categorizing Englishes into neat categories is an impossible task. This chapter
looks at ‘Native’ Englishes, rather than Inner Circle Englishes, as we understand that not
all native speakers of English live in the Inner Circle and not all speakers living in the
Inner Circle are native English speakers. The term ‘Native’, then, is in inverted commas
to indicate that this term is also problematic, in that many speakers of the ‘New’ Eng-
lishes are also native English speakers. As outlined in the Preface, Global Englishes prefers
to examine language use as a fluid construct, and thus problematizes the very notion that
borders can be drawn around malleable constructs as illusive as ‘varieties’ and ‘dialects’.
Nevertheless, the Global Englishes paradigm is built on the foundations provided by
World Englishes research, and thus to ignore this important research would be doing a
disservice to the understanding of the global use of English today. Therefore, this chapter
(and Chapter 5 on ‘New’ Englishes) will present variation in the English language
according to geographically defined ‘varieties’, with the explicit understanding that the
English language is not bound by geographic or linguistic boundaries. It is also important
to note that we are not geographically representative in our summary of variation in
‘Native’ Englishes and merely provide illustrative examples.
 Variation in ‘Native’ Englishes 73

In Section 4a we examine the Englishes typical of the British Isles, including

England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. We include linguistically codified varieties
across the British Isles from Ireland to East Anglia. In Section 4b the Englishes of
North America are discussed, with reference to regional and socio-economic divisions
across this continent. In Section 4c the Englishes of Australia and New Zealand are
explored, followed in Section 4d by the Englishes of the Caribbean. Each section of
this chapter is divided into identical subsections, examining the history and role of
English, followed by an outline of variation in phonology, lexis, grammar, and prag-
matics. Each section then concludes with a discussion of issues surrounding variation
in that region.
Much research into native varieties of English is based on corpus-based studies, which
aim to investigate authentic language use. Well-known corpora of native English speaker
usage include:

! COBUILD (at www.mycobuild.com/about-collins-corpus.aspx), a corpus of 4.5 billion

words that is updated monthly to include new coinages;
! The British National Corpus (BNC, at www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk);
! The Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE, at http://quod.lib.
umich.edu/m/micase/).

4a English language variation in the British Isles

The history of English in the British Isles

The history of English and the spread of language from the UK has been outlined in great
length in Chapter 1. It is important to note, however, that colonization elsewhere had
an effect on language within the UK, too. For example, there has been mass migration
of the Irish population into parts of England, Scotland, and Wales, which heavily influ-
enced the English spoken in these regions. Over 400,000 people living in England
and Wales were born in Ireland, and those with Irish ancestry living in the UK are in the
millions. Cities such as Liverpool are places of known continued historical Irish settle-
ment, and there have been links made between the distinctive accent spoken in that city
and Irish English.
Populations from colonies such as India were brought to the UK to fill labour needs,
as were people from African colonies. Later, before the Commonwealth Immigration
Act of 1962, citizens of Commonwealth nations could enter the UK freely, bringing in
large populations from India, the Caribbean, and the further-afield Australia and
New Zealand. Since then, other agreements between these nations, and citizenship
granted to those of British ancestry, has maintained a continuous stream of immigrants
from former colony nations. According to the National Census for 2011, for example,
694,148 people in the UK were born in India, a further 482,137 people were born in
Pakistan, and 211,500 people were from Bangladesh. In addition to migration from
Commonwealth nations, the region has seen a sharp increase in the mobility of popu-
lations from Europe due to its participation in the EU. Two million people living in
the UK in 2011, for example, were from EU countries, many of whom were from
post-2001 accession countries, like Poland, which accounted for more than 570,000 of
this total.
74 Variation in ‘Native’ Englishes

The role of English today in the British Isles

English is the only official language of England, although Cornish is a recognized regional
language, and Welsh is the co-official language of Wales. In Scotland, English is the sole
official language, although Scottish Gaelic is given equal respect as a recognized regional
language under the Gaelic Language (Scottish) Act of 2005. Irish is the first official
language in Ireland, although in practice English takes this role. According to 2011 census
data, 92.3 per cent of the population in the United Kingdom speak English as the only
language in the home. In the Republic of Ireland, English is the main language of the
household, and Polish is the second most widely used language (2.5 per cent of
the population), followed by Irish (41 per cent of the population can speak Irish, but only
1.8 per cent use it outside educational contexts).

Features of English in the British Isles

The divisions between the variation of Englishes spoken in the British Isles (the islands of
Great Britain and Ireland) depend greatly on what aspect of linguistic variation is used as
the benchmark for such divisions.

Sounds

P H ON EMI C V AR IAT IO N

Based on this dimension of variation, Hughes, Trudgill and Watt (2012) claim there are
five accent groups of the British Isles:

1 Scotland and the north of Ireland;

2 south of Ireland;
3 Wales;
4 north of England;
5 south of England.

The south of England is also commonly broken into two sub-groups: the south-west and
south-east. As has been seen in this book thus far, it is not easy to categorize Englishes
into neat categories, and exceptions and deviations can be found in and across these
five categories. Nevertheless, it is a useful starting point to begin the investigation of
regional variations.

VO WE L S

A number of studies have been carried out over past decades that aimed to codify var-
iation in vowels. This sections draws on a list of common words used by Wells (1982),
which were selected because of their representation of English vowel sounds. Wells used
RP and General American as reference accents to compare pronunciation differences
within this lexical set. For example, using the lexical set, it can be stated that the vowel
in strut is realized the same in RP and General American [V], unlike the vowel in bath,
which is different.
 Variation in ‘Native’ Englishes 75

Variation and conformity exists across and within these accent groups, depending on
the phonological features one is examining. For example, there appears to be great
conformity between Irish and northern accents in terms of the pronunciation of the strut
vowel. However, further examination finds that fundamental differences occur in other
pronunciations, such as the vowel sounds in bath and palm. Some of the more notable
differences in British Isles accents include the following.

! Vowel mergers of /V/ and /U/ – much research has focused on the strut–foot vowel
merger. The /V/ vowel does not appear in north of England accents (including the
Midlands) and some Irish accents, where the [U] vowel is realized in both words,
making the words strut and foot rhyme due to a historical phonemic split of /V/
and /U/ (Hughes et al., 2012), which did not take place in northern England or
Ireland.
! Long–short vowel mergers – Scottish speakers make little distinction between length
in /U/ and /u:/, or in /Q/ and /O:/, causing pool–pull and cot–caught to be homo-
phonous (Hughes et al., 2012).
! Lexical distribution of /a/ and /A:/ – a distinction in north and south England can
also be made with the vowels /a/ and /A:/. Northern accents have /a/ or /æ/ in bath,
but southerners say /A:/. This feature also causes the word pairs of pam–palm to sound
homophonous.

CO NS ON ANT S

Notable variation of consonant pronunciation includes the following.

! Differences in /N/ – within the group of north of England accents, a strong division
exists even between neighbouring varieties, such as the addition of a distinct final /g/
sound in sing in Central Lancaster English, as opposed to a final nasal /N/ in the
neighbouring areas north of Lancaster and elsewhere.
! Dental fricatives realized as alveolar plosives – dental consonants (as in think and
they) may be realized in Irish English as fricatives [θ ð], or as dental or alveolar plosives
[t d]. An Irish speaker may switch between [θ] and [t] or [ð] and [d] to accommodate
various interlocutors. As a general rule, however, the further north one goes in
Ireland, the more likely one is to encounter [θ] and [ð] as the norm.
! Dental fricatives realized as labiodental – the realization of labiodental fricatives [f v] in
place of RP accent dental fricatives [θ ð] also exists across the British Isles, and often
has developed independently in regions as diverse as Scotland, Yorkshire, London, the
south-west, and the south-east. It has been reported, for example, that [v] has been
used in place of [ð] in words like smooth in Glasgow, far from its historical origins
(Stuart-Smith, 2008).

As Chapter 2 has shown, the English language is always changing, and there have been
numerous historical instances where this change has occurred in a short space of time
(e.g. the Great Vowel Shift). Phonological shifts have occurred in recent times; an
example is the realization of /t/ as the glottal stop in words such as butter, which was
only observed in Scotland and the north of England in the first half of the century but
can be now found in most urban areas of Britain (Beal, 2008a).
76 Variation in ‘Native’ Englishes

PRO S OD IC VA RIA TIO N

Some accents found in Newcastle, Belfast, and Dublin have a distinct rising tone in
declarative sentences (Beal, 2008a), and thus mimic the intonation of a question.
Orkney English and Welsh speech (Upton, 2008) are also impressionistically referred to
as having a ‘sing-song’ lilt (Beal, 2008a, p. 140), although linguistic evidence to support
this is weak. In Irish English there is a falling pitch in yes/no questions. In many
accents across the region, schwa is also inserted in consonant clusters, as in words
like film, being realized as [l@m], a feature that is particularly distinct in both Scotland
and across Ireland.

Vocabulary
Lexical variation has received less attention than variation in phonology. However,
substantial variation exists. Notable lexical variation includes the following.

! Borrowing from indigenous languages – contact with the Celtic language in various
parts of the British Isles has resulted in the adoption of borrowed lexical items.
In Scotland, there has been minimal borrowing, as seen from everyday words like
glen (valley) and loch (lake), and in Ireland some Irish terms are used in English lan-
guage, e.g. gardai (police) and the craic (a good time).
! Borrowing from foreign languages – English was also influenced heavily by historical
invaders, free settlers, and immigrants. Old Norse influenced heavily settled areas of
Scotland, as did French due to the ‘Auld Alliance’ between Scotland and France from
1295 to 1560. For example, Old Norse influence in Scotland can be seen in the use
of words such as bairn (child).
! Same meaning, different words – local words for livestock, fish, and fauna, for
example, differ even over small geographic distances, with small fishing villages in
close proximity adopting different words for the fish caught and sold in their local
areas (although, with the centralization of markets in recent decades, a levelling of
vocabulary has occurred). Specific words, like splinter (wooden shard), can vary con-
siderably. An Atlas of English Dialects (Upton and Widdowson, 1996), for example,
offers nine alternative words (spell, spelk, speel, spill, splie, spool, splint, shiver, and silver)
for splinter in England alone, as shown in Figure 4.1.

Grammar-syntactic variation
As with phonological variation, morphological and syntactical variation in the British
Isles is immense. This section draws heavily from Kortmann and Upton (2008), and
illustrative examples are taken from the following sources, which cover six regions of
the British Isles, and further examples can be found within them: Irish English (Filp-
pula, 2008), Welsh English (Penhallurick, 2008), the north of England (Beal, 2008b),
Scottish English (Miller, 2008), south-west England (Wagner, 2008), and south-east
England (Anderwald, 2008). These regions are not exhaustive or exclusive, and further
variation exists within and across these regions. For example, in some parts of the
UK there is conformity across urban–rural and socio-economic lines, rather than
pure geography.
 Variation in ‘Native’ Englishes 77

spellc
spelk
<s\ (

S spell
fas/e
"shiver
speel^
splint
f>s//
hive
sliver

s X -
Figure 4.1 Lexical variation in England (adapted from Upton and Widdowson, 1996)

! Aspect – the use of progressive aspects (verb + -ing) in a wider range of applications is
observable in Scotland and Ireland, such as: Barbara is knowing the answer (Barbara
knows the answer), and is also observable in Wales (Kortmann, 2008).
! Irregular verb variation – irregular verbs occur in Scottish English, such as brung
instead of brought, writ instead of wrote, and selt instead of sold. In northern England, a
levelling of past and present participle forms is observed, sometimes occurring with
the present particle replacing the past form (do–done–done instead of do–did–done),
and at other times the past form replacing the present participle (bite–bit–bit instead of
bite–bit–bitten).
! Adverbs – adverbs frequently take the same form as the adjective and this is pervasive
across all regions in the British Isles, as in I did good (I did well) and I won that easy
(I won that easily).
! Plurality and concord with collective nouns – in Scotland, the following may be heard:
the windies wiz aw broken (‘was’ replacing ‘were’ in stating ‘the windows were all
broken’); and the lambs is oot the field (‘is’ replacing ‘are’). In Ireland, statements like the
town is changed and improved in recent years (‘is’ replacing ‘has’) and there was four of us (‘was’
replaced ‘were’) are common. Similar examples of subject–verb disagreement are found
in the south-east of England. Of interest is the Northern Subject Rule, which dictates
that ‘a verb takes an -s in the plural, where the subject is a noun or noun phrase, but
not when it is a pronoun’ (Beal, 2008b, p. 381). The rule dictates that the children sings
beautifully would be acceptable, but not they sings beautifully. In other areas associated
with northern syntax, such as Ireland, examples of language that break this rule have
been observed, such as they learns it and we bakes it (Filppula, 2008).
78 Variation in ‘Native’ Englishes

! Negation – we see variation in Scottish English, such as she’s no leaving (she isn’t
leaving) and ‘none’ used to indicate an absence of ability, as in Rab can sing nane (Rob
cannot sing). Never is often used as a term of negation across regions, such as in state-
ments like I never knew he had a brother. Double negation also exists across the British
Isles in examples like it didn’t make no sense, although it is more widespread in the south
than in the north of England (Kortmann, 2008). Statements such as he’s not been well
lately are frequent in Irish English and northern English, among other regions.
! Auxiliary verbs – this varies considerably, and each region is subject to different rules.
For example, want is used instead of should or ought in both Scotland and northern
England, such as in the example you’ll want to see a dentist about that tooth! Double
modal use occurs in these same two regions, such as in the examples he’ll can help us in
the morning (Scotland) and I might could change it (northern England).
! Pronouns – in Wales, a greater array of pronouns is used than in other regions, with
thee, thou, thy, thine, and yourn still in use, although traditional dialects in northern
England have also retained the use of thee and thy. The south-west of England sees
substitution of pronouns, such as the use of I instead of me in cases like she did give I an
earful. Substitution, to a lesser degree, can also be seen in the south-east in the cases of:
me used widely instead of my (as in let me grab me coat); us used instead of we (as in us
kids can ride for free); and us used instead of me (as in give us a go in place of ‘give me a
go’). The south-west also sees gender-neutral pronouns replaced by gendered pro-
nouns when referring to inanimate objects (she’s a beautiful car), although this feature
is receding to the point of being used in just 1 per cent of cases (Wagner, 2008).
! Word order – numerous variations can be found, including the placement of
predicates at the front of sentences in Wales, as in the example right you are (referred
to as ‘predicate fronting’). Another syntactic feature referred to as ‘dislocation’ occurs
in the north of England, as in the example of he’s got his head screwed on, has Dave
(Beal, 2008b).

As a general observation, when certain features of morphology and syntax are compared
across regions, a north–south divide is evident. Kortmann (2008) compares these features
in a table, which has been condensed and summarized in Table 4.1. In this table, a single
check mark indicates that use has been observed, although it might not be frequently
used, and a double check indicates that use has been observed in a more prevalent
manner.

Attitudes toward English variation in the British Isles

In modern times, there seems to be a dichotomy of movement towards, and away from,
standardization. While RP seems alive and well in UK political circles, in pop culture
regional varieties of English are thriving. The Beatles’ popularity did much to raise
the international profile of the Liverpool accent. Likewise, celebrities like Cheryl Cole (a
singer and a judge on a popular UK television show) have done much to raise the profile
of the Newcastle accent. However, grammar-syntactical variation from the ‘norm’ is still
heavily associated with a lack of education, and thus attracts more negative social eva-
luation. While geography plays a major role in determining an accent in the UK, social
boundaries also play a pivotal role; an RP accent can be found in almost any region of
the UK, and is determined by socio-economic factors rather than geographic boundaries.
 Variation in ‘Native’ Englishes 79

Table 4.1 Kortmann's (2008, p. 491) synopsis of variation in parts of the British Isles
North South
Scottish Irish Northern Welsh South-West South-East
English English English English English English
Second person plural pronouns:
youse, y'all, you guys P PP PP Í Í Í
Progressive tense widening:
She's knowing that well P PP P Í Í Í
Be as perfect auxiliary:
They're not finished yet P PP P Í P Í
Double modals:
I tell you what we might should do PP Í PP Í Í Í
Must for conclusions drawn:
This mustn't be true PP P PP Í Í P
What you doing? P PP PP Í Í Í
You get the point? P PP PP PP Í Í
Ain't for negative ‘be’ Í Í P P P P
Ain't for negative ‘have’ Í Í Í Í P P
I wasn't a doing nothing Í Í Í P P P
They had them in their hair, innit? P Í Í PP P P
What in relative clauses:
This is the man what painted Í PP Í P P P
my house

4b English language variation in Canada and the USA

The history of English in North America

English was brought to North America in the form of permanent English-speaking
settlements from the early 1600s, and the historic patterns of settlement lend much to
the differences in dialects spoken there today. The first regions to be settled were the
eastern parts of the USA and, due to a historic lack of mobility across these regions,
variation in these areas tends to be strongest. With the Louisiana purchase of 1803 and
the California gold rush soon afterwards, the population spread across the continent
rapidly. From a linguistic perspective, these later-settled areas saw more dialect mixing
and thus more conformity across them. For example, a Seattle resident and a Los
Angeles resident might have indistinguishable accents, despite living 2,000 kilometres
apart; however, a Boston accent and a New York accent are completely distinguish-
able, as are a Philadelphian accent and a Virginian accent, despite being less than
300 kilometres apart.
The emergence of a standard American English did not happen in the same way as
in the British Isles. In fact, Kretzschmar (2010, p. 101) argues that standard American
English is an institutional construct, with ‘no native speakers’. Standard American is
characterized by speech that avoids marked accent features, rather than conforming to
a given ‘standard’. This does not mean that it is neutral, but that it is devoid of char-
acteristics usually associated with particular regional American accents. Thus, a speaker
80 Variation in ‘Native’ Englishes

could pronounce the vowel in cob as [kAb] or [kOb] yet still be considered a speaker of
standard American, as this variation is not associated with a marked accent (Kretzsch-
mar, 2008). Thus, the basis of a standard American accent is its avoidance of features
that make marked accents like those of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, or Minne-
sota distinct.

The role of English today in North America

In the USA, English is the de facto official language for most political, administrative,
and educational functions. According to 2011 census data, it is the main language of 79.4
per cent of the population. Spanish speakers constitute half of the 21 per cent of the
population who speak another language at home.
In Canada, English is the official language alongside French, and 17.4 per cent of
the population are bilingual in both official languages. More than 20 per cent of
the Canadian population reported a mother tongue other than English or French, but
only 6.2 per cent reported this language as being the sole language of the household.

Features of English in North America

This section illustrates variation in English usage, with illustrative examples from Canada
and the USA, although limited space has resulted in an uneven coverage of variation
(especially for Canada). It might be useful to first crudely summarize some distinctive
features that differentiate American English from British English, and this is done in
Table 4.2.

Sounds

P H ON EMI C V AR IAT IO N

Phonological variation sometimes manifests in a geographic distinction, sometimes in

an urban–rural division, and at times according to ethnicity. Because of this, it is diffi-
cult to categorize into neat groups. For example, a small geographic region of the
USA, such as New Orleans, may contain speakers of a variety of accents, including an
urban southern accent, a rural southern white accent, an African American Vernacular
accent, a Cajun creole accent, and a standard American accent. But in crude terms,
the continent can be divided into the following accents: Newfoundland; Atlantic

Table 4.2 Differences between American English and British English

American English British English (RP)
Rhoticity Rhotic, e.g. /\/ in car Non-rhotic
Vowels /Q/ in lot and /æ/ in bath /A/ in lot and /A:/ in bath
Word stress First syllable stress in locate Second syllable stress in locate
Spelling Color; center; canceled Colour; centre; cancelled
Lexis Sweater Jumper
Grammar I have a car I've got a car
 Variation in ‘Native’ Englishes 81

Provinces/Maritimes; east New England; west New England; New York; Western
Pennsylvania; Canada (southern regions of British Columbia to Ontario); the north;
inland north; mid-Atlantic; mid-Western; and the south, including the inland south
and Texas south. This, of course, is not without the inherent difficulties of drawing
geographic boundaries around a notion as fluid as language variation. A geographical
map of accents is provided on the companion website.

VO WE L S

! Vowel mergers – a vowel shift occurred in Canadian English, causing /O/ to be rea-
lized as [Q:].
! Vowel lengthening – the above-mentioned shift, when coupled with a vowel
lengthening prevalent across much of North America, has resulted in homophonous
pairing of words like cot and caught, and don and dawn (Levey, 2010).
! Diphthong shift – the phenomenon of Canadian rising has also received much
attention, and describes a tendency to raise the diphthongs /AU/ and /ai/ (that is, to
realize the first vocalic components of these diphthongs as more close vowels), but this
phenomenon is also found in many parts of the USA. The famous example is the raising
of /AU/ to [VU] in words like about, erroneously mimicked by Americans as a boot.
! Vowels are realized as diphthongs – a distinct property of southern American English
is the diphthongization of short vowels, e.g. the /i/ vowel in think is realized as
vowels in the range of [εi~æi] (Thomas, 2008).
! Vowel mergers – splits on some vowel pairs, with a famous example being the
Mary–merry–marry lexical set. For most of the USA and Canada, the vowels before
the intervocalic /r/ have been levelled, to be equivalent of the vowel in square.
Thus, in standard American, these three words are all pronounced /Æmeıri/ or
/Æmε@ri/, depending on accent. However, in the New York City, New Jersey,
and Boston vicinity a three-way distinction is still present (/Æmε@ri/, /Æmεri/, and
/Æmæri/), and in parts of Pennsylvania a two-way distinction is observed (with marry
being distinct). Linguists have stated that this levelling was not historically prevalent
across the USA, with it being more noticeable in younger generations than older
generations in the south (Thomas, 2008). It is possible that this difference may
become levelled entirely across the North American continent in the future. The
mobility of population in the USA is causing greater conformity in recent years,
attested by the fact that Florida accents are closer to the accents of the north-east
than to those of the south.

CO NS ON ANT S

! Deletion of phonemes in consonant clusters – in many varieties, the deletion of the

final sound in a consonant cluster occurs at the end of words, resulting in words like
tas’ (task) and help’ (helped).
! Dental fricatives – the realization of /θ/ and /ð/ to produce [t] and [d] is less
common across North America than we saw in the British Isles. However, it does
happen infrequently in accents such as Newfoundland and African American Verna-
cular. The labiodental, replacing dental, fricatives (e.g. /v/ for /ð/) in intervocalic
environments occurs even less frequently.
82 Variation in ‘Native’ Englishes

Vocabulary
Lexical variation includes the following.

! Borrowing from indigenous languages – Canadian English originally adopted

more borrowings from indigenous languages, resulting in words like kayak and
toboggan, which have since spread to other parts of the world. In general,
indigenous languages have made minimal impact on the English spoken in the
USA.
! Borrowing from non-indigenous languages – in French-speaking regions, French has
infiltrated the language, as is the case for Montréal, Quebec, and Louisiana. Many
African words also entered the English language through the creole languages and
have since spread to English worldwide, such as tote (to carry by hand) via Gullah and
mojo (a magical, effective power) via Louisiana Creole. Some areas of the USA have
seen modern lexical borrowing in recent decades, due to immigration from Spanish-
speaking linguistic communities.
! Same meaning, different words – words attributed to everyday objects differ
greatly. For some, we can see a historical trend, with tennis shoes used as the pre-
ferred term in the earlier settled north-eastern part of the USA, but sneakers used
elsewhere. For other words, there is a more-or-less north–south divide, such as
crayfish used in the north but crawfish preferred in the south and most of the west
(with large pockets of speakers who prefer crawdad). Other words show an east–
west split, such as the use of the phrase drinking fountain in the west and water
fountain in the east (with bubbler the preferred term in pockets). A carbonated drink
poses a bigger challenge, with soda being the preferred term in the historical north-
east and the cities of Chicago and St. Louis, but also in areas including and sur-
rounding California. Pop is the preferred term in the north of the USA and Canada,
and coke in the south.

Grammar-syntactic variation
As with other regions, grammar-syntactic variation in North American Englishes is
immense, with illustrative examples provided as follows.

! Adverbs – the use of adverbs without -ly is pervasive across the North American
continent (she runs quick).
! Negation – double negation is pervasive throughout the continent (he didn’t do nothing).
! Pronouns – gendered pronouns (she’s a beautiful table) are noted across many regions of
the continent.
! Tense and aspect – the levelling of tenses has followed a similar pattern to that of
the British Isles, with tenses being levelled to include a broader range of meaning.
In many cases, the past participle has been replaced with the past form and vice
versa. Examples from colloquial American are: we have swam there; she’d sung; I
seen something strange. Unlike British Isles Englishes, the plain verb, in place of the
past and past participle in American English, is much more prevalent, such as in
the following examples from Murray and Simon (2008): he swim in that river just
about every day of his life and he come in about 15 minutes late. The bare root used in
 Variation in ‘Native’ Englishes 83

the past tense is particularly pervasive throughout African American Vernacular

and Gullah.

At times, there is also a tendency for grammar-syntactic features to be observed in ethnic

or social varieties. For example, the perfective done is observed in pockets across the
continent (e.g. that squirrel was done eat in Appalachian English (Montgomery, 2008)), and
is also pervasive in African American Vernacular. In African American Vernacular, the
perfective ‘done’ is also constructed differently, using the past tense (e.g. they done used all
the good ones), and it is also used to describe a future conditional state, as in my ice cream be
done melted by the time we get there (Wolfram, 2008).
There is also a north–south division. For example, the second person plural pro-
noun y’all is used pervasively in the south, in favour of you guys in the north and
the west (although geographic pockets prefer alternative terms such as yous in
Newfoundland).
Thus, morphological and syntactical variation in North American English is complex.
At times, variation occurs on geographical dimensions (such as the use of y’all), but often
urban–rural factors, socio-economic factors, linguistic influence, and historical factors are
more important in determining the morphological and syntactic composition of the
Englishes used today across North America.

Attitudes toward English variation in North America

Milroy and Milroy (1999, p. 160) state,

In the USA, bitter divisions created by slavery and the civil war shaped a language
ideology focused on racial discrimination, rather than on the class distinctions
characteristic of an older monarchical society, like Britain, which continue to shape
language attitudes.

North American Englishes that stray from standard American English generally attract
negative societal views, such as a commonplace distasteful public disparagement of
African American English (Milroy and Milroy, 1999). Appalachian accents are often
used to depict uneducated characters, such as in The Simpsons (an American TV Show),
where linguistic variation is used to make a social distinction between Cletus’s family (a
poor, rural family) and the rest of the townspeople. When the movie Star Wars: The
Phantom Menace was first released, there was controversy that the bumbling, idiotic
character of Jar Jar Binks used speech patterns reminiscent of African American
Vernacular Englishes.
On the other hand, some marked accents are associated with positive values, notably
southern ones which are often more favourably viewed in the south than the standard
American accent. Much of this view is based in the bitter history of the North and the
South, which has created separate cultural identities. In recent American politics, it seems
that a standard American accent (Barrack Obama, Ronald Reagan) or a southern accent
(George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush) are preferred for presidential can-
didates. The politics of standard language ideology permeate deep in US history, which
perhaps explains why standard American is created from avoidance of features that
deviate from such ideals.
84 Variation in ‘Native’ Englishes

4c English language variation in Australia and New Zealand

The history of English in Australia and New Zealand

The Englishes that emerged in Australia and New Zealand were the result of a mixing of
contact dialects from numerous parts of the British Isles. This type of mixing of dialects is
referred to as koineization, which involves wide-scale levelling of mutually intelligible
dialects. The koineization processes in New Zealand and Australian accents were very
similar, and largely occurred during heavy periods of colonization around the turn of the
nineteenth century. This might explain why some untrained ears might confuse these
accents. However, the variables, such as proportions of dialects in each of the country’s
koineization mix and contact with other languages, have in fact created quite distinct
variation across and within each of the regions.
Burridge (2010) discusses a number of stages in the formation of new dialects in the
koineization process that involve initial levelling of minority features, followed by variation
among speakers, then stabilization, and finally nativization of local patterns in language. In
the cases of Australia and New Zealand, there is evidence that the first generation of those
born in these new colonies adopted their parents’ accents, with considerable mixing and
variation, but that the accents began to stabilize with the following generation.
New Zealand is a unique case because it is the youngest ‘Native’ English variety of the
British settler colonies and audio recordings exist to document its full development. A
distinct variety of English is noticeable in such recordings as early as 1870 (Maclagan,
2010), a variation that is also referred to in written documents at the time, which report
a ‘colonial twang’. This is quite remarkable because it indicates that the process of stabi-
lization happened within a couple of generations of heavy settlement.
In Australia, koineization occurred with a mix of accents from across Great Britain and
Ireland, with London-based accents being the dominant type (Burridge, 2010). New
Zealand, on the other hand, comprised settlers from the rural south-east of England, as
well as from Scotland and Ireland. Irish English is not thought to have had a huge impact
in the region, despite being well represented, and it has been argued that the Irish accent
was easily distinguishable and identifiable at the time, and thus effort may have been
undertaken to avoid rather than emulate it, meaning that features of a distinctly Irish
accent receded rather than becoming adopted (Hickey, 2010). This might partially
explain the notable absence of the rhotic post-vocalic /r/ across this region, except in the
Southland region of New Zealand.
There were great differences in the make up of settlers in each region. For example,
Scottish immigrants in 1871 in the Southland region of New Zealand constituted 61 per
cent of the population, but less than 10 per cent in the Taranaki region (Gordon and
Maclagan, 2008), which, naturally, caused quite distinct accents to originally develop
(and may partially explain the rhotic accent that is found in the region today). However,
the mobility of the population over the years caused a levelling of accents throughout
most of New Zealand, so that far fewer differences in accent are found today.

The role of English today in Australia and New Zealand

English is the de facto official language of Australia, which has no stated official language.
It is an official language in New Zealand, alongside Ma-ori and sign language. In
 Variation in ‘Native’ Englishes 85

New Zealand, English is spoken in 95 per cent of homes, although it is often used
alongside other community languages in migrant populations. In Australia, it is the main
language spoken in 80 per cent of homes, with others using a variety of community
languages, such as Mandarin, Italian, Greek, Vietnamese, and Cantonese, often alongside
English in bilingual families and communities.
It is worth noting that English plays a major role in other nations in this region of the
world. English is the official language of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Palau, Papua
New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. Apart from
Micronesia, where English is the sole official language, in other nations English is used
to varying degrees alongside native languages (e.g. Fijian, Tongan), non-native languages
(e.g. Hindi in Fiji, French in Vanuatu), and creoles (e.g. Tok Pisin in Papua
New Guinea).

Features of English in Australia and New Zealand

As with previous sections, in this section we will examine phonemic and prosodic
variation, lexical variation, grammar-syntactic variation, and pragmatic variation.

Sounds

P H ON EMI C V AR IAT IO N

Famous differences in vowel pronunciation across these regions include the following.

! Vowel mergers – the merger of the vowels found in the words near and square to the
/i@/ diphthong in the New Zealand region causes bear and bare to be pronounced the
same as beer.
! Vowel distinctions – the kit vowel in New Zealand English is ‘notoriously centralized,
to such an extent that it is parodied by Australians using their strut [V] vowel’ (Bauer
and Warren, 2008, p. 46). Australians take delight in mimicking the New Zealand
accent in pronouncing fish and chips as [fVS @n tSVps], and New Zealanders do the
same to Australians, using their [i:] vowel in saying [fi:S @n tSi:ps]. In reality, New
Zealanders’ pronunciation is closer to [f@S @n tSps], and Australians use the short /ı/
sound.
! Vowel distinctions /æ/ and /a:/ – there are class and regional differences in the pro-
nunciation of certain vowels, such as /æ/ or /a:/ in words like chance and castle
(Bradley, 2008), with middle classes favouring the latter. There is also a geographic
distinction here, with some cities that are known to project pride in the fact that they
were not established as a convict settlement, such as Adelaide, also favouring the
latter. (Note: the bath vowel in Australian [a:] and British [A:] differs slightly.)

CO NS ON ANT V AR IAT IO N

Unique differences in consonant pronunciation include the following.

! Rhoticity – speech is generally non-rhotic across the region, except in some pockets
like the Southland region of New Zealand. However, it has been noted that in New
86 Variation in ‘Native’ Englishes

Zealand words like Ireland include a [\] in order to semantically differentiate it from
island (Bauer and Warren, 2008).
! /t+j/ and /d+j/ sequences in Australian English (in words like Tuesday and due) are
realized as affricates [tS dZ] when they precede the /U/ and /u/ vowels, resulting
in homophonous realization of words like dune and June. This feature is also common
in RP.

PRO S OD IC VA RIA TIO N

Australian English has been the subject of a number of studies that highlight the
high rising tone of declarative sentences, mimicking the pitch pattern of a question.
This is particularly noticeable in younger generations, and especially teenage girls.
As it is particularly common in descriptions and narratives, it has been thought to
have developed from a need to seek verification that the listener is following what
is being said (Horvath, 2008), and not from insecurity, as others have proposed in
the past.

Vocabulary
! Borrowing from indigenous languages – lexical borrowing from indigenous languages
was much more prevalent in New Zealand than in Australia. In Australia, lexical
borrowing mainly occurred in the naming of aboriginal or local environmental items,
such as boomerang (hunting weapon), billabong (waterhole), kangaroo, and coolabah (an
indigenous tree), and half of Australian place names (e.g. Geelong, Bondi [Beach],
Wollongong, Toowoomba). In New Zealand, borrowing extends further than items
associated with indigenous culture, and in recent years there has been a resurgence of
Ma-ori language borrowing into the English language. Many Ma-ori words now appear
in public written discourse without English glossing, much to the confusion of first-
time visitors to New Zealand (Maclagan, 2010).
! Same meaning, different word – despite the mobility of the population, which caused
a great deal of levelling of pronunciation across the continent of Australasia, lexical
variation within the region has persevered. Walking in the woods is called hiking in
Australia and tramping in New Zealand; light footwear are jandals in New Zealand and
thongs in Australia; and a sweater is a jumper in Australia and a jersey in New Zealand.
Differences are not always defined by country. The preferred term for swimwear is
togs in Queensland and New Zealand, but bathers in southern parts of Australia and
swimmers in New South Wales.
! Preserved vocabulary and idiomatic expressions – a note of interest here is the pre-
servation of lexis that have been largely dropped from use in their UK origins.
Examples include billy (a pot for boiling water) from Scotland, fair dinkum (authentic)
from Derbyshire, cobber (mate) from Suffolk, and stone the crows (expression of surprise)
from cockney (Burridge, 2010).
! Abbreviation – another common feature is lexical shortening, including the addition
of the famous -o and -ie suffixes, typical of Australian English. The result is words like
tellie (television), chrissie pressies (Christmas presents), barbie (barbeque), and journo
(journalist). These features are also found in New Zealand English.
 Variation in ‘Native’ Englishes 87

Grammar-syntactic variation
Much of the variation in Australia and New Zealand mimics some of that found in the
previous two sections of this chapter on North American and British Isles Englishes.
Common variations, such as tense levelling, pronounce substitution, double negatives,
and subject–verb (dis)agreement are all widely found across these regions. Rather than
rehash such examples, this section will note some areas of difference.

! Tense and aspect – studies have shown younger speakers in Australia are levelling
irregular verbs, with 76 per cent of those aged 65 maintaining a spring–sprang–sprung
distinction, compared with 24 per cent of those aged 10–24 who made a spring–
sprung–sprung distinction (Collins and Peters, 2008). New Zealand English is more
conservative in terms of the regularization of irregular verbs (Hundt et al., 2004),
maintaining distinctions that have been levelled elsewhere.
! Modal verbs – in other areas, however, Hundt et al., 2004 show that New Zealand
English has changed more quickly than the Englishes of Australia, such as the shedding
of the modal shall. Modals in Australia and New Zealand are also of interest. In addition
to the decline of shall in favour of will, and should in favour of ought, the region also sees
better or gotta instead of have to or should (e.g. we better go and we gotta go).
! Pronouns – gendered pronouns in Australia attract the attention of some linguists (e.g.
Pawley, 2004) who note inconsistency of use of gendered pronouns, as well as a
division between objects that are consistently masculine (e.g. plants, animals) and
objects that are consistently feminine (e.g. environment, buildings). Interestingly, a
vehicle with an unknown driver is masculine (e.g. a truck came flying out in front of
me and he was swerving all over the place), but vehicles themselves are feminine (e.g. she’s
a beautiful car, that one).

Pragmatics
A famous example in recent years of pragmatic variation of Australian English is the use
of swear words. In a 2006 campaign, the Australian tourism board adopted the slogan
‘Where the bloody hell are you?’ in television spots and billboards, which was censored
in the UK for use of the word bloody, and flagged in Canada for use of the word hell.
The case serves as a good example of differences in the subtle pragmatic weight of terms
between English-speaking cultures.

Attitudes toward English variation in Australia

The Australian media has been very active in bringing the accents of politicians to the
forefront. The Courier-Mail newspaper, for example, has remarked how former prime
minister, Julia Gillard, had ‘a wonderful Australian accent and a genuinely democratic
one’, associating broad accents with political prowess. This was something Gillard was
acutely aware of, as illustrated in her address to an international audience in Brussels
where she drew attention to her accent by stating, ‘Perhaps I should start by saying that,
with my broad Australian accent, even the English speakers in the room may want to
access the translation to make sure they’re understanding my words.’ Other politicians,
such as Alexander Downer, have suffered due to their ‘cultivated’ Australian accent
towards which the Australian media have been less forgiving, labelling it ‘posh’ and
88 Variation in ‘Native’ Englishes

‘plummy’. In 2013, the then opposition leader, Tony Abbott, stated that his political
party would ‘always speak with a strong Australian accent’ when targeting a member of
the prime minister’s cabinet, who spoke with a broad Scottish accent, as not being ‘local’
or ‘home grown’ (Farr, 2013). Ministers then singled out Belgian-born Mathias Cor-
mann as a member of Abbott’s cabinet who media pundits stated sounded ‘more like
Arnold Schwarzenegger than Slim Dusty [an Australian country singer]’ (Farr, 2013).
Because of such public attitudes, ‘posh’ Australian accents are very likely to vanish in the
following decades as they are seen as the remnant of a colonial past (Moore, 2007).

4d English language variation in the Caribbean

This section looks at variation in English in the Caribbean separately from the rest of the
North American continent, as English not only spread via different channels but the
linguistic developments in the regions were also very different.

Most importantly, in the present linguistic perspective, different settlements patterns

have resulted in North American varieties of English being characterised by dialect
transmission (with some degree of koineization, but also innovation), as against
Caribbean forms of English being shaped by process of creolization.
(Schneider, 2008a, p. 23)

For this reason, this chapter looks at variation of English in the Caribbean separately,
while acknowledging the inherent dangers in making any geographic or historical divi-
sion of linguistic boundaries. A prime example is the English of the Bahamas, which was
also a settler destination for Anglo-Bahamian British loyalists who escaped the US after
the Revolutionary War (Childs and Wolfram, 2008), and for Gullah-speaking Afro-
Bahamians moving from South Carolina and Georgia. Similarly, Barbados developed
very differently to other plantation colonies in the Caribbean, due to its long 300-year
British colonization history, and the fact that settlers outnumbered slaves in the first
25 years of its settlement, marking a huge difference in language exposure in the creoli-
zation process (Blake, 2008).

The history of English in the Caribbean

In Chapter 2, the development of creoles and pidgins was discussed, giving the example
of plantation creoles of the Caribbean. Creolization occurred in contexts where uprooted
and linguistically diverse populations on new plantations needed to use English as a
lingua franca to communicate with English-speaking masters and with each other. As a
result, the creolization process occurred rapidly and other languages were abandoned,
leaving English as the sole native language of new communities. The history of English
use is quite different from the ‘New’ Englishes in trade and exploitation colonies (see
Chapter 5), where the creolization process was much more drawn out and where English
was (and still is) used alongside other languages. The history of English across the
Caribbean is not uniform: while nations like Jamaica earned independence early, others,
like Barbados, were British colonies until 1966. Likewise, unlike most Caribbean islands,
the Bahamas was not a stable plantation colony from the outset due to its infertile soil,
and was a haven for pirates and then British loyalists, only later becoming a colony of
 Variation in ‘Native’ Englishes 89

mostly unsuccessful plantations. Such differences all affect language development, and
have given birth to variation in English throughout the region.

The role of English today in the Caribbean

English is the official language of a number of Caribbean nations, including Antigua and
Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint
Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, and Belize. Only Jamaica
lists its English creole (Patois) alongside English as a co-official language, although Bajan is a
recognized regional language in Barbados. In most nations an official distinction is not made
between the creole English and the official language. As mentioned in Chapter 2, the dis-
tinctions between an English creole and the English language are blurry, with the language
taking on basilect and acrolect forms. Simmons-McDonald (2010) makes a distinction
throughout much of the region between foreign English and ‘radio and television’ English,
compared with colloquial English and creole English, indicating that a more standard form
of English is used in the public sphere and that creole English is used in the social spheres.

Features of English in the Caribbean

This sections aims to introduce notions of English variation in the Caribbean, providing
illustrative examples from the most populous regions, namely Jamaica, Trinidad and
Tobago, the Bahamas, and Barbados.

Sounds

P H ON EMI C V AR IAT IO N

Vowels Vowel differences worth noting in the Caribbean region are often used to
group Caribbean Englishes with either American or British accent families.

! Vowel mergers – in Trinidadian English, vowel mergers appear, such as the vowels in
minimal pairs, bird–bud, body–buddy, cut–cot–caught, bit–beat, and harm–ham. Words like
hat and heart are only distinguishable by vowel length (James and Youssef, 2008).
! Bahamian English vowels are more similar with North American than Caribbean
varieties in the cases of their goat and lot vowels (Childs and Wolfram, 2008).
! The open-mid central vowel /V/ in strut is prominent in Bajan English, but is rare in
North American Englishes. Anglo-Bahamian Englishes are often compared with UK
varieties of English (Childs and Wolfram, 2008).
! Bajan English has a distinctive pronunciation of the price and prize diphthong as [VI],
which causes visitors to comment that Bajan English is somewhat ‘reminiscent of the
west of England, or an Irish brogue’ (Blake, 2008, p. 315).

P H ON EM I C V AR IAT IO N IN C ON SO N AN TS

Consonant variation in the Caribbean worth noting includes the following.

! Dental fricatives – the stopping of voiced and voiceless dental fricatives is char-
acteristic of Caribbean English, with /θ/ realized as [t], as in think, and /ð/ realized
90 Variation in ‘Native’ Englishes

as [d], as in these. In Jamaican Patois, this realization is the norm, but not always in
Jamaican English, indicating a point of distinction between the two. In the Baha-
mas, stopping of voiced dental fricatives is common, but stopping of voiceless dental
fricatives is less common. Unlike some UK Englishes and African American Ver-
nacular English, [v] rarely replaces /ð/ in words like father, nor does [f] replace /θ/
in words like tooth.
! [v] is used in place of /w/ in Bahamian English, and is especially prominent among
the Anglo-Bahamian community (Childs and Wolfram, 2008).
! Rhoticity – Caribbean accents tend to be non-rhotic across most of the region,
except in Bajan which is fully rhotic across all communities of speakers. This ties most
Caribbean Englishes closer to UK varieties than those found in North America.
! There is a tendency in the Bahamas to delete the initial /h/ phoneme in words
like harm, hat, hurry (to produce ‘arm, ‘at, ‘urry). Tobagonian English also omits
the /h/ sound in most words where it is the initial sound (James and Youssef,
2008). The Anglo-Bahamian have been noted to add an initial [h] sound in words
like eggs (to produce heggs), perhaps due to over-correction (Childs and Wolfram,
2008).
! Consonant clusters – in Togonian English, sounds are omitted in consonant clusters,
such as from becoming fom and smell becoming mell (James and Youssef, 2008).

PRO S OD IC VA RIA TIO N

Prosodic variations in Caribbean English worth noting include the following.

! High rising tone – a high rising intonation tends to be a long-running characteristic of

Bahamian English, linking it with more recent (unrelated) phenomenon occurring in
Australia (Childs and Wolfram, 2008).
! Vowel assimilation in Jamaican English occurs across syllables, as in see it pronounced
[si:t], and syllable amalgamation occurs across syllables like do it, pronounced [dwi:t] or
go on, pronounced [gwa:n] (Devonish and Harry, 2008).
! Pitch – Jamaican Creole and Tobagonian English use difference in pitch to differ-
entiate homonyms. Pitch is used to differentiate between father (meaning parent) and
father (meaning priest) (Devonish and Harry, 2008; James and Youssef, 2008).

Vocabulary
Due to the process of creolization, many African words from the substrate languages
entered the superstrate language. Examples include Bahamian words like obeah, meaning
witchcraft. Because of the links between the USA and the Bahamas, some lexical items
entered Bahamian English through Gullah, such as hoe-cakes (cornmeal cake), gulin
(greedy), and ninny (breast) (Reaser and Torbert, 2008).

Grammar-syntactic variation
The grammar-syntactic innovation in Caribbean Englishes is the subject of intense lin-
guistic study, and to illustrate some features of the Englishes in this region we draw on
 Variation in ‘Native’ Englishes 91

the following: Reaser and Torbert (2008) on Bahamian English; Patrick (2008) on
Jamaican Creole English; and James and Youssef (2008) on Trinidad and Tobagonian
English.
Grammar-syntactical features indicative of Caribbean English include the following:

! Tense and aspect – in the Bahamas (and, to a lesser extent, Jamaica), it is common to
omit the verb to be in certain constructions, such as you [are] fat, I [am] smart, and he [is]
over there. The levelling of verbs to the present tense is also pervasive throughout
the Caribbean (e.g. he swim yesterday). Tense is often indicated in Caribbean creole
Englishes through use of markers preceding verbs (e.g. past tense indicated with the
addition of ben in I ben run). The completive done, as in he done eat it in Bahamian and
Jamaican, is used in place of the past perfect tense.
! Auxiliary verbs – double-modals (he might could come) are common in Jamaican
English, but not in Bahamian.
! Pronouns – like many British varieties of English discussed in Section 4a, substitution
of pronouns is pervasive across the Caribbean. Gendered pronouns (e.g. she’s a good
boat) are also pervasive, perhaps due to the influence of seafarers in the islands.

Attitudes toward English variation in Jamaica

Jamaica makes an interesting case of attitudes towards variation in English, with its
distinction between English and Patois as co-official languages, creating a political view
that they are two languages. Literature on Jamaica often refers to speakers who are
proficient in both varieties as bilingual, and those fluent in just Patois or English as
monolingual. While English is used in formal public settings and in written discourse,
Patois is used in informal private settings and in oral discourse. The lines between the
two languages, however, are not as distinct as policy indicates, and, as education in
Jamaica has traditionally moved speakers towards Jamaican English and away from
Patois, features of Jamaican English regularly make their way into spoken Patois.
Therefore, language use, education, and social class are very intertwined in Jamaican
speech patterns.
Devonish and Harry (2008) argue that, for many Jamaicans, English is a second lan-
guage, acquired through education as the language of formal speech and writing, and
that the creole is spoken as a native language. However, we claim that the same argu-
ment can be made for perceived ‘illegitimate’ varieties around the world. For example,
speakers from the Appalachian area of the USA learn to shed characteristics of their
native speech in their learning of the target ‘idealized’ language through formal educa-
tion. However, due to a political process of legitimizing Patois in Jamaica, which has not
happened to Appalachian English in the USA, a Jamaican speaker is considered bilingual
and can be proud of the knowledge of both languages, while an Appalachian English
speaker is viewed by society as deficient in language education.
In Jamaica, ‘recent years have seen the “functional dethronement” of Standard English
as the exclusive language of public-formal domains and there is a shift toward a local
variety as the new standard’ (Melchers and Shaw, 2011, p. 123). Such is the power of
legitimizing English varieties in politics and society, highlighting the importance of
World Englishes research.
92 Variation in ‘Native’ Englishes

Chapter summary
This chapter has outlined variation of the ‘Native’ Englishes found in Inner Circle
countries, which were spread via Channels 1 and 2. It is clear that English varieties carry
different political weight and prestige in various parts of the Inner Circle. In the UK, an
RP accent is considered an indicator of social class, and it can be argued that an RP
accent advantages speakers of it in politics, business, and society.
In the USA, the standard American accent (whether northern or southern) permeates
across America in a similar way, but unlike RP this accent is viewed as being unmarked.
American Englishes sees divisions in power and language that are based along race and
regional lines, rather than class and regional lines as seen in the UK.
In Australia, due to the youth and mobility of the population, there is far less regional
variation than in the UK and the USA, and lines are drawn almost entirely according
to ‘broad’ and ‘cultivated’ lines, with a standard lying somewhere between the two.
While the broad accent is, at times, associated with the working class, and the cultivated
associated with the educated and the rich, in practice this does not entirely hold true,
with many successful politicians, businessmen, and highly educated members of society
sporting the broad Australian accent.
Other members of the Inner Circle show divisions of power and standardizations along
the lines of these three examples. In Ireland and New Zealand, for example, there are
similarities with postcolonial Australia, which shows a movement away from RP-
influenced accents, which are seen to mark class and unwanted associations with the
British monarchy. Canada follows a similar line to the USA, with an unmarked standard
English, although racial lines are far less pronounced than in the USA due to a very
different history of racial tensions. The Caribbean sees movements like those witnessed in
the UK, where regional varieties are becoming a source of pride and identity, rather than
seen as deviations.
In summary, politics, power, and language are a very complex network, and are
subject to quick changes in attitudes that will be explored further in Chapter 8.

Further reading
On Englishes of the British Isles:

! Kortmann, B. and Upton, C. (eds). (2008). Varieties of English: The British Isles. Berlin:
Mouton de Gruyter.
! Hughes, A., Trudgill, P., and Watt, D. (2012). English Accents and Dialects: An Introduc-
tion to Social and Regional Varieties of English in the British Isles. New York: Routledge.

On the Englishes of North America and the Caribbean:

! Schneider, E. W. (ed.). (2008). Varieties of English 2: The Americas and The Caribbean.
Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

On the Englishes of Australia and New Zealand:

! Kortmann, B., Burridge, K., Mesthrie, E., Schneider E. W., and Upton, C. (eds).
(2008). Varieties of English 3: The Pacific and Australasia. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
 Variation in ‘Native’ Englishes 93

Closing activities

Chapter discussion questions

Section 4a
1 Do you know of any other examples of phonemic, grammar-syntactical, lexical, and
pragmatic variation across the British Isles?
2 Do you think policies that aim to push and strengthen ties with indigenous languages
can undo centuries of English language imposition across the British Isles?
3 This book mentions that the realization of /t/ as the glottal stop in words like butter is
spreading into urban centres across the British Isles, even though it was limited to a
small geographical area two decades ago. What do you think is the cause of such
historically unprecedented spread?

Section 4b
1 Do you know of any other examples of phonemic, grammar-syntactical, lexical, and
pragmatic variation across North America?
2 Section 4c discusses koineization in the Australian and New Zealand context, but it
does not report on koineization in the North American context. What mixes of
immigrants do you think produced distinct varieties of North American Englishes,
such as those found in Minnesota, New York, Boston, and Newfoundland?
3 Do you agree that language in the USA is racially divided? Compare and contrast
with other ‘Native’ English-speaking countries.

Section 4c
1 Do you know of any other examples of phonemic, grammar-syntactical, lexical, and
pragmatic variation across Australia and New Zealand?
2 Why do the regions of Australia and New Zealand not have the same degree of
variation within their national borders as the British Isles and North America do?
3 In 2011, the UK prime minster David Cameron publicly mimicked the Australian prime
minister’s broad accent for comedic purposes. UK newspapers reported the impersona-
tion as received in good humour, but Australian newspapers were very critical. Why do
you think the impersonation was viewed so differently in the two contexts?

Section 4d
1 Do you know of any other examples of phonemic, grammar-syntactical, lexical, and
pragmatic variation across the Caribbean?
2 Do you agree that Caribbean creoles should be legitimized in their own right and
regarded as separate languages (such as is the case in Jamaica)? Consider what it means
for national identity, but also the ramifications of labelling many creole speakers as
‘non-native English speakers’.
3 Many Caribbean nations are moving away from former prestige accents, as political
power becomes more centred in local varieties. How does this compare with move-
ments in prestige accents across Inner Circle countries?
94 Variation in ‘Native’ Englishes

Debate topics
1 Due to increases in mobility and the mixing of speakers of varieties of English, we
will see more koineization, and the eventual levelling of English across and beyond
national boundaries.
2 The argument that a standard American accent is ‘unmarked’, and thus is distinguished
by ‘no accent’, is a fallacy.
3 While Australia has seen a slew of regional accented ‘broad Australian’ politicians,
America will not see a president in the foreseeable future who uses a ‘deviant’ variety
of English (e.g. Appalachian).

Writing and presentation prompts

Below are ideas for writing and presentation tasks to apply the knowledge learned in
Chapter 4. Additional assignment prompts can be found on the companion website.

Assignment topics
Personal account Provide an account of the type of English you use, providing examples of
unique phonemic variation, grammar-syntactic variation, lexical variation, and
pragmatic variation compared with a ‘standard’ in your local context/country.
Research task Get two or three speakers of different varieties of English to read the list of
(see website for words containing key vowel sounds used by Wells (1982). Using IPA symbols,
worksheet) analyse the vowel sounds and write a short report comparing the phonemic
variation of these speakers.
Basic academic Choose one ‘Native’ English and write about the historical, cultural, and
social processes by which this English emerged. How did this variety develop
its distinctive features?
Advanced academic ‘In the US, bitter divisions created by slavery and the civil war shaped a
language ideology focused on racial discrimination rather than on the class
distinctions characteristic of an older monarchical society like Britain, which
continue to shape language attitudes’ (Milroy and Milroy, 1999, p. 160).
Discuss how history shapes ideas of standard English in an ENL country of
your choice.