Abstract
In this overview article, we present the motivations for compiling this issue of RJL and summarize the major premises of the World Englishes (WE) Paradigm. The focus is on the relations between the WE school of thought and the paradigms that branched from it, i.e. English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) and English as an International Language (EIL). The statuses of Englishes in the Kachruvian Expanding Circle that function mainly as lingua francas in international communication is one of the most controversial issues in sociolinguistics. We discuss the misconceptions regarding the Expanding Circle Englishes. Finally, we give a brief survey of the articles contributed to this issue, which develop theoretical and empirical material for the WE paradigm.
Highlights
This journal issue is a collection of articles that ponder the status, functions, and features of Englishes that in their home settings are mostly known as a foreign language
According to the statistics provided by ThoughtCo1, English as a Second Language is learned by 375 million people, while English as a Foreign Language is learnt by 750 million (Beare 2020)
Given what has been said and still is to be clarified, the motivation of this journal’s thematic issue is the need to discuss the nature of Expanding Circle Englishes and the factors that facilitate their development, different from each other and from other varieties in the Inner and Outer Circles, yet not recognized by many speakers of these varieties or even by linguistic scholars who, on the one hand, take Kachru’s division of world Englishes for granted, but on the other, argue against Expanding Circle Englishes having the right to be called a variety
Summary
This journal issue is a collection of articles that ponder the status, functions, and features of Englishes that in their home settings are mostly known as a foreign language They are normally used for intercultural communication with people of other countries and rarely for interpersonal communication within their own countries. The first Handbook of World Englishes, published in 2006 (Kachru, Kachru & Nelson 2006), had only three chapters on Expanding Circle varieties – East Asian, South American, and European Englishes – of sixteen chapters describing localized world Englishes. The second edition of the Handbook of World Englishes (Nelson, Proshina & Davis 2020) has five chapters dealing with South American, European, Russian, East Asian, and Chinese Englishes. Given what has been said and still is to be clarified, the motivation of this journal’s thematic issue is the need to discuss the nature of Expanding Circle Englishes and the factors that facilitate their development, different from each other and from other varieties in the Inner and Outer Circles, yet not recognized by many speakers of these varieties or even by linguistic scholars who, on the one hand, take Kachru’s division of world Englishes for granted, but on the other, argue against Expanding Circle Englishes having the right to be called a variety
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