Non-standard Varieties Of English Research Articles

Analysis of forced aligner performance on L2 English speech

There is growing interest in how speech technologies perform on L2 speech. Largely omitted from this discussion are tools used in the early data processing steps, such as forced aligners, that can introduce errors and biases. This study adds to the conversation and tests how well a model pre-trained for the alignment of L1 American English speech performs on L2 English speech. We test and discuss the impact of language variety, demographic factors, and segment type on the performance of the forced aligner. We also examine systematic errors encountered.Forty-five speakers representing nine L2 varieties were selected from the Speech Accent Archive and force aligned using the Montreal Forced Aligner. The phoneme-level boundary placements were manually corrected in order to assess differences between the automatic and manual alignments. Results show marked variation in the performance across language groups and segment types for the two metrics used to assess accuracy: Onset Boundary Displacement, a distance metric between the automatic and manual boundary placements, and Overlap Rate, which indicates to what extent the automatically aligned segment overlaps with the manually aligned segment. The highest accuracy on both measures was obtained for German and French, and lowest accuracy for Russian. The aligner's performance on all varieties was comparable to that on conversational American English and non-standard varieties of English. Furthermore, the percentage of boundary placements within 10 and 20 ms of the corrected boundary was similar to that observed between transcribers. Apart from errors due to variety mismatch, most issues encountered in the alignment were due to issues not exclusive to L2 speech such as inaccurate orthographic transcriptions, hesitations, specific voice qualities, and background noise.The results of this study can inform the use of automatic aligners on L2 English speech and provide a baseline of potential errors and information to help the development of more robust alignment tools for further development of automatic systems using L2 English.

International students’ perceptions of multilingual English-medium instruction classrooms: a case study in Taiwan

Abstract Many English-medium instruction (EMI) classrooms in non-Anglophone countries adopt a multilingual stance, using English alongside the host country’s local language(s). However, the perceptions of such multilingual practices held by students remain under-researched. Given many Asian countries’ current drives to internationalize and diversify their student bodies, a clear understanding of international students’ perspectives on multilingual EMI classrooms is long overdue. Through semi-structured interviews with international students from developing countries and the theoretical lens of language ideologies, this study investigates their perceptions of multilingual EMI classrooms in Taiwan. Most expressed a belief that their multilingual EMI classrooms, saturated with non-standard varieties of English, were not a legitimate pathway to acquiring their desired linguistic capital, i.e., standard English. These findings differ sharply from those of previous research, which has painted international students as holding positive attitudes towards English as a lingua franca (ELF). Moreover, the participants resisted the English-Mandarin translanguaging practices in their classrooms. As such, the findings highlight the need to understand the language ideologies of international students in Asia. Further investigation of learner resistance to multilingual EMI practices should also be conducted, with the wider aim of helping advanced English-language learners from developing countries accept different English accents, and accommodate ELF communication.

A Global View towards Understanding of Standard and Non-Standard Varieties of English

A Global View towards Understanding of Standard and Non-Standard Varieties of English

‘Between phutu and samoosas’: Student response to assessment tasks for a thirdyear university course which adopts a World English approach

This article demonstrates how teaching World Englishes (WE) and Indigenised Varieties of English (IVE), such as South African Englishes (SAE), challenges the hegemony of English which persists in African teaching contexts despite progressive language policies, the multilingualism of the learners and the fluid, translingual linguistic boundaries which exist in the 21st century. There is a need to acknowledge the linguistic resources of the multilingual learner. This article describes the value of teaching SAE as a didactic initiative designed to empower multilingual speakers of English in a semester module prescribed for the major in English at the University of South Africa, taught via distance education. It represents, in this context, a challenge from within the heart of hegemony. The paper showcases assessment tasks designed to teach WEs while promoting English language proficiency at graduate level. A qualitative analysis of student responses reveals that, although the hegemony of English remains strong, ‘Black’ South African English (BSAE) as an IVE is rapidly gaining ground. Students write with authority when the linguistic resources they bring to the assignment task are harnessed, but find certain of the theoretical underpinnings of WE difficult. This is not surprising given that although a greater tolerance for non-standard varieties of English is endorsed by the course, a standard variety is required for assessment purposes. Keywords: World Englishes, pedagogy, indigenised varieties of English (IVE), South African Englishes, multilingualism, hegemony

Cavafy, Vos, Dangor: A belated reply to Phil van Schalkwyk

The influence of the Alexandrian Greek poet Constantin Cavafy on South African literature in English has received some attention, but his impact on Afrikaans letters merits further investigation. The present article partly fills that gap by examining a small body of poetry and fiction by Cas Vos and Achmat Dangor. It draws on an article by Phil van Schalkwyk to show what it might mean to write in the manner of Cavafy. Thereafter, it discusses Vos’s translations into Standard Afrikaans within his context. Achmat Dangor wrote his Cavafian poetry in a Vernacular Afrikaans. The article considers how writers and poets such as Mark Twain, David Dabydeen, Richard Rive and Adam Small have responded to the challenges and implications of writing in non-standard varieties of English and Afrikaans. Because irony and parody characterise Dangor’s initial debt to Cavafy, this piece also considers these devices. It then moves to a detailed analysis of the relevant poems by Dangor, including comparisons with the poems by Cavafy they evoke, and then to work by Dangor on Cavafy in Standard English in which he reflects on why Cavafy has influenced him. It argues that Dangor discarded a literary vernacular medium for Standard English because of the former’s implicit distinction between ‘ordinary’ (inarticulate, authentic) and ‘extra-ordinary’ (articulate, unauthentic) patois speakers. It concludes that Dangor’s switch to Standard English may have resolved a personal dilemma, but leaves unanswered many questions about the literary use of a patois.

Multi-competence, expressivity, non-native variants: an investigation into Japanese English

ABSTRACT This article investigates Japanese English, a non-standard variety of English, via the three notions of multi-competence, expressivity, and non-native variants. The article demonstrates how speakers of Japanese English manipulate expressivity, a prevalent cognitive-pragmatic construct to generate non-native forms, in assigned presentational talks. The article shows that meaning-carrying non-native forms regularly co-occur with their native counterparts and argues that expressivity belongs to the fourth stage of multi-competence. There is also a preliminary discussion of the implications of the study’s findings for English language teaching in Japan, where educators have begun considering a plurilithic approach to the English language in earnest.

Varieties of English: varieties of literature. Some notes on Irish English and ELT

The aim of this paper is to show that the use of texts written in non-standard varieties of English, such as Irish English (or Hiberno-English), could be a valuable complement to language teaching and language learning. The paper concentrates on a number of linguistic features which are characteristic of this variety of English and which appear in the works of Irish writers. Special attention is paid to the work of Donegal author Patrick MacGill, and excerpts from his early novels are used as an example of Irish English writing.

Queering Hip-Hop, Queering the City: Dope Saint Jude’s Transformative Politics

Queering Hip-Hop, Queering the City: Dope Saint Jude’s Transformative Politics

Perceptions of Standard and Nonstandard Language Varieties: The Influence of Ethnicity and Heritage Language Experience

The present study examines perceptions of standard and nonstandard varieties of English and the roles of perceived speaker ethnicity and heritage language experience. In this study, 24 English monolinguals and 24 English-Spanish heritage language bilinguals were asked to evaluate three speech samples representing native Standard American English, Chicano English, and non-native Spanish-accented English, each paired with one of three photographs of an individual reflecting idealized “Hispanic” or “non-Hispanic” ethnic identities. Both the language variety heard and the ethnic identity visually associated with a given speaker were found to influence listeners’ perceptions of the individual. While this study supports previous findings that visual cues lead to discrimination in language perception, it also indicates that language experience may mitigate this effect.

English as a Literature in Translation by Fiona J. Doloughan

DOLOUGHAN, FIONA J. English as Literature in Translation. New York and London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. 179 pp. $100.00 hardcover; $89.99 e-book. Fiona J. Doloughan's new study is an examination of contemporary novels in English through the prism of translation. Taking her departure in the translational turn in Humanities, Steven G. Kellman's influential concept of literary translingualism, and English's role as lingua franca for non-native speakers worldwide, Doloughan sets out discover how writers who have found English as opposed having been born into it (e.g., Eva Hoffman, Ariel Dorfman, Xiaolu Guo) and bilingual writers or writers for whom non-standard variety of English is the starting point (Gloria Anzaldua, Sandra Cisneros, James Kelman) are changing the expression of literature in English. Doloughan's interest lies with what she coins as narratives of translation, that is, that thematize, narrativize and/or are structured around, questions of language, cultural identity and what it means translate oneself or one's culture (79). The main focus of the study is not primarily the way the examined writers are changing the English literary language of today's globalized world; rather, it is the thematic aspects that dominate--that is, how experiences of switching languages and/or moving through are expressed in the chosen works. It is an optimistic narrative Doloughan is writing. She wants to suggest that the prototypical notion of language as loss, and translation of self and other as predominantly painful and traumatic experience, have given way greater sense of what is be gained, both at the individual and societal levels, through access different languages and cultures (1). She regards this development as correlating with more positive understanding of bi- and multilingualism in linguistic research as well as in society. While literary multilingualism undoubtedly is vehicle for renewing literary expression, question already extensively explored in literary scholarship (e.g., Doris Sommer's Bilingual Aesthetics 2004 and Hana Wirth-Nesher's Call It English: The Languages of Jewish American Literature 2006, just mention couple of works), the narrative of from loss gain is problematic. Firstly, the chronology of the chosen works contradicts it. The most radical argument for linguistic and cultural hybridity as gain, not loss in the study, Anzaldiia's classic Borderlands/La Frontera 1987, is actually the oldest of the works, preceding Hoffman's story of language learning as the loss of another language in Lost in Translation (1989) by two years. It also precedes, by over decade, Ariel Dorfman's memoirs with their eroticization of language ties in terms of bigamy--itself an excellent illustration of the monolingualist conception of the mother tongue as a family romance described by Yasemin Yildiz in Beyond the Mother Tongue (2012). Secondly, the transformation of literature in English by writers with background in other languages is not new phenomenon. Multilingual modernists like Beckett. Conrad, and Nabokov that Doloughan briefly mentions (162) were not exceptions monolingualism; instead, translingualism, exile, and textual multilingualism are constitutional traits of European literary modernism (cf. Languages of Exile, eds. Englund & Olsson, 2013). …

Language Varieties of the Abstracts in Journal Articles Written by Chinese and American Scholars: A Contrastive Corpus Analysis using the Gramulator

In this study, we identify the systematic language varieties and discourse characteristics that are indicative of the academic writings of Chinese and American scientists. We conduct a Contrastive Corpus Analysis using the computational tool, the Gramulator, to identify indicative features in Chinese science journal abstracts as compared to American science abstracts. The results suggest that the Chinese scientists tend to employ different linguistic features from their American counterparts. Specifically, Chinese science abstracts can be characterized as non-standard varieties of English by the choice of the three items: the agent, the tense, and two major types of reporting verbs. We conclude that the results may account for the interpretation of Chinese academic writings of English as non-prototypical in terms of discourse style. This study sheds light on language varieties and methodology that may be helpful to English Language Learners as well as materials developers in countries such as China.

Second language acquisition of English questions: An elicited production study

ABSTRACTThe present study investigates the role of the syntactic properties of the first and the target language on second language (L2) learners’ production of English main and embedded clause questions. The role of the first language (L1) was investigated by comparing the production of L2 learners whose L1s (Chinese and Spanish) differ from English and each other in terms of word order in main and embedded clause questions. The role of the target language was investigated by comparing L2 learners’ production of yes/no and adjunct and argumentwh-questions. The results indicate that the L1 is not a predictor of L2 learners’ production patterns for either main or embedded clause questions. The linguistic properties of the target language, on the contrary, predict learners’ accuracy and inversion profiles. In line with data from the English L1 acquisition literature, L2 learners produced higher inversion rates in main clause yes/no than inwh-questions, and particularly low inversion rates withwhy-questions. In line with data from nonstandard varieties of English and preliminary evidence from L1 acquisition, L2 learners produced higher nonstandard inversion rates in embedded clausewh-questions than in yes/no questions. Taken together, these results highlight that L2 production is affected and constrained by the same factors at play in L1 acquisition and dialectal variation.

Explicit teaching of grammar and improvement in the grammar of student writing

This article focuses on the question of whether formal teaching of grammatical constructions results in a change in ESL students. written use of these constructions. It also tests the assumption that given a large amount of comprehensible input in academic English, ESL students will automatically acquire this variety including its grammatical features. The writing produced by BSc first year L2 students enrolled in an ESL course forms the data of the study. Four sets of data were collected: exam essays written in June and November of 1999 when formal grammatical instruction was not part of the course, and exam essays written in June and November of 2000 when grammatical instruction was introduced into the course. Matched t-tests indicate that in neither 1999 nor 2000 did students. grammatical proficiency improve. The implication of this is that in the context of the study grammatical improvement was not observed either as a result of formal teaching or as a result of extensive communication in the language. The article speculates that this may be a result of students' targeting a non-standard variety of English: BSAE.

Embedded Inversion Worldwide

AbstractThe inversion of (auxiliary) verb and subject in subordinate interrogative clauses (embedded inversion, or EI) is a feature that occurs in many non-standard varieties of English, especially in varieties that have developed in language contact situations, such as Irish English, East African English or Indian English. Various sources of origin have been proposed in previous research, among them substrate influence or transfer errors of learners in language contact situation. This paper introduces the phenomenon in question and provides an overview of previous research. Drawing on data of the International Corpus of English (ICE), it then presents the results of probabilistic statistic analyses (logistic regression) in order to identify which external and internal factors are strongest in elciting the inverted word order.

Movement and loss: progression in tertiary education for migrant students

This article is about progression in further and higher education for migrants to the United Kingdom who are users of non-standard varieties of English. The focus is on the struggles of Tobi, a first-generation migrant Nigerian student. Tobi's story describes the local barriers he must navigate in order to gain access to the courses he wishes to follow, both at the college where he is studying and at the local university to which he wishes to progress. These barriers include mastery of academic English and assessments of literacy. The contrast is drawn out between Tobi's aspirations to progress ‘up’ along an educational trajectory, and his actual experience of moving ‘downwards’. Widening participation and the stratification of higher education are seen in relation to other processes and structures that impact on Tobi's experience: migration, social class and capital, language and language ideologies, and academic literacy. Tobi's trajectory also exemplifies the tension between his own language use and the variety of English he is expected to orient towards. We end the paper with a discussion of models of academic literacy, which may provide a starting point for addressing the pedagogic challenges faced by Tobi and his teachers.

Here, there,... et le processus référentiel

There is a general tendency to think that here is the starting point of reference. The pairs here/there and this/that, for instance, are named in the proximal/distal order, which gives the impression that relative placement is assessed from the center outwards.In this paper I hypothesize that, as regards reference, there precedes here and that implies this, suggesting a centripetal process pulling in to the center and the speaker’s sphere. Thus the locating and referential operators used by the utterer represent the peripheral situation in the first place. In some non-standard varieties of English the mere evocation of the situational items brings out their existence, an existence which can be negated by the deletion of the reference point and its trace in the utterance.

English Dialect “Default Singulars,” Was versus Were, Verner's Law, and Germanic Dialects

A current suggestion in the variationist literature is that the predominance of forms like we was in nonstandard varieties of English is predictable in that was-generalization represents a case of the “default singular.” I argue that while the principle of the default singular is a sound one, it is not appropriate as an explanation for was-generalization. What is involved is not a matter of singular versus plural but of r-forms of the past tense of to be versus s-forms, with forms like were, war , wor representing the r-variant and was, wiz , wus the s-variant. The ancient Germanic s/r alternation has been leveled out in most dialects over the past millennium. Examination of Germanic dialects shows that in very many cases, it is the r-forms that have survived. If some general principle were at work, we would expect s-forms to predominate. The history of the Germanic dialects as a whole shows that we are dealing with analogical leveling that does not especially favor either the s-forms or the r-forms. The term default singular has no explanatory value in this case.

Naming Practices and Language Planning in Zimbabwe

Studies of African naming practices focus almost exclusively on the meanings and etymology of names and details about the circumstances surrounding how such names are assigned. Such research has not examined the implications naming has for language planning, ideologies of language, and language shift. Focusing on names and naming practices in Zimbabwe from 1960 to 1990, this paper departs from this well-established tradition. The paper provides empirical evidence to show that naming provides significant insights into language planning, language ideology, language shift and the development of new varieties of English. It demonstrates the effects of non-Standard English on naming practices between the 1960s and 1990s and how this subsequently brought changes not only to the use of African languages, but also to use of names drawn from non-Standard English. This we view as an indication that the policy of promoting indigenous African languages is in sync with practice as ordinary citizens articulate their cultural practices in African languages. In addition, the promotion of English results in the spread not of standard English, but of non-standard varieties of English in the area of naming.

RAYMOND HICKEY (ed.), Legacies of Colonial English

Raymond Hickey (ed.), Legacies of Colonial English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp xx, 713. Hb. £90.This copious volume deals with the development of English at various overseas locations (the “New World,” the Southern Hemisphere, and Asia) during the heyday of British colonialism between the early 17th and late 19th centuries. The 21 studies in the volume demonstrate the legacies of both standard and nonstandard varieties of English from this period. At the same time they show how 17th to 19th century linguistic forms remain influential in characterizing “transported” Englishes to the present day. Not that the volume attempts to straitjacket its contributors: As Hickey emphasizes in the Foreword (p. xix), there are as many scenarios as there are locations in the study of transported Englishes, with each variety arising from different degrees of exposure to different English dialects, and differential influences from indigenous languages and cultures. The main area to which this book belongs is therefore historical dialectology, though it is certainly of relevance to language contact and general sociolinguistics, as well as the specific sociolinguistics of migration.

SCHNEIDER, EDGAR W., KATE BURRIDGE, BERND KORTMANN, RAJEND MESTHRIE, & CLIVE UPTON (eds.), A handbook of varieties of English: A multimedia reference tool

Schneider, Edgar W., Kate Burridge, Bernd Kortmann, Rajend Mesthrie, & Clive Upton (eds.), A handbook of varieties of English: A multimedia reference tool. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2004. Vol. 1, xvii, 1168 pp.; vol. 2, xvii, 1226 pp. Hb/CD-ROM $720.These two volumes and CD-ROM form an impressive and informative survey of all major English varieties currently spoken. The aim, in the words of the editors, is “documenting and mapping the structural variation among (spontaneously spoken) non-standard varieties of English.” Various standard Englishes, such as Received Pronunciation (RP), are also described, although it is not clear how the editors distinguished a national standard from a national variety. These standard varieties are used as “implicit standard[s] of comparison” for most varieties. Although this perspective might seem surprising in a descriptive work, upon further thought this explicit acknowledgment is refreshing. In many studies, the use of a standard variety for comparison usually remains implicit, rather than being acknowledged at the outset.