This thesis describes and analyses distinctive characteristics of the emerging variety of English, that is, Nepali English. It draws on news texts written in Nepali English and compares them with similar news texts appearing in Australian newspapers. On the basis of the analysis, a preliminary taxonomy of markers of Nepali English is established.The research draws theoretical insights from sociolinguistics, contrastive rhetoric/contrastive discourse analysis and the analysis of news as discourse. Findings and the analysis of the findings are presented by using analytical models developed and widely used in the study of non-native varieties of English. Analysis and discussion of the findings suggest that systematic and regular features of Nepali English have developed, and these formal features have specific functions in the context in which they are used.

abstract: This study investigates how university instructors from various disciplines at a large, comprehensive university in the United States evaluate different varieties of English from countries considered "outer circle" (OC) countries, formerly colonized countries where English has been transplanted and is now used unofficially and officially to varying degrees. The study was designed to address two gaps in the research: (1) how instructors in increasingly internationalized U.S. universities evaluate different written varieties of English, since many international students may be writing in an L1 other than American English, and (2) how instructors' first language and/or disciplinary backgrounds appear to affect their evaluations. Through a comparison of rankings and qualitative analysis of interview data, the study examines whether the participating instructors value the same features and characteristics in writing, such as text and organization features, found in American English and varieties of OC written English. In addition, it examines whether one's first or native language or one's disciplinary training affects the perception and evaluation of these particular varieties of English. This study showed that what is currently valued and expected by instructors from various disciplines in U.S. universities is what may be identified as an "American" style of writing; participants expected an organization providing a clear purpose up front, including paragraphs of a certain length, and containing sentences perceived as more direct and succinct. In addition, given the overall agreement on the element of good writing demonstrated in how composition and content area professors ranked the writing samples, my study suggests that what is being taught in composition is preparing student for the writing expected in content area classes. Last, my findings add to World Englishes (WE) research by adding a writing component to WE attitudinal research studies, which have previously focused on oral production. Almost equal numbers of Native and Non-Native English Speakers (NESs and NNESs) participated, and the NNESs appeared more tolerant of different varieties, unlike the preference for inner circle norms noted in previous studies. This study, therefore, has implications for writing research and instruction at U.S. colleges and universities, as well as informing the field of World Englishes. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. English 2014

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This dissertation presents the development of the Kachruvian paradigm of world Englishes and sheds light on keynotions in each developmental stage of Braj Kachru’s research. It intends to answer the question: how was the Kachruvian paradigm of world Englishes formed? Thiswas not the initial aim of the project. Instead, its significance has two phases, a pre-project and post-project phase. The pre-project goal was an attempt to clarify various misunderstandings or misrepresentations of world Englishes as a field of study as well as a sociolinguistic phenomenon. However, when approaching the completion of this dissertation, the actual significance (the post-project) gradually shifted. It evolved into a working answer to the research question, that is what events and influences reveal the process of the development of what has come to be known as the Kachruvian paradigm of world Englishes. The beginning of the process can be dated back to Braj Kachru’s graduate school years, when he hesitated to affirm the linguistic and sociolinguistic existence of Indian English; his death marked the end of his development of the paradigm, but the field of world Englishes, which had reached global interest long before then, has continued to cultivate scholars of English varieties around the world. The description of the development of the paradigm undertaken in this dissertation is a close review of Kachru’s work over five decades (the 1960s to the 2000s).

In this dissertation, I draw on comparative studies of English to establish a framework for looking at how Portuguese studies and teaching are shaped by political economies, cultural hierarchies, and educational institutions in Brazil and Cape Verde. I examine how English and Portuguese are constructed as world languages and how English and Portuguese rhetorics shape language teaching. People who are locally engaged contest these global constructions. As a result, diverse people construct world languages by adopting, adapting, resist, and transforming it in specific locations (Pennycook). First, I identify compositionists in the U.S. with what I call a rhetoric of multilingualism in which teachers of English should view English in relation to other Englishes and other languages. Secondly, I examine how the transnational organization for Portuguese-speaking countries perpetrates lusotropicalism--Gilberto Freyre's social theory of the Portuguese exceptionality to create a hybrid culture in the tropics. Despite fostering adaptability to local cultures, peoples, and languages, Freyre's lusotropical rhetoric eschews diversity by maintaining that a culture and a language should promote homogeneity. Then, I analyze the linguistic contexts, educational policies, and data gathered from questionnaires and interviews with language teachers in Brazil and Cape Verde. In light of higher education expansion and the maintenance of excellence, I argue that language teachers should promote the writing of Portuguese as a rhetorical construction in which grammar and mechanical correctness is only one aspect of writing instruction. Lastly, I propose the use of code meshing as a pedagogical strategy in academic discourse because it values language in its diversity and its relation to other languages. I argue that students' multilingual strategies deserve a place in academic writing. The rhetorical construction of language in academia could also become multilingual--globally networked and locally engaged. This study contributes to the internationalist discussions about how to teach writing in different languages and educational contexts.

This study aimed to explore whether non-native English-language teachers were aware of the existence of the English as a Lingua Franca paradigm and to examine their aspirations and preferences for themselves and their students as learners of English. Five research questions guided the study: 1) What variety of English do non-native teachers aspire to for themselves? 2) What variety of English do non-native teachers aspire to for their students? 3) What environments (native vs. non-native) do they consider to be most conducive for the acquisition of English? 4) Do they emphasize accuracy vs. intelligibility? 5) Is there a relationship between their aspirations and their preferences for accuracy and/or acceptability? The findings provided empirical evidence that non-native English teachers are aware of the different English varieties. The participating teachers seemed to put higher emphasis on intelligibility than on grammatical accuracy if they thought that certain utterances would not impede international communication. The results also revealed a dual orientation in participants' aspirations, where their awareness of the diversity of English varieties and their emphasis on intelligibility was paradoxically contradicted by their own strong preferences for native-like models of pronunciation and lexical knowledge.

Especially for the last twenty years, the studies of Linguistic Landscapes (LLs) have been gaining the status as an autonomous linguistic discipline. The LL of a (mostly) geographically limited area – which consists of e.g. billboards, posters, shop signs, material for election campaigns, etc. – gives deep insights into the presence or absence of languages in that particular area. Thus, LL not only allows to conclude from the presence of a language to its dominance, but also from its absence to the oppression of minorities, above all in areas where minority languages should – demographically seen – be visible. The LLs of big cities are fruitful research areas due to the mass of linguistic data. The first part of this paper deals with the theoretical and practical research that has been conducted in LL studies so far. A summary of the theory, methodologies and different approaches is given. In the second part I apply the theoretical basis to my own case study. For this, the LLs of two shopping streets in different areas of Hong Kong were examined in 2010. It seems likely that the linguistic competence of English must be rather high in Hong Kong, due to the long-lasting influence of British culture and mentality and the official status of the language. The case study's results are based on empirical data showing the objectively visible presence of English in both examined areas, as well as on two surveys. Those were conducted both openly and anonymously. The surveys are a reinsurance measuring the level of linguistic competence of English in Hong Kong. That level was defined before by an analysis of the LL. Hence, this case study is a new approach to LL analysis which does not end with the description of its material composition (as have done most studies before), but which rather includes its creators by asking in what way people's actual linguistic competence is reflected in Hong Kong's LL. / Das Forschungsfeld der Linguistic Landscape (LL) hat sich vor allem in den letzten zwanzig Jahren als autonome Disziplin im Bereich der Sprachwissenschaft emanzipiert. Die LL eines meist geografisch eingegrenzten Gebietes – die beispielsweise aus Reklametafeln, Plakaten, Ladenschildern, Wahlkampfpropaganda, etc. besteht – erlaubt tiefe Einblicke in die An- oder Abwesenheit von Sprachen auf dem jeweiligen Gebiet. Die LL lässt dadurch nicht nur Rückschlüsse auf die Dominanz einer Sprache aufgrund ihrer Anwesenheit zu, sondern auch auf die Unterdrückung einer Minderheit durch die Abwesenheit ihrer Sprache an Orten, an denen die Minderheitensprache demografisch gesehen eigentlich sichtbar sein müsste. Wegen des Überflusses an linguistischen Daten in den LLs großer Städte sind diese ergiebige Tätigkeitsfelder für die Disziplin. Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich im ersten Teil mit der theoretischen und praktischen Forschung, die es bislang zu diesem Thema gab. Sie prüft den Stand der Theoriebildung, fasst Methodiken zusammen und gibt einen Überblick über verschiedene Ansätze. Im zweiten Teil wird die theoretische Basis auf eine eigene Fallstudie angewendet. Für diese wurden 2010 die LLs zweier Einkaufsstraßen in unterschiedlichen Gegenden Hong Kongs untersucht. Durch den dort lange währenden Einfluss der englischen Kultur und Mentalität und den offiziellen Status der Sprache liegt der Schluss nahe, dass die Sprachkompetenz des Englischen in Hong Kong eher hoch sein muss. Die Ergebnisse der Fallstudie basieren sowohl auf der Erhebung von statistischen Daten, die die objektive Anwesenheit des Englischen in der LL beider untersuchten Gegenden zeigt, als auch auf zwei daraus resultierenden Befragungen. Diese wurden zum einen offen, zum anderen anonym durchgeführt. Die Befragungen stellen eine Rückversicherung dar, die den Grad der Sprachkompetenz des Englischen in Hong Kong misst, welcher zuvor anhand der LL festgestellt wurde. Damit bietet die Fallstudie einen neuen Ansatz der Untersuchung einer LL, der im Gegensatz zu vorangegangenen Studien nicht bei der Beschreibung ihrer materiellen Beschaffenheit endet, sondern auch ihre Schöpfenden miteinbezieht und sich fragt, inwiefern die LL von Hong Kong die tatsächliche Sprachkompetenz der Menschen widerspiegelt.

Language attitude studies focussing specifically on native speaker perceptions of varieties of English speech have demonstrated consistently that standard varieties tend to be evaluated positively in terms of competence/ status whilst non-standard varieties are generally rated higher in terms of social attractiveness/ solidarity. However, the great majority of studies which have investigated non-native attitudes have tended to measure evaluations of ‘the English language’, conceptualised as a single entity, thus ignoring the substantial regional and social variation within the language. This is somewhat surprising considering the importance of attitudes towards language variation in the study of second language acquisition and in sociolinguistics. More specifically, there is a dearth of in-depth quantitative attitude research in Japan concentrating specifically on social evaluations of varieties of English, as the limited number of previous studies conducted amongst Japanese learners have either been qualitative in design or too small in scale. Moreover, the findings of these studies have been somewhat inconclusive. The present quantitative study, employing a range of innovative direct and indirect techniques of attitude measurement, investigated the perceptions of 558 Japanese university students of six varieties of English speech. The results obtained suggest that Japanese learners are able to differentiate between speech varieties within a single language of which they are not native speakers and hold different and often complex attitudes towards (a) standard/ non-standard and (b) native/ non-native varieties of English speech. For instance, the learners rated both the standard and non-standard varieties of inner circle speech more highly than varieties of expanding circle English in terms of prestige. In contrast, it was found that the learners expressed higher levels of solidarity with the Japanese speaker of heavily-accented English and intriguingly, with speakers of non-standard varieties of UK and US English than with speakers of standard varieties of inner circle English. Moreover, differences in the Japanese students’ gender, level of self-perceived competence in English, level of exposure to English and attitudes towards varieties of Japanese all had significant main effects on perceptions of varieties of English speech. However, the regional provenance of the informants was not found to be significant in determining their language attitudes. The results also imply that Japanese learners retain representations of varieties of English speech and draw upon this resource, whether consciously or unconsciously, in order to identify and evaluate (speakers of) these speech varieties. The findings are discussed in relation to the pedagogical and language planning implications for the choice of linguistic model in English language teaching both inside and outwith Japan and in terms of the methodological importance of the study for potential future attitudinal research in this area.

Globalization has made English a pivotal language for global communication. This has increasingly made a great number of native English speakers move to Korea and teach English at all levels of education from kindergarten to university year after year. Most of them have not only little or no training as language instructors, but also little or no teaching experience. Many may wonder how they teach students with little understanding about teaching in a foreign country. At the same time, they may also surmise that they would endure many difficulties in their profession. As a faculty member working with them for over fifteen years, I have also had such questions. Especially, I was curious what conflicts they bear in their minds and how they respond to differences between Canadian and Korean culture and pedagogy. This study is grounded on the hermeneutic tradition which ultimately pursues humane lives. This hermeneutic tradition leads me to the conflicts that native English speaking teachers have experienced, to the implications embedded in the Korean and English language, and to the differences between Canadian and Korean ways of thought. While following the hermeneutic tradition, I am aware that there was little or no communication between the Canadian and Korean teaching staff, which resulted in their alienated lives and in living in a world of exclusion from their schools, disregard about their profession, and indifference from their students. The hermeneutic tradition guides me in a path toward restoring the deteriorated humane aspects of their lives as teachers. As a ground for understanding them, I attempt to define the notion of the in-between on the basis of equality and respect which are rooted in the concept of the Korean language for the in-between. This conceptual elaboration enables me to conceive that differences are not objects to exclude, to disregard, or to be indifferent, but motives to perceive the necessity to reform and to change the inequality and injustices. In this light, I propose that educational institutions allow them to participate in decision making, open a special in-service teacher training program for them, and provide them with a support system.

Un fattore determinante che ha influito sull’enorme espansione dell’inglese nel mondo, nel corso degli ultimi secoli, è stato il ruolo assunto da tale lingua sulla scena mondiale, in particolare nell’ambito economico-culturale: l’inglese è uscito dai suoi confini naturali diventando lingua globale, entrando in contatto con nuovi ambienti e diverse lingue e di conseguenza sviluppando nuove varietà che probabilmente diventeranno in futuro nuove lingue autonome. Oggi anche in Cina, contrariamente al passato, non molto lontano, si avverte un forte e diffuso desiderio di imparare l'inglese, soprattutto tra le giovani generazioni, tra le persone istruite e preferibilmente tra coloro che vivono in città o che hanno contatti al di fuori dei confini nazionali e che utilizzano l’inglese come lingua della comunicazione scientifica, economica, finanziaria e tecnologia. L’inglese non è più considerato una minaccia, sia culturale che politica dal governo che ne incentiva l’apprendimento. Questa crescita nel numero di persone che imparano e parlano inglese, parallelamente alla diffusione di tale lingua, favorisce la nascita e l’affermazione di una nuova varietà linguistica che va sempre più differenziandosi dall’inglese originario. La presente ricerca si propone di analizzare tale fenomeno di variazione dell’inglese in Cina, attraverso l’osservazione e la rilevazione di dati riguardanti l'uso e le occorrenze del genitivo sassone e di altre strutture premodificatrici del sostantivo, caratterizzanti questa emergente varietà di lingua inglese, indagando al tempo stesso anche alcune sue fondamentali coordinate socio-linguistiche. / The crucial factor in the development of English over the last few centuries is its role in the world arena. English has been brought into contact with new environments and languages, and, as a result, has developed into new directions and into new varieties. In today’s China there is an astounding desire to learn English, especially among the educated and the people living in cities, and to use it as a means of communication outside the national borders. This growth in the number of people, who learn and speak English, seems to be contributing to a distinctive variety. The present research aims at contributing to this field of study by analyzing the use and occurrences of the Saxon genitive, of-constructions, and other noun modification structures within this emerging variety of English and the framework of its sociolinguistic features.