VARIETIES OF ENGLISH
Objectives The course has many objectives. First, it exposes students to the traditional classification of English in the world in terms of ENL, ESL, and EFL and compares it to what obtains in Kachru’s (1985) three concentric circle model. Second, the strengths and weaknesses of Kachru’s World Englishes paradigm will be discussed. Third, there will be a special focus on the Outer Circle and the characteristics of the New Englishes. Fourth, linguistic features of the New Englishes will be examined and compared to those of Older Englishes (e.g. British English). Fifth, the different attitudes towards the New Englishes will be identified and discussed. Sixth, there will be an appraisal of the intelligibility of the different varieties of English. Finally, the place of the New Englishes in the Cameroonian classroom will be discussed. Expected Outcomes By the end of the semester, students should be to do the following. First, they should be able to discuss the global status of English with reference to appropriate World Englishes theoretical models. Second, they should be able to describe features of postcolonial Englishes and compare them to those of older Englishes such as British English and American English. Third, they are expected to discuss attitudes towards indigenized Englishes, assess their intelligibility, and underscore the pedagogic and sociolinguistic implications involved in their promotion in the classroom. Course Outline Week One: Introduction, course description, course objectives, the “dos” and “don’ts” of the course, the traditional classification of English in the world and its weaknesses Week Two: Kachru’s World Englishes theoretical model: its hallmarks and strengths Week Three: Weaknesses of Kachru’s Three Concentric Model of English Week Four: Phonological features of Outer Circle and Inner Circle Englishes compared (The case of Cameroon English and British English). Focus on Segmental aspects Week Five: Phonological features of Outer Circle and Inner Circle Englishes compared (The case of Cameroon English and British English). Focus on Segmental aspects (continues). Week Six: Phonological features of Outer Circle Englishes and Inner Circle Englishes compared (The case of Cameroon English and British English). Focus on supra-segmental aspects. Week Seven: Syntactic features of Outer Circle and Inner Circle Englishes compared (The case of Cameroon English and British English). Week Eight: Syntactic features of Outer Circle and Inner Circle Englishes compared (The case of Cameroon English and British English) (continues). Week Nine: Lexical features of Outer Circle and Inner Circle Englishes compared (The case of Cameroon English and British English). Week Ten, Eleven, and Twelve: Attitudes towards indigenized Englishes (attitudes of acceptance, attitudes of outright rejection, and attitudes of partial acceptance and partial rejection) Week Thirteen: The Intelligibility of Indigenized Englishes Week Fourteen: Pedagogic arguments involving Indigenized Englishes and the place of these Englishes in the Cameroonian classroom- Teacher: Aloysius Ngefac