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18 - The Geographical and Demographic Expansion of English

from Part Four - Emergence and Spread of Some European Languages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2022

By
Edgar W. Schneider  and
Sarah Buschfeld
Edited by
Salikoko S. Mufwene  and
Anna María Escobar
Salikoko S. Mufwene
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Anna María Escobar
Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
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Summary

This chapter traces the expansion of English from its beginnings to its present-day global role. Viewed from a geographical perspective, settlement moves and colonization have re-rooted the English language to different continents and countries, producing distinct contact types. We outline these developments from their historical and demographic perspectives as well as with respect to linguistic contact conditions for North America (including African American English), Southern Hemisphere varieties (Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa), and second-language postcolonial Englishes in Africa and Asia. In addition, it is shown how recent, vibrant processes have established new forms of English in new contexts, including non-postcolonial countries, lingua franca uses, and in cyberspace, thus producing radically new contact ecologies. Contact scenarios in these processes have involved dialect contact between native speakers from different regions, the process of structural nativization based on local feature pools, various degrees of restructuring and creole formation, and the genesis of hybrid varieties and innovative multilingual settings. We outline theoretical approaches to grasp these processes, including the Dynamic Model of the evolution of postcolonial Englishes, the Extra- and Intra-territorial Forces Model, and the postulate of different types of “nativeness.”

Keywords

American EnglishAfrican American Englishcolonizationcreolizationglobalizationmultilingualismpostcolonial Englishesstructural nativizationWorld Englishes
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact
Volume 1: Population Movement and Language Change
 , pp. 583 - 610
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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