World Englishes and Culture

Although the two articles I read were very different in topic (Jenkins' discussed the concept of 'World Englishes' in great deal and was very language-oriented and ESL themed; the writing by Diaz-Rico and Weed provided a historical framework and discussion for the cultural background we may likely see in our ESL classes.) I believe that these readings are useful to the ESL educator not only independently but taken in conjunction with one another as well. By learning a basis of the history of the region and culture transported due to immigration, whether elected or forced, from which these World Englishes come, we can better understand the students in our classroom of the same origin.

I found Jenkins' article regarding World Englishes to be extremely fascinating, mainly in part due to the different graphs and charts created by theorists and linguists included. I found Strevens model of Englishes, which laid them out and connected them geographically, to be extremely cool and useful for thinking about the geographical travel that so many languages in our history experienced and how that affected the linguistic patterns and culture. Kachru, McArthur, and Gorlach, all created circle models, although these differed on their measurement and coding. Kachru has a three-circle model of World Englishes in which different Englishes are categorized as outer circle, inner circle, or expanding circle. McArthur's is called the Circle of World English, and attempts to break it down in a chart-like feature but in a circle shape. Finally, although Gorlach's model is not pictured in the article, it sounds to me to be very similar to McArthur's. Jenkins also mentions in this article not only changes that have occurred recently, but a list of McArthur's provisos regarding the problems with the common three-group categorization of "the spread of English around the world" (Jenkins 15)--ESL (English as a Second Language), EFL (English as a Foreign Language), and ENL (English as a Native Language). One example of McArthur's provisos is as such: "ENL is not a single variety of English,  but differs markedly from one territory to another (e.g. the US and UK), and even from one region with a given territory to another. In addition, the version of English accepted as 'standard'  differs from one ENL territory to another." (Jenkins 16)