English for the world

Press, 22 July 1988, Page 8

English for the world

From the “Economist”, London

SORRY, Esperanto. It was a brave notion to invent a universal language, and the world some day may have one — Mandarin? Martian? Microcircuitous? — but for the time being it makes do with English. Which English, and for what time being? Some sensible teachers of English fear that the time will not be long if some other teachers are not more rigorous about the English they teach.

Those others draw their attitudes from the anything-goes 19605. Forget Oxford English, it was argued. If kids talk Geordie or Jamaican, or their American parallels, at home, teach them to express themselves in the dialect they know.

That argument spread with the arrival in Britain of Asians, in America of Hispanics, whose home life was not conducted in any kind of English. Should they be taught standard English, or that of the neighbourhood where they had settled?

The British at the time were abandoning the belief, which Americans had never held, that there was only one correct accent. If accents could vary, why

not accept every variety of English?

The weakness of such arguments was cruelly exposed in Britain in the 1980 s: to rap in Rastafarian may be a liberating skill, but it is not one that many employers want to hire. Few teachers today would argue that there is only one correct variety of English; some English has to be translated into American to avoid technical misunderstandings. But fewer still argue that simply anything goes. Nor do many West Indian or Hispanic parents thank those who do. For “parents” read “governments,” and you have the argument in its international form. Native teachers of English in, say, Japan normally aim to teach standard English, whether in its British or American variety. That is what Japanese employers expect. They are increasingly miffed when British or American teachers imported to guide them in this task express doubts whether it is worth attempting. The imported teachers say there is a long-established variant of English used in India. If

British or American English, why not Indian English or Japanese English? Why try to draw any line?

In the homelands of English, jargon is rife, and not only among scientists and brasshats. Literary critics cheerfully write a dense deconstructionist gibberish. Are they using their native tongue any better than someone who says, “You is, ain’t you?” Some Indians use a courtly English almost forgotten in its own land; others will say “You are staying Colaba side, isn’t it?” — to English ears an odd way of asking whether one lives in that part of Bombay, yet intelligible from one end of India to the other. Is English grammar supposed to kick out such phrases, while its databanks accession Haigspeak? It is now clear that the answer, even from India, is yes. The English that such countries want is one that enables Indians to communicate not just with each other, but with the Englishspeaking world. Thank you for your tolerance, they say, but we’d prefer your standard English. Copyright — The Economist