Heinrich-Heine Universität Düsseldorf
Anglistisches Institut III

World Englishes -
Simplification or Complexification?

Schriftliche Hausarbeit
im Rahmen der Ersten Staatsprüfung
für das Lehramt für die Sekundarstufe II ggf. mit Zusatzprüfung für die Sekundarstufe I,
dem Staatlichen Prüfungsamt für Erste Staatsprüfungen für Lehrämter an Schulen in Essen

vorgelegt von

Sebastian Benjamin Goetzke

Düsseldorf, den 8.August 2004

Contents

Introduction ... 4

1. An overview about the present discussion and research ... 7
1.1 Argumentation for simplification ... 9
1.2 Argumentation for complexification ... 23
1.3 Conclusion ... 33

2. A closer look on the languages in question ... 34
2.1 Irish English ... 35
2.1.1 History and Background ... 35
2.1.2 Differences ... 36
2.2 Scottish English ... 42
2.2.1 History and Background ... 42
2.2.2 Differences ... 43
2.3 American English ... 46
2.3.1 History and Background ... 46
2.3.2 Differences ... 48
2.4 Caribbean English ... 55
2.4.1 History and Background ... 55
2.4.2 Differences ... 57
2.5 Indian English ... 60
2.5.1 History and Background ... 60
2.5.2 Differences ... 62
2.6 South African English ... 67
2.6.1 History and Background ... 67
2.6.2 Differences ... 69
2.7 Other African Englishes ... 71
2.7.1 History and Background ... 71
2.7.2 Differences ... 73
2.8 Other Asian Englishes ... 76
2.8.1 History and Background ... 76
2.8.2 Differences ... 77
2.9 Australia/New Zealand English ... 79
2.9.1 History and Background ... 79
2.9.2 Differences ... 80

Conclusion ... 83

Sources ... 86

Appendix ... 91

Introduction

In many parts of the world English is used as the main communicative device between people of different mother languages. In some areas it is known as the native tongue, in other countries, for instance in Germany, it is regarded as a second and global language.
There are cases though in which the English language serves a different purpose, namely works as a political way to express certain themes.
In many former British colonies the English language was introduced and indoctrinated on the native people as the language of government, police, business and law. Of course, there were other native languages before the appearance of the British and there still remain local dialects and tongues today.
Nevertheless through time the sharp lines between local dialects and the language of the government have vanished.
This process of development or melting of two languages, that is English and one local language of the old inhabitants of the place is often referred to as Pidginization and Creolization in literature.
Pidgins are believed to be the first step of the development from a very simple basic language to a more complex one with native speakers through Creolization in later stages.
The final step for a language that has been going through this assimilation process would be linguistic independence, to be regarded as a separate and individual World English. Examples for World Englishes that took this way of development are Indian English, South African English or Caribbean Englishes.
Also, there are World Englishes that never were Pidgins or Creoles at any time. Irish English for instance simply followed a melting process of Gaelic and English, but at no point one could talk about an Irish Pidgin English. The difference is quite obvious.
In Pidgins like the ones cited above language tends to be simple and not very structuralized whereas through a melting process as in Ireland language basically remains on a high level of linguistic features. In the first case the new language was simply adopted by the locals and over time more and more used in daily speech. In the Irish example on the other hand features of the new language were slowly mixed with the native tongue and the other way around. And of course there are a lot more similarities between Gaelic and English than there are between Indian Hindi or African Swahili and English.

Thus it is quite difficult to say whether a language that is regarded as a World English today can be seen as being more complicated or as being simpler than Standard British English.

The first question one has to ask is in what linguistic regard the specific World English is more complex or simpler. If you look at Phonology and Morphology it is obvious to mark many differences between even the two main English variants British and American English.
Of course, these differences are important and certainly classify an American in England and a Briton in the US. But on the other hand it is basically not possible to provide an overview about all the phonological differences and similarities throughout the World Englishes on only 60 to 80 pages.

Thus in this paper I am going to try to limit my research to grammar and syntax. Once or twice I will also quickly refer to phonetic features if it is necessary to understand certain grammatical features.

Taking grammar and syntax might as well be more interesting.

As we have seen in the example above with British and American English it is not hard to find diversity in phonology. It is harder when you stick to grammar. You simply have to dig deeper. There are some differences between British and American English and in the process of this paper I will try to trace them but they are not easy to find.

In the very first part of this work I will present some ideas and opinions scholars have uttered about the problem of simplification and complexification lately. Since the topic of World Englishes includes Creolization and Creole studies most evidence I will provide will examine whether Creoles in general are more complex or simpler than their respective mother tongue. No one has so far exclusively studied World Englishes comparatively to Standard Englishes in order to make judgements about complexity and simplicity as scholars have done about Creoles.
That is why I have tried to provide some basic research in that specific direction in the second part of this paper relying on individual works about several World Englishes and their Grammar.
I will provide examples from World Englishes and I am going to try to judge whether certain findings I have made classify that language as being more complex or simpler than Standard British English concerning grammar and syntax.

Rounding up this paper in the end I hope that I can make some comments whether it is possible to prove the idea of Simplification or oppose it.

1. An overview about the present discussion and research

When talking about World Englishes and complexity one encounters quite a lot of adversaries.
The main problem is most likely a problem of definition. Most scholars nowadays agree that Creole languages (and of course Pidgins) are by no means as rich in grammatical features as older languages are. I will provide evidence for this hypothesis later.
Referring to the topic of this paper I have to draw a line between World Englishes and Creoles.

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