Varieties of World Englishes
World Englishes have become a vibrant research field in applied linguistics in the last 30 years. Basically, the World Englishes movement argues that there are numerous varieties of English throughout the world, all of which are of equal value. The discipline of World Englishes mostly focuses on those varieties associated with countries where English is widely used. Thus, there are the familiar British English and American English, but also Canadian English, Irish English, South African English, Indian English, Nigerian English, Singaporean English, Filipino English and so on. Each of these Englishes has its own peculiar features, such as marked pronunciations, uncommon grammatical rules, and certain words which are used with a far greater frequency than in other varieties.
Each of the following sets of words are associated with the World Englishes variety of a particular country. Can you identify the 4 countries?
- geyser, sundowns, job reservation
- comfort room, vulcanizing, hand-carry
- felicitate, do the needful, prepone
- manky, trad, amn’t
1 South african English
2 Philippine English
3 Indian English
4 British/Scottish English