A Student's Answer: Most people consider the English language to be a single thing but in reality it is many things, many Englishes. This is because there is no single variety that is both rooted in a geopolitical community and used as a universal standard. Thus, "English" is a fiction; only "Englishes" exist. Of all the Englishes born in Britain and in her former colonies, some have conserved Anglo cultural values and, in their respective communities, constitute the prestige models: General American, Cultivated Australian, R.P. English, etc. They are what Kachru calls the "norm providers". Others, especially those that use English words to express local cultural values (Indian, Singaporean, Philippine, Nigerian Englishes for example), have traditionally taken their linguistic norms from the first group, although lately they have started to become "norm developing" and many people already call them "New Englishes".

Task: What should the student have written to accommodate better to her teacher's Anglo mentality?

The varieties of English which have “norm-providing” status are Standard (or Southeast) British English, General American and Cultivated Australian. According to the linguist Braj Kachru¹, these varieties are imitated by other countries, for this reason they can boast the label of “norm-providing” status.

Kachru distributes all the Englishes of the world in three circles: the Inner Circle, the Outer Circle and the Expanding Circle. The Inner Circle encompasses the varieties of English spoken and written as first language in the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Malta, anglophone Canada and South Africa, and some of Caribbean territories. These countries are called “norm providing”, since they have developed language norms, affecting the Englishes used in other countries of the world. Actually, as specified above, only the varieties spoken in the UK, the USA and Australia influence the way English is spoken and written in the other countries. On the whole, the total number of speakers belonging to this circle is of 380 million, and about 120 million live outside the USA.

The Outer Circle includes many countries as India, Nigeria, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and other nations where English is an official national language, being used for education, law and government purposes, and it is also relevant for historical reasons (the influence of the British Empire during the colonialism). These “norm developing” countries have taken their linguistic norms from the first circle, and, to the extent that they create and homologate their own lexicon and grammar, they are also called “New Englishes”. The range of speakers included in this circle varies from 150 million to 300 million.

The Expanding Circle encompasses much of the rest of the world, that is, nations like China, Russia, Japan, most of Europe, Korea, Egypt, Indonesia, and an increasing number of other states. There, English is used as an international language, usually taught as a foreign language, but it has not any special administrative status. These nations are called 'norm-dependent', because they simply adopt the varieties set by native speakers in the inner circle (Southeast British English, General American or Cultivated Australian), without developing them.

This classification has some limits, since it is mainly based on geographic distinctions, without taking into account the actual uses of the speakers, or also the countries which are in transition from one circle to another. However, Kachru’s analysis clearly shows there is not one leading universal standard of English spreading around the world, but it is correct to consider the existence of several varieties of English, spoken in different countries, enjoying various status. YOU GOT THE POINT!

The absence of a real uniformity across the English-speaking countries has also led also many other authors to point out the necessity of blurring the boundaries of a monolithic “English Language and Culture” idea, to focus on the “interesting divergences and commonalities in the Englishes used across languages and cultures”².

1Kachru, B. (1992) ‘Teaching world Englishes’, in Kachru B. (ed.) The Other Tongue, English across Cultures, University Illinois Press.