Innovation in Language Learning
At Sea with Standards? The Pluricentric Nature of English and Its Impact on Non-native Speakers’ Attitudes and Language Use
Amei Koll-Stobbe, Chair in English Linguistics University of Greifswald (Germany)
Laura Zieseler, Scandinavian Institute University of Greifswald (Germany)
Abstract
For more than five decades, both British and American English have been norm-providing learner targets in Europe. That non-native speakers are increasingly mixing the exonormative standardised varieties is reflected in concepts such as Mid-Atlantic English, or Euro-English.
By means of a small scale multidimensional sociolinguistic study we contribute to the ongoing discussion in ELF and ESL frameworks on the symptomatic status of non-exonormative performance features: is the mixing of systemic features of standard Englishes and the diffusion of norms too erratic to be described as an emerging endonormative variety?
Some patterns are pervasive: in written usage, our data depict clear tendencies towards Americanisation, while in spoken usage, British norms are predominant. By foregrounding mixing and systemic fossilisation, and by integrative reflections on our subjects’ language use attitudes, we can show that the analysed practices reflect a continuum of fossilisation to nativisation of non-exonormative features, and the fluidity and diffusion of a learner target torn between the norms of British and American English.
