Creativity, innovation and error in World Englishes and Learner Englishes: Double standard?
(2009) Meeting of the Association Belge de Linguistique Appliquée (ABLA) — Location: Antwerp (14.November.2009)
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- Abstract
- In this paper, I will consider the place of creativity, innovation and error in two (non-native) varieties of English: the new, institutionalised varieties that are used in countries where English fulfils official functions (World Englishes, corresponding to Kachru’s Outer Circle), and the varieties of English that are learnt as a foreign language in countries where English has no official status (Learner Englishes, corresponding to Kachru’s Expanding Circle). I will argue that there is something of a double standard when it comes to the comparison of World Englishes and Learner Englishes, in that a non-standard phenomenon found in the former is often described as creative or innovative, while the same phenomenon is likely to be stigmatised as an error in the latter. Following van Rooy (forthcoming), I will show that innovations, in the sense of conventionalised new features of a variety, are unlikely to occur in Learner Englishes, for reasons that have to do with the contexts of acquisition and use. By contrast, I will claim that creative uses, that is, novel uses that exploit the creative power of language, are possible in Learner Englishes as well. This will be demonstrated on the basis of a corpus study of phrasal verbs with up in native English, World Englishes and Learner Englishes, from which it appears that, next to real errors, learners also produce creative phrasal verbs which, though less frequent than in World Englishes, deserve to be treated on the same footing. The presentation will end with some implications for language teaching.
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Gilquin, G. (2009). Creativity, innovation and error in World Englishes and Learner Englishes: Double standard? Meeting of the Association Belge de Linguistique Appliquée (ABLA), Antwerp. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/225453