In most areas where English is spoken today, it is part of a multilingual context. English is one component of the sociolinguistic profile of many nations. In nations where English is a mother tongue or first language for the majority of the population, other speech communities contribute further languages to the linguistic environment. And in contexts where the majority speak a language other than English, it may serve as a language of administration or as a medium of instruction in the educational domain. Over the past few decades, speech communities have also increasingly been influenced by languages usually spoken outside the community. A particular case is the spread of English via music and films through the radio, television, and the internet. As a result, English is part of the linguistic repertoire of many nations and the individuals living in them. These multilingual contexts have in common the fact that individuals can draw on the various languages to meet their diverse communicative needs and to construct their identities. This article describes how this may result in changes to the English language and even in the emergence of new linguistic forms, with particular reference to the post-colonial nation of Kenya.

The be fixing to structure not only has a long and fascinating history but also a highly contemporary presence in Internet communication. The rise of the futurate verbal periphrasis be fixing to + V shows an essentially textbook example of grammaticization, not so different in many ways from the development of be going to. However, there are some important differences too. While be going to has a wide distribution among speakers of Englishes in the world, having much to do with its sixteenth century development and subsequent global diffusion in the colonial period, be fixing to grammaticized in Southern US English in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a fact which resulted in a relatively small circumscribed geographical distribution in its earliest uses.

The study of lesser-known varieties of English is opening up new research. Over the last twenty years or so, the role(s) and function(s) of English around the world have received a great deal of interest from linguists concerned with research on topics as diverse as sociolinguistics, variation and change, contact linguistics, language typology, genetic linguistics, etc. Kachru's work (The Inner Circle, the Outer Circle, and the Expanding Circle) inspired others and alternative models were put forward by McArthur (1987) and Görlach (1990). Though they differ on how the varieties should be classified (varying in criteria such as geographic distribution, usage and function, development history, etc.), they share the idea that varieties of English can be grouped in first- (or native-), second- and foreign-speaker groups.

A case study of discourse on anglicisms in German.

“By recognizing our uncanny strangeness, we shall neither suffer from it nor enjoy it from the outside. The foreigner is within me, hence we are all foreigners. If I am a foreigner, there are no foreigners.” (Julia Kristeva, Strangers to Ourselves (1991)).

Is Kristeva's dissolution of the notion ‘foreign’ also applicable to language? The nature of language as a semiotic system of arbitrarily bound units of meaning and form determines the essential foreignness of signifier and signified. As such, every linguistic unit is indeed intrinsically foreign on the level of designation and, thus, there is no foreign language. On the surface of human communication, however, incomprehensibility among speakers can emerge as a criterion of foreignness. The perception of the foreign in language is particularly tied to situations of contact between different language-cultural areas. Such contact can occur internally in a multilingual speaker or can be observed externally as happening in the speech community. In both ways, crucial to language contact is a perceived intertwining of linguistic units from at least two distant, i.e. incomprehensible, codes culturally rooted in diverse speech communities.

Perspectives from both World Englishes (WE) and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) can assist in the description of Hong Kong English phonology. Mario Saraceni's article (English Today 94) provides some useful insights into the current debates about English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). His discussion of the background to this debate identifies three viewpoints: a traditional ENL view with its adherence to native-speaker models; the WE (World Englishes) paradigm with its ‘pluralised and pluricentric view of English in the world’; and the emerging ELF position, with its rejection of native-speaker norms in favour of ‘endonormative realisations of lingua franca varieties’ (Alessa Cogo, English Today 95). However, Cogo believes that the second and third positions are not separate paradigms, and that ELF sits ‘comfortably within a WE framework’, as claimed by Jenkins (2007:17). In this article, I would like to show how the two positions can work together to inform pedagogy by exploring the possible options for English pronunciation models in Hong Kong.

Institutional and learners' discourses about English and the implications for ‘China English’. China's politics and international relations with Western powers have historically determined the role and status of the English language in China (Adamson, 2004). Following the country's Open Door Policy in the 1970s, the entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Beijing Olympics, English, once considered a barbaric language, has been enjoying unprecedented popularity. The seven years leading up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics saw a series of foreign language campaigns in different sectors of Chinese society. The Beijing Olympics provided China with an opportunity to improve its world position and to ‘reclaim’ – and show the world – its glorious past. Since 2001, when China won the bid to host the Olympics in 2008, English learning campaigns have promoted both so-called ‘standard’ and ‘authentic’ English. The purpose of these campaigns was not only to ensure a successful Olympics, but also to equip the people with a tool essential for modernising and integrating China into the global community.

‘Education fever’ drives the demand for English in South Korea today. One professor of politics has recently deplored the current pursuit of ‘English education’ (yeongeokyoyuk) in South Korea as a ‘collective neurosis of English fever’ (Y-M. Kim, 2002). What has brought this current English boom to South Korea? It can be traced back to the traditional ‘education fever’ (kyoyukyeol) or ‘preoccupation with education’ (Seth, 2002). The English boom resulting from the Korean education fever has led to a strong antipathy toward Koreans – even in English-speaking countries.

This article explains how the current English boom in South Korea has been founded on the long tradition of education fever in the country, and why more and more Korean children are sent abroad to learn the English language. In addition, I also attempt to show the connection between this English boom and an associated antipathy toward the Korean language and Korean speakers in English-speaking countries.

We all need to relax. Teachers, doctors, solicitors, bricklayers, salesmen, shop assistants and even grossly over-paid footballers all need a break. Once we have performed whatever daily task it is that provides us with our daily bread, we need to recharge our batteries, ‘chill out’ (as they now say) and do something entirely different to help us unwind. There are those who like to take part in some form of sporting activity whereas others prefer to settle down with a good book or crash out in front of the telly. And then there are those who would rather have an enjoyable meal at a decent restaurant and take in a show or go to what we seem to refer to increasingly as the ‘movies’ where they can ‘check out’ the most recent Bond film or Spielberg production. Whatever our preference, entertainment of one form or another plays a vital role in everyone's life and some choices, whether we are aware of it or not, link us with ancient societies whose need to enjoy themselves now and again was no less than ours is today.

Yule and Burnell's 1886 Anglo-Indian dictionary still fascinates and informs today. It is not the finest of Salman Rushdie's writings, but this is the first paragraph of his essay Hobson-Jobson (italics in original):

“The British Empire, many pundits now agree, descended like a juggernaut upon the barbicans of the East, in search of loot. The moguls of the raj went in palanquins, smoking cheroots, to sup toddy or sherbet on the verandahs of the gymkhana club, while the memsahibs fretted about the thugs in bandannas and dungarees who roamed the night like pariahs, plotting ghoulish deeds.” (Rushdie, 1992:81)

Rushdie points out that the italicised words all appear in the celebrated dictionary Hobson-Jobson: a glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases, and of kindred terms, etymological, historical, geographical and discursive by Henry Yule & A.C. Burnell, first published in 1886.

This gem of a dictionary gives definitions and origins of words in common use by the British in colonial India in the late nineteenth century. Some of the entries won't be a surprise to readers – we all know that raj, mogul and memsahib are Indian words. But there are many words with their origins in Hindustani, Bengali, Sanskrit or other Indian or Eastern languages, whose origin is perhaps not quite so well known.