Bicol State College of Applied Sciences and Technology

S/Y: 2019-2020

World
Englishes
(Reaction Paper)

Prepared By: Michaela Nicole Lontac BSED-English 1A

Submitted To: Prof. Richard Nabua
 Varieties of World English have gone too far. It is spoken in more than 100
countries. It becomes the most common medium among others. We already have
Australian English, British English, Japanese English, Chinese English, Euro-English
and too many to mention. Because of these varieties, English as a basic language
expands up to the point of creating a big circle of usage. The global predominance
leads to causes and consequences. It outnumbers native languages because
English is widely spreading throughout the world, concerning standardization.

According to Janina Brutt Grifflen in her book "World English", it is a phase

in the history of the English language. This phase has witnessed the
transformation of English from the mother tongue of a handful of nations to a
language being used by far more speakers in non-mother tongue settings. The
changes that have accompanied this spread, the multiplicity of varieties, result not
from the faulty and imperfect learning of the non-mother tongue speakers, but
from the nature of the process of micro acquisition, language spread and change.
It means English had undergone changes, evolution and forms resulted in
numerous varieties. It also comes naturally as time goes by. We tend to create
another form out of the mother language we used to have. However, creation of
more forms out of a single language might arise to confusion and conflicts ahead.

Usage of different varieties of English language is kind of confusing

because there are sentence structures that goes with the same formulation but
resulted in different way. Such as "You're not yet going home, isn't it?" while it
must be like "You're not yet going home, are you?” From this kind of structure,
people will definitely be lost in the thought because they could not understand
which the right one is. Having lot of English around the world would affect good
communication between people. Each variety consists of their forms and norms
of language. Although same structure, it would be still depending on how it will
be used. In each country, there would be different interpretation of phrases and
sentence structures. The comprehension would also be in a great difference. Due
to this, people will not easily get the thought and can lead to such chaos because
they could not understand each other. I would agree if there will be only one
standard for English so that it would not result to greater conflicts. After all, it is
not about quantity of language but quality matters the most.

According to Quirk (1990) this possibly for the fear that the language
(English) would divide up into intelligible varies or different forms, which would
result in its losing the function of international communication. Though, there are
still arguments and opposition with Quirk's idea, it only shows that World
English’s is now perfectly invading standardization. Others would think the other
way around but as for my perspective, it is only right to have only one standard
for English language as our international means of communication. It would be a
bother to think that we are going to interact without much understanding of what
people are trying to imply. It could be more organize and the world would not be
in any communication mess if only this would be on set.