Every student learns English in Taiwan sooner or later, more or less. It is without saying that the linguistic norm they follow is American English and the culture they familiarize is also American. As a result, the English-speaking world (or even the ‘world’) to many of our young people is solely the United States of America.

Unfortunately, their conceptualization is far from the truth. English has a lot of varieties; thus nowadays no particular nation is entitled to claim its ownership. Countries that use English as the second or foreign language are seeking a new position and identity of their use over English. Andy Kirkpatrick offers his view on language usage as a way of opening one single target culture to the rest of the world. Who is the ‘native’ speaker? Can Asian speakers/ learners see English as one of their native languages and express their linguistic confidence? The answer Kirkpatrick argues is ‘why not?’ How about yours?

Cindy Lee

By Andy Kirkpatrick

It is impossible to identify and isolate an "English" culture that is common to all speakers of English. The cultures represented by Nigerian, Singaporean, Indian, Scottish, Filipino or Australian Aboriginal English are all very different. So, while a language must be linked to a culture, a language is not inextricably tied to one specific culture. Specific cultural identities can be represented by new varieties of English.

In East and Southeast Asia English plays a major role in the region as a lingua franca of the political elite and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. It is also used as a lingua franca between professionals and the business community.

But what variety of English will serve as the region's lingua franca? I suggest that a variety which reflects local cultural conventions and pragmatic norms is developing to serve this role. I further suggest that it is this regional variety that will be taught in schools, rather than an external "native speaker" variety.

The vast majority of people who are learning English are doing so to be able to use this lingua franca. They are not learning English with the express purpose of communicating with native speakers of English. English is being used by non-native speakers with other non-native speakers. The English that they use need not therefore reflect any "Anglo" cultural values. This emerging role of English was identified by Gordon Wu of Hong Kong's Hopewell Holdings, who told the Far Eastern Economic Review: "English is no longer some colonial language. It is the means [by which] we in Asia communicate with the world and one another."

So regional users of English who are learning English in order to speak to Thais, Koreans, Vietnamese or Japanese do not need teaching materials that promote or discuss "Anglo" cultures. What they need are materials that provide some knowledge of the culture of the people they are dealing with. They also need to be aware of their own cultural norms. The cultural values and daily lives of the people in the region who are using English as a regional lingua franca become more important than the cultural values associated with native speakers.

This has important implications for English language teaching in the region's schools. It is a regional variety of English, not an external model that needs to be promoted, because it is a regional variety of English that people in the region will want to use. People will be able to maintain their identity while speaking their variety of English. As Tommy Koh, a senior minister in the Singapore government, put it recently, "When I speak English I want the world to know I'm a Singaporean."

The curriculum of a new variety of English should reflect the lives, cultures and values of the learners. Speakers of this new variety will want to preserve their identity by reflecting that identity in the local variety of English they use.

English language teaching materials are needed that promote the local or regional variety and represent the cultures of the speakers of these newly developing varieties. These materials also need to contrast regional cultures, so making the English language curriculum more a curriculum of regional cultures.

This will not only liberate generations of Asian children who have had to learn how to ask what time the next train to Liverpool Street leaves, but will also alter the nature of what represents an authentic text. Japan's current English teaching goals are that learners should become American English speakers. This is unrealistic and damaging to the cause of ELT. Students are fearful of speaking, because they falsely consider themselves to be poor speakers unless they sound like Americans. However, if students were given a regional variety of English to learn, educated speakers of the regional variety could provide the models. Suitably qualified and trained speakers of the regional variety could be the teachers. External models could, of course, be introduced into the classroom, but as examples of external models, not as the model that the learners are expected to acquire.

More research into the development of varieties of English is urgently needed. In particular we need to know what cultural and discourse conventions are being reflected in these new varieties. For example, are compliments being given and received, or requests made, following local cultural values, or following "Anglo" values? Are topics in conversation being broached directly or indirectly? The worldwide domination of an "Anglo" variety of English is not inevitable.

A regional variety of English can reflect local or regional cultures. Governments need not fear that the learning of English will necessarily imbue the learners with inappropriate cultural values or ways of thinking. The best option for regional governments is to promote local varieties of English. Instead of spending large sums of money on importing native-speaking teachers and externally developed materials, funding should be set aside for the professional development of local teachers and for the development of developing regionally appropriate ELT curricula.

Andy Kirkpatrick is research professor at the School of Languages and Intercultural Education, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia, and coordinator of the fifth English in Southeast Asia Conference from December 6-8, 2000.

Source: The Guardian Weekly Thursday. November 23, 2000.