Perceptions of 'new Englishes: responses to the use of Swazi English in newspapers in Swaziland

[摘要] The concept of 'new Englishes' developed as a result of the relatively new perception ofEnglish as an adapting and evolving language within increasingly wider global contexts.According to McArthur (1992:688) the term 'new Englishes refers to recently emergingand increasingly autonomous variet[ies] of English, especially in a non-western setting, suchas India, Nigeria, or Singapore. Such varieties of English develop from an English,traditionally recognised as standard, to become distinctly individual: they retain some culturaland linguistic characteristics of the standard English but additionally represent and includemany aspects of the culture and language of the country in which the new English functions.These new Englishes are lexico-grammatically sophisticated and as viable as any of thetraditionally recognised standard Englishes. The 'new languages are used intranationally andinternationally and so are not only a result of intercultural communication; they also facilitateand enable intercultural communication. This thesis investigates (i) Swazi English (SwE) as a'New English' and (ii) the perceptions that Swazis themselves, as well as speakers from otherlanguage communities, have of SwE and its users.Swaziland is a landlocked country in the northeast region of Southern Africa and one of thelast remaining monarchies on the African continent. English was introduced to Swazilandduring the 1800's and remained one of the official languages alongside siSwati afterSwaziland achieved independence from Britain in 1968. English in Swaziland continued todevelop despite increasingly restricted access to input from English first language speakers ofBritish descent thus resulting in SwE developing independently of any external norm. SwEnow appears to be a stable variety of English that is not only spoken but also written innewspapers, in government and legal correspondence and in the public relations documentsof Swazi companies.The research for this thesis identifies a number of lexical, syntactic and semantic features ofSwE that are different from those of standard British or American English. These features ofSwE occur frequently and consistently in newspaper articles. Nevertheless, as indicated bythe research results of this thesis, SwE continues to be perceived as an error-ridden secondlanguage variety rather than as a new English in its own right. Furthermore, the languageprejudice is extended to users of SwE as many judge the intelligence, credibility andtrustworthiness of writers of SwE negatively on the basis of linguistic features that cannot beindicators of character, skill or competence. This prejudice gives rise to stereotyping which isa barrier to effective intercultural communication.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University