World Englishes, Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 329335, 2010.

0883-2919

Current research on Englishes in Southeast Asia

ANNE PAKIR
ABSTRACT: Much research on world Englishes (WE) since the 1980s has yet to impact significantly upon recent applied linguistics work in the areas of instruction, curriculum, testing and policy. Much of the received wisdom has been informed by the paradigm established by the earlier study of International English (IE) and its attendant foci in teaching English to speakers of other languages. However, with the emergence of WE as an increasingly recognizable and legitimate discipline in its own right, scholars in Southeast Asia are now paying attention to the research implications of a shift in paradigm and are investigating features associated with new Englishes, analysing mutual intelligibility and communication in English among Association of Southeast Asian Nations users, and establishing genre-based analyses. This paper has a dual focus: the first is to survey current approaches to research on Southeast Asian Englishes, and to discuss the relevance of a world Englishes approach to scholarship in this area. The second part of this paper introduces the papers in this special issue which offer topics relating to Southeast Asia and beyond.

INTRODUCTION

The considerable research on world Englishes (WE) since the 1980s has yet to impact significantly upon recent applied linguistics work in the areas of instruction, curriculum, testing and policy. Much of the received wisdom has been informed by the paradigm established by the earlier study of International English (IE) and its attendant foci in teaching English to speakers of other languages. However, with the emergence of WE as an increasingly recognizable and legitimate discipline in its own right, scholars in Southeast Asia are now paying attention to the research implications of a shift in paradigm and are investigating features associated with new Englishes, analysing mutual intelligibility and communication in English among Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) users, and establishing genre-based analyses. This paper has a dual focus: the first is to survey current approaches to research on Southeast Asian Englishes, and to discuss the relevance of a world Englishes approach to scholarship in this area. The second part introduces the papers in this special issue, offering topics relating to Southeast Asia and beyond.
TEN SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS

Let me begin by profiling Southeast Asia, which as a broadly defined geographical entity is a vast and complex archipelago stretching from Aceh on the eastern most tip of Sumatra across the Indo-Chinese mainland, to the westernmost point in the Sulawesi Sea. Mainland Southeast Asia and Peninsular Southeast Asia together comprise 10 countries that form an economic grouping, called ASEAN. The 500 million ASEAN nationals speak a great number of living languages and have a most diverse range of writing systems.
Department of English Language & Literature, National University of Singapore, 7 Arts Link, Block AS5, Kent Ridge, Singapore 117570. E-mail: ellannep@nus.edu.sg
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Southeast Asia can be likened to a vast laboratory in which studies of who says what to whom in what languages, why, when and how can be fruitfully engaged. It is also a huge platform for understanding how languages are learnt, taught and used in communication, including English. Following Kachrus (1984, 1985) model of the three distinctive existences of English as a global language, Southeast Asia is represented in at least two circles of English users. In the Outer Circle we count Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Brunei; all former members of the British Commonwealth and today members of the Commonwealth of Nations. In the Expanding Circle are Southeast Asian countries which include Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. Going through a quick country profile of each of the four Outer Circle and six Expanding Circle nations, we see that that the urban-rural ratio in the populations gives rise to a distinctive pattern: Outer Circle countries with higher proportions of urban populations tend to show higher per capita incomes. The question to ask is: What are the drivers of value and use of English in Southeast Asia? In two words, the drivers are technology and globalization both feeding on each other and having a great impact on the felt need of ASEAN nationals to engage with English and in English, which is the official language of the ASEAN group and the global language. Do these drivers impact similarly in the distinctively different circles of English-using Southeast Asia? There seems to me an emerging pattern with respect to the spread of English as a global language, driven by accelerated IT use and the complex phenomenon of globalization. The brief country profiles lead us to examine how different disciplines approach the study of English/Englishes in Southeast Asia. Table 1 and Table 2 clearly demarcate the difference between Outer Circle and Expanding Circle research foci in Southeast Asia.
Table 1. Approaches to world Englishes and research strands in the Expanding Circle countries (Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos) Approach ELT/EFL pedagogy Some exponents TESOL, IATEFL etc. Objectives To teach established varieties of English to learners Research strands BANA-based approaches Curriculum design Methodology Materials Development Language Testing In the 1940s, research based on AL being an academic arm of English language teaching. Today, AL interchangeably identified with SLA ESP, Language and Communication in the Workplace, Language in the Professions.

Applied linguistics (AL) Functional realities

Widdowson (1991); Halliday (1964)

To explore the acts and implications of English language teaching and learning

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Table 2. Approaches to world Englishes and research strands in the Outer Circle countries (Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei) Approach Critical linguistics Discourse Some exponents Phillipson (1992) Pennycook (1994, 1998) Ooi (2001) Objectives To express resistance to the linguistic imperialism and cultural hegemony of English To fulfil several objectives, including the expression of a national identity To promote a pluricentric approach to Englishes in the Outer Circle The Multiple Expression of world Englishes Research strands Language, ideology, power Linguistic human rights

Lexicography Corpus studies

The evolution of new voices English embedded in national contexts Distinctive features of new Englishes Supra-features e.g. discourse analysis, genre analysis Sociolinguistic dimensions Ideological dimensions Pedagogy and Practice Theory and Applications

Kachruvian studies

Kachru (1982, 1983, 1986)

Sociolinguistic realities

Pakir (1994, 1999, 2001); Bolton (2002) Berns (e.g. 1990) Lowenberg (e.g. 1993) Smith (e.g. 1992) IAWE -

WORLD ENGLISHES APPROACH: CURRENT RESEARCH TRENDS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

As a field of study, world Englishes has gained increasing attention. Bolton (2002) in his paper on World Englishes: approaches, issues and debates offers a possible paradigmatic schema that is useful for us to understand the development of English in Southeast Asia. In my modification table of Boltons (2002) table, there is a marked difference between what is happening in the Outer Circle countries compared to those in the Expanding Circle, with regard to research interests and directions. The questions to ask regarding current research in Southeast Asia are two: 1. What are some of the interesting studies currently conducted on English in Southeast Asia? 2. Can some of the research issues in the Outer Circle countries of Southeast Asia also become research issues in the Expanding Circle countries and vice-versa? We should not be surprised that the Expanding Circle research is following trends already established earlier on by Outer Circle research, by focusing on language learning (whether foreign or second language learning), interpreting and translating, literacy, mother tongue education and curriculum design and methodology, language testing and
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assessment. However, when larger groups of people become English-knowing bilinguals, the research studies may turn to the current ones occupying the attention of language and linguistics scholars in the Outer Circle. What evidence do we have that the current research in Southeast Asia is evolving in this direction? I turn your attention to a useful source of data in answering the first question of the focus of research for scholars of English in Southeast Asia. The Directory of English Language Scholars and Researchers in Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) Countries is a readily accessible online resource identifying and listing on a self-selecting basis the innumerable individuals who have been involved in teaching English at national and institutional levels . . . and thus those who are able to make significant contributions to the improvement of English language teaching and research (SEAMEO Regional Language Centre: Introduction). Table 3 indicates all 10 of the ASEAN countries, (previously often referred to as Southeast Asian countries) and the number of English language teachers and scholars from each country who registered themselves in the directory. Each of the online self-registering teachers/scholars had to list their three main areas and rank them hierarchically using the numbers 1, 2, and 3 with 1 being the most important. Not every individual reported on these main areas or ranked them, but of those who did the following pattern emerged (See Table 4). The primary concerns of the 337 English language scholars and researchers in SEAMEO countries were: English for specific purposes (138), methodology (128), and instructional materials development (122). These concerns are heavily pedagogical in nature, focusing on efficiency in English language teaching and learning, with the implication that the inspiration and model for these main areas would come from the Inner Circle countries or western traditions. An interesting fact that we have to keep in view is that discourse analysis and sociolinguistics have been identified as main areas of research for the scholars, presumably from the Outer Circle Southeast Asian countries. Consider another set of data: the rise in numbers of professional associations in Southeast Asia linked to English issues. TEFLIN (Teaching of English as a Foreign Language

Table 3. Countries and the number of registrants in the Directory Country Brunei Cambodia Indonesia Laos Malaysia Myanmar Philippines Singapore Thailand Vietnam Total
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Number of registrants (TESOL/TESL/TEFL teachers and scholars) 7 3 94 12 57 28 46 56 21 13 337

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Current research on Englishes in Southeast Asia Table 4. Main areas of teaching/scholarship and their rankings Main area Curriculum design Discourse analysis English for special purposes Grammar Instructional materials development Language policies Methodology Psycholinguistics Sociolinguistics Testing and evaluation Others (please specify) Responses (3) 85 102 138 78 122 39 128 44 105 68 7 (no specifications)

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Overall ranking

1 3 2

in Indonesia) was established in Yogjakarta in 1970 and is the leading Indonesian association of teachers of English as a foreign language having held 51 international and local conferences. ASIALEX, the Association for Asian Lexicography is now into its seventh year of existence, having had Asian board members, and presidents serving two-year terms from China, Korea, Japan and now Singapore. A third emergent group is AsiaTEFL which was established in March 2003. Working with JACET (the Japan Association of College English Teachers) and other organizations such as ELTAS (the English Language Teachers Association of Singapore), AsiaTEFL tries to centralize these related organizations under one umbrella association. It is a vast pan-Asian organization based in Korea with 134 founding committee members from 16 Asian regions, and was set up to promote scholarship, disseminate information, and facilitate cross-cultural understanding among persons concerned with the teaching and learning of English in Asia. These new rallying centers for research and exchange in matters concerning teaching and learning languages with a special focus on the English language may override the rising interest in the multiple expressions in the world Englishes paradigm.
CURRENT RESEARCH ON ENGLISH IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

I turn now briefly to the second section of the paper where developments in the use of English in the Outer Circle have drawn reflections from individual scholars who have offered papers at the panel discussion that inspired this special issue. It is significant that all eight of the papers report on research done in the Outer Circle countries. In my view, this trend explicates clearly the preoccupations of the multiple expressions of identity in the world Englishes paradigm, especially when norms of interaction and norms of interpretation have become established in these Southeast Asian contexts that have an Anglophone past. I have in my research described the phenomenon of ascendant English-knowing bilingual communities in Outer Circle countries and suggested that discourses on English as a glocal language (Pakir 2003) could be an apt response in order to counterbalance the discourses on English as a global language. The common feature regarding language issues in the former colonies of the British and American empires is that of the complexities and realities of teaching any language, not just English. The societies within the Outer Circle
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countries of Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Brunei have lived, comfortably or uncomfortably, with many linguistic and ethnic traditions, and have always been made acutely aware of the cultural politics of language. Having the status of former colonies, they grapple in their own ways with the legacy (to some) and the curse (to others) of the English language left behind by colonialists. Complicating their emerging nationhoods and need for policies (including language), in determining their individual destinies has been the inadvertent rush by these countries into a modern existence and a bowing to the pressures of globalization and its tandem language, English. From the collection of papers in this special issue, delving into the contexts of Englishknowing bilingualism in highly-ascendant English-knowing bilingual communities, we have strands that indicate a veering towards distinctive features, discourse features, sociolinguistic dimensions, ideological dimensions, and creative pedagogical dimensions. All of these studies take into consideration several aspects of language, culture and society, and try to give insights into the processes related to the universal and visible presence of English within English-knowing Southeast Asian contexts. This special issue features papers by Alsagoff, Dayag, Deterding, Hashim, Low, OHaraDavies, and Schaetzel, Lim and Low. Alsagoff examines models of Singapore English and demonstrates the explanatory advantages of a model that takes account of the cultural identities negotiated by Singaporeans. Speakers combine features associated with standardized or localized forms of Singapore English to position their speech acts with global and local perspectives simultaneously (for example, to derive authority from an International or Standard English, while at the same time asserting a local perspective through the inclusion of localized features. Dayag reports the results of a study of English-language Philippine newspaper headlines, which topicalize and assign agency to the Philippine government in the reports concerning a hostage drama in 2004. Deterding analyses norms for pronunciation that are currently emerging in southeast Asia. Hashim explores the interaction of verbal and visual components of persuasion in print advertisements in Malaysia. Low measures successive vowel durations to compare the rhythm patterns of Singapore English, Chinese English, and British English. Her results hold interesting implications for our understanding of the Three Circles Model as it applies to norm-providing, normdependent, and norm-developing societies. OHara-Davies reports on the grammaticality and lexicality judgements of Brunei English speakers, finding a degree of stabilization and the recognition of the local variety. Schaetzel, Lim, and Low present the results of a survey of students in a features-based university course on Singapore English. Taken as a group, these papers explore the development and social functions of local, global, and glocal language forms in the region, drawing on current sociolinguistic methodology as well as sensitive cultural interpretation to extend our understanding of Southeast Asian language ecologies.
CONCLUSION

The special issue is to be applauded for moving off from the major concerns in most of Southeast Asia largely anchored in the topic of English: its features, learning, acquisition, assessment, translation, and interpretation teaching and testing. While the current researchers in this special issue paint a picture of the increasing use of English as a lingua franca in Southeast Asia, especially in the metropolitan areas, and while there is the predicted rise of ascendant English-knowing bilingual communities within Southeast Asia,
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there will always be the research focus on issues of ESL/EFL learning. Perhaps that is precisely why we find the offerings of this special issue on the distinctive features of Southeast Asian Englishes and beyond, on the supra features of genre and discourse, on domain analysis of English use, particularly energizing.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author wishes to acknowledge the organizers of IAWE 2005, especially Kingsley Bolton and Margie Berns for the kind invitation to organize the Southeast Asian strand of papers on the multiple expressions of English and for their hospitality, as well as the paper presenters on the panel which formed the first seeds for the idea of a special symposium focusing on English in Southeast Asia.

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