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    Sacred Cows of English

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    Beth Hills
    The document discusses five "Sacred cows" or traditional ideas about English that have been challenged by the global spread of English and long-term studies of world Englishes from non-Western perspectives. The five Sacred cows are: 1) Acquisitional Sacred cow which assumes incompetent use of English outside inner-circle countries, 2) Theoretical Sacred cow which assumes native-speaking environments and ideal homogeneous communities are required, 3) Pedagogical Sacred cow which excludes local varieties, 4) Sociolinguistic Sacred cow which recognizes local versions of English have distinct identities, 5) Ideological Sacred cow which promotes standard English over local varieties but this is changing as local varieties gain prestige

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    Sacred Cows of English

    Uploaded by

    Beth Hills
    105 views3 pages
    The document discusses five "Sacred cows" or traditional ideas about English that have been challenged by the global spread of English and long-term studies of world Englishes from non-Western perspectives. The five Sacred cows are: 1) Acquisitional Sacred cow which assumes incompetent use of English outside inner-circle countries, 2) Theoretical Sacred cow which assumes native-speaking environments and ideal homogeneous communities are required, 3) Pedagogical Sacred cow which excludes local varieties, 4) Sociolinguistic Sacred cow which recognizes local versions of English have distinct identities, 5) Ideological Sacred cow which promotes standard English over local varieties but this is changing as local varieties gain prestige

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    The document discusses five "Sacred cows" or traditional ideas about English that have been challenged by the global spread of English and long-term studies of world Englishes from non-Western perspectives. The five Sacred cows are: 1) Acquisitional Sacred cow which assumes incompetent use of English outside inner-circle countries, 2) Theoretical Sacred cow which assumes native-speaking environments and ideal homogeneous communities are required, 3) Pedagogical Sacred cow which excludes local varieties, 4) Sociolinguistic Sacred cow which recognizes local versions of English have distinct identities, 5) Ideological Sacred cow which promotes standard English over local varieties but this is changing as local varieties gain prestige

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    105 views3 pages

    Sacred Cows of English

    Uploaded by

    Beth Hills
    The document discusses five "Sacred cows" or traditional ideas about English that have been challenged by the global spread of English and long-term studies of world Englishes from non-Western perspectives. The five Sacred cows are: 1) Acquisitional Sacred cow which assumes incompetent use of English outside inner-circle countries, 2) Theoretical Sacred cow which assumes native-speaking environments and ideal homogeneous communities are required, 3) Pedagogical Sacred cow which excludes local varieties, 4) Sociolinguistic Sacred cow which recognizes local versions of English have distinct identities, 5) Ideological Sacred cow which promotes standard English over local varieties but this is changing as local varieties gain prestige

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    of 3

    SACRED COWS OF ENGLISH

    The fact that English becomes a global language has challenged the way linguistics

    perceive the uses and users of English (Bhatt, 2001, p.538)

    Furthermore, the long-term study of world Englishes from non-Western perspectives

    had exposed five types of traditional ideas of English, as known as Sacred cows (Bhatt, 2001,

    p.538). There are the acquisitional, sociolinguistic, pedagogical, theoretical, and ideological

    Sacred cows (Bhatt, 2001, p.538).

    Acquisitional Sacred cow refers to the incompetent use of English in outer-circle

    countries (Bhatt, 2001, p.539). As in the case of Indian English, speakers do not differ the use

    of tag questions, which is a part of their cultural grammar rather than an error in the language

    acquisition (Bhatt, 2001, p.539).

    Another problem is that traditional linguistic understanding does not perceive the

    structure of the interlanguage as its own but view it from the systematic scope of the target

    language (Bhatt, 2001, p.539). This false comparison caused consequences to the fossilisation

    theory (Bhatt, 2001, p.539). However, there would be no discussion of this theory without

    mentioning the target language's structure and native speakers (Bhatt, 2001, p.539). This

    idealisation confirms that only native speakers can achieve the competent use of the target

    language (Bhatt, 2001, p.539).

    Theoretical Sacred cow involves the perceptions of the speech community, the native

    speaker, and the ideal speaker-hearer (Bhatt, 2001, p.539). Traditional linguistics believe that

    second language acquisition takes place in a native-speaking environment (Bhatt, 2001,

    p.539). However, most of the case happens in non-native contexts (Bhatt, 2001, p.539). This

    idealisation also states that only the homogenous speech community that includes the ideal

    speaker-hearer can own the model of a specific language (Bhatt, 2001, p.539).
    As a result, this framework of the mother-tongue acquisition generates “linguistic

    communism”, which is an impractical idea indicating the equality of all languages. This

    idealisation entitles the language of power by excluding other cultures and languages (Bhatt,

    2001, p.539). The difference appears to clarify the inner-circle variety despite its probable

    unreality.

    As in Pedagogical Sacred cow, a two-decade study states that world Englishes are

    distinctive for their own localised varieties (Bhatt, 2001, p.540). However, the pedagogical

    paradigm excludes this reality and employ the norm in inner-circle contexts for the English

    language teaching (Bhatt, 2001, p.540). Bhatt hopes that the study of the fundamental features

    in the classroom would contribute to more suitable ESL pedagogical approaches (Bhatt, 2001,

    p.540).

    In terms of Sociolinguistic Sacred cow, the "pluricentricity" of English is the multiple

    localised versions of English as the contract-based languages nationally and regionally (Bhatt,

    2001, p.540). As a crucial result, the "pluricentricity" of English explains the canon of

    traditional English and forms that of modern English with their cultural, literacy and linguistic

    identities (Bhatt, 2001, p.540).

    Ideological Sacred cow concerns with the teaching of English that promotes the

    standard English and this idealisation competes with the localised varieties for domination

    (Bhatt, 2001, p.540-541). As a part of the promotion, the institutional agency persuades the

    public to believe the adoption of standard English will benefit them significantly, such as

    increased life quality (Bhatt, 2001, p.541). The English language teaching in outer-circle

    contexts continues to employ this strategy to maintain and evolve the ideology and status of

    standard English (Bhatt, 2001, p.541). However, the ideological landscape is changing as the

    localised varieties are fighting for the functional domains over the standard English (Bhatt,

    2001, p.541).
    Reference

    Bhatt, R. M. (2001). World Englishes. Annual review of anthropology, 30(1), 527-550.

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