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From Deficit to Dialect: The Evolution of English in India and Singapore

Online ISBN:
9780197698624
Print ISBN:
9780195307504
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

From Deficit to Dialect: The Evolution of English in India and Singapore

Devyani Sharma
Devyani Sharma

Professor

Queen Mary University of London
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Published online:
19 October 2023
Published in print:
22 September 2023
Online ISBN:
9780197698624
Print ISBN:
9780195307504
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

The emergence of new English dialects in postcolonial regions has transformed the politics of English in the world and language ecologies in many regions. Why, how, and when did these dialects develop? Why do they have the accents and grammars that we hear? Are the grammars of these dialects completely different due to the influence of local languages, or similar due to natural tendencies in human cognition? In terms of social identity, do their speakers behave like native speakers of British or American English, or like language learners? Focusing on two prominent cases—English in India and in Singapore—this book examines the social, historical, and cognitive forces that together created and continue to shape these dialects. Differences in the linguistic ecology of the two regions help us to identify the strongest mechanisms of dialect formation under long-term cultural contact. The multiscale analysis moves beyond a simplistic divide between “deficit” and “dialect” views of these speech communities, showing that change proceeds unevenly across the language system and the social group, with feedback loops between social history, language learning, language structure, and identity.

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