Distant countries: Southern Hemisphere Englishes

The motivation for this session has had at least three sources.

Firstly, as a general linguistics conference organised by a School of English functioning in an L2 setting, PLM has recently discussed varieties of English from an ESL perspective on a number of occasions. The “Focus on Accents” session at PLM2003, and the joint PLM2004/PASE panel “The model of English pronunciation for foreign learners: Three dictionaries, one model?” examined the issue of selecting a model of English pronunciation to be used in EFL/ESL teaching. Leading experts in the field, including Peter Roach, Peter Trudgill, John Wells and Clive Upton, participated in the events. However, the two sessions focussed almost entirely on RP, General American, and Jenkins’ (2000) Lingua Franca Core as possible options. (A volume has been just published summarising the discussion - see here.) “Antipodean” Englishes have been largely disregarded; however, it is evident that in recent decades Australian English has grown as a regional standard in Oceania and South-East Asia.

Secondly, southern hemisphere Englishes, and New Zealand English in particular, have spawned considerable research interest in recent years, especially in the field of historical dialectology and sociolinguistics (e.g. Blair and Collins 2001; Gordon et al. 2004; Trudgill 2004). The findings from this research are significant for both English dialectologists and sociolinguists in general.

Finally, there has been increasing focus on the complex relations between English and the local indigenous languages. This area has seen much discussion especially in the new political reality of South Africa, where Black South African English seems to have been rapidly gaining in importance.

For all these reasons, the PLM2006 Organising Committee have decided to devote a special session to Southern Hemisphere Englishes during the forthcoming Poznań Linguistic Meeting.

We invite papers on topics including, but not limited to, the following:

The current state of Australian, New Zealand and South African English, including sociolinguistic variability, and the role of Australian English as a growing regional standard;
The history of Australian, New Zealand and South African English, including relations with other varieties of English;
All aspects of Black South African English.
The interactions of indigenous languages with English in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Each paper will be given 30 minutes, including 5-10 minutes for discussion.

Abstracts should be prepared in accordance with the general submission guidelines, and submitted by e-mail to Jarosław Weckwerth at: wjarekifa.amu.edu.pl..

37th Poznań Linguistic Meeting

20-23 April 2006

Distant countries: Southern Hemisphere Englishes