By
Obododimma
Oha
Among the
great challenges that scholars in language use have noted over time is a user making an appropriate choice,taking
note of the very nature of the context,
the audience, the purpose, etc. These issues are explored in great detail in sociological orientations to language study. Perhaps, the
dimension that gives headaches to teachers of a language like English is the
recognition and use of the variety needed for a context. These “headaches”
could be devastating and persistent in the second-language context of
English,the type identified by Braj Kachru as the “Outer Circle.” Oh, so there
are “outsiders” who forget they are regarded as “outsiders,” particularly in
teaching and promoting another’s language? Does that kind of question not
amount to teachers of English in the second-language context being demoralized?
They are not really seen as experts on the language, the same way their
counterparts from Africa who teach in America or England are denigrated, worse
still if their students complain that they possess “accents.” One from the
Outside Circle that is already an uncomfortable distance cannot pontificate for
learners in the Inner Circle. To be able to pontificate, one must drop one’s
accent and dissolve linguistically in the melting pot, if it is America. So,
you see,choice and context are serious matters in dispensing knowledge through
language. But this background is just beginning of the problem of learners of
English in the second-language context!
When we shift
from the Inner Circle of English Language education to the Outer Circle, the
headache could result in hypertension. And this why: learners are told that the
language is variable, but that they have to exchange one linguistic imperialism
for another and secondly, there is a formal type and an informal one, the later
not to be used as the former. But students may graduate with the confusion,
using one form of English (one imperialism) or to the other, just as the spirit
directs them. Do they have to police (and “custom” and “immigration”) the
borders of both forms? How, in God’s name, do they tell the difference
between one tempter and another? You
see! So, they apply the funny principle of “anything-goes,”after all, Pharaoh has to let my people go.
Further, in
the postcolonial world that is inside the postcolonial world (the colonial within the postcolonial, if you like), has the ideology of the
abnormal becoming the normal (the norm) not taken root, so that its linguistic
expression, its linguistic confusion, is just a given?
Another
question, in these days of globalization through technology, has this exchange
of one linguistic imperialism for another not become even permanent, with the
computer auto-correcting and imposing American preferences or British ones,
again depending on which tempter is at work during the configuration of the system?
OK, let us
say that learners are at the mercy of their computers (often bought used and
already configured). But the learner remains a victim, even if the perpetrator
of linguistic imperialism has shifted to artificial intelligence. Learners will
eventually write examinations and would leave choices that they have made in
the hands of a pastor whose duty is to convince God which to accept. So, the
awarders of the grade are legion (the slave trade beneficiaries are many!), just as the awardees include non-native
culture, prevalent confusion in cultures in the Outer Circle,teachers’ own shallow knowledge and training, etc.
My advice is
this: do not study or teach English in the non-native setting as “Anything-Goes.”
That is the easiest way to make the headache lead to hypertension. Find out (from reliable resources) whether a particular form you want to use is the best in that context, whether
it is an informal variety you are using in a formal communication. Remember,
language is rule-governed. You cannot just write or speak anything you like, even though the rule is not Decree Number Four or "Shoot-at-Sight" and get a "Body bag"! As for
accepting or rejecting your subjectivity through American English or British
English, leave that in the hands of your Maker. Maybe He will one day cause one
empire to disappear, and with it the linguistic identity.
Comments