In many parts of the universe, English is a powerful key to occupation chances. It is besides the most often used linguistic communication on the Internet. The usage of English in states beyond the boundary line of the United Kingdom has become the focal point of much lingual research late. It is of a great involvement to analyze and depict such assortments and their developments, from which originates a new way in linguistics known as World Englishes.
To categorise the grade of English development throughout the universe, Kachru ( 1985 ) has devised a three-concentric-circle strategy, spliting the states that use English into one of the three countries: the Inner Circle, the Outer Circle and the Expanding Circle. The Inner Circle is composed of states where the people learn and use English as a first linguistic communication such as the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Most former settlements of the UK and the USA and states that are greatly influenced by the two states make up the Outer Circle. In this circle, English is either recognized as an official linguistic communication or preponderantly used in jurisprudence, instruction and many other societal activities. Some states in this circle are India, Israel, Bangladesh and Ethiopia. The Expanding Circle comprises of states where English is being learned as an international linguistic communication in some major spheres of society such as instruction, scientific discipline, and engineering. Some of these states include China, Japan, Korea, Thailand and many states of Europe, to call but a few.
As classified above, harmonizing to Kachru ‘s classification, Nipponese English has its topographic point in the spread outing circle. In contrast to India, Japan has a common national linguistic communication spoken by everyone for a long clip throughout its history ; moreover, the Nipponeses are unified in cultural and political respects. Hence, the usage of English as a device for intranational communicating or national integrity is seemingly out of the inquiry ( Kachru, 2005: 64 )
Consequently, in Japan presents, English merely prevails as a foreign linguistic communication in the Japanese educational system, academic research and international concern activities. However, late, there is an increasing domination of English in the media, and its influences on the Nipponese society and linguistic communication are bit by bit recognized through many lingual research works.
First, the history of the Nipponese contact with English will be presented, followed by the description of the features of Nipponese English in major lingual spheres such as phonemics, sentence structure, discourse manner and in conclusion vocabulary, as this is the country that reflects the most interesting interaction between English and Nipponese and non a simply one-way influence from English. Finally, within the range and the intent of this class, together with the limited scope of English application in Japan, the instruction of English in Japan will be described and discussed with an effort to approximately acquire a future image of Nipponese English.
History of contact
First of all is the Nipponese history of contact with Europeans. In the late 16 century there came Spanish and Portuguese, taging the really first contact with people from Europe. Later, with the start of a Dutch trading station in 1609, the Dutch became the prevailing European contact with Japan and Dutch was the lone European linguistic communication studied by bookmans for the continuance of 200 old ages. This fact was important for the development of English in Japan because during their survey of the Dutch, scholars accordingly expanded to the survey of “ the West ” ( Stanlaw 2004: 47 ) .
1853 is the milepost for the first exposure to English when the American mission came to Japan to advance trading with the USA, speed uping the bookmans switching from the survey of Dutch to English to larn about the West. In 1868, a new authorities of the Meiji epoch was established. This authorities encouraged the survey of English in private establishments. Interestingly, although the bulk of aliens in Japan was American, the English theoretical account in those schools was Received Pronunciation and the theoretical account was slightly applied in trading and analyzing. The ground for this is Received Pronunciation was considered ‘good pronunciation ‘ at that clip ( Stanlaw 2004: 61 ) .
By the 1880s there emerged a recoil against the West ( Ike 1995: 5 ) , which can be exemplified by the Ministry of Education ‘s determination to utilize Nipponese, non English, as the linguistic communication of direction in Tokyo University. During the Second World War, English acquisition was discouraged, taking to the drastic bead of hours for English acquisition in secondary schools ( Koike and Tanaka 1995: 17 ) . During the American business, the new fundamental law established a different educational system in which English direction was officially an elected, get downing from May 1947. This period besides marks the displacement of theoretical account for direction from Received Pronunciation to American English ( Yoshikawa 2005: 351-2 ) . With the intensifying demand from a assortment of English scholars ( non merely pupils but besides business communities and even homemakers ) , more and more foreign instructors from the Inner Circle states were employed, which means that the Japanese had more opportunities to interact with native talkers. Since the terminal of the Second World War, the Japanese composing system has employed katakana for foreign loanwords and names ( Gottlieb 2005: 79-80 ) . Since the 1980s, larning English has flourished thanks to the authorities ‘s scheme to ‘internationalize ‘ the state, which was evidently proposed with the slogan ‘kokusaika ‘ ( internationalisation ) ( Kubota 1998:296-7 ) .
Features of Nipponese English
With the late encouragement of English linguistic communication larning in Japan, there arises the inquiry of the features of Nipponese English. Therefore, the following portion will concentrate on discoursing Nipponese English in lingual degrees such as phonemics, sentence structure, discourse and vocabulary.
1. Phonology
Harmonizing to Sonda ( 2007 ) , when articulating English, most Nipponese do non do a differentiation between /l/ and /r/ . For illustration, lake-rake, late-rate, and liver-river can easy take to misinterpretations when the Nipponese converse with native talkers. Another characteristic is that, unlike many Asiatic talkers who tend to drop the concluding consonants, Nipponese talkers do recognize and seek to articulate the consonants clearly. However, they tend to add a vowel to the consonant and bring forth sentences like “ I went-o restaurant-o yesterday ” or “ I want-o purchase a ticket-o. ”
Pitch is another characteristic of Nipponese English. In his research, Loveday ( 1981 ) studied of Nipponese talkers talking English. The pitch degrees produced by these talkers were compared with those by British talkers. The consequence showed that male Nipponese talkers of English used much lower pitches than those of male British talkers.
2. Syntax
In footings of sentence structure, Nipponese people have the inclination to prefer the inactive voice ; hence, alternatively of stating “ We decided on the program ” , many Japanese would bring forth sentences like “ The program was decided on ” ( Yano, 2001, p. 127 ) .
Another syntactic feature found by Sonda ( 2007 ) is that prepositions are frequently omitted or misused, which can be illustrated by the undermentioned vocalizations: “ Because I talk many people. I do n’t understand to talk by English. ” Another characteristic is that the topics of sentences tend to be dropped by Nipponese talkers. However, the vocalizations still make sense within their contexts, such as “ aˆ¦it ‘s rain and tired. I want to travel place and hungry. ”
3. Discourse degree
At the discourse degree, a dramatic divergence from the English of Inner Circle states can be found. In American English, it is common pattern to present the chief thought foremost, which is so developed by back uping paragraphs. In Nipponese English, nevertheless, a subdivision incorporating polite remarks that are apparently irrelevant to the general development of the paper is presented at the beginning. Harmonizing to St. Amant ( 1999: 299 ) , “ without such an debut, a Nipponese reader might comprehend these paperss as disrespectful or unconcerned with constructing long-run relationships ( two cardinal cultural constructs in Japan ) . ”
In their analysis of American and Nipponese college pupils ‘ composing on argumentative subjects, Kamimura and Oi ( 1988: 311 ) discovered another set of different manners in the two groups. The American pupils by and large employed the general-to-specific form, whereas Nipponese authors developed their essays either with a specific-to-general manner, which ends the essay with a thesis statement, or even omit the thesis statement. Furthermore, the US pupils picked one side and ‘stuck with it ‘ , while the Nipponese pupils were likely to ‘try to integrate both sides… , with their place fluctuating throughout the essay ‘ .
4. Vocabulary
One of the most interesting facets of Nipponese English is its loan words. Stanlaw ( 2004 ) suggests that ”English loanwords are non truly loanwords at all, as there is no existent adoption that occurs ” ( p. 17 ) . Rather, these lexical points are inspired by English vocabulary: an English word is non incorporated as a whole but a portion or parts of it is applied in unfamiliar contexts.
In his research, Kay ( 1995: 68-72 ) has determined several procedures of accommodating English words into the Nipponese vocabulary. First is the orthographical procedure, in which katakana is employed to compose and spelling English words. Next is phonological: English vowels and consonants that do non be in Nipponese are replaced by their closest Nipponese equivalents, therefore takushii is the widely accepted pronunciation for ‘taxi ‘ . Third, morphological: as English loan words require the add-on of excess vowels, taking to really long versions, many of them are shortened, such as suupaa for ‘supermarket ‘ . There are besides Nipponese and English intercrossed compounds such as haburashi, ‘tooth ( Nipponese ) + coppice ‘ , intending ‘toothbrush ‘ . Lasty, semantic: loan words get significances that are culturally specific, e.g. manshon, from ‘mansion ‘ with the cultural significance ‘high category block of flats ‘ .
Such English words incorporated into the Nipponese vocabulary play an of import function in Japan. About all native talkers of Nipponese usage English loan words, particularly in J-pop ( Nipponese dad music ) , modern Nipponese literature and Nipponese poesy, in which English words serve a scope of maps such as “ the building of new analogies, metaphors and metonyms and for ocular and in writing effects ” ( Stanlaw 2004: 122 ) .
The usage of English footings can besides work as ‘ingroup young person linguistic communication ‘ ( Loveday 1996: 195-7 ) , which is apparent in the term kogyaru, which is composed of KO, from kotogakko ( high school ) + gyaru, from ‘girl ‘ , and makuru, from maku ( McDonald ‘s ) + -ru ( finite verb stoping ) , intending ‘to go to McDonald ‘s ‘ ( Coulmas 2007: 60 ) .
English loan words are besides used to depict new phenomena, such as puraibashii from ‘privacy ‘ and homuresu from ‘homeless ‘ , because there is no equivalent for them in Japanese ( Torikai 2005: 252 ) . English loanwords are besides utilised as euphemisms to show hard sentiments or forbidden subjects. Some illustrations of this usage are shirubaa shiito, from ‘silver ‘ + ‘seat ‘ , intending ‘a reserved place on public conveyance for the aged ‘ ; and toire from ‘toilet ‘ ( Daulton 2008: 38 ) .
Discussion of Nipponese English in the educational context
Nipponese people nowadays acknowledge English as an international linguistic communication, with the figure of non-native talkers increasing really rapidly. This planetary enlargement requires a alteration in English linguistic communication instruction and Japan is no exclusion. However, there are really few instructors from other Outer Circle or Expanding Circle state. Furthermore, the Japanese ‘s attitude toward assortments of English is as followed:
Despite the planetary spread of English as a linguistic communication for wider communicating, many Nipponese still believe that English is the belongings of the U.S.A. and Britain. They are ashamed if they do non talk English the manner native talkers do. ( Takeshita, 2000: 7 )
Therefore, with the application of World Englishes, instructors might alter the attitudes of Nipponese scholars toward English and its assortments throughout the universe. The benefits are alterations in the people ‘s attitudes instead than lingual differences, taking to the replacing of traditional English theoretical accounts or criterions. It should be clarified for the pupils that with their maestro of English, they will non merely interact with people from the Inner Circle states but besides with those from the Outer and Expanding Circles, in which the Numberss of talkers grows every twenty-four hours. With this, the pupils get to accept many assortments of English and achieve much more success in international communicating. Besides, more findings from Nipponese English surveies promise to cast visible radiations onto the place of English in Japan, giving more deductions for instructors and educational contrivers to use in the instruction of English in Japan.
