The cultural and linguistic context of English in West Germany

Abstract

A growing number of studies document the spread and influence of English in Africa and Asia and its subsequent nativization in these non-native contexts. However, the spread and nativization of English has not been restricted to former colonies. In Europe, too, English plays a significant role in the daily lives of Germans, Italians and Danes. This paper considers the linguistic creativity of West German users of English and their particular variety of English. Attention will be given to describing the forms and functions of this variety, processes of nativization, especially the process of borrowing, and West Germans' attitudes toward English and toward the development of a variety of English that is distinctly German. Throughout, the term 'German English' will be used to highlight the unique social, cultural and linguistic role English plays in the German context or situation.

English in Germany: contact, spread and attitudes

“…Berns, 1988a;1988b;1990;Hilgendorf, 1996;, there has been little examination of how, why, and with whom Germans use English. This paper presents a macrosociolinguistic profile of this contact situation by considering three specific topics: the history of contact that has led to the present-day situation, the functional range of English use in terms of domains, and the attitudes Germans have towards the language.…”

Macro and micro perspectives on the distribution of English in Dutch: A quantitative usage-based analysis of job ads

“…One possible reason for this result is that the micro-level use of English is an older phenomenon than the macro-level use of English, and has hence had more time to disseminate. The starting point of noteworthy lexical influence of English on Western European languages is typically located in the early nineteenth century, with a true explosion of anglicisms starting in 1945 (see Dunger 1899;De Vooys 1951;Berns 1988;Stalhammar 2004 andvan der Sijs 2005). For the spread of English as a language for (international) communication, Louhiala-Salminen and Charles 2006 locate the establishment of English as European lingua franca in the 1960s (see also Brumfit 1995in Jenkins 2009.…”

“…However, these Eurobarometer data should not be overinterpreted: as the Belgian respondents are sampled across the three linguistic communities of Belgium (French-speaking in the South, Dutch-speaking in the North, and a German-speaking minority in the East), they are not very representative. Finally, Berns (1988) considers the Netherlands (together with Denmark and Germany) as evolving into a region where English functions as a second language more than as foreign language. She makes no such claims concerning the role English plays in Flanders.…”

Reading Pennycook Critically 10 Years Later: A Group's Reflections On and Questions About Critical Applied Linguistics

“…To be sure, disciplines are the result of the individual efforts of teachers, scholars, students, and policymakers; as such, they have nuances and complexities that result in trends but not always unified views or actions. Individuals operating underneath broad designations have over the last few decades argued for the formal legitimacy of many Englishes (Kachru, 1983, and after), described the role of English and different parts of the world (Berns, 1988;Nino-Murcia, 2003;Petzold, 2000), resisted linguistic imperialism (Canagarajah, 1999), discussed peace linguistics (Gomes de Matos & Friedrich, 2009), and highlighted the ways in which world Englishes is political (Bolton, 2005), just to cite a few examples. So, the space has Downloaded by [UQ Library] at 05:49 02 November 2014 been created, across applied linguistics areas, for critical issues to flourish.…”