Research Korner

Syntactic variation in interactions across international Englishes

Syntactic variation in interactions across international Englishes Discussions of  World Englishes mainly concentrate on the particularities of individual varieties of English spoken in the different parts of the world. There is, however, another form ofWorld English which emerges when speakers of different international varieties interact with each other.When English is the mother tongue of neither of the speakers who use the language for communicative purposes, they employ it as a lingua franca. This paper describes the syntactic variation found in this variety of English. It presents the results of analyses of a corpus containing 22 hours of naturally occurring interactions and describes both unsystematic as well as (seemingly) systematic grammatical choices made by the speakers. The results reveal that, not unlike the processes which have previously been documented for dialect contact, interactions across international Englishes are characterised by processes of levelling and regularisation, whilst at the same time individual speakers retain the characteristics of their original varieties. Individual Englishes are further constrained by transfer processes and interlanguage patterns. 1. Introduction According to(1983), English is, geographically, used in three different contexts: the inner, outer and expanding circle. These circles are traditionally held to represent different ways in which English is both acquired and used. Whereas the inner circle is characterised by the use of English as the primary language and by the fact that it is acquired as a mother tongue (L1), the language largely has the status of a second or foreign language in the two other circles. However, speakers in the outer circle use English as an institutionalised second language, often yielding indigenised forms, whereas speakers in the expanding circle traditionally acquire English through formal instruction following the model of either standard British (BrE) or American English (AmE), and usually do not use English for communication purposes within their individual home countries. In all three circles, individual varieties of English have developed, and increasingly frequent global migration has resulted in an upsurge of interactions involving the participation of speakers of these different Englishes. This paper discusses interactions involving non-native speakers from the outer and the expanding circle as a particular case of interactions across Englishes. After placing these interactions within the larger frame of interactions across Englishes, the core chapters discuss the variation that the data reveal with regard to syntax. In the individual chapters, special focus is placed both on features which the individual speakers carry into the interactions and on particularities arising out of the interactions. 2. The history of interactions across Englishes Interactions across Englishes have existed ever since regional variation arose, thus, probably ever since English was formed and its early dialects developed. Prior to the discovery and settlement of America and the subsequent spread of English across the globe, such interactions were confined to the British Isles (e.g. the metropolitan area of London). Contact between dialects leads to dialect mixing, and the result of such lectal contact has commonly been described as koinéisation, which involves a number of linguistic processes: dialect mixing, dialect levelling and simplification (1986). But as  (1993.) points out, koinéisation does not necessarily result in the formation of a koiné. Rather, the contact of closely related linguistic subsystems involves a series of stages: At the initial, unstable stage, the forms of the individual varieties are used interchangeably; at the subsequent stage, norms develop for the use of a stabilised koiné, which may later be expanded to serve individual communicative functions. However, this process may terminate at any of its stages without eventually yielding a stable new variety. Today, the situation has increased in complexity: First, many more varieties of English exist due to the expansion of the usage areas through British and Syntactic variation in interactions across international Englishes 111 American influence and, second, increased global migration results in frequent contact between speakers who usually do not mix into a stable community but rather into one which is in constant flux. 2.1 World English(es), New Englishes, English as a lingua franca, and interactions across Englishes World Englishes, it seems, still fall into two categories. A large number of Englishes used outside the traditional L1 regions have acquired stable and systematic forms, which assures them the status of regional varieties in their own rights, as New Englishes (1984). Assigning the status of New English to an individual variety, according to (1984), requires that the variety should have developed through the education system, and that it has come to be used for a wide range of functions (e.g. in the media, parliament and/or administration) in an area to which English was transported. Formally, the variety needs to have developed its own features with regard to phonology, syntax, lexicon, etc. Other forms of English which do not differ from the L1 varieties in a systematic but rather in an irregular way are commonly still discussed as learner Englishes ( 2002), based on the assumption that in their case unsystematic deviations are reflections of particular developmental stages within an as yet incomplete acquisition process in an individual learner, or, more precisely, of “the internal system that a learner has constructed at a single point in time” ( 1994).1 These Englishes are general- ly held to occur in contexts in which the language is not commonly used for communicative purposes outside the classroom in which it is taught. Interactions across different World Englishes can potentially involve speakers from any of the three circles. Such conversations had not been very much at the focus of researchers’ interest up until the 1990s. Since then there has been a growing interest in conversations involving mainly non-native speakers of English (see below for a review of individual studies). In cases where all speakers involved in a conversation have mother tongues other than English but communicate in English, they use the language as a lingua franca. As a lingua franca, English may be used either intranationally, as is the case e.g. in India or Nigeria, or internationally (e.g. between Germans and Mexicans). Speakers of intranational lingua francas have usually acquired them as nativised second languages and use them in a variety of domains. Most participants in international lingua franca conversations, on the other hand, may be regarded as (ex-)learners of a language they use for restricted purposes only. Generally, communication in English as a lingua franca (ELF) is a complex process. It involves participants who are representatives of different individual first languages and who therefore have their individual linguistic backgrounds regarding both structural forms as well as communicative norms and standards. We may therefore expect transfer from the different mother tongues. At the same time, especially speakers from the expanding circle usually acquire the norms of either BrE or AmE to a certain degree when learning the language. Thus, ELF may involve the direct or indirect interplay of three or even more linguistic systems. Still, these processes have only recently become an object of scholarly investigation. 2.2 Lingua franca communication research ELF communication was initially discussed as a particular case of non-native/ non-native communication, and early studies, which originated from within the interlanguage paradigm, approached lingua franca conversations as interactions between learners. (1980) as well as (1985) investi- gated the negotiation of meaning between non-native speakers of English with different linguistic backgrounds.2 From a similar perspective,  (1990) studied the management of verbal conflict among Indian, Chinese and Korean students interacting in ELF. The first detailed discussion of sociolinguistic aspects of ELF was that of  (1991), who provided the theoretical background for the understanding of lingua franca communication. Subsequent studies approached the subject from a more empirical angle:  (1990, 1996) and (1993) analysed business telephone conversations between speakers of different European mother tongues, adopting an interactional approach and focussing on the way participants cooperate to achieve the goal of their conversation.  (1994) and  (1996, 1998, 2000) provide analyses of the discourse features of small talk in lingua franca.  (2002) discusses topic management strategies chosen by European students of English to arrive efficiently at a joint decision in a simulated meeting, and  (2002) concen- trates on pragmatic dysfluencies in conversations among international students at the University of Hamburg. The structural levels of phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon of ELF have only recently become the focus of scholarly interest. This might be due to the fact that, until now, there has been a predominant focus on successful interaction in lingua franca communication by scholars (1990, 1996), who proposed that speakers in these conversations largely accept ambiguity and let potential trouble sources pass. Recently, a number of research projects have been launched to investigate ELF from a more structural and descriptive angle, mainly with the aim of providing corpora, whichmay eventually serve as a basis for syllabus design in English language teaching. (2000) provided an early study into the phonological characteristics of ELF by identifying phonological features which cause unintelligibility and/or miscommunication. At the University of Klagenfurt, Allan James is pursuing pilot projects on the position and perception of English as a lingua franca in the Alpine-Adriatic area ( 2000). Barbara Seidlhofer has initiated the compilation of a more general ELF corpus project at theUniversity ofVienna (2001), and collects ELF data in academic settings at the University ( 2003). Unfortunately, there is to date no study into interactions across different varieties of English which focuses on syntax. This paper seeks to contribute to closing this gap and to our understanding of the syntactic variation which characterises ELF in informal conversations. 3. World Englishes and syntax As  (1984),  (1987) and, more recently, Schmied (1991) and (1996) point out, New Englishes generally share a number of grammatical features.3 Based on a review of existing studies,  (1984) sum up an extensive list of features which they found to correspond across individual New Englishes. With regard to the noun phrase (NP), there are tendencies to change the NP’s word order, not to mark plurality, to differ with regard to the determination of nouns, and to make no distinction between the third person pronouns he and she. Processes characterising the verb phrase are the extension of the progressive aspect to stative verbs, failure to mark verbs for third person singular in the present tense form or for past tense, and the mixing of tense and aspect systems. At the clause level, ellipsis of subject and object pronouns, pronoun copying (see topicalisation below), uninverted constituents in interrogative constructions, and the use of an invariant question tag formare common.Many of these features have been confirmed by (1987) for the New Englishes. And  (1991) even proposes that Englishes in general share tendencies in their individual developments. Preceding his explication of what he calls African tendencies, which involve additions to, omissions from and modifications to the grammatical system of Standard English, he points out that his discussion does not mean that these tendencies do not occur in other second-language varieties too, or even in some first-language varieties in Britain, America or Australia. Partly at least English varieties all seem to develop in similar directions, as for instance in terms of simplification and regularization. (1991) Similarities and regularities across individual varieties have also been proposed with relation to learner Englishes. From within the interlanguage paradigm, second language Englishes are mostly held to develop along similar patterns, which implies that certain grammatical/syntactical processes such as negation are acquired along similar stages by all learners of English. (There are, however, deviations from the pattern depending on the mother tongue of the learners, as  1982 or  1996 ; 2001 indicates with regard to negation, individual developmental patterns may also be more complex than initial research has suggested.) Both stable indigenised forms and variable interlanguage productions mix in ELF interactions and result in an increased need for speakers to develop strategies allowing for successful communication despite the heterogeneity of the varieties they use. 4. Levelling in interactions across Englishes As I have pointed out above, interaction across regional varieties of English involves lectal contact, and such contact situations have been found to be characterised by dialect mixture and koinéisation. (1986) points out that Levelling involves “reduction or attrition of marked variants” (1986), and simplification means an increase in regularity, especially at the level of morphology. Other processes which Trudgill examines with reference to national Englishes are reallocation and interdialect forms, new forms which “occur in neither of the dialects in contact, and yet arise out of their interaction one with the other” (1986).  (1993) analyse grammatical variation in urban dialects and suggest that researchers acknowledge the development of a “standardising non-standard variety of English”, since “there do indeed seem to be certain grammatical features that are common to the English spoken in the major urban centres of Britain”. Similar to these processes which characterise dialect contact, international lects of English may merge into a form characterised by a set of linguistic processes similar to dialect contact. Yet unlike dialect contact, ELF cannot really be conceived as a permanent formof English, since its users do not constitute a stable community. Rather, it is a variety in constant flux, involving different constellations of speakers of diverse individual Englishes in every single interaction. 5. Syntax in ELF interactions Since by definition ELF interactions involve different Englishes being used by the individual participants, it is unlikely that ELF will possess a homogeneous formof syntax. Speakers from the outer circle are commonly assumed to speak a nativised or indigenised variety of English ( 1983), which is character- ised by a number of fairly stable characteristics. However, the syntax of productions by speakers from the expanding circle cannot be described as easily. In these cases, two different aspects need to be taken into consideration. Many of the speakers are learners of the language they use for interaction and they follow certain developmental patterns. At the same time, their linguistic productions may be characterised by transfer from their first languages. From within the interlanguage framework, the grammatical system of learner language has been conceived as a transitional structure (in the sense of  1982), i.e. it involves a series of forms or structures which learners use en route to mastering the target language form. These interim forms are indicative of the developmental stages that learners pass through on their way to target language competence. For example, negation is acquired through an initial stage of using an external negator placed outside of the utterance, via using an utterance-internal dummy negator (mainly no) towards target language competence. Because of their interim character, learner Englishes are held to be unstable and also deficient forms of English, developing along a continuum towards complete mastery of the target language norm. From within a variationist perspective, however, the different Englishes produced by speakers for whom the language is not their first language are understood as being varieties in their own rights, and the assumption that learners aim at complete mastery of either British or American English has come to be seriously questioned. Given that a large proportion of non-native speakers’ interactions in English do not involve native speakers at all ( 1991), it seems justifiable to claim that the goal of nativeness is no longer a canonical criterion. 6. The present study’s database The following discussions are based on a corpus of approximately 22 hours of informal interactions between speakers of English who originate from countries generally considered to belong to the outer or to the expanding circle.4 For all of the 49 speakers included in the corpus, English is neither the first nor the dominant language, i.e. English is not their mother tongue, and they do not use English for the majority of their communicative activities. During the period in which the recordings were made, all speakers were immersed in an Englishspeaking environment. Most of the conversations which make up my corpus were collected in a student hall of residence in the UK, where dinner conversations were taped over a period of nine months. Additionally, interactions were recorded at the University of Erfurt in a semi-natural context. Here, foreign exchange students were recorded when they had met to participate in an accent perception test. After the speakers had arrived to do the test, the research assistant left them on their own for approximately twenty minutes, thus allowing for spontaneous conversation between the students. English served as a medium for either daily interactions in the speakers’ jobs or as the medium of instruction during their ongoing studies in e.g. accounting or the arts, although the extent to which individual speakers were involved in interactions with native speakers of English differed. Also, the time which speakers had spent in English-speaking environments varied. The participants in all of these conversations come from a vast range of linguistic and cultural backgrounds, as Table 1 documents. Their home countries are in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. The competence levels of the individual speakers varied to a great extent, with some speakers having reached native-like communicative competence in the language whereas others still had difficulties to express their communicative intentions in an appropriate manner. For the purpose of this study, a speaker was considered to be communicatively competent if s/he could form turns which were grammatically structured (i.e. they conform to the grammatical rules of the English language), adapted to the linguistic resources available, suitable for the circumstances relevant to the conversation, and commonly used in the particular situation ( 1984). The following sections present the results of detailed descriptive analyses of the data. 7. Syntactically “marked” versus “regular” utterances in the speakers’ productions To describe the productions and processes which characterise ELF at the level of syntax, the data was first analysed quantitatively, and individual utterances were classified as being either regular, marked or doubtful. The category “regular” refers to utterances which conformto the grammatical norms of one of the L1 varieties of English. Utterances which were marked as belonging to a nativised or second language variety through a particular syntactic form were rated “marked”. Those utterances which could not definitely be classified as either marked or regular were coded “doubtful”.5 The corpus comprises of a total of 4 525 utterances; 2 462 were one-word utterances and not utilised for the analyses. Thus, the total number of utterances assessed was 2 063. As Figure 1 demonstrates, the utterances produced by speakers in lingua franca interactions overwhelmingly comply with the grammatical rules of the L1 varieties BrE and AmE. In total, 88% of all turns were judged to be regular, i.e. they complied with the grammatical rules of the L1 varieties of English. Examples (1)–(4) indicate that regular utterances are of varying complexity, ranging from simple structures as in (1) to coordination as in (3) and subordination as in (4).6 (1) E:h, uhm and it’s about the kitchen, and construction uhm. (Spain) (2) Uh I guess it’s like .. every/all all the countries want a certain standard or something like that. (Pakistan) (3) There is a vaccine for malaria, but it’s not very reliable and it’s very expensive, so / (Nigeria) (4) It’s ten pence if you go to the shop. (Iraq) Only 9% of the utterances clearly diverged from L1-English norms, and another 3% of the utterances contained constructions which were doubtful but could not be classified as either regular or marked. If these figures are broken down to contrast speakers from the outer circle with those from the expanding circle, the picture becomes considerably more complex. Speakers from countries belonging to the outer circle as well as competent speakers from countries located in the expanding circle had only very limited instances of utteranceswhich diverge from the British or American norm, i.e. 94% of the utterances produced by speakers from the outer circle were regular ones. This figure is astonishingly high, since it contradicts the assumption that speakers would carry the characteristic features of their nativised varieties into the ELF interactions. Also, 95% of the utterances observed with competent speakers from the expanding circlewere regular. The second figure is less surprising than the first one, since speakers in the expanding circle usually have acquired English in an institutional context with either BrE or AmE serving as the target variety. Also, the difference in percentages observable between competent and less competent speakers is significant but not surprising. Less competent speakers from countries within the expanding circle produced a considerably higher number of utterances, i.e. 22%, which diverged grammatically from BrE or AmE. However, the syntactic features differed with regard to the linguistic background of the speakers. Whereas the productions by speakers from the outer circle displayed the systematic characteristics that have already been documented for the varieties of English they speak, speakers from the expanding circle reveal less stable features, except for those particularities which are reflections of interlanguage developmental stages. These included negation, passivisation and word order. Apart from features individual participants carry into the interactions, there are two processes which develop out of the interaction: simplification in the form of shortened utterances and regularisation through fronting of individual elements. 7.1 Productions by speakers from countries located in the outer circle As Table 1 documents, 19 speakers participating in the recorded interactions originated from countries located in the outer circle. Of these, nine African speakers came from Botswana, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda and Zambia and thus represent varieties usually described as East African,West African and Southern African. Furthermore, there are seven speakers who were born in Pakistan and used a formof Indian English, two Indians and one speaker fromMalaysia, who did not employ any constructions which could have been identified as characteristic of Malaysian English. In those rare cases in which speakers from the outer circle used a syntactically marked form (n = 35), this form was generally one of those associated with the particular variety of English spoken in their home countries, as the examples presented below document. There are hardly any differences between the percentages of grammatically regular utterances obtained from these 19 speakers,7 apart from the fact that the Malay speaker produced an overwhelming 99% of regular utterances, and the one utterance which is marked does not reveal features usually discussed as being characteristic of Malaysian English.8 The next set of examples, (5)–(10), presents utterances produced by the seven Pakistani speakers. As  (2002:327) states, the grammatical particulari- ties of Pakistani English are similar to those of northern Indian English. They include a lack of subject–auxiliary inversion in interrogatives, a usage of the definite article “as if the traditional conventions have been reversed”,9 an extended usage of the progressive aspect to stative verbs, a preference for the present perfect over the simple past, and the use of the present continuous for past actions (2002.). The utterances collected in my corpus in part reflect these typical constructions. (6) And if it is just normal person, eh then you will say tum. (Pakistan) (7) I mean, somebody told me, Nigerian degree is not accepted. (Pakistan) (8) We went to supermarket. (Pakistan) (9) The person who was owning the shop. (Pakistan) (10) Why I shouldn’t call him a doctor? (Pakistan) The particular use or non-use of the definite and indefinite article (5–8) makes up the majority of all marked utterances produced by Pakistani speakers. But there are also individual utterances displaying the characteristic use of the progressive form in references to the past (9) and the lack of subject–auxiliary inversion in interrogative constructions (10). However, the data does not yield examples of deviations from the L1 varieties with regard to either verb complementation or a use of the present perfect to indicate a past activity rather than perfective aspect. Specific particularities can also be observed in speakers from African countries (Zambia, Nigeria, Kenya). Grammatical features of African new Englishes10 have been described, e.g. by  (1991), who prefers to speak of African tendencies which, according to him, involve—among other features —the omission of determiners in front of certain nouns, extension of progressive constructions to stative verbs, and variation with regard to verb complementation.  (2002) also concentrates largely on noun and verb phrase grammar. In a section on Nigerian English (2002), he lists e.g. the treatment of uncountable nouns as countable nouns, a seemingly reversed usage pattern for definite articles, and a particular use of prepositions as specific characteristics of this nativised variety. The utterances produced by speakers from African countries inmy data do not display a particular pattern of article use, but rather features such as a lack of subject–auxiliary inversion in the construction of WH-interrogatives (11) and particularities with regard to the use of prepositions (12)–(13). (11) When you will start practicing? (Zambia) (12) The strongest man from the Middle East. (Nigeria) (13) You learn so much of medicine… (Nigeria) The utterance in (11) contains a when, but the inversion of subject and auxiliary verb, which usually accompanies question formation, is not present there.Most of the marked utterances produced by African speakers differ from the traditional L1 varieties in that they use a preposition which would not commonly be employed in the given position in either of the traditional native speaker varieties. In (12), the Nigerian speaker uses from where BrE and AmE would have in the Middle East, and in (13), BrE would favour about medicine instead of an expression containing the preposition of. In conclusion, the few instances of marked utterances observed in speakers from the outer circle are characterised by their retaining the peculiarities of their individual varieties, such as pronoun deletion, word-order patterns or a particular use of prepositions. However, characteristic patterns of tense and aspect were not documented in the corpus. 7.2 Productions by speakers from countries located in the expanding circle The following discussion will concentrate on the productions observed with less competent speakers from the expanding circle, since — as I have stated above — these speakers produced significantly more marked utterances than those speakers from the expanding circle who had acquired English at a very competent level. The less competent speakers’ Englishes reveal particularities which can be identified as either resulting from transfer from their mother tongues or as being the result of developmental patterns. The subsequent explications will largely be restricted to a set of utterances produced by speakers form Iraq, Korea and France. Arabic speakers in general are faced with numerous significant differences between their mother tongue and English grammar: E.g. unlike English, Arabic places the verb in sentence-initial position, followed by the subject; there is no equivalent to the auxiliary do, and questions are marked by rising intonation only; Arabic has no copula ( 1987). Examples (14) and (15) were observed with an Arabic speaker from Iraq. (14) You courage to study. (Iraq) (15) His name, Tirak. …I don’t know. Tiran. I pronouncemaybe wrong. (Iraq) His utterances indicate a stage of acquisition at which he has not mastered passive constructions (14). The speakers were talking about the atmosphere in the British Library, and the meaning intended was ‘You are encouraged to study’. The speaker furthermore seems to confuse the noun courage and the verb to encourage, which is probably due to L1 transfer. Arabic indicates individual word classes and their forms by adding fixed vowel patterns to a three-consonant root rather than through affixation. Basic word order patterns for declarative structures also seem not to have been acquired correctly (15). The first utterance in his turn lacks the copula form is, and in the third utterance the adverb maybe is positioned in the middle of the verb phrase instead of being inserted to the left of the clause. This, however, seems not to be due to L1 transfer, since Arabic word order, in which the verb is placed in first position, followed by the subject, is not reflected in the speaker’s utterance. Transfer is not generally manifest in the productions encountered with less competent expanding circle speakers in the corpus. Korean is also a language whose structure differs considerably from English. (16) Your family living here? (Korea) (17) They didn’t interest in my work. (Korea) (18) We not cooked the seaweed. (Korea) In example (16), the speaker’s utterance lacks the copula, which may be due to Korean grammatical influence. Korean uses auxiliaries neither to form questions nor to negate sentences but rather employs a question particle added at the end of a sentence. In contrast, the other two utterances produced by a female Korean speaker rather reveal the unstable character of her variety of English.Whereas in (17) she integrates the negator not into the auxiliary do, she does not do so in (18) where, although the negator is placed inside the VP, the auxiliary do is not used. The interlanguage character of the Englishes spoken by some of the speakers in the corpus is also evident in the productions of a French speaker. Two of her utterances are presented below: (19) At our house eh .. a lot. But here no. (France) (20) You didn’t found? (France) In (19) she negates the second sentence by simply positioning the negator no at the end of the clause. This strategy of external negation is indicative of an early acquisitional stage (1994). Somewhat differently, and similarly to what has been observed in (17) above, the speaker integrates the negator not into the auxiliary do in example (20). Although she thus seems to be aware of the target language rule for sentential negation, she does not apply it consistently, and at the same time she does not manage to mark the negative utterance correctly for tense. The corpus furthermore contains individual utterances which cannot easily be explained as being the result of either transfer or interlanguage development. In the case of (21), it seems that the Norwegian speaker either confused also and as well, or misplaced the word also. (21) You forget the milk also. (Norway) The utterance produced by the German speaker in (22) needs to be discussed in relation to the context it was observed in: (22) We never do at home. (Germany) It occurs after the three speakers who participate in the conversation (a female, competent German, a male, less competent German, and a female, less competent Korean) during which the utterance occurs have already discussed traditional German-style cooking and especially the preparation of roasts for some time. This culminates in the German female saying I can’t cook German meat. The utterance We never do at home is a direct follow-up on her statement and refers to cooking roast meat, which would need to be indicated by a pro-form such as so or it to render the utterance grammatical. Such a pro-form is, however, missing in (22). All the above examples illustrate that the majority of the productions by speakers from the expanding circle were characterised by particularities which relate to both the interlanguage character of their form of English and transfer phenomena. In contrast to the utterances produced by speakers from the outer circle, there is considerably higher heterogeneity with regard to the particularities observed. Although in some cases there are extreme divergences from the rules of L1-Englishes which may even result in comprehension problems, these constructions hardly ever caused a breakdown in the conversation or necessitated a negotiation of meaning sequence. In fact, the corpus contains only nine instances of problematic communication, five of which were negotiation sequences caused by vocabulary gaps. The other four cases involve a complete breakdown of the conversation, which generally occurred after participants had failed to arrive at a joint basis for their interaction when they were apparently operating on diverging background assumptions. The low number of instances of impaired interaction might be due to interactional processes, which could be observed with the speakers interacting across their different Englishes. These processes will be addressed in the next section. 7.3 Interactional modifications Besides the marked syntactic structures in the individual speakers’ productions, the interactions inmy corpus are characterised by a number of strategies which participants in the conversations employ to modify their utterances in a way which seems to render discourse easier to process. This involves an avoidance of long utterances by segmenting these into smaller units separated either through intonation patterns, i.e. falling intonation at the end of a unit, or by pauses. Also, individual elements of utterances are frequently fronted to enhance comprehensibility. 7.3.1 Simplification: Segmented utterances Apart from being characterised by L1-transfer and developmental patterns, conversations between speakers of different varieties from the outer and expanding circles imply interaction between speakers of different competence levels. Although the vast majority of the utterances produced in the ELF interactions are unmarked, as the above discussion has documented, the more competent speakers nevertheless seemed to accommodate to the less competent ones. Unlike what  (1975) has identified as foreigner talk, which results in a use of ungrammatical forms, the accommodation processes I have found in my data rather resemble what  (1994: 254) discusses as modifica- tion processes in the formof either simplification or regularisation. Simplification— for Ellis—manifests itself in the use of a lower speech rate and a higher frequency of unfilled pauses in the productions of the more competent speakers. In my corpus, simplification can also be observed at the level of syntax, where it results in a reduced complexity of the individual utterances in that hypotaxis seldom occurs. Instead of forming complex sentences, speakers prefer to split up sentences into smaller units that are cognitively easier to process. The following data excerpt presents an extended turn by a fully bilingual Pakistani speaker taken from a conversation between himself and a less competent speaker from Germany: (23) Then you just do: the administrative work. E:h you don’t have to actually add up or anything like that. No- no mathematical work. But when you work for a practice, then you do a bit of all, everything. Taxation, accounting, this and that. But .. if you are working in industry. Say there is a firm of ehm .. soap manufacturers. They employ you. …As a company secretary. Then you don’t actually .. do any figures .. you just deal with their legal matters. Represent them legally. Deal with their registrar, and things like tha:t. And their solicitors, and like that. But not if you: …if you work for a practice. Then you have to do a lot of things. That is very …. It’s boring. It’s good to do it…in the beginning. ’Cause it’s a good experience. But not always.…’Cause people who work in a practice… they do the same work every year. Same work, same…same clients, same work. The utterances are often shortened or segmented into clausal or phrasal units which form the basic informational units of the interactions. In a number of instances the units do not contain a completed phrase or clause. Segmentation is a strategy to make discourse easier to process for the interlocutor, and this is noticeable e.g. in example (23), when the speaker talks about the different jobs an accountant would be doing in industry and in a private practice. Instead of using complex sentences involving subordination, he splits up his information into simpler units if you are working in industry, then you don’t actually, and do any figures. Presumably, his linguistic performance reflects a cognitive strategy intended to benefit less proficient speakers. At the same time, it allows for the interlocutor to signal either understanding or non-comprehension through back-channels or other signals. This behaviour can be observed both with speakers from the outer circle and with competent speakers from the expanding circle, as with the male participant from Botswana in (24). (24) So…they .. they give sort of uh German aid, you see. …The government of Germany. So…some some very good students .. eventually they rise from being students to .. to being lecturers, you see. In addition to such simplification, regularisation is also common in the syntax of the speakers’ utterances. It “entails the selection of forms that are in some way […] explicit” ( 1994). 7.3.2 Regularisation: Topicalisation strategies in ELF interactions For  (1994: 255), regularisation is a further process through which native speakers modify their speech directed to non-native speakers. Ellis draws on a number of individual studies which have documented that grammatical foreigner talk is, among other features, characterised by such regularisation strategies, in the sense of raising explicitness. At the linguistic surface level, this manifests itself e.g. through topicalisation, the movement of focussed information to the front of the utterance. The strategy of moving pieces of information to the front of the sentence, although one might expect them to be realised elsewhere, has not only been discussed as a strategy which native speakers employ to make interaction more transparent when dealing with non-native speakers. It has also been found to be frequently used in interactions among native speakers. (1993) discusses movement towards the left of a sentence, and differentiates between leftdislocation and hanging topic, which she claims to assume different interactional functions. Formally, both usually involve repetition of the moved constituent by a coreferential pro-form in the main sentence.11 Other forms which do not involve the use of a co-referential proform have been discussed by (1981). She identifies forms of fronting in which the information contained in the fronted part has either been evoked in the preceding discourse (such as Macadamia nuts I can’t afford)12 or concerns an attribute of an entity that had been salient in the preceding discourse (Macadamia nuts I think they’re called, where the entity “Macadamia nuts” is noticeable in the speakers’ previous interaction). Another form, which she labels “Yiddish movement”, since it seems to be used by speakers with a Yiddish background only, apparently does not follow any particular constraint but is rhetorically motivated (e.g. Macadamia nuts I yet have to buy). In my corpus, topicalisation is a strategy which is encountered with both more and less competent speakers, and it can be observed in the form of fronting, dislocation, and “Yiddish movement”. As examples (25–30) reveal, topicalisation occurs across all groups of speakers. It was found in speakers at all levels of competence and also in speakers of various linguistic backgrounds. Also, there is a broad range of elements which were fronted, though mostly fronting involved NPs as in (25), where three years has been moved to the front of the sentence. (25) Three years you have to do. (Pakistan, competent) (26) These day win the outstanding player, when they are playing. (Zaire, competent) (27) Difficult culture, ours is. (Pakistan, competent) (28) My unit, it’s not that special, you see. (Malaysia, competent) (29) Because me, I have difficulties to understand. (France, less competent) (30) From today … I have time. (Korean, less competent) The different types of topicalisation have been found to be used with quite different frequencies among English mother tongue speakers in Britain. Corpus analyses have revealed that whereas left-dislocation is common in informal conversation, fronting rarely occurs (1999). On the other hand, left- dislocation and fronting has been identified as a feature characterising most New Englishes. For example,(1997) states that L2 South African Black English is characterised by frequent instances of all sorts of topicalisation phenomena. Fronting is also common in pidgins (1995). The fact that topicalisation occurs frequently in my corpus can probably be attributed to two different facts. On the one hand, it reflects the varieties which individual speakers bring into the conversations. At the same time, it is indicative of the participants’ attempts to make discourse processing easier by “removing [Discourse-new entities] from a syntactic position disfavored for Discourse-new entities” ( 1997). 8. Conclusion The above discussions have demonstrated that, at the informal level, ELF is a syntactically heterogeneous form of English which is characterised by: – overwhelming correspondence to the rules of L1 Englishes – transfer phenomena, developmental patterns and nativised forms – simplification, regularisation and levelling processes. The last-mentioned processes indicate that the interaction of different international lects involves processes which have already been documented for situations of dialect contact and dialect mixture in individual regions and for particular languages, as I have pointed out above. Furthermore, the resulting formof English resembles what  (1991:65) points out with reference to African New Englishes: “the basic grammatical system of Standard English is retained but certain additions, omissions or modifications are made, often in a very logical and sometimes even less irregular way than in Standard English.” However, the additions, omissions and modifications documented for the interactions inmy corpus are not as systematic and stable as in the case of local, indigenised Englishes, which involve “acquiring relatively consistent, fixed local norms of usage which are adhered to by all speakers” (1994). Thus, ELF differs from the New Englishes which, to qualify as such, as  (2002) points out, require a certain stability or systematicity of features. The interactions discussed in this paper do not reveal this stability. Rather, the data is indicative of a transitional form of English. Such forms have not only been found with contact across English dialects.  (1999) identifies individual stages a variety goes through during its development towards a New English: an exonormative, an expansion and an endonormative phase. She finds that some of these phases are characterised by instability as much as are the phases involved in the process of koinéisation. It thus might well be that ELF never achieves a stable or even standardised form, just as dialect contact or contact between English and local languages has not always resulted in a new stable variety. Evidence from further corpora and their analyses is required to confirm the tendencies documented for the data discussed in this paper, and to determine whether ELF is characterised by similar features across corpora and, thus, across speakers and beyond individual situations. Given the diversity of features and processes observable in the interactions, ELF cannot be conceived to be what  (1994) has called “World Standard Auxiliary English”, since it emerges out of and through interaction. Neither is it a “World Standard Spoken English”, which (1997) claims people would slip into when faced with the need to communicate with people from other countries in English.

Syntactic variation in interactions across international Englishes

Syntactic variation in interactions across international Englishes Discussions of World Englishes mainly concentrate on the particularities of individual varieties of English spoken in the differ…

Human Resource Management for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Tanker Shipping Company

Human Resource Management for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Tanker Shipping Company               One of the company’s basic internal organizations is the Human Resource Management team, which is highly responsible with the maintenance of the company’s employees. The Human Resource Management or HRM team does a variety of tasks and functions, and is crucial in its objective concerning the work and interests of the employees in the company. Being a crucial team in any company, it is essential that it will be able to promote the development of their employees, not only in relation to job performance, but in terms of effective communication and interrelations as well. These functions will be useful for the operations of a shipping company, especially in relation to operations in the foreign or international market.             With the importance of such functions, this paper intends to propose Human Resource Management strategies that would be useful in ship management. These strategies would encompass management of tankers, and its crews. In addition, a critical analysis of the strengths and weakness of the proposed strategy or strategy will be indicated, including the reasons why a specific country was selected to obtain labor supply.             International Human Resource Management As an increasing number of organizations seek to operate in foreign markets, it is vital that management practitioners develop a better understanding of, and sensitivity to, the impact of different national settings on the management of tasks (1999). In addition, because HRM it is particularly concerned with all the activities that contribute to successfully attracting, developing, motivating, planning systematic approaches, and maintaining a high-performing workforce that result in organizational success (2002), Human Resource Management then, becomes important in the control of the labor force of any organization, especially in the shipping industry. Moreover, because it gives an increasing emphasis on the personal needs of the organization and its members, the challenge on its functions is to create an organizational environment in which each employee can grow and develop to his or her fullest extent. Its use would contribute to the success of the shipping industry, specifically to the case in point, as it aims at developing strategies for the total organization focused on clarifying its current and potential problems and developing solutions for them (2002). In relation to this, a business organization will not be able to adopt and implement useful strategies without assessing the objectives or aims of the organization. Because the new shipping line is based within the European Union, its level of strategy is based on multiple countries, such that there can be an increased need for integration with different corporate headquarters. Nevertheless, at this level of international strategy, the shipping lines would have significant operations, including assembly, manufacturing, service centers, Research & Development, and branch offices, in many countries and may well reach the condition where half or more of its sales and employment is in foreign countries (2004). With this in mind, an effective and efficient human resource management strategy must be developed, adopted and implemented to ensure and guarantee the smooth operations of the new tankers, and the management of its labor force.   Liquefied Natural Gas             Handling nine new LNG tankers for the new Human Resource Director would be an additional and tedious task and responsibility. Primarily, a Liquefied Natural Gas or LNG is a hazardous fuel frequently shipped in massive tankers in different countries, and is manufactured domestically and stored near population centers (2003). Its infrastructure consists of tankers, import terminals, and inland storage plants and its facilities are receiving great deal of public attention due to their increasingly important role in the nation’s energy infrastructure. Concerns about rising natural gas prices and the possibility of domestic gas shortages have recently been driving up demand for LNG imports. However, liquefied natural gas tankers contain hazardous chemicals transported and stored in large quantities ( 2003), and with its mishandling, it can cause accidents that may bring about serious damages to the environment, to many animals, and to humans as well.             It has been reported that natural gas is combustible, and its uncontrolled release poses a serious hazard of explosion or fire (2003). In addition, the threat for it to cause serious damage is due to its coldness. Some catastrophic events that could arise from mishandling these tankers include pool fires, which is an intense fire, burning far more hotly and rapidly than oil or gasoline fires and cannot be extinguished. Another catastrophic event is the flammable vapor clouds that may drift some distance from the spill site, and if it encounters an ignition source, the portions of the cloud with a combustible gas-air concentration will burn. Though not as toxic, vapor cloud can cause asphyxiation by displacing breathable air. Lastly, accidents from LNGs can cause flameless explosions, and although this may not be as violent as vapor clouds and pool fires, they could contribute to the destruction of the environment, properties, and lives (2003). With the accidents and catastrophic events that could arise from the mishandling and mismanagement of such LNG tankers, the role of the ship crews is highly important in its maintenance.   Human Resource Strategy             The strategy or strategies that could be used by the Human Resource Management team are based on three theoretical perspectives among others. These theoretical perspectives include the General Systems Theory, the Role Behavior Perspective, and the Human Capital Theory. The General Systems Theory is used to describe a competence management model of organizations, where skills and abilities are treated as inputs from the environment, employee behaviors are treated as throughput, and employee satisfaction and performance are treated as outputs (1995). In the Role Behavior Perspective, it shifts the focus from individuals to social systems characterized by multiple roles, multiple role senders, and multiple role evaluators, instead of using specific behaviors and job performances as the fundamental components. By implication, HRM in this perspective, it helps employees meet the expectations of role partners within the organization at organizational boundaries, and beyond (1995). Lastly, Human Capital Theory can also be used as a basis, for human capital or the productive capabilities of people, such as his or her skills, experience and knowledge, have economic value to organizations because they enable it to be productive and adaptable. Thus, all costs related to eliciting productive behaviors from employees, including those related to motivating, monitoring, and retaining them, which constitute human capital investments made in anticipation of future returns (1995).             These theories and perspectives can be used as a basis for the strategies to be adopted and implemented, as they are based on the performance of an organization’s employees. Primarily, the shipping company must be able to generate a highly effective and efficient Human Resource Management team that will contribute to the profitability, quality and safety of processes in the facility, including its close integration, careful planning, and decision-making. This is possible through planning and implementing strategies, in accordance to the improvement of the Human Resource Management team.             In managing the new nine Liquefied Natural Gas tankers, a strategy, which would be most beneficial, includes the improvement of the five strategic areas including leadership, people, policy, partnership, and resources (2003). Leadership – The leadership of the new Human Resource Director must be improved and developed to ensure the improvement of his or her skills in handling new responsibilities in the company. Details of the improvement of the leadership characteristics of the HR Director include the following: Ø  The new HR Director can adopt any or all of the six styles of leadership, namely, authoritative or charismatic, affiliative, democratic, coaching, pace-setting, and coercive leadership styles (2000). Ø  He or she can learn the advantages and disadvantages of handling and mishandling of the LNG tankers. This involves the thorough accumulation of knowledge through continuous research in finding innovative ways to prevent accidents and in maintaining the tankers. Ø  Promoting effective communication between all the members of the team and its director, including consultation regarding issues that affect them and their work Ø  Implementing all the company’s policies and procedures to guarantee the ship’s smooth operations People – The improvement and development of the members of the HR team is also crucial and can be implemented through the following strategies: Ø  Like the new HR Director, because the HR team is under new management, the members or the new selected officers can undergo newly improved employee training and development to help them acquire knowledge regarding the new responsibilities that they have. Ø  The whole team can encourage greater flexibility to meet the service demands through rewards, incentives, and frameworks for career and personal development ( 2003). Policy – the policies in the HR team must be in line with the overall policy of the whole business organization Ø  It must ensure the health, safety, and welfare of all employees through a clear policy framework based upon legislative requirements Ø  Monitoring and review of the effectiveness of all existing policies and procedures for further improvement Partnership – this includes establishing a pleasant and effective relationship and communication with the company’s partners Ø  Developing and maintaining the company’s employment policies and report on the resultant findings and implications Ø  Supporting departmental and corporate initiatives intended to improve access to services and employment by members of disadvantaged and minority groups Ø  Developing a clear policy to balance the changing needs of a diverse workforce with service priorities including a commitment to review work-life balance initiatives Resources – This involves the efficient and adequate allocation of resources, in accordance to the needs of its members. Ø  Identifying the needs, requirements and priorities for all functions in line with corporate objectives, the corporate plan, and the departmental service plans of all departments Ø  Establishing qualitative and quantitative performance targets and indicators to continually improve standards Ø  Promoting the role and continuously developing the members of the teams engaged in service delivery, supporting and enabling them to deliver quality and cost-effective services   Reason for the Strategy             The strategy proposed in this paper is the development and improvement of the five strategic areas in the aspect of Human Resource Management because the development of these areas encompasses the development of the entire HR team and the whole organization as well. The leadership and skills of the new appointed HR Director must first be improved to be able to ensure the development of the whole HR team. If the members of the team will be able to perceive this development, then it would be easier for the whole team to coordinate with one another and promote teamwork. Thus, this will be useful for the management of the whole company’s workforce, and enable the HR Director effectively communicate with employees to manage the new LNG tankers. The continuous accumulation of knowledge of the new HR Director would also be helpful to achieve the loyalty, motivation and satisfaction of the company’s employees, for they can recognize the efforts of the director to help them in managing new responsibilities. This would not be possible without the help and support of the rest of the employees, for their ideas are also crucial for the improvement of its management. The support and help of the rest of the employees can boost the morale of the officers and even complement their actions, thus, resulting to loyalty and satisfaction.             In addition, this strategy would surely promote and encourage efficient and effective management of the new LNG tankers, in accordance to the implementation of effective policies. This can be possible, as these policies serve as guide for the proper actions of each selected officers and the workforce of the company, in encouraging peace and order in the whole organization and in the vessels. With these policies, the partners of the company will be able to perceive security of their assets, as being protected by the management of the company. Thus, the implementation of such policies would also provide adequate and systematic allocation of resources in the company. These effects would surely contribute to the satisfaction, motivation, and loyalty of the selected officers and crew of the nine new LNG tankers. With such strategy, the new crew who would be in charge of the management of the nine LNG tankers would perceive and recognize the efficiency and effectiveness of the whole company to develop, adopt, and implement strategies and procedures, with putting first the welfare and safety of its employees and the reputation of the company.   Strengths and Weaknesses of Strategy             The strengths of the strategy include the continuous development of the skills and leadership of the HR Director, thus, this event would further him or her to lead the company. The development of such skills and talents can be helpful in setting a good example for other employees and leaders of other departments. Another strength in implementing such a strategy is ensuring the continued processes of the company, in accordance to its mission and vision. This would contribute to the continued success of the company in its industry. Third, the development of the five strategic areas of management would enable the company to adopt advanced and innovative techniques, such as adopting new information systems and software programs, which would help the company promote and encourage effective and efficient internal and external communications. Fourth, the satisfaction of the company’s employees and key players can promote employee retention, thus, reducing employee turnovers, which would help the company reduce its costs in hiring employees. In addition, strength of the strategy also includes the maximization of the potential of each employee in the company, to contribute his or her ideas, actions, and skills for the success of the operations of the whole company. The success of the strategy would also contribute to the further establishment of the reputation of the shipping company that would help with its retention in the industry. In addition, the success of the strategy would decrease the accidents or catastrophes related in the mishandling and mismanagement of the LNG tankers that would endanger the lives of many organisms and of humans, including the environment and a number of properties. Lastly, the success of the strategy would ensure and guarantee the overall development of the company, not only in terms of the improvement in its management, but also with the improvement of the allocation of its resources.             However, despite the number of advantages or strengths of the proposed strategy, a few weaknesses can still be identified. Primarily, the rapid and drastic development in the company may lead to the under-development of other employees who may fail to cope with the changes and high standards that the company may employ, thus, leading to inefficiency. In addition, the rapid and drastic changes and development may result to conflicts within teams of different departments, due to the issue of pragmatism and too much involvement in the businesses of others to show dominance. This would lead to the increase in competition among employees, thus, creating more conflict and decreasing teamwork and coordination. Lastly, the use of such strategy may drastically raise the standards of the employees, which may create conflicts within the organization, if their standards are not met or satisfied.   Source of Labor             Because the base of these LNG tankers is in Europe, it would be beneficial for the company to employ or hire individuals near their base. However, employment rates from the countries in Europe are high, compared to the employment rates in Third World countries. In addition, labor is cheaper in Third World or developing countries, thus, enabling the companies from the West to hire employees from developing nations, such in the regions of Asia. It would be beneficial for both parties if the company will be hiring qualified employees belonging to developing nations, such the Philippines, India, Malaysia, China, and many others. Hiring workers from these countries would help with their economy, lessening their unemployment rate, and utilizing their talents and skills in the operations of the company. They will be hired to be responsible for the management of the new LNG tankers for these individuals are used to in working in risky and dangerous environment, thus, working in the new vessels and maintaining them would be much easier for them. In addition, the workforce from these countries are known to be hard-working and intelligent individuals, whose skills and talents can be maximized for the operations of the company.   Meeting the Requirements of International Legislation             To restrict and control the operations of shipping companies, including this company, it is guided by the regulations and procedures under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea or the UNCLOS. This can serve to be a good guide for the shipping company in relation to its proper management to prevent having conflicts with other shipping companies and in passing through territories. In addition, the UNCLOS is a good guide for all shipping companies in terms of committing crimes or violations, which caused water pollution or destruction of the environment and all the organisms in it that, are related to neglect or mismanagement of ship crews and the shipping company. Part of the development of the company and the management of additional vessels, the company will be strictly complying with the rules under the UNCLOS. In addition, the company will also have its strict compliance with the regulations set by the European Union Shipping Laws. As a response to the new initiatives working on by the EU and the United States in relation to making shipping trade and travel more secured (2005), the company will be making sure that the natural gas contents of the new tankers would only be the sufficient amount required for its storage. In addition, the company would be making sure that overloading of supplies and of crew would not be allowed to ensure the safety of the ship and its crew. Moreover, as a response to this, the company would have to make sure that the regular maintenance of the new ships would be done, to guarantee that the vessels are functioning well, without the threat of causing serious and deleterious accidents that may endanger the lives of many individuals, expensive properties, and the environment.   Conclusion             The Human Resource Strategy proposed in this paper would be essential in the operations and management of the new LNG vessels. The company must first focus in internal development and improvement before targeting the overall performance of the company. However, the company must also consider other options to be able to fully maximize the potential and the performance of its employees, which in turn, contribute to the success of the shipping company. From this, it can be deduced that the interaction of all the factors in the company must be assessed before coming up with strategies that would enable success.

Human Resource Management for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Tanker Shipping Company

Human Resource Management for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Tanker Shipping Company One of the company’s basic internal organizations is the Human Resource Management team, which is h…

Load more posts