Choose the English that helps you win

IWENT to the University of Southampton last week for the launch of its Centre for Global Englishes. That’s right: Englishes, because, as the language spreads, people are speaking and writing it in many different ways. There has never been anything like the world’s now-global language, Anna Mauranen, professor of English at the University of Helsinki, told the launch conference. Speakers of almost every language on earth have contact with it. The internet spreads it further than ever. People are highly mobile, and their travel exposes them to many ways of speaking English.

Most business conversations in English today are between people who do not speak it as a mother tongue. These speakers of English as a lingua franca — ELF — have their own vocabulary and constructions. They say “in my point of view”, or “insuitable”. They often use plurals — “informations”, “advices”, “fundings” — where native speakers use singulars.

What if Americans, Britons or Australians consider this plain wrong? Tough. In Mauranen’s experience, when people from rising economic powers such as China and Brazil speak English, they don’t much care what native speakers think. According to the Royal Society, China will be publishing more scientific articles than the US by 2013. “Language goes with power,” Mauranen said.

Writing on this subject has taught me many people object fiercely to this view. They see it as an “anything goes” attitude that has degraded not just the language but behaviour generally. Among the angriest critics are non-native speakers who have worked mightily to learn the “standard English” of traditional textbooks.

The ELF academics do have a point. English changes. Any word or construction that the sticklers see as wrong more than likely appeared in Shakespeare, or Chaucer, or the King James Bible. But they are in danger of developing an orthodoxy of their own that hinders nuanced discussion. So, during a break at the conference, one non-native speaking delegate (politely) reprimanded me for complimenting her on her English. I was judging it by native-speaker standards, which I had no right to do.

There are situations that call for native-speaker humility. But there are still cases where those who want to succeed are better off using standard English. It all depends, as Mauranen said, on where power lies. In science, that may one day be with China, but not as soon as 2013. China’s share of global scientific publications has risen, but at 10% in 2004-08, it was still half the US’S 21%. And academia? Even Chinese rankings of top universities are dominated by US and British institutions.

Jennifer Jenkins, the Southampton centre’s director, said those universities should stop insisting all their students aim at native-speaker standards. She criticised the snobbery towards “working-class double negatives”. But she didn’t use any double negatives and nor, wherever they came from, did anyone else. As English professors, they know what it takes to get to the top. 2012 The Financial Times Limited