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Steady States in the Evolution of New Englishes

Present-Day Indian English as an Equilibrium

Justus Liebig-Universität Giessen, Germany

The evolutionary model of New Englishes offered by Schneider posits a uniform pattern of five diachronic phases that are assumed to underlie the processes inherent in the emergence of all New Englishes worldwide. The present article applies this evolutionary model to Indian English and argues on the basis of linguistic and sociolinguistic evidence that present-day Indian English is best viewed as a phase 4 variety, marked by endonormative stabilization, in which, however, some features of phase 3 (i.e., nativization) coexist. It is suggested that the situation in which Indian English finds itself today could be seen as a stable, productive steady state in the evolutionary process in which there is an equilibrium between conflicting forces of progression and conservativism. This steady state in the diachronic development is linked to the synchronic view of present-day Indian English as a semiautonomous variety, which is characterized by three major determinants: common core, interference, and autonomy.

Key Words: New Englishes • Indian English • language change • language evolution • nativization • endonormative stabilization

Journal of English Linguistics, Vol. 35, No. 2, 157-187 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0075424207301888


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