{Lecture Video} English as a Creole Language by Professor Canagarajah

Traditional linguistic orientations adopt the view that native speakers own a purportedly pure and standardized national language. This view has led to the global multilingual speakers of English denigrated as incompetent, and their creative uses of English defined as “broken English.” However, all languages constitute fluid and repurposed semiotic resources.

English is one of the glaring examples of a language that has borrowed from diverse communities and cultures throughout history. We might consider English a “creole” language, adopting a term traditionally used for contact languages of less developed communities.

Professor Canagarajah shows examples of how English is creatively used by multilingual artistes, youth, and professionals in contexts such as social media, linguistic landscapes, and academic texts to argue that these practices call for a different understanding of language competence and proficiency. He reviews various theories of global English to offer a more inclusive model that goes beyond language ownership and nativity, and validate the meaningful and creative uses worldwide.

If you’re interested, please use this link to watch the video.