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AbstractThis paper explores and attempts to explain cognitively-based similarities between ELF uses and newly-emerged World Englishes, notably ESLs (stable second-language varieties) but also EFL forms, from a theoretical perspective, with an eye on earlier scholarship, and in an exemplary case study. Starting out from definitions of some core concepts, it is argued that the common ground underlying ESL, EFL and ELF is to be found in principles of Second Language Acquisition, such as preferences for simplicity, analogy, or isomorphism. A range of earlier studies which point out parallels between these categories is critically surveyed and supplemented by some new, pertinent data drawn from the VOICE corpus. In an extended case study of select structural features of finite vs. non-finite complement clause formation in ESL varieties, the hypothesis is tested that ESLs show traces of SLA effects by preferring relatively more isomorphic structures over less transparent ones, and implications of the findings for ELF are considered. It is suggested that ESLs and ELF are related via SLA effects and cognition and that sociolinguistically stable ELF settings may be hypothesized to represent initial stages in a trajectory towards ESL formation.

AbstractThis article presents a model which argues that a fundamentally uniform developmental process, shaped by consistent historical, sociolinguistic and language-contact conditions, has operated in the emergence of New Englishes, and it applies this framework to a discussion of the evolution and some present-day features and usage characteristics of Malaysian English. The Dynamic Model of the evolution of New Englishes, which builds upon the mutual identity definitions by the parties involved in a colonization process and describes five consecutive phases of evolution, is sketched briefly. It is shown that the early history of English in Malaysia, from the establishment of the colony of Penang to independence, conforms nicely to the generalizations made for the first two phases, called “foundation” and “exonormative stabilization” and marked by gradually expanding elite bilingualism and slight linguistic transfer. Malaysia’s nationalist language policy of the 1960s and after impeded the further expansion and development of English in the country; nevertheless, it is shown that Malaysian English has progressed deeply into the third phase of “nativization”, being widely used in the country in various domains and employed as a carrier of a local identity having developed distinctive features of its own. Recent redirections of educational policy have given new weight and impetus to English in Malaysia in a complex sociolinguistic setting.