The Dynamics of the New Englishes: From identity construction to dialect birth

New Englishes, distinct forms of English which have emerged in postcolonial settings and countries around the globe, are typically regarded individually, as unique varieties shaped by idiosyncratic historical conditions and contact settings and no coherent theory to account for these processes is developed so far. It is argued that despite dissimilarities, a uniform development process, shaped by consistent sociolinguistic and language-contact conditions, has operated in the individual instances of rerooting the English language in another territory.