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A socially realistic view of world Englishes: Reflections on gendered discourse
Author(s) -
VALENTINE TAMARA
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
world englishes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.6
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-971X
pISSN - 0883-2919
DOI - 10.1111/weng.12126
Subject(s) - world englishes , sociocultural evolution , sociology , linguistics , creativity , construct (python library) , variation (astronomy) , identity (music) , sociocultural linguistics , psychology , anthropology , computer science , language education , social psychology , comprehension approach , aesthetics , philosophy , physics , astrophysics , programming language
ABSTRACT The work of Braj Kachru and Yamuna Kachru has inspired generations of scholars to take a socially realistic view of the global spread of English. It is the work of Yamuna Kachru, however, who argues that taking an integrative sociocultural approach to the study of world Englishes to examine linguistic interaction expresses not only the bilingual's creativity but also provides valuable methodological and theoretical insights into the discoursal structure in world Englishes. Adopting the sociocultural linguistic approach, this paper examines how speakers construct gender in Indian English discourse. Using examples from naturally occurring spoken conversations, this paper shows that the interplay between language and identity is rooted in the cultural beliefs and values of speakers. The socially realistic approach contextualizes the culture of language to explain language variation in the Outer Circle.