Andy Mering - Mid-Atlantic English in the EFL Context

Table 9: Upper secondary students – comparison of the four language areas

Table 10: Upper secondary students – general attitudes

Table 11: Upper secondary students – attitudes / EFL context

Table 12: Upper secondary students – listening to English accents 1

Table 13: Upper secondary students – listening to English accents 2

Table 14: Students of English studies – demographic information

Table 15: Students of English studies – exposure to English 1

Table 16: Students of English studies – exposure to English 2

Table 17: Students of English studies – exposure to English 3

Table 18: Students of English studies – words

Table 19: Students of English studies – lexico-grammar

Table 20: Students of English studies – spelling

Table 21: Students of English studies – reading

Table 22: Students of English studies – comparison of the four language areas189

Table 23: Students of English studies – general attitudes192

Table 24: Students of English studies – attitudes in the EFL context

Table 25: Students of English studies – attitudes / the future of English

Table 26: Students of English studies – listening to English accents 1204

Table 27: Students of English studies – listening to English accents 2

Table 28: Non-native English teachers – demographic information

Table 29: Non-native English teachers – exposure to English 1

Table 30: Non-native English teachers – exposure to English 2

Table 31: Non-native English teachers – exposure to English 3

Table 32: Non-native English teachers – words

Table 33: Non-native English teachers – lexico-grammar

Table 34: Non-native English teachers – spelling

Table 35: Non-native English teachers – use of individual sounds

Table 36: Non-native English teachers – use of stress patterns

Table 37: Non-native English teachers – comparison of the four language areas

Table 38: Non-native English teachers – general attitudes

Table 39: Non-native English teachers – attitudes / EFL context

Table 40: Non-native English teachers – attitudes / the future of English

Table 41: Native speakers of British English – demographic information

Table 42: Native speakers of British English – exposure to American English

Table 43: Native speakers of British English – words

Table 44: Native speakers of British English – lexico-grammar

Table 45: Native speakers of British English – spelling

Table 46: Native speakers of British English – use of individual sounds

Table 47: Native speakers of British English – use of stress patterns

Table 48: Native speakers of British English – comparison of the four language areas

Table 49: Native speakers of British English – general attitudes 1

Table 50: Native speakers of British English – general attitudes 2

Table 51: Native speakers of BrE – attitudes in the EFL and mother tongue context

Table 52: Non-native English speakers – the four language areas

Table 53: Non-native and native speakers of BrE – the four language areas

Table 54: Non-native English speakers – attitudes to BrE and AmE 1

Table 55: Non-native English speakers – attitudes to BrE and AmE 4

Table 56: BrE vs AmE in Teaching Materials – Comparative Overview

List of Figures

Figure 1: Survey participants

Figure 2: Non-native English speakers – exposure

Figure 3: Non-native English speakers – attitudes to BrE and AmE 2

Figure 4: Non-native English speakers – attitudes to BrE and AmE 3

Figure 5: Non-native English speakers – attitudes to BrE and AmE 5

Figure 6: Non-native English speakers – attitudes to BrE and AmE 6

Figure 7: Non-native English speakers – attitudes to BrE and AmE 7

Figure 8: Upper secondary students – reading

Figure 9: Students of English studies – reading

Figure 10: Students of English studies – attitudes to BrE and AmE 8

Figure 11: Non-native English teachers – attitudes to BrE and AmE 9

List of Abbreviations

AmE American English

BNC British National Corpus

BrE British English

CALD Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary

CEPC Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary

CEPD Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary

CIDE Cambridge International Dictionary of English

CLIL Content and Language Integrated Learning

CMC Computer Modulated Communication

COCA The Corpus of Contemporary American English

CUP Cambridge University Press

DiVa Digitala Ventenskapligiga Arkivet (Swedish academic archive online)

D-T German Teacher (informant)

EE Estuary English

EFL English as a Foreign Language

EIL English as International Language

EiM English in Mind 11e

ELF English as a Lingua Franca

EMF English as a Multilingual Franca

ENL English as a Native Language

EngEng English English

ESL English as a Second Language

EULA Europalehramt (European Teacher Courses)

FBLL Film-based Language Learning

GA General American English

GUPEA Gothenburg University Publications Electronic Archive

HoPro Hohe Promenade (Senior High School in Zurich)

HOTS High Order Thinking Skills

ICT Information and Communication Technologies

IDEA The International Dialects of English Archive

KHK Kollegium Heilig Kreuz (Senior High School in Fribourg, Switzerland)

KJV King James Version (Bible)

LFC Lingua Franca Core

LPD Longman Pronunciation Dictionary

MAE Mid-Atlantic English

NAmEng North American English

NNS Non-Native Speakers

NS Native Speakers

OALD Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary

OAWD Oxford American Wordpower Dictionary

OEC Oxford English Corpus

OED Oxford English Dictionary

OILE Online Informal Learning of English

OSD Oxford Student’s Dictionary

OUP Oxford University Press

OW Oxford Wordpower

PH Pädagogische Hochschule, Freiburg, Germany (University of Education)

R Rank

RP Received Pronunciation

RSC Royal Shakespeare Company

SOED Shorter Oxford English Dictionary

TBL Task-Based Learning

THG Theodor Heuss Gymnasium (Senior High School in Freiburg, Germany)

UK United Kingdom

US United States

VOA Voice of America

VOICE Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English

WSSE World Standard Spoken English

1. Introduction and Research Objective

By the end of the 19th century, Britain had established the prerequisites for English as a global language, especially due to communities of English speakers who settled nearly everywhere around the globe, along with the existence of patterns of trade and communication. Yet, this world position of English might have been compromised as a result of the British Empire’s decline, had there not been the dramatic rise of the United States in the 20th century as a world power. From this follows that, although Britain doubtless made English an international language in the 19th century, the USA was nonetheless the driving force for its globalisation process in the 20th century and it still is today. Consequently, owing to the economic supremacy of the new American superpower, its variety of English was successfully promoted, and this linguistic Americanisation spread into virtually every corner of the planet to such an extent that it also made inroads into European and other languages. With the passing of time, the British were bound to partly give up their proprietorial attitude towards English in favour of the increasing influence of American English (henceforth abbreviated to AmE), whose quasi-ubiquity clearly needs to be acknowledged.