세계영어 분류를 위한 새로운 모델 “영어 피라미드”

Abstract

English is now spoken by about one billion people. Among them, there are a bit little more speakers as a second than a first language and by far more speakers as a very important foreign language than the two combined. The new English speakers aren’t just passively emulating the world standard English, but they’re shaping it, producing various local varieties with their own unique characteristics. This paper reviews four models to classify Englishes in the world, and suggests a new model of the English pyramid representing the hierarchical structure of Englishes depending on their diversity, uniformity, and even economic status. This model assumes the variety of Englishes occupying the top portion of the English pyramid is Network English which leads the public opinion not only in the English speaking countries but also throughout the whole world. The other varieties of English are consecutively English as a mother tongue, English as a second language, and finally English as a foreign language in the order of the top to the bottom of the pyramid. Korean-English, a variety of English in Korea, is located in the bottom of the pyramid, has many diverse features in vocabulary and pronunciation, and is in the status of economic loss because people spend a lot of money to learn Network English, the one in the rooftop of the pyramid. In the pyramid model, it is assumed that the higher a certain variety of English is situated in the hierarchy, the more uniformity, the less diversity, and the more money earned it has.