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English as an International Language in Asia: Implications for Language Education pp 191–208Cite as

English in South Asia – Ambinormative Orientations and the Role of Corpora: The State of the Debate in Sri Lanka

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Part of the book series: Multilingual Education ((MULT,volume 1))

Abstract

In South Asia, just as in all other postcolonial contexts with emergent institutionalised second-language varieties of English, speakers’ orientations towards standards and their attitudes to norms represent a controversial issue. In the present chapter, I will discuss the complexity of such ambinormative orientationsin present-day Sri Lanka, where the issue of standards and norms is currently a hotly debated topic for various reasons, especially because of the general lack of codification and on account of the publication of the first dictionary of Sri Lankan English, as well as the recently launched Government Initiative English as a Life Skillwith its focus on Indian models for English language teaching in Sri Lanka. Against this background, I will also argue in the present chapter that the compilation and analysis of large-scale corpora of South Asian varieties of English can provide a useful reference point and input for the on-going debate on standards and norms in Sri Lanka.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Prof. Ruqaiya Raheem (personal communication).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English, Justus Liebig University, Giessen, Germany

    Joybrato Mukherjee

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  1. Joybrato Mukherjee
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Correspondence to Joybrato Mukherjee .

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  1. , School of Languages and Linguistics, Griffith University, 170 Kessels Road, Nathan, 4111, Queensland, Australia

    Andy Kirkpatrick

  2. 67 Layfield Rd., Anstead, 4070, Queensland, Australia

    Roland Sussex

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Mukherjee, J. (2012). English in South Asia – Ambinormative Orientations and the Role of Corpora: The State of the Debate in Sri Lanka. In: Kirkpatrick, A., Sussex, R. (eds) English as an International Language in Asia: Implications for Language Education. Multilingual Education, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4578-0_12

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