The English spoken in China is categorised within the Expanding Circle in the World Englishes paradigm. Of late, the diversity of Chinese dialects has drawn scholarly attention to China English accents. This study contributes to the existing literature on China English by focusing on the Sichuan province in southwestern China. It involves participants from the largest Han ethnic group and the Yi minority. English monophthongs produced by 40 Sichuan Han and Yi speakers were elicited, and their distribution and contrasts were examined and compared to provide insights into the production of their English vowels. Findings from the instrumental analysis indicate a lack of vowel-quality contrasts in specific vowel pairs produced by both Han and Yi speakers, resulting in a simplified vowel system. There are notable differences between Han and Yi speakers in the production of English vowels, possibly influenced by their different first languages. In addition, specific gender-based inconsistencies were also found, suggesting gender as an influencing factor in the production of English monophthong vowels. Overall, this study identifies Sichuan English as an emerging sub-variety of China English and supports the perspective that China English is an evolving and distinct variety rather than an interlanguage.

Liverpool English, commonly known as ‘Scouse’, is often reported to be a low prestige variety of English. Despite its low prestige, it has been suggested that Scouse has displaced the traditional variety of the neighbouring Wirral peninsula. To this end, this study's objective was to investigate whether Liverpool and Wirral speech differ from one another as revealed through both an ultrasound and acoustic analysis of the lateral phoneme in teenage speech. The acoustic results showed that, surprisingly, teenagers from both Liverpool and the Wirral produced clear onset and dark coda laterals. Interestingly, the ultrasound findings revealed that both Liverpool and Wirral males displayed a preference for ‘less standard’ velarisation as a darkening mechanism, whilst females showed a preference for ‘more standard’ pharyngealisation. Differences between these darkening strategies were only evident through the ultrasound analysis. Therefore, in general, our findings showed that covert articulatory variation was evident between male and female adolescent speakers on the Wirral and in Liverpool.

This paper analyses (t)-glottaling – the replacement of /t/ with the glottal stop [Ɂ] – in word-final position (e.g. that). This variable has been largely explored in relation to the following phonological environment, which is commonly divided into three main contexts: pre-consonantal (e.g. that man), pre-vocalic (e.g. that apple) and pre-pausal (e.g. what?). However, little research has been carried out on the preceding phonological context. This paper aims at expanding the usual limited set of constraints employed for (t) by considering both following and preceding phonological environments. Data was collected in three East Anglian communities (Colchester, Ipswich, and Norwich) from 36 participants, stratified by age, social class, and sex. Results show that (a) the preceding phonological environment plays a remarkable role, with vowels and nasals favouring glottalled variants, and (b) that (t)-glottaling has nearly completed its social change word-finally in spontaneous speech.

‘English at the grassroots’ refers to English used by non‑elite speakers from lower social strata, with diverse acquisition paths, proficiency levels and usage. These Englishes are often heterogeneous, shaped by informal contexts and professions. English linguistics has long examined English as a pluricentric language, focusing on its use across first language (L1), second language (L2) and foreign language (FL) contexts, often through corpora, which predominantly represent upper‑middle‑class speakers. However, English is used in socially stratified societies, and sociolinguistic research has explored how language use correlates with lower social classes, especially in L1 varieties and multilingual contexts. Despite the historical focus on elites in L2/FL English acquisition and use – often due to colonial education systems – English has also spread to lower social strata globally. Yet, access to English is said to often correlate with socio‑economic status (SES), especially where education is not universally accessible. Nevertheless, SES does not necessarily always predict that one cannot use some form of English for communicative purposes. Non‑educational spaces – such as churches, homes, and social networks – play a crucial role in English acquisition and use outside formal education. These ‘grassroots’ efforts reflect resourcefulness in overcoming systemic barriers, enabling individuals to use English as linguistic capital for mobility, communication, and opportunity, especially in outer circle countries lacking a common indigenous lingua franca.

Discourse on the existence of Ghanaian English (GhE) has provided several works leading to the descriptions of GhE pronunciations, especially vowels. However, the major challenge is that most of these studies, impressionistically, have provided different numbers of the English monophthongal vowels used in the Ghanaian context and often discount the existence of certain vowels used in GhE. Consequently, the present study employed the acoustic approach to investigate the English monophthongs produced by 40 educated Ghanaian speakers of English. The purposive sampling was used to select those with first degree to study. The descriptive research design was used to study the formant one and two of the vowels. The vowels were studied within three different contextual realisations: in citation, in sentences and in spontaneous speech. The results revealed that the Ghanaian speakers of English employed in this study realised the English vowels /iː, ɪ, e, a, ɑː, ɒ, ɔː, ʊ, uː ʌ, ə/. The /ɜː/ vowel was shortened while the /æ/ was replaced with the /a/ vowel. This suggests that most of the Ghanaian speakers of English in this study could produce more RP vowels, contrary to earlier studies.

Scholarship in World Englishes has been prolific over the past several decades, and today, English is accepted as the world’s ‘hypercentral’ language (de Swann 2002). Despite legitimizing varieties of English used in diverse parts of the world, however, the focus of most World Englishes scholarship has been on educated varieties of English, perpetuating the hegemony of the educated elite. Scholarship on varieties of English used by uneducated/less educated users has been neglected, even in contexts like India, where the number of less educated users of English far exceeds the educated. This paper studies the English used at the grassroots by multilingual Indians in urban India and Oman, a country with a large migrant labor population from India. This qualitative study analyses a small corpus of public and restaurant signs and WhatsApp messages produced by Indians at the grassroots levels in urban India and Oman, and focuses on categorizing the features employed to communicate (successfully). Features are categorized as orthographic, lexical, and grammatical. The study concludes with a discussion on the necessity of including English at the grassroots in World Englishes scholarship to capture the reality of the Englishes used around the world.

This paper investigates the use of English within the linguistic landscape of Luang Prabang through a combination of photographs and interviews. Specifically, we examine the characteristics of English in the linguistic landscape of Luang Prabang, the roles played by English, and the perceptions of merchants and consumers towards it. The study finds that: first, English is frequently used alongside Lao, particularly in bilingual signs, and it is also used alongside other languages within multilingual sign combinations. English predominantly appears in areas heavily frequented by consumers, where it is utilized for economic benefit. Second, English primarily fulfills the following roles in the linguistic landscape: cultural heritage bearer, tourism information provider, cultural exchange facilitator, economic opportunities creator, educational resource provider, and international image broadcaster. Third, shop owners and consumers generally express satisfaction with the presence of English in Luang Prabang's linguistic landscape, believing that English promotes economic development, cultural exchange, and brand establishment. However, some interviewees also highlight shortcomings, such as concerns over traditional culture and unfriendliness towards non-native English speakers. This study underscores the pivotal role of English in bridging cultural and economic divides in Luang Prabang, offering insights for policymakers on language policy and tourism management.

This study investigated whether nonnative speakers of English would be able to identify the meanings of ambiguous English noun-noun compounds, focusing on semantic relation between the modifier and head. English noun-noun compounds with varying degrees of ambiguity were selected through an analysis of contexts from COCA. The participants were two groups of college students, who were natives peakers of Arabic (n = 20) and Chinese (n = 20). The participants thought-aloud the meanings (more common vs. less common) of the English noun-noun compounds shown in the contexts. The overall accuracy was comparable between the groups, but by-item accuracy showed some differences in the meanings the groups identified more accurately.

This study aims to uncover the dynamics of the evolution of English in Rwanda, using Schneider's (2007) Dynamic Model. Even though Rwanda has had no history of British colonial rule or that of any other Anglophone country, it currently presents a situation of a non-postcolonial environment where English plays a preponderant role on a par with many dimensions of the status of English in Outer Circle counties such as Uganda or Ghana. Despite the fact that the Dynamic Model was primarily meant to account for the evolution of English in postcolonial environments, its applicability (with a few caveats) to the current linguistic situation in Rwanda provides a robust articulation of the trajectorial development of English in this country.

The present paper provides a small–scale exploratory analysis of L2 English pronunciation and accent aims among secondary school students in Germany – with a focus on the bath and lot vowels, rhoticity, and T–flapping. The eight learners investigated in the current study show blended use of Standard Southern British English (StSBrE) and Standard American (StAmE) phonological variants with relatively high degrees of variation between learners. StSBrE–oriented productions were dominant overall. Agreement of accent aim and L2 pronunciation was largely feature–dependent and limited overall but varied between learners.

This paper aims to demonstrate that robust is currently undergoing a semantic shift, transforming itself into a quasi-intensifier of nouns, conveying positive evaluative meanings. The etymology and semantic development of robust is traced using information from the Oxford English Dictionary Online. In addition, examples from the British National Corpus up to the 1990's are used to analyse the semantic development of robust and to examine the origins of the intensifying or evaluative use of robust. It is argued that there are several patterns in the usage examples where robust behaves like a quasi-intensifier: involving noun gradability, repetition of adjectives and modal meaning of nouns. The final means of intensification is evaluative uses, where there is a multi-layered positive nuance that can be read into robust, making robust a versatile term. While the evaluative role of intensifiers has not been discussed in detail in previous studies, the present study shows that the language users often add positive evaluative meanings to their remarks, which can often be tantamount to an intensification.

In the introduction for their recent state-of-the-art volume on English at the grassroots, Meierkord and Schneider (2021) point out the recurrent problem of Creolistic study not being fully incorporated into the World Englishes paradigm, arguing, like Mufwene (1997; 2001) and others, that English-based Creoles are best viewed as varieties of English ‘and, as such, require their integration into existing models and theories, too’ (11). Further work which seeks to overtly integrate Creole varieties within studies of English at the grassroots – the ‘new player in the World Englishes paradigm’ (Buschfeld 2001, 25) – has not been quickly forthcoming, though, with most of the work in the field focusing on ‘typical’ multilingual settings. In an attempt to remedy this, the current paper discusses the language situation in Trinidad, the last island in the Caribbean’s Lesser Antilles. In Trinidad, Trinidadian English Creole (TEC) and Trinidadian English (TE) interact in a complex where English might be best viewed as a second dialect (ESD), rather than in one of the prototypical ENL, ESL, or EFL situations of acquisition or use (cf. Deuber 2014). After an exploration of the limited research that has been done on language use and social class in Trinidad, this paper compares those previous findings on morphosyntactic features with new data from short semi-structured interviews conducted with speakers who can be described as grassroots.

This article identifies factors that affect local dialect recognition in the north of the East Midlands, England. Central to the argument is the local belief in a ‘scale of northern-ness’: the general impression that accent moves geographically across the East Midlands, transitioning gradually southwards from northern to southern English. This theory bears similarities with Upton's description of the Midlands region as a ‘transition zone’ (2012, 267). Two dialect recognition tasks were completed by three age groups of respondents based primarily in Chesterfield, North East Derbyshire. The results indicate that Sheffield voices were the most recognisable to the Chesterfield audience, perhaps because they differed from the East Midland voices in the sample. Respondents' ‘dialect image’ (Inoue 1999, 162) of East Midland voices led to some errors being made, with the key belief in the north of this region that ‘north is better’.

Over the past two decades, English has become a key medium of instruction in higher education in non-native English contexts, especially Asian countries. Extant research highlights the rapid expansion of English-medium instruction (EMI) and challenges in policy implementation, revealing tensions between different language policy levels (i.e., macro, meso and micro). Thus, a multilevel analysis is needed to understand these tensions. This review examines factors influencing EMI adoption in China, Japan, Malaysia, and Nepal, focusing on policy implementation by educators and students. Findings show that EMI adoption is driven by English's role as a global lingua franca and the permeation of neoliberal ideologies at the macro policymaking level. Such a macro-level endorsement of monolingual EMI has resulted in micro-level inequalities for students, with resistance manifested through multilingual practices, such as translanguaging, in the classroom. The discrepancies between language policies and practices highlight the necessity of reassessing the adequacy of monolingual EMI policies and the importance of adopting a multilingual policy framework. The article concludes with a critical discussion of the trends observed in these contexts and recommends several policy directions for the future.

Services related to paid domestic work in private households are an important global labor market for migrant women. The Philippines is one of the largest exporters of work-force for the international domestic work sector. In this context, the linguistic legacy of American colonization becomes a key factor: English is an official language of the Philippines alongside Filipino. In addition, several varieties of Philippine English are widespread. Against this backdrop, Filipino and Filipina workers are positioned as competent, Anglophone workers in low-wage sectors such as the global domestic work market. Based on these attributions, they are also commodified as workers who can easily learn other languages and who are versatile and compatible with all linguistic and cultural spaces – worldwide. This paper sheds light on the multilingual repertoires of Filipina domestic workers in the Spanish capital, Madrid. The study is grounded in the paradigms of critical ethnographic sociolinguistics, migration linguistics and multilingualism research. The underlying data are based on narratives of Filipinas who migrated to Spain between 1971 and 2017. The findings reveal complex tensions around English. On the one hand, English is often perceived as prestigious and therefore valuable linguistic capital that can lead to social mobility. On the other hand, English is not seen as a panacea for securing employment beyond domestic work. Extrapolating from these findings, the overall picture that emerges is that English is deeply embedded in structurally determined social inequalities, which can be observed both in the country of origin and in the destination society.

In reply to a recent article in English Today by David Li, it is pointed out that the use of a noun as a premodifier rather than an adjective appears to be increasing in English, perhaps particularly in the area of sports. The Australia team seems to be gaining ground at the expense of the Australian team, for example. Just why this should be happening is obscure, but multiple factors appear to be involved in the change. There are also instances where the change appears to be blocked.