Daily Mail

 By Emily Allen

Last updated at 8:30 AM on 2nd November 2011

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Don't teach the 'Queen's English' to foreign language students, linguist urges

• Mario Saraceni said the English are not the only legitimate users of the language
• Urged native speakers to 'give up their claims to be guardians of the purest form of the language'
  

People learning the English language around the world should not adopt the 'Queen's English', a linguist said today.

Dr Mario Saraceni, of the University of Portsmouth, called on native English speakers to 'give up their claim to be the guardians of the purest form of the language'.

He argued that the ways it has been used and changed by millions of people around the world are equally valid.

Writing in the latest issue of the journal Changing English, he suggests the way English is taught to non-native speakers, but whose mother tongue is English, needs a dramatic change.

He said: 'It's important the psychological umbilical cord linking English to its arbitrary centre in England is cut.

'The English are not the only legitimate owners of the language.

'English is the most dominant language on the planet and though it is spoken widely in the western world, westerners are in the minority of English language speakers.

'For many around the world, the ability to speak English has become as important as knowing how to use a computer.

'But the myth of the idealized native speaker needs to be abandoned.

'How it is spoken by others should not be seen as second best.'

Dr Saraceni, of the School of Languages and Area Studies, said it was time English language teachers abroad took down posters of double-decker buses and Parliament Square from their classrooms and taught English in a purely local context.

He said: 'Critics might feel uncomfortable with what they see as a laissez-faire attitude but language use is not about getting closer to the 'home' of English, and it is not about bowing deferentially and self-consciously to the so-called superiority of the inner circle of the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand.

'Language use is fundamentally about mutual understanding.'

According to Dr Saraceni, the widely-held view that English has spread around the world from its original birthplace in England can be challenged.

He said: 'The idea seems natural and unquestionable, but if you examine it closer it is patently untrue.

'It is impossible to identify any point in history or geography where the English language started - one can talk only of phases of development.

'The origins of English are not to be found in the idea of it spreading from the centre to the periphery, but in multiple, simultaneous origins.

'The concept of a single version of any language is always questionable.'

Dr Saraceni said that English had been 'reincarnated' throughout the world, including in Malaysia, India, China and Nigeria, and therefore England should not be seen as the linguistic 'garden of Eden' where the language was pure and perfect.

The de-Anglicization of English needs to take place primarily in classrooms and the 'whole mystique of the native speaker and mother tongue should be quietly dropped from the linguist's set of myths about the language', he said.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2056444/Dont-teach-Queens-English-foreign-language-students-linguist-urges.html

The other day I was listening to the radio, and they talked about why the English drive on the right.  I had never heard an explanation for this, and I guess most of you haven't either, so I thought I will publish a short article about the subject..

"In the past when people passed each other on the road they should be in the best possible position to use their sword to protect themselves. As most people are right handed they therefore keep to their left.

This practice was formalized in a Papal Edict by Pope Boniface around 1300 AD who told pilgrims headed to Rome should keep to the left.

Nothing much changed until 1773 when an increase in horse traffic forced the UK Government to introduce the General Highways Act of 1773 which contained a keep left recommendation.

Reasons to travel on the right are less clear but the generally accepted version of history is as follows: The French, being Catholics, followed Pope Boniface’s edict but in the build up to the French Revolution in 1790 the French Aristocracy drove their carriages at great speed on the left hand side of the road, forcing the peasantry over to the right side for their own safety.

Come the Revolution, instincts of self preservation resulted in the remains of the Aristocracy joining the peasants on the right hand side of the road. The first official record of this was a keep right rule introduced in Paris in 1794 right. Later Napoleon enforced the keep-right rule in all countries occupied by his armies.

Britain's imperial expansion spread the keep left rule far and wide. This included India, Australasia and much of Africa."



http://www.amphicars.com/acleft.htm

Interesting, isn't it??  

This afternoon I bought a book called "A Picnic on Earth" by Rupert Morgan.

It caught my eye, because it said on the front cover something like "download free audio version".

I thought that this might be interesting material to use with students.

In fact Paper Planes is a small publishing company, that wants to encourage (French) people to read English books, to help them to improve their English.

"Paper planes is for anyone who wants to read a good story.

Our objective is to offer a new style of book: modern English literature for an international audience.

When you read this story, it is not important that you understand every word.

Relax, continue reading, and let the author take you on a voyage."

http://www.paperplanes.fr/