English in The Bahamas and Developmental Models of World Englishes: A Critical Analysis
English in The Bahamas and Developmental Models of World Englishes: A Critical Analysis
This paper examines how the Model of Extra- and Intra-territorial Forces (EIF; Buschfeld and Kautzsch 2016), an offshoot and further development of Schneider’s Dynamic Model (2007), fares in explaining the coming-into-being and current situation of Bahamian Englishes. By integrating colonial and postcolonial forces into a unified account, the EIF Model elegantly accounts for the long-standing regional and supra-regional ties linking the Bahamas with Britain and the United States and for how they have led to the sociolinguistic and linguistic complexity characterizing the Bahamian situation today. The paper also offers some critical remarks on developmental models of World Englishes in general; these revolve around the ideas of varieties as sets of features, that a variety’s most natural basis is the nation, and that all varieties of English undergo not just change but evolution, culminating in a more or less homogeneous standard variety.
Keywords: Bahamian Englishes, Dynamic Model, EIF Model, developmental models, linguistic evolution, critical analysis
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