Existing World Englishes Models and Beyond. Filling the ‘Grey Area’

This book provides a review of the most significant models proposed and applied in previous World Englishes (WEs) research, ranging from earlier tripartite models to more recent evolutionary and dynamic models. The main aim is to highlight their strengths and weaknesses, emphasising the contribution they have given (and still give) to WEs studies, while also addressing their weaknesses, particularly when used to analyse newly emergent varieties in Expanding contexts. The findings will reveal that even the most recent models, despite displaying a more integrative approach, fail to offer a definitive collocation to these varieties. This limitation arises mainly from the historical focus of WEs research on Kachruvian Inner and Outer Circle communities, neglecting Expanding Circle contexts where English has traditionally been supposed to play no significant role (Strevens 1978) but where is ‘hysterically’ (Imhoof 1977) extending its domains in contemporary times. This old paradigm has created “a grey area” (Jenkins 2003: 17–18) within WEs studies, with newly emerging varieties of the Expanding Area remaining undefined and suspended “somewhere between ESL and EFL status” (Buschfeld 2013: 11). This theoretical gap underscores the need for an up-to-date and comprehensive constructed model. The Fluid Model (FM) is here introduced as an alternative framework that adopts a broader perspective apt to include contemporary phenomena such as globalisation and the increasing role of English as a necessary – or simply ‘trendy’ – communicative tool in many non-native countries, and to fill the theoretical gap between ESL and EFL categories.