World Englishes or English as a Lingua Franca: Where does English in China stand?
As the English language spreads and functions as an international language, scholars have been investigating some of the ideological issues behind the function and use of English in various contexts, and have pondered the future status of this global language. From early research of World Englishes (WE) the legitimacy of post colonial Englishes, or 'New Englishes' as they have been termed, has emerged in scholars' discussions (Platt, Weber Ho, 1984; Kachru, 1985, 1992) Some have argued that the research on WE envisages the varieties of English in the outer circle contexts, such as the varieties of English spoken in Singapore, Nigeria, and India, and that people have used those varieties of English to exhibit their own identities (Kachru, 1992; Kachru Nelson, 2006) Therefore, WE has created 'new paradigms and perspectives for linguistic and pedagogical research and for understanding the linguistic creativity in multilingual situations across cultures' (Kachru, 1985: 30)
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