Deforeignizing the English language: National identities making the world language

Article Info ________________ Article History: Received in 30 November 2020 Approved in 15 March 2021 Published in 30 March 2021 ________________


INTRODUCTION
very idiosyncratic perspective. This converges to what I have called 'deforeignization' of English. Let me explain the meaning behind this word.
In the semantic field, 'deforeignize' is to take out what is foreign, strange, unknown. The prefix 'de' denotates opposition, negation. In Arabic and Hebrew, 'strange' is equivalent to 'demoniacal' and 'horrible'. Freud (1919) said 'strange' was related to what is frightening, fear and horror. In his reflections, he stated that, perhaps, our mother tongue was a foreign one. Thus, as far as I am concerned, our own language ceases to be strange, as we get familiar with it. But how we can do this?
This way, I assume that to be familiar with the new language one learns, it is necessary to take out or change the strange part of it. In this respect, Revuz (2002) draws attention to fact that we always go through a strangeness experience when learning a language. Thus, I assume there is a kind of psychical and corporal discomfort when a person learns for the very first time a new language, which is quite normal. However, we should be careful no to extend this stage. Besides that, we should be careful as well with the identity issue, not to block it, not to allow embarrass to the learners. This issue is aligned with the recreation of a language, in lexical and phonological terms, including the interference of ones's mother tongue and the local culture. However, this is not always seen with good eyes. Jing and Niannian (2006), in the Chinese scenario, for example, make criticism on the fact that undergraduate students' oral expression is far from being satisfactory. They claim Chinglish has been used a lot in their oral expression, what, according to them, is very destructive. However, they do not show clearly, in which extent Chinglish is negative. What happens, actually, is that these researchers do not give credit to non-hegemonic ways of expression of the English language, and as a result, negative attitudes might emerge concerning new varieties of English, what signals, somehow, that national identities all over the world must not be expressed through English, if they recreate, modify this language.
But all of this can be overcome, if we take into account the respect with which different national identities are expressed, when they recreate the English language, especially because this recreation has made the world language itself. Therefore, 'to deforeignize' the English language, it is necessary to allow the recreation of this language, so that it can be adapted to the learners' linguistic and cultural patterns.
This way, I have defined the 'deforeignization' of English as a set of changes new speakers make, in different levels, to make this language closer to them, because a language is deforegnized when it is familiar to us and it does not belong only to others, but to us as well who use it. This way, the learner prints his/her identity in the new language, which upon deforeignizing itself, it is being not only spoken with authentic purposes, but the learner himself/herself speaks in that language, revealing features of his/her identity (Almeida Filho, 1993). This relationship between the language and the learners converges to reshape the language, giving rise to new varieties, with idiosyncratic features of a certain social group. In the next section, I share some data concerning this issue.

METHOD
This study can be considered as a literature review one. To support my assumptions, I took as base some samples of the English language already researched by other scholars in some parts of the world, which ratifies the deforeignization process. It can also be said this study has a qualitative bias, since it was based on the previous findings for which I provided some conclusions.
The qualitative model of research has its origin in the phenomenological conception of knowledge, which emphasizes the subjectivity of human behaviors and advocates the penetration in the individuals's conceptual universe, to understand how and which type of meaning they give to the events and social interactions that happen in their daily lives.
As the deforeignization process is intrinsically related with language change, I truly agree the English language has been oponed to the winds of linguistics changes in totally unpredictable ways and the spread of it has already demonstrated this, with the emergence of new varieties where it has taken roots (CRYSTAL, 2012). Aligned to this, I analysed some language occurances in the English language, from some parts of the world, taking into account the assumption of language variation, which claims that heterogeneity is not random, but ordered by linguistic and extralinguistic restrictions. But it is nonetheless true that these variations are related with space, time and diachonic perpectives. These restrictions make speakers use one form instead of another. Based on that, I made some linguistic descriptions, to support my assumption of the deforegnization process, showing language changes speakers have made in that language. For this purpose, I considered grammatical, phonological and cultural aspects from different speakers of English.

FINDNGS AND DISCUSSIONS National Identities Deforeignizing English around The World
In this section, I intend to illustrate briefly how national identities around the world have deforegnized the English language. In historical terms, North-American people are the pioneers in deforeignizing this language. For Kumaravadively (2005), these people not only denativized the colonial language imposed to them, but they decolonized it as well. In practical terms, North-American people have changed the lexicon, the grammar, and even the phonology of English. Thus, for instance, while a British might ask "have you got a bike?", on the other hand, North-Americans might "do you have a bike?" which means the same thing.
Based on this, it is possible to state that a single English pattern is a fallacy, since many varieties of English are emerging with their own lexical and pronunciation norms (Raihan;Deterding, 2018). Because of this, the English language has been under a process of deforegnization, mainly taking as reference countries and emergent regions: Among the countries of the outer circle, several varieties have also grown in distincctiveness in recente decades. There is one group in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, often collectively called South Asian English. There is another group in the former British colonies in East Africa. Other emerging varieties have been noted in the Caribbean and in parts of South-east Asia, such as Singapore. [...] They are an inevitable consequence of the spread of English on a world scale. (Crystal, 2012, p. 144) Crystal (2012) argues that several changes can be identified in the English language, describing some grammatical and lexical features of these changes, what he thinks illustrates trends in the formation of new regional grammatical identities. In this perspective, he draws attention to the fact that the spread of English has demonstrated that this language is open to the winds of linguistic change, converging to the emergence of new varieties in different places this language has taken root.
In this respect is that in the South of Nigeria, people use 'pidgin English', especially in the urban perimeter. This version of English combines local language terms with a more simplified English in phonological terms. Actually, the English language, in the Nigerian context, has been under a redefinition process, because it has been pidginized, nativized and assimilated (Dangana, 2014), since it has deviated itself from the British and North-American norms, and it has, thus, consolidated itself as a local language.
In Indian, Inglish has been spoken by more than sixty million speakers, what makes this version the third more used in that nation. Inglish is a kind of deforegnized English, with so many features to ratify this assumption. For instance, though normative grammar advocates that the 'ING' form must not be used with certain verbs, mainly those which express feelings, in India, it is common the use of sentences such as "he is knowing you' and 'she is understanding you'. Concening pronunciation, 'w' has the sound of 'v', that is why the personal pronoun 'we' is pronunced /vi/ and 'water', /vater/. About this, Bansal (1991), upon analyzing the pronunciation of English in India, states that the deviations from native are much greater concerning the phonological and phonetic patterns. However, he also draws attention to the fact that differences in lexis and grammar also exist. These features point to the defereignization of English in a multicultural country.
In Brunei, a country located in the Borneo island, in Asia, with a population of 400 million inhabitants, they used 'Brunei English'. Rainhan and Deterding (2018) highlight that although this variety of English had been built based on the British English, it evolved naturally, developing its own traces, pointing to the deforeignization process. As an example, Rainhan and Deterding (2018) mention that speakers of Brunei English reproduce the sound of /t/ instead of /th/, in words such as 'thought' and 'third'.
In this line of thought, Gough (1996) describes black English in South Africa, signaling the existence of many particular features. He describes some features in terms of its phonology, grammar, intonation, stylistic etc. In this respect, he says, for example, that the consonantal systems are fairly complex and that the native English phonemes lacking generally are /ᶞ/ and /ᶿ/, which are replaced by /t/ and /d/ respectively.
Still concerning the African context, Simo Bodba (2000) claims that most of the features common to all African accents of English are shared by many other New Englishes, including pronunciation and deviations. He mentions the fact that all Africans are likely to pronounce the 'b' of 'bombing' and 'plumbing' as well as the 'f' of 'of'. Besides that, this reseacher lists that other phonological features are related with any African accent of English, such as the non-application of vowel reduction, consonant cluster simplification, r-phenomena, glide formation, pre-ion devoicing and processes involving the alveolar fricative.
Japlish is the Japanese variety of English. According to Stanlaw (2009), English in Japan is like the air, it is everywhere, with 95% of Japanese people using this language. For him, Japan, today, can not exist without this variety, because it is essential for the Japanese society. This language has deeply entrensched in the Japanese people's life, rewriting the local culture, art, economy and consumism. However, this language has been reshaped by Japanese people as well. In this sense is that Rice bocomes Raisu, Bus is Busu, Apartment is Apaato, Home é Hoomu and Hot is Hootu, clearly following the path of deforeignization.
Spanglish is another deforeignized varierty of English. For Orsi (2008), Spanglish is a kind of code mix; an alternance of use between English and Spanish, marked by factors such as nationality, identity and social class. Orsi (2008) claims that Spanglish serves to express feelings and emotions and it is potentially understood and spoken by 45 millions of speakers in the United States. He also thinks Spanglish has become a unifying vehicle of communication of a bigger group, from different countries that use Spanish. He mentions for instance 'troka', 'traila', 'chimenay', 'lonch' and 'mol' which have replaced respectively 'truck', 'trailer', 'chimney', 'leaking, 'lunch' and 'mall'. These examples of lexical changes also validate that Spanglish is nothing more than a deforeignized version of the English language.
All these changes around the English language is perfectly understandable, since international varieties, emerged from communities separated by different climates, fauna and flora, express nationals identities and are a way of reducing the conflict between intelligibility and identity (Crystal, 2012).
In the following part, I will briefly discuss the implications of this process for the teaching/learning of English.

Implications for The Teaching/Learning Process
A question emerges in front of this diverse scenario: which English to teach? It might prove to be problematic for teachers, because they have faced with many English varieties. However, it could be a good thing that they can choose any model of English they want to teach. The teachers need to take into account the varieties that suit their students. In relation to that, a more local version would be a better option that it might empower new learners. It is mainly because using the language aligned with local culturemake it possible the empowerment of new learners, since using the language aligned with local culture would give these learners the sense of ownership. I do not mean we should ban the hegemonic cultures of classrooms, but decentralize the position they get in many educational settings. Teachers should balance local culture with the hegemonic ones.
In regard to that case, Kumaravadivelu (2012) proposes an epistemic break of our indelible colonial dependence. As teachers, we have to ignite a descontinuity in the way English has been taugh recently. Other experts also question this old-fashioned approach based on native speaker norms. Mckay (2012) is one of them, she rejects the native speaker model as a pedagogic practice to teach English. Matsuda (2009) also emphasizes that English as an international language requires new ways of approaching it, different from the ones based on the hegemonic cultures. Canagarajah and Said (2010) argue that learners of English need to acquire the ability to negotiate with the varieties of English, developing the compentence to deal with diferente norms. Rajagopalan (2004) also claims that its is the speaker's decision to undertake a radical rethinking of our practices, concerning ELT approaches centred in the native speaker model in light of the new role assumed by English as this language metamorphoses itself into a world language. He alerts our practices need to be drastically reviewed because of the challenges English as a world language puts upon us. He draws attention to the need in deconstructing the belief that someone wants to learn English to be able to communicate with the so-called native speaker, because ELT practices based on this premise has been profoundly deleterious, resulting in an extremely enervating inferiority complex on the part of learners.
In this perspective, it is necessary changes in ELT. If we live in a diverse world, we need to acknowledge this premise even in linguistic terms. We should know and respect new linguistic versions as much as possible. New formations around the language should be considered, in terms of grammar, lexicon, phonology etc. This leads to the understanding and occurrence of English in the means of a língua franca.
From my own experience in the last years, as a professor at a federal university in Brazil, I have realized a series of new occurrences, when my students use English. Initially I thought these occurrences seemed to be specific of Brazilian students, such as the use of the verb 'have' to talk about age -'I have 19 years old'-instead of using the verb to be. However, Spanish speakers also use this verb in the same way. This is perfectly understandable, since here in Brazil we use the verb 'to have' to talk about age. That is why it is true and it should be acceptable the fact that the mother tongue influences the way a speaker build the new language he/she is learning. Also, some students use prepositions they use in our mother tongue -'she is married with John' instead of 'she is married to John'. Still some students do not mark the third singular person, such as in 'she work(s) hard every day'. Thus, these data point to the fact that many new features emerge whithin a language, with characteristics of the social groups, in grammatical, lexical and