未到尘埃落定时——英语变体研究的阶段性评述

A Comment on the Many Voices in the Discussion of New Englishes

本文回顾了英语变体研究的起源，讨论了变体研究所关注的主要问题，并分析了主要流派及其观点和方法，最后对变体研究的种种问题做出了社会文化和语言学的解释。本文认为，英语变化的潮流是标准化同时的多元化，从而有各体英语之别。英语语言规范问题常常掩盖权势关系，语言规范不是绝对的，而是变化的。在全球背景下对英语变化的讨论所呈现出的各种不同的，态度和观点，无疑反映出深刻的政治、经济、社会、文化历史等原因。

The paper first traces the origin of the topic under discussion, then touches upon the main issues concerned and analyses the major schools of thoughts, ideologies and research methodologies, and finally tries to give social, cultural and linguistic explanations to the issues. The paper concludes that English is changing toward both standardiza- tion and nativization, so come many varieties of English. language standardization entails power relations. Different are a manifestation of deeper political, economic, social, The language standard is dynamic rather than static, and the ideas on the varieties of English in the context of globalization cultural as well as historical reasons.