Localised and Globalised Forms in the Discourse of the News in English(es)

The global spread of English has been viewed as two diasporas, the first involving migrations of substantial numbers of English speakers to Australia, New Zealand and North America and the second, in the colonial contexts of Asia and Africa, entailing transportation of the language, but only to a small extent transportation of English-speaking people. Thus, the language was brought into new socio-cultural contexts by a small number of users. These two diasporas have contributed to making English a language unlike any other, in terms of the extent of its usage and for what concerns the rise of new forms of localized English. A particularly interesting phenomenon is the use of English in newspapers published in different parts of the world.The present study will focus on the contents of a newspaper written in English in a country which belongs to the ‘outer’ circle of Kachru’s model, the Hindustan Times.A comparative analysis of its articles will show that the language employed in this newspaper bears striking resemblances to the language used in newspapers that are published in the countries of Kachru’s ‘inner circle’. However, a close reading will reveal some peculiar, distinctive features. This is particularly the case when it comes to dealing with issues and topics on which the impact of the national culture seems to be more prominent, thus making them strongly imbued with each country’s socio-cultural values. A qualitative analysis will be carried out, focusing on the most relied-upon and successfully employed lexico-grammatical tools, in the attempt to establish whether hypotheses can be set up and tested concerning the systematic features of the ELF used by the members of a particular group or country.The study will first of all highlight some of the limitations of the so called ‘monolithic model’, which advocates the perpetuation of a uniform standard, lest English should diversify and fragment into many mutually unintelligible local forms. Secondly, it will prove that, as more and more textual and linguistic spaces are found within the English language to represent the voices and interests of different speakers, it is worth paying attention to the ways in which English has become locally adapted and institutionalized to create different Englishes around the world.