World Englishes, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 85–93, 2005.

0883-2919

Expanding on the Expanding Circle: where do WE go from here?

MARGIE BERNS*

ABSTRACT: Expanding Circle Englishes are gaining in recognition and acceptance. Yet, an analysis of
recent issues of leading journals devoted to English in the global context demonstrates that fewer articles get
published on the Expanding Circle than the Inner and Outer Circles. One explanation for this difference is
simply that less research and scholarship on English in “the rest of the world” has been done. This paper sets
out an agenda for WE research and scholarship on the Expanding Circle to address gaps in the literature
that will reflect the sociolinguistic reality of English across and within the countries and regions of this circle
and to broaden current understanding of the full range of users and uses of this language.

INTRODUCTION
The focus of this study is world Englishes research that explores various dimensions of
English uses and users in sociocultural settings beyond the Inner and Outer Circles. These
settings are represented by the Englishes of South America, Europe, and the Middle East,
just to name three large regions that the Expanding Circle encompasses. Two observations
suggested the selection of this particular circle for closer examination. One is that the
Englishes of the Expanding Circle are coming into their own in terms of a critical mass of
learners and users that is increasing steadily in virtually (in both senses of the word) every
corner of the world. The other impetus is what I see as the need for an assessment of the
status of research on the spread, development, acquisition, and attitudes toward English in
the Expanding Circle. Just how far have we gotten into our investigation of “the rest of the
world” and where might we go from here?

PRESENT STATE OF AFFAIRS

In the past few decades, world Englishes research and scholarship have produced a great
deal of information and insight into the spread, function, and status of English in the global
context. Today more is known about the sociolinguistic, political, and economic dimensions
of the presence and influence of this language on its users and uses in settings from South
Asia to South Africa, from Hong Kong to Harare thanks to a wide range of publications,
conference papers, and public lectures too numerous to enumerate here. It is possible to get
an overview of the range of topics and issues addressed by a review of the individual
chapters and reference lists of such collections as Kachru (1992), Smith and Forman
(1997), and Thumboo (2001). As these volumes also illustrate, it is primarily ongoing
work on Outer Circle settings that moves the field forward, not only with respect to what
is now known and better understood about the Englishes of this circle, but also in terms of a
broader and richer appreciation of English as a world phenomenon. (This is not to say that

* Purdue University, Department of English, Heavilon Hall, West Lafayettte, IN 47907, USA. E-mail: berns
@purdue. edu

ª Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
86 Margie Berns

these collections’ exclusive concern is Outer Circle situations, but chapters devoted to the
Expanding Circle per se are proportionally fewer: 10 percent in Kachru, 25 percent in
Thumboo, and none in Smith and Forman.) Each Outer Circle study done to date is an
indispensable complement to and enhancement of prior sociolinguistically informed inves-
tigations of the Englishes of Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and the United
States in several dimensions. Not the least of which is the recognition, acceptance, and
appreciation of the Englishes of Africa and South as well as Southeast Asia and their right
to a place in the pantheon of world Englishes. But it would be misleading and premature to
claim that the status of the Englishes of the Outer Circle has become a given among English
language studies specialists. And it is the same resistance to the validity of non-Inner Circle
varieties that meets any suggestion of an Expanding Circle English.

AM I IN AN EXPANDING CIRCLE COUNTRY, AND HOW DO I KNOW IT?

Expanding Circle regions and countries are identified by the same characteristics that
distinguish the Inner and Outer Circles – pattern of acquisition, sources of norms, status
of English as a native, second or foreign language, functional allocation, and history of
colonization.

English as a foreign language

In acquisitional terms, Expanding Circle users are non-Inner Circle, performance
variety speakers, and consider English a foreign language. Until fairly recently this has
meant learning it for interaction with native speakers with a focus on understanding the
customs, the cultural achievements (generally high culture only), as well as learning the
language “perfectly” – “mastering” it. The Inner Circle variety (note the singular form
here) and its particular cultural identity (not plural) are presented as inextricably linked.
Thus, English means British English, literature means Shakespeare, the cultural
monuments are those of London, Big Ben and the Beefeater guards, and the daily life of
native speakers consists of tea-time and its components – tea cosies, scones, and lemon
curd. In fewer cases it has been acceptable to read Edgar Allen Poe, take an imaginary trip
to New York to see Central Park and its homeless denizens, appreciate the national
costume of T-shirt and jeans, and catch glimpses of an everyday routine of shopping at
malls and eating fast food. In either case, as the German didactician, Hans-Eberhad
Piepho has pointed out, learners are constantly required “to relocate themselves in some
fantasy world when they are asked to hear, see, and imitate English dialogues” (1988: 19).
No latitude is given to learners to be themselves with their own identity or to strive for
intelligibility rather than the perfect English accent. Admittedly, this characterization is a
bit exaggerated. Still, the attitudes these teaching practices and language norms reflect
have been and remain determinants of learner achievement and proficiency.
More recently, however, the role English has been given as an international language
has been acknowledged as a phenomenon to be addressed in the classroom. Consequently,
among more progressive and pragmatic observers of the sociolinguistic reality of English
in the Expanding Circle, instruction has an eye toward interaction between and among
speakers of a range of world varieties, not just the idealized Inner Circle. While learners of
English in Expanding Circle countries still learn about the ways and wiles of native
speakers, they also gain an awareness of the global reach of English and the influence it
has on their daily life, significantly through the media and youth culture identity, as well
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as their future, primarily in economic terms. That is, in many Expanding Circle contexts,
for example, Brazil or China, a popular motto has become “know English, have work,
earn money” (whether or not this goal is realistic or achievable is a subject for another
study). Teaching for native-like “mastery” – and the images of subjugation it evokes – is
replaced by teaching for communicative competence, that is, providing learners with the
wherewithal to locate themselves in the real world as bona fide users of English – not in
the role of an imaginary speaker – for their intended purposes with other users of English,
not exclusively their compatriots or Inner Circle speakers. A consequence of the new
orientation to the development of language proficiency is the de-anglicizing of the cultural
bases and the acceptability of such labels as Hungarian, Argentine, Korean, or Dutch
English. These rubrics no longer stigmatize deviations as acts of carelessness or just plain
laziness, but rather mark local speech patterns (from the phonological to the pragmatic)
naturally resulting from the linguistic and social processes of nativization.
Contact with varieties of English has expanded opportunities for users’ exposure and
access to the language. The presence of English in the media, for example, has influenced
the teaching of English in Expanding Circle countries; the traditional, highbrow cultural
canon has been enlarged to include popular, lowbrow culture, thanks in large part to the
Hollywood blockbuster movie machine and popular music performed in English by
British or Americans, but just as easily by pop stars in Japan, Russia, Denmark, or
Mexico. Other domains of use include business, commerce, science, and technology;
thanks to globalization they resemble Outer Circle countries in this aspect. The functional
allocation of English in the Expanding Circle is generally limited to the interpersonal and
instrumental functions. For the most part English has no special administrative status,
while linguistic creativity is more commonly realized in mass media, advertising copy,
slogans and catch phrases, and names for shops and products, for instance.
Patterns of acquisition follow an idealized, exonormative norm – one that is considered
static, absolute, and invariant. The particular norm that serves as the model of learning
comes about through one or more of the following conditions: geographical proximity;
historical accident; exposure to a particular model; and social attitudes toward a
particular variety.
It was not long ago that Expanding Circle teachers based learners’ success on how closely
they approximated British English in speech and writing. British presence through military
or colonial intervention, the high status given the Queen’s English as representing the best
there is, and the seeming ubiquity of the British Council were indirect and more or less
subtle regulators of the norm. Eventually, aided by the positioning of the United States on
the center of the world stage in the early and mid 1950s, American English came to be
recognized – often somewhat reluctantly, yes, even grudgingly – as an alternative
classroom model.
This was not and still is not easy for those of a more elitist persuasion to accept. But at
least they could be comforted by the knowledge that it is an Inner Circle variety that
British English is competing with, even if a child of a lesser god. Still, the erosion of the
standards of “good usage” is forecast as regularly as the end of the world, and the creation
of an “artificial jargon acceptable to neither educated Britons nor educated Americans”
likely to result from the mixing of the two varieties is viewed as a threat to linguistic purity
and mutual intelligibility, as Görlach and Shröder (1985) maintain. Suggestions that an
English in Europe, South America, or Eastern Asia could be accorded the same status as
Indian English, Nigerian English, or Singapore English even as an identity marker is

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88 Margie Berns

generally met with skepticism. Such attitudes are reflected in publications by those English
studies scholars, who, in spite of what the titles of their books and articles imply, restrict
world Englishness only as far as the Outer Circle. Examples are Viereck, Görlach, and
Schneider’s A Bibliography of Writings on Varieties of English, 1965–1983 (1984) and
Schneider’s Festschrift for Manfred Görlach entitled, Englishes around the World (1997).
Such exclusion and restriction of scope is of course the prerogative of these scholars.
However, limiting the focus of an investigation is a strategy quite distinct from outright
dismissal of varieties other than those of the Inner Circle.
But the times and the Expanding Circle, as troubadour Bob Dylan (1964) intoned,
“they are a-changin’,” and language educators sit on the horns of a sociolinguistic
dilemma. How are they to deal with increasing recognition that Inner Circle varieties
are not the only alternatives and that, in fact, regional varieties based on local performance
varieties, have potential as a pedagogical model?
Another concern is which description of the new English (if indeed there are any
available) should serve as a standard and classroom model? Answers to this question
may be forthcoming from the corpus based project that Barbara Seidlhofer (2001) and
colleagues at the University of Vienna have initiated that focuses on the function of
English as a world lingua franca. Speech samples are being collected and analyses are to
determine the features of ELF (English as Lingua Franca) as it is used in international
settings. From this process salient differences between ELF usage and ENL (Inner Circle
English) will be determined, which would enable codification of ELF. Tools and materials
for the teaching of ELF would be logical outgrowths of a linguistic description.
Codification has an additional salutary benefit in that it reconceptualizes the features
“as valid incidences of ELF rather than ‘learner’ English that is ‘deviant’” (Bridger, 2002:
3). This is good news for world Englishes. But Bridger, in an insightful analysis of the
notion of standard in the context of world Englishes, throws some cold water on
enthusiasm for codification: “codification enters the domain of standardization, and
even the most description based corpus will not free us from the prescriptivism with
which standardization is charged . . . even corpus-based codification settles into prescrip-
tive instruction.” Bridger’s observations bring into focus a key issue: how to codify
Expanding Circle Englishes and reconceptualize them as being valid as Inner and Outer
Circle Englishes without compromising a democratic stance vis-à-vis new varieties.

WHERE IS THE EXPANDING CIRCLE NOW?

Up to this point attention has been on the conceptualization of the Expanding Circle
and identification of various sociolinguistic issues surrounding its Englishes. In that
discussion, I noted that three edited volumes on world Englishes had fewer studies on
the countries of the Expanding Circle than of the other circles. The considerable merits of
these books notwithstanding, they are insufficient basis for a characterization of the status
of Expanding Circle research. To get a more comprehensive picture, I looked at articles
published over a four-year period (1998–2001) in a selection of World Englishes
(5(1)–21(1)) and English Today (14(1)–17(3)) and tallied the number of those with an
Expanding Circle country focus.
These two particular journals were selected because they are dedicated to English and
are inclusive in their editorial policies. That is, they accept manuscripts about English in
foreign language settings and performance varieties as well as native and institutionalized
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settings and their varieties. (These criteria excluded English World-Wide, where editorial
policies are less catholic.)
Figure 1 shows the results of the survey. The data are organized by world regions and
countries within each that were featured in articles, and the number of articles that focus
on these countries and/or regions appears after the location of the article focus. Special
issues or supplements of World Englishes on a particular area are likewise noted. As the
figure indicates, Western and Northern Europe have had the most attention. Together
these two regions have been the focus of a special issue (Deneire and Goethals, 1997).
Among Eastern Asian countries, Japan is particularly well represented: 10 individual
articles, a supplement, and a special issue. Since the survey was conducted, China has
also been the focus of a special issue (Bolton and Tong, 2002).
Southern and Eastern Europe have had less attention with just three and two articles,
respectively. The Middle East with three articles and North Africa with two are also
underrepresented. According to the figure, one South American country – Brazil – has
been the focus of two articles, but in the interim a special issue has appeared on English on
“the other forgotten continent” with studies on Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador,
and Peru (Berns and Friedrich, 2003).
Conspicuously absent from the list is the rest of Latin America and countries once
under Soviet control or influence. With a sharp increase in the number of users and
learners of English throughout Euro-Asia since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it is
only a matter of time until studies are ready for publication in either World Englishes or
English Today, if not elsewhere. Evidence of this promise is activity among language
teachers and scholars working with Lyubov Sokirkina at Saratov State University in
Russia. This work, informed by the world Englishes paradigm, is motivated by the need
for English language teaching reform at all levels of education from St Petersburg to

Northern/Western Europe Middle East

Denmark 1* Cyprus 1
Estonia 1 Jordan 1
Finland 2 Saudi Arabia 1
France 2
Germany 1 North Africa
Scandinavia 1 Egypt 1
Sweden 2 Tunisia 1
Switzerland 1
South America
Southern Europe Brazil 2
Albania 1
Italy 1 East Asia
Spain 2 China 8 + special issue
Japan 10 + special issue + supplement
Eastern Europe Korea 3 + supplement
Bulgaria 1 Taiwan 2
Hungary 1
*Figures refer to number of individual articles

Figure 1. Countries/regions of the Expanding Circle; Frequency of focus in World Englishes

1998–2001 (March) and English Today 1998–2001 (July)

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90 Margie Berns

Vladivostok and all points in between. Now that Russian is no longer an obligatory school
subject in Eastern and Central Europe and is being replaced by English, educators and
researchers here too are working hard to keep up with demand for new and improved
instructional practices, materials, and teacher preparation. Developments in these regions
are being documented in studies such as Khasanova’s (2002) sociolinguistic description
and analysis of English in Uzbekistan.

Is that all they wrote?

These journal articles and works-in-progress are of course not all that is out there
offering insight into the features, forms, and functions of English in the Expanding
Circle. Entire books, not necessarily from a world Englishes perspective, but certainly
compatible and complementary, have been devoted to various regions. Examples
include, but are not restricted to, a study by Flaitz (1988) of attitudes toward English
in France; Cenoz and Jessner’s (2002) book-length investigation of English as a third
language for Europeans; Marshall’s (2000) edited volume on English speaking
communities in Latin America; and a report on English contact and use in Europe,
by Berns, de Bot, and Hasebrink (2004).
Publications can be found in other journals and collections – some well known, some
lesser known, some even obscure. Labrie’s (1990) piece on the influence of English in
Western Europe came out in Language and Society. Gonzalez Cruz and Gonzalez de la
Rosa’s (1995) publication on English in the academic setting in the Canary Islands
appeared in Revista de lenguas para fines especificos. English in Russia is included in
Alexandrova and Konurbayev’s (1998) Festschrift for the Russian Anglicist Olga
Akhmanova, a small volume with most contributions in Russian and of limited
circulation. The International Journal of Applied Linguistics has published articles on
English in the European Union (Berns, 1995; Seidlhofer, 2001), and Brazil (El-Dash and
Busnardo, 2001).
Another valuable, but to date largely inaccessible, body of research and scholarship are
those as yet unpublished papers given at such conferences as IAWE, AAAL, and TESOL.
Additionally, there are seminar papers, written by the graduate students who represent the
next generation of world Englishes scholars, that are undoubtedly of publishable quality.
Along with these are many MA and PhD theses written, deposited, and ultimately
forgotten that could also contribute insights into and knowledge of the outermost circle
of world Englishes.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

The selective set of studies and collections just catalogued suggests that a critical mass
of studies of the Expanding Circle and its Englishes is in the early stages of formation.
This is good. But the course of its development is not clear, and it seems that the time is
right to articulate a research agenda to guide Expanding Circle research and scholarship.
One such agenda would organize investigation and study around various topics and
modes of inquiry and research designs that represent empirical (qualitative, quantitative)
and hermeneutic (interpretative) as well as combinations of methodologies and
approaches. It could look like this:

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. Systematic and comprehensive inventory of the studies done on the Expanding Circle with
updates at regular intervals to document what has been done; this could be along the lines of
Viereck, Görlach, and Schneider’s bibliography.
. Meta-analysis of the Expanding Circle literature to identify gaps and overlaps as well as
competing analyses and diverging research results.
. Review of available sociolinguistic profiles for similarities and differences across regions and
countries. A maximally meaningful outcome of this project would depend upon consistent use
of the established functional framework to analyze both extant profiles and to structure new
sociolinguistic profiles. A shared protocol would make comparative analyses valid and more
useful when the goal is a comprehensive overview of world Englishes in any region and country
of any circle. It would include updates of sociolinguistic profiles drawn up previously in order
to create a body of longitudinal studies that could chart developments at regular intervals.
. Drawing profiles of countries and regions where none have yet been done; in the countries least
represented in Figure 1, for example: Central and South America, non-Western Europe, and
East Asia.
. Studies of the consequences of the labels used to group countries of the Expanding Circle.
Various criteria could be used, and available alternatives reflect political, social, and economic
realities and at the same time touch on issues of regional and cultural identity. Rubrics for the
countries of Europe, for example, could be based on any of five criteria: geography (the Balkan
states, Northern, Western, Southern, Southeastern), political groups (Russian federation),
treaty organizations (Warsaw Pact, NATO), economic communities (European Union,
European Free Trade Association), or other forms of alliances (the military convention of
South East Europe which covers Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Croatia, Greece, Hungary,
Yugoslavia, Romania, and sometimes Turkey). South America presents a similar situation
with some countries participating in Mercosur, a treaty forming a common market based on
various forms of economic cooperation.
. Large-scale interdisciplinary research projects on an international, national or regional level
that bring together specialists in communication studies, second language studies, assessment,
history, economics, social psychology or literary studies. The possible combinations of disci-
plines and sites are endless and the effect would be a multidimensional view of English, its use,
and its users.
. Investigations of a variety of sub-populations of users – such as youth or the elderly, taxi or
limousine drivers, not just the educated elite in good paying jobs and professions and on this
side of retirement – for insight into the role of English in their lives. Extension of the frame of
reference in this way is essential for describing clines of proficiency and bilingualism among
Expanding Circle users.
. Overviews of educational policies and practices within and across a range of Expanding Circle
countries, including curricular innovations and reforms that follow a change in the status of
English, as is happening in parts of Europe and in China on a large scale.
. Studies of the full, expanding range of registers and domains in which English is used and
provides opportunities for contact and access to a range of varieties and proficiencies.
. Investigations of intelligibility across Expanding Circle user communities and fellowships.
. Characterization of the features of the Expanding Circle. The content of the Expanding Circle
has been identified as the “rest of the world.” This is a big responsibility for one circle that is
large not only in terms of constituents but with respect to the considerable diversity among
them, too. This diversity is a key distinguishing characteristic of the Expanding Circle and
suggests refinement of what the concept “Expanding Circle” refers to, what is meant by it.
Although the Inner and Outer Circles cannot be said to be monolithic entities, their con-
stituents seem to share more features than those of the Expanding Circle, and their varieties of
English are fairly stable. English in the Expanding Circle however is slippery because of rapidly
increasing use and access. One result is blurring of the boundary between second and foreign

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92 Margie Berns

language varieties and allocation of English to functions that resemble those of the Outer
Circle.

The foregoing projects lend themselves to a range of outlets; they would make excellent
candidates for topics of theses and dissertations; as the focus of conferences, symposia,
panels, and roundtables. Likewise, seminar papers, monographs, collections, and special
issues could feature any one of them. The products of research on this short list of
possibilities would not only be a significant step forward in documenting English in the
Expanding Circle, but would contribute toward the development of new theoretical
perspectives, more comprehensive bases for future studies, and deeper appreciation of
the collective achievements of the work that precedes work-in-progress and work-to-be-
done on the Englishes of the “rest of the world.”

CONCLUSION

Users of Expanding Circles varieties are coming closer to acceptance of their rights to
be linguistic deviants. As more research is conducted and more studies made of the
sociolinguistic reality of English across Expanding Circle contexts, it becomes increasingly
difficult to take seriously the charge that the Englishes of this circle are products of poor
teaching and learning. In fact, current activity among the users of Expanding Circle
Englishes in language policy and planning and in language teaching pedagogy and
practice evidence the irrelevance of purist and elitist positions. So does the small, but
fast growing body of research and scholarship discussed above, that strongly suggests this
is the dawning of the age of Expanding Circle Englishes.

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(Received 15 July 2003.)

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