The World Englishes Paradigm and Contact Linguistics: Refurbishing The Foundations

This paper argues for a greater degree of rapprochement between the fields of world Englishes and Contact Linguistics. New Englishes are after all contact varieties, in the broad sense of the term and hold insights for creolistics, just as the latter has much to offer world Englishes research. One of the phases of ‘refurbishing the foundations’ is to pay close attention to the establishment of individual world Englishes. This paper focuses on the ‘input’ to New Englishes from a variety of sources that typically preceded the influence of the classroom. These sources include regional dialects of settlers, sailors' sociolects, soldiers' language and the L2s of many missionaries. The influence of the superstrate is argued to be more influential than previously realised in shaping the grammar of New Englishes.