takes exception to these claims, arguing that the notion of 'neutrality' 'Can be questioned on both theoretical as well as empirical grounds,' English being both 'ideologically encumbered' and 'promoted to strengthen its hegemonic control over the indigenous varieties. 'In his debate with Rajagopalan (1999) over the merits of linguistic imperialism and linguistic hybridity arguments, Canagarajah (1999b: p 210) argues that while linguistic imperialism may be problematic, a World Englishes perspective that promotes the neutrality of English leads to an unhelpful 'Business as usual' line: "We are urged to bury our eyes ostrich-like to the political evils and ideological temptations outside. "
Probably the best known and most often cited dimension of the WE paradigm is the model of concentric circles: the 'norm-providing' inner circle, where English is spoken as a native language (ENL), the 'norm-developing' outer circle, where it is a second language (ESL), and the 'norm-dependent' expanding circle, where it is a foreign language (EFL). Although only "tentatively labelled" (Kachru 1985: 12) in earlier versions, it has been claimed more recently that "the circles model is valid in the senses of earlier historical and political contexts, the dynamic diachronic advance of English around the world, and the functions and standards to which its users relate English in its many current global incarnations "(Kachru and Nelson 1996, p 78). Yano (2001, p 121) refers to this model as the "standard framework of world Englishes studies. "Yet this model suffers from several flaws: the location of nationally defined identities within the circles, the inability to deal with numerous contexts, and the privileging of ENL over ESL over EFL.
First, and most disconcertingly, it constructs speaker identity along national lines within these circles. As Krishnaswamy and Burde (1998, p.30) argue, if Randolph Quirk represented "The imperialistic attitude" to English, the WE paradigm represents "a nationalistic point of view, "whereby nations and their varieties of English are conjured into existence: "Like Indian nationalism, 'Indian English' is 'fundamentally insecure' since the notion 'nation-India' is insecure "(p.63). If on the one hand this suggests that speakers within a country belong in a particular circle and speak a particular national variety (or don't, if their country happens to be in the rather large expanding circle), it also, as Holborow (1999, pp 59-60) points out, "fails to take adequate account of social factors and social differences within the circles. " Thus language users are assigned to a particular variety of English according on the one hand to their nationality and on the other the location of that nation within a particular circle. Australians speak English as a native language, Malaysians speak it as a second language, and Japanese use it as a foreign language. The problem is that it depends very much who you are: A well-educated Chinese Malaysian in KL may speak English as a 'second' or 'first' language, while a rural Malay may know English only as a distant foreign language. Parallel relations can be found in Australia and Japan, and indeed wherever we care to look around the world.
Second, despite claims to the contrary, it continues to privilege native speakers over nonnative speakers, and then ESL speakers (nationally defined) over EFL speakers (nationally defined) (see Graddol 1997). Although the WE paradigm has significantly questioned the status of native speakers in deciding what counts as English and what does not, it has not gone far enough in questioning the divide itself. It continues to maintain that the core Englishes are spoken by native speakers while the peripheral Englishes are spoken by nonnative speakers. This, as U. N. Singh (1998, p 16) points out, is one of the more "fantastic claims'' of this line of thinking. More recently, there has been a softening on this position, so that it is now conceded that we may talk of "genetic nativeness" in the inner circle and "functional nativeness" in the outer circle (see Yano 2001). But none of this calls into question either the circular argument that locates 'nativeness' according to these circles, or the very divide itself. And a division between genetic and functional nativeness is surely based on an insidious division, a point that Salikoko Mufwene takes up in his discussion of the distinction between 'native' and 'indigenized' varieties.
Mufwene, (1994, 1998) laments that this distinction discounts pidgins and creoles: "I still find the opposition 'native' vs 'indigenized English' objectionable for several reasons, " particularly because "the distinction excludes English creoles, most of which are spoken as native languages вЂ...
