A Brief Phonology of Vietnamese
Language is systematic and rule-governed. While it may not be observable to the untrained ear, every language has its own set of consonants and vowels that create a unique phonetic system. In the chart to the right, the phonemes of Vietnamese are categorically illustrated.
Their descriptions include:
Figure 4: Braj B. Kashru: Linguist extraordinaire
(The Indian Express, 2016) Figure 5: Kachru's three-circle model of World Englishes (Jenkins, J., 1992)
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Figure 1: Vietnamese IPA Consonants
(The Speech Accent Archive) Figure 2: Vietnamese IPA vowels (The Speech Accent Archive)
Figure 3: The joy of a linguistics. (MacNaughton, S., 2007)
Vietnamese-English in the Expanding CircleIn 1985, Braj B. Kachru published his work on the concentric circles of World Englishes and created a categorization that has lasted decades. As seen in the adjacent chart, Kachru sorted the world's countries into three groups: the "Inner Circle," the "Outer Circle," and the "Expanding Circle."
The Inner Circle is composed of ENL countries to where English spread during its first diaspora from Britain, including the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Inner Circle countries are norm-providing, as they often claim to set the standard of English for other countries. Next, the Outer Circle is composed of ESL countries reached within the second diaspora, including India, Nigeria, Pakistan, etcetera. These are mainly countries affected by colonization and often have English as one of their institutionalized languages. Outer Circle countries are norm-developing, as they are looking to Inner Circle countries as the example while crafting their own standards for English. Lastly, the Expanding Circle is composed of EFL countries influenced during the third diaspora. Expanding Circle countries are deemed norm-dependent, looking to the Inner Circle for guidance, as their dialects of English are not yet deemed as official. These countries can include ones such as China, Japan, Korea, and even Vietnam. Kachru's model for World Englishes is important in understanding the Vietnamese language's role on a global scale, because the concentric circles shows Vietnam's overall dependency on Inner Circle countries to provide the language norms for English (Kachru, . |