KUCHING – Two public lectures on the English language will be held at Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus, next week.
The first lecture, “Issues on World Englishes” will be conducted on 19 June while the second, “World Englishes: Implications for teaching”, will take place on 20 June.
Both lectures will start from 2:30pm to 4:00pm at the lecture theatre of the university.
They will be conducted by Professor Tony Hung, an Honorary Professor of Hong Kong Baptist University.
With English spoken by more non-native than native speakers all over the world today, issues such as international intelligibility and acceptability, culture and identity, need to take both groups of speakers into account, he said.
“By the beginning of the 21 century, English is firmly established as a bona fide world language, with more non-native than native speakers and with new varieties of English such as Malaysian, Singaporean and Indian English, emerging all over the world.
“Yet teachers and learners, not to mention native/non-native speakers in general, have been slow to realize the implications of this development,” said Hung, who holds a PhD in Linguistics from the University of California San Diego, an MA in Applied Linguistics from the University of Lancaster, and a BA (Hons) in English from McMaster University.
He will highlight some major issues arising from “World Englishes”, including ownership of English, standards and norms, and language and culture/identity, in the first lecture.
“With English increasingly being used between people who speak it as a second language – there is a need to re-evaluate our approach to the teaching of English as well, including its rationale, objectives, methodology, teaching materials and testing,” said Hung.
Besides pronunciation, other issues in the teaching of English, including vocabulary and grammar, and cross-cultural pragmatics will be discussed.
The advantages and disadvantages of non-native versus native-speaker teachers will also be among the topics.
Registration fee is RM10 for each lecture, and tea will be provided after each session.
For more details, please email Nora Talhata at ntalhata@swinburne.edu.my or Irene Chang ihcchang@swinburne.edu.my, by 17 June 2014.