Czenglish: a basic outline of an EFL variety

Abstract

Protoze je anglictina po celem svete stale vlivnejsim jazykem, vyuziva se ji casta nejen pro komunikaci s rodilymi mluvcimi tohoto jazyka, ale i pro komunikaci mezi jinymi narody. Napfiklad v Evrope se v teto funkci pouziva pomerne bezne. Autofi jako Crystal ci Modiano dokonce tvrdi, ze tato evropska lingua franca by se mela oprostit od vlivu britske anglictiny a byt vice sobestacna. Pfestoze by se dalo hovofit 0 evropske variete anglictiny, kterou spojuji jiste spolecne rysy, je pravdepodobne, ze bude do znacne miry zalezet na matefskem jazyce, jimz dane narody hovori. Takovemu jazyku, ktery se blizi jazyku cilovemu, ale obsahuje rovnez rysy materskeho jazyka, se fika "interlanguage", tedy interjazyk. Interjazyk tedy vznika ph procesu uceni jineho jazyka a je to system, jehoz pravidla se lisi jak od jazyka matefskeho, tak od toho studovaneho. Tato prace se pokousti popsat "Czenglish" jakozto samotnou varietu - interjazyk. Tuto varietu muzeme definovat jako interjazyk zalozeny na angliCtine, kterym mluvi cesti mluvci, a obsahuje rysy cestiny a bezne chyby na ruznych jazykovych urovnich.

Czenglish, an interlanguage developed by Czech learners of English, is a specific English variety which has not been comprehensively studied yet. Not surprisingly, English differs from Czech in varying degree at all levels, starting with the pronunciation of individual sounds and writing conventions, morphology and syntax up to the textual level, pragmatics etc. These differences are due to the different character of the two languages and the different conventions. Learners transfer their linguistic habits from their mother tongue into the language they learn and as a result a modified variety of language comes into being which is neither Czech nor completely English. This is not to say that every mistake made by a Czech speaker of English IS automatically Czenglish. It seems appropriate to apply this term only to an English that systematically and repeatedly exhibits not only features that can be attributed to the influence of Czech, but also errors that rather than being due to negative transfer are common to all learners of English regardless of other nationalities, which shows them to be developmental errors typical of an interlanguage found in language acquisition. Describing such a variety is a long process and it is impossible to cover all the facts in this thesis. However, it might provide a useful...