Of all the readings we completed for this first day of class, the chapters from the Kachru chapters were the most interesting for me. One section of the reading that caught my attention was chapter 9, page 129, that discussed how "lexical innovations are, says Baumgardner (1987:243), 'a matter of pride among Pakistani speakers of English'. The authors discuss the "defining character" of Pakistani English. Quite frankly, I re-read this passage a number of times because it is so contradictory to my own experience with Pakistanis. When I moved to Qatar, one of my first teaching contracts was to teach a group of 30 Pakistani English teachers. They all worked at the local Pakistani Education Center. The majority had a high educational level and many years of teaching experience. However, I was hired to teach them American English. They all had a great desire to sound like native, American English speakers.
I mentioned this to some of my classmates during our group discussions today and we came to the consensus that it was likely another case of "it all depends on the context". Taking that into consideration, it is still perplexing to me why Pakistanis living in Qatar would have goals of acquiring an American accent. None of them (to the best of my knowledge) had any ultimate goals of actually going to the United States. And although there are plenty of Americans in Qatar, they are certainly not the majority.
Due to time constraints I will stop this entry here - but I look forward to discussing this and issues similar to this throughout the rest of the week.
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