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As the title implies, this book focuses on postcolonial varieties of English around the world. In the introductory chapter, Schneider states that he is "concerned with the developmental phenomena characteristic of colonial and the early phases of postcolonial histories until the maturation and separation of these [English] dialects as newly recognized and self-contained varieties" (p. 1). Thus, by the term "Postcolonial Englishes" (PCEs), the writer refers to "all forms of English resulting and emerging from such backgrounds" (1). Despite the fact that these PCEs have developed dissimilar features across space and time, Schneider highlights their common origin in multilingual, multicultural contact settings and argues that a uniform developmental process in fact underlies their spread and diversification. His objective is therefore to present "the first unified, coherent theory to account specifically for the evolution of PCEs around the globe" (1).
In the second chapter, Schneider contextualizes his study. He goes over some of the linguistic or sociolinguistic paradigms, models, and concerns that relate to his approach. He also critically discusses some of the merits and limitations of these paradigms and concerns. While researchers have employed or created many scholarly models to explain linguistic or sociolinguistic phenomena, and while most of these models arguably do to a certain extent enhance certain areas of our human understanding, it is hard to disagree with Schneider's statement that "all" of them invariably ignore "certain facets of complex realities" (12). In chapter 3, Schneider introduces his "Dynamic Model." This model defines the common core underlying the developmental process of all PCEs, which is to be understood as "a sequence of characteristic stages of identity rewritings and associated linguistic changes affecting the parties involved" (29). This model is nicely summarized in a paragraph (29-30) and also in a table (56). The model is marked by five stages and two complementary communicative perspectives (30). The five stages are (i) foundation, (ii) exonormative stabilization, (iii) nativization (iv) endonormative stabilization, and (v) differentiation. The communicative perspectives refer to those of the settlers and the indigenous people. The good thing is that this model is applicable not only to PCEs, for according to Schneider, it "appears to operate whenever a language is transplanted" (29).
The following chapter focuses on the...