ZASTUPLJENOST BRITANSKOG I AMERIČKOG VARIJETETA ENGLESKOG JEZIKA KOD STUDENATA PRVE GODINE NA UNIVERZITETU U ZENICI
THE PRESENCE OF THE BRITISH AND AMERICAN ENGLISH VARIETY AMONG THE FIRST- YEAR STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ZENICA

Summary/Abstract: Due to a large number of World Englishes spread around the world, the impact of the ‘core’, long considered norm-providing, English varieties is being slowly reduced. Still, the influence of the two varieties, namely Standardised British English and Standardised American English, seems to be spread across the world and throughout all the varieties, in particular the peripheral or, in Kachruvian terms, outer-circle varieties. However, since these two varieties differ in their demographic weight and the institutional support they get, they are not equally represented, with American English being greatly present through the mass media and British English being dominant in foreign language teaching. The simultaneous exposure to both varieties is expected to lead to the inconsistent use of the varieties in different language aspects by foreign language learners, Bosnian learners of English in particular. The current paper reports on the project completed by the authors with the aim of investigating whether the first-year students at the University of Zenica tend to use both varieties intermittently through different aspects, namely pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary choice or whether they consistently use only one of the varieties in different language aspects, for which the results obtained by descriptive and inferential statistical analysis will be employed. Furthermore, the research will provide an insight into the students’ attitudes regarding the use of the aforementioned varieties. The main goal of the paper is to raise awareness of English language teachers and students in Bosnia and Herzegovina and to prompt them to start thinking about the language they use.

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