Summary and Implications

Abstract

Abstract Pulling together the many processes through which English has taken shape in India and in Singapore, this chapter enumerates several proposed mechanisms of change. Some of these are based in historical ecology, some in the formal linguistic mismatches between languages in contact, and others in the social embedding of language practice. These micro- and macrodynamics form feedback loops with one another, inhibiting or accelerating change. The closing reflections explore implications for method and theory in the study of new dialect formation. The empirical overview of new dialect formation in postcolonial sociolinguistic ecologies encourages realist and evidence-based understandings of language learning, language use, and dialect identities in complex multilingual environments.