ABSTRACT
As D’Souza (1999: 271) has pointed out, when it comes to the status of a language variety, codication is “the crux of the matter”. Without codication, the non-Inner Circle Englishes will continue to lack prestige not only in the eyes of speakers of ‘accepted’ (i.e. Inner Circle) standard varieties, but also among their own speakers. In order for local classroom models in Asia (and Europe) to be considered acceptable internationally as alternatives to British and American models, it needs to be possible to nd their grammatical, lexical, phonological, and discoursal characteristics in respected works of reference such as grammars and dictionaries. Even then, it will be di cult, yet vital, to ensure that learners of Asian Englishes are not “victims of a system that has one de jure model but a somewhat dierent de facto one” (D’Souza 1999: 272). at is, that they are not taught local norms that remain unacceptable to
Inner Circle gatekeepers. In this respect, selection is critical, and one of the main tasks for the codiers of world Englishes in the twenty-rst century will be to distinguish between items for local informal use and those which have the ‘right’ to international status.
