Bilinguals’ creativity and an argument for paradigm shift

Abstract

This paper examines the centrality of the notion of bi/multilinguals’ creativity in Kachru's work and its significant role in the paradigm shift in research on world Englishes. Here, it is suggested that bilingual creativity became the catalyst for treating non-native varieties of English not as ‘deviant,’ but rather as different from so-called native Englishes. The world Englishes (WE) paradigm has moved from treating ‘native’ English as the exclusive center/norm of the language to accepting many centers of English (the pluricentricity of English), which has had a number of implications for both bilingual creativity and the study of the intelligibility of non-native varieties of English.