THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY AND WORLD ENGLISHES – TREND FOR CULTURAL ENRICHMENT

Abstract

The article discusses the reflection by the Oxford English Dictionary the cultural and language treasury of world Englishes differentiating the global pluricentric language. Using the classifying conception of the three circles developed by B.B. Kachru, we found out that despite the OED3 editors’ claim that now they avoid the principle of exoticization and they tend to represent the everyday culture of English users, the dictionary marks the lexicon of national and postcolonial varieties only, which is a proof of their status. Meanwhile, Expanding Circle varieties of English, which outnumber those of the Inner and Outer Circle, are not mentioned as varieties of English in the dictionary, and their lexicon is included as loan words from donating languages rather than Englishes.