This study offers a pragmatic dimension to World Englishes research. It is particularly timely because pragmatics has generally been understudied in past research on World Englishes, especially ...postcolonial Englishes. Apart from drawing attention to the paucity of research, the book also contributes to theory formation on the emerging theoretical framework, postcolonial pragmatics, which is then applied to data from two World (postcolonial) Englishes, Ghanaian and Cameroon Englishes. The copious examples used clearly illustrate how postcolonial societies realise various pragmatic phenomena, in this case offers and offer refusals, and how these could be fruitfully explained using an analytical framework designed on the complex internal set ups of these societies. For research on social interaction in these societies to be representative, it has to take into account the complex history of their evolution, contact with other systems during colonialism, and the heritages thereof. This book does just that.
Asian Englishes Kachru, Braj B
2005, 20050201, 2005-02-15
eBook
This book provides crucial reading for students and researchers of world Englishes. It is an insightful and provocative study of the forms and functions of English in Asia, its acculturation and ...nativization, and the innovative dimensions of Asian creativ
English and development Erling, Elizabeth J; Seargeant, Philip
2013., 2013, 2013-05-16, Volume:
17
eBook
This book investigates the relationship between English and personal and national development in the era of globalization. It addresses the effects that the increased use of English and the promotion ...of English-language education are having in developmental contexts, and their impact on broader educational issues.
The global spread of English has resulted in the emergence of a diverse range of postcolonial varieties around the world. Postcolonial English provides a clear and original account of the evolution ...of these varieties, exploring the historical, social and ecological factors that have shaped all levels of their structure. It argues that while these Englishes have developed new and unique properties which differ greatly from one location to another, their spread and diversification can in fact be explained by a single underlying process, which builds upon the constant relationships and communication needs of the colonizers, the colonized, and other parties. Outlining the stages and characteristics of this process, it applies them in detail to English in sixteen different countries across all continents as well as, in a separate chapter, to a history of American English. Of key interest to sociolinguists, dialectologists, historical linguists and syntacticians alike, this 2007 book provides a fascinating new picture of the growth and evolution of English around the globe.
"Language users are creatures of habit with a tendency to re-use morphosyntactic material that they have produced or heard before. In other words, linguistic patterns and tokens, once used, persist ...in discourse. The present book is the first large-scale corpus analysis to explore the determinants of this persistence, drawing on regression analyses of a variety of functional, discourse-functional, cognitive, psycholinguistic, and external factors. The case studies investigated include the alternation between synthetic and analytic comparatives, between the s-genitive and the of-genitive, between gerundial and infinitival complementation, particle placement, and future marker choice in a number of corpora sampling different spoken registers and geographical varieties of English. Providing a probabilistic framework for examining the ways in which persistence - among several other internal and external factors - influences speakers' linguistic choices, the book departs from most writings in the field in that it seeks to bridge several research traditions. While it is concerned, in a classically variationist spirit, with internal and external determinants of grammatical variation in English, it also draws heavily on ideas and evidence developed by psycholinguists and discourse analysts. In seeking to construct a comprehensive model of how speakers make linguistic choices, the study ultimately contributes to a theory of how spoken language works. The book is of interest to graduate students and researchers in variationist sociolinguistics, probabilistic linguistics, psycholinguistics, and computational linguistics."
This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by the University of Klagenfurt, Austria. Discussing ...key issues of current relevance and setting the tone for future research in world Englishes, this book provides new perspectives on the diverse realities of Englishes around the world. Written by an international team of established and renowned scholars, it is the inaugural volume in the new series Bloomsbury Advances in World Englishes, dedicated to advancing research in the field. Chapters discuss important topics in contemporary world Englishes research, including de-colonial approaches, emerging varieties in post-protectorates and international uses as communicative events to highlight the globalizing aspect of English as a semiotic code. The book also expands on cultural conceptualizations to investigate the connections between Englishes and localized cultural knowledge and ongoing changes and attitudes towards local forms in multilingual settings. Closing with an examination of how world Englishes and the use of English as a lingua franca could influence the future teaching of Englishes, Research Developments in World Englishes presents a detailed picture of contemporary research approaches and points the way towards exciting future directions.
This book explores ways to prepare teachers to teach English as an International Language, and provides theoretically-grounded models for EIL-informed teacher education. It includes two chapters that ...present a theoretical approach to EIL teacher education, followed by descriptions of field-tested teacher education programs, courses and activities.
The English Language in Canada examines the current status, history and principal features of Canadian English, focusing on the 'standard' variety heard across the country today. The discussion of ...the status of Canadian English considers the number and distribution of its speakers, its relation to French and other Canadian languages and to American English, its status as the expressive medium of English Canadian culture and its treatment in previous research. The review of its history concentrates on the historical roots and patterns of English-speaking settlement that established Canadian English and influenced its character in each region of Canada. The analysis of its principal features compares the vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar of Canadian English to standard British and American English. Subsequent chapters examine variation and change in the vocabulary and pronunciation of Canadian English, while a final chapter briefly considers the future of Canadian English.
The English of the southern United States is possibly the most studied of any regional variety of any language because of its rich internal diversity, its distinctiveness among regional varieties in ...the United States, its significance as a marker of regional identity, and the general folkloric appeal of southern culture. However, most, if not all, books about Southern American English have been directed almost exclusively toward scholars already working in the field. This 2003 volume, written by a team of experts, many of them internationally known, provides a broad overview of the foundations of and research on language variation in the southern United States designed to invite inquiry and inquirers. It explores historical and cultural elements, iconic contemporary features, and changes in progress. Central themes, issues and topics of scholarly investigation and debate figure prominently throughout the volume. The extensive bibliography will facilitate continued research.
How vocabularies once associated with outsiders became objects of fascination in eighteenth-century Britain
While eighteenth-century efforts to standardize the English language have long been ...studied-from Samuel Johnson'sDictionaryto grammar and elocution books of the period-less well-known are the era's popular collections of odd slang, criminal argots, provincial dialects, and nautical jargon.Strange Vernacularsdelves into how these published works presented the supposed lexicons of the "common people" and traces the ways that these languages, once shunned and associated with outsiders, became objects of fascination in printed glossaries-fromThe New Canting Dictionaryto Francis Grose'sClassical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue-and in novels, poems, and songs, including works by Daniel Defoe, John Gay, Samuel Richardson, Robert Burns, and others.
Janet Sorensen argues that the recognition and recovery of outsider languages was part of a transition in the eighteenth century from an aristocratic, exclusive body politic to a British national community based on the rhetoric of inclusion and liberty, as well as the revaluing of a common British past. These representations of the vernacular made room for the "common people" within national culture, but only after representing their language as "strange." Such strange and estranged languages, even or especially in their obscurity, came to be claimed as British, making for complex imaginings of the nation and those who composed it. Odd cant languages, witty slang phrases, provincial terms newly valued for their connection to British history, or nautical jargon repurposed for sentimental connections all toggle, in eighteenth-century jest books, novels, and poems, between the alluringly alien and familiarly British.
Shedding new light on the history of the English language,Strange Vernacularsexplores how eighteenth-century British literature transformed the patois attributed to those on the margins into living symbols of the nation.
Examples of slang fromStrange Vernaculars
bum-boat woman: one who sells bread, cheese, greens, and liquor to sailors from a small boat alongside a shipcollar day: execution daycrewnting: groaning, like a grunting horsegentleman's companion: licegingerbread-work: gilded carvings of a ship's bow and sternluggs: earsmort: a large amountthraw: to argue hotly and loudly
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