The Australian corpus project: Findings on the distribution of some functional variants in the Australian press

Pam Peters; Peter Collins; David Blair; Alison Brierley

doi:10.1075/aral.11.1.03pet

ISSN 0155-0640
E-ISSN: 1833-7139

USD

The Australian corpus project

Findings on the distribution of some functional variants in the Australian press
Author(s): Pam Peters ¹, Peter Collins ¹, David Blair ¹ and Alison Brierley
View Affiliations Hide Affiliations

Affiliations:
¹ Macquarie University, University of New South Wales
Source: Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, Volume 11, Issue 1, Jan 1988, p. 22 - 33
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/aral.11.1.03pet

Abstract

The functional variants of International English are often differently distributed in the different regional standards. With evidence from the corpus of Australian English, this has already been shown for lexical variants such as will/shall, maybe/perhaps etc. In this paper evidence from the Australian corpus is used to discuss a number of variables in

a) morphology

b) the system of conjunction

c) the system of quantifiers.

The redistribution of morphological variants-edl-t (as in burned/burnt), and -wards(s) (as in downward(s)) showed a tendency to assign different grammatical roles to each variant. Among the conjunctions, apart from individual differences the most interesting finding was the higher level overall in the use of subordinating conjunctions, when Australian newspaper data was compared with the equivalent in Britain or America. A possible explanation for this invokes the Hallidayan principle that subordination is actually more common in speech than in writing. The suggestion is that Australian press reporting approximates more closely to spoken than to written norms of language. But on the quantifiers a few/several the corpus provides no support for a new popular use of several, to mean vaguely large number.

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/aral.11.1.03pet

1988-01-01

2020-07-11

From This Site

/content/journals/10.1075/aral.11.1.03pet

dcterms_title,dcterms_subject,pub_keyword

-contentType:Journal -contentType:Contributor -contentType:Concept -contentType:Institution

10

5

Full text loading...

References

Bauer, L.
(1987) New Zealand English morphology: some experimental evidence. Te Reo30:37–53.
[Google Scholar]
Blair, D.
(1985) Dictionaries and the credibility gap: informant responses to some English quantifiers. In J. E. Clark (ed.) The cultivated Australian: Festschrift in honour of Arthur Delbridge. Hamburg, Burske: 221–229.
[Google Scholar]
Collins, P. and P. Peters
(1987) The Australian corpus project. InCorpus linguistics, hard and soft: proceedings of the Eighth ICAME Conference, Helsinki. Amsterdam, Rodopi: 103–120.
[Google Scholar]
Fowler’s Modem English Usage
Fowler’s Modem English Usage (1968) Oxford, Clarendon.
Francis, W. N. and H. Kucera
(1982) Frequency analysis of English usage: lexicon and grammar. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company.
[Google Scholar]
Halliday, M. A. K.
(1985a) Spoken and written language. Geelong, Deakin University Press.
[Google Scholar]
Halliday, M. A. K.
(1985b) An introduction to functional grammar. London, Edward Arnold.
[Google Scholar]
Hofland, K. and S. Johansson
(1982) Word frequencies in British and American English. Bergen, Norwegian Computing Centre for the Humanities.
[Google Scholar]
McCawley, J. D.
(1977) Lexicographic notes on English quantifiers. InPapers from the Regional Meetings, Chicago Linguistic Society13,372–83.
[Google Scholar]
Peters, P.
(1986) Style in Australia: current practices in spelling, hyphenation, punctuation, capitalization etc. Sydney, Macquarie University Dictionary Research Centre.
[Google Scholar]
Quirk, R. , S. Greenbaum , G. Leech and J. Svartvik
(1972) A grammar of contemporary English. London, Longman.
[Google Scholar]
Smith, R. N. and W. J. Frawley
(1983) Conjunctive cohesion in four English genres. Text3,4:347–374.
[Google Scholar]
Zettersten, A.
(1978) A word frequency list based on American press reportage. Copenhagen, Akademisk Forlag.
[Google Scholar]

http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.1075/aral.11.1.03pet

Article Type: Research Article

Most Cited

- Naplan language assessments for Indigenous children in remote communities
  
  Author(s): Gillian Wigglesworth, Jane Simpson and Deborah Loakes
- Can reading strategies be successfully taught?
  
  Author(s): Patricia L. Carrell
- Did you have a good week-end? or why there is no such thing as a simple question in cross-cultural encounters
  
  Author(s): Christine Béal
- Language of publications as a variable in scientific communication
  
  Author(s): Richard B. Baldauf and Björn H. Jernudd
- Pair interactions and mode of communication
  
  Author(s): Lan Liana Tan, Gillian Wigglesworth and Neomy Storch
- The development of comprehension in interlanguage pragmatics
  
  Author(s): Misty Cook and Anthony J. Liddicoat
- Critical and alternative directions in applied linguistics
  
  Author(s): Alastair Pennycook
- Translingual English
  
  Author(s): Alastair Pennycook
- The changing face of motivation
  
  Author(s): Elizabeth Campbell and Neomy Storch
- Women at work
  
  Author(s): Janet Holmes
More Less

The Australian corpus project

Findings on the distribution of some functional variants in the Australian press

Abstract

Most Read This Month

Most Cited