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- Volume 29, Issue, 2008
English World-Wide - Volume 29, Issue 3, 2008
Volume 29, Issue 3, 2008
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The origins and development of Shetland dialect in light of dialect contact theories
Author(s): Robert McColl Millarpp.: 237–267 (31)More LessShetland dialect, the northernmost Scots variety, is something of a conundrum. Although most of its features place it at the end of the Northern Scots dialect continuum, some lexical, phonological and structural features resemble characteristics of more southerly Scots dialects; in particular those of the east central counties and the North-East. This essay approaches this problem from the point of view of recent work on new dialect formation, demonstrating that many of the features associated with this phenomenon — koinéisation, focussing, and the founder effect, among others — can be postulated for the development of Shetland dialect. Because this new dialect was formed further back in time than those previously studied, the pattern of development is rather more complex and difficult to describe than for those formed in the 19th century; moreover, the developing Scots dialect was for a lengthy period in contact with its close relative Norn in the islands. Because of the latter’s associations with local identity, indeed, we could see this as a further founder effect. The essay demonstrates that present-day Shetland dialect was formed in the early 19th century from the supraregional koiné of the original 16th and 17th century Scots-speaking settlers and the heavily Norn-influenced Scots of the first and second generations of islanders who no longer had Norn as a mother tongue.
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A multidimensional analysis of student writing in Black South African English
Author(s): Bertus van Rooypp.: 268–305 (38)More LessEvidence for the status of Black South African English (BlSAfE) as a variety of English is ambiguous. This paper examines 67 linguistic features of a corpus of BlSAfE student writing, the Tswana Learner English Corpus (TLE), in comparison to a Standard English reference corpus, the Louvain Corpus of Native English Speaking Students (LOCNESS), within the framework of Biber’s (1988) multidimensional model, to determine if evidence for indigenisation and systematicity exists. Linguistic features that occur more frequently in LOCNESS than the TLE suggest that LOCNESS is characterised by greater elaboration of information and information density, more syntactically complex subordination, more reference cohesion and more specialised meanings. The TLE shows evidence of greater involvement of reader and writer of the text, although some features of informality also occur in LOCNESS. Based on comparison of the coefficients of variation in the two corpora, it is concluded that they exhibit similar ranges of variation and that variety status cannot be denied to BlSAfE on the grounds of variability. The application of the multidimensional model shows that the reference corpus, LOCNESS, is similar to academic writing in four of the six dimensions, but differs in being more involved in style and more overtly persuasive. Superficially, the TLE appears to be quite similar to LOCNESS in terms of the various dimensions, but closer examination reveals a number of differences, which largely confirm the findings that were made on the basis of individual feature comparisons: The TLE carries a lower informational density, and information is more often presented in hypothetical ways. It shows a number of similarities with the style and the information processing strategies attributed to spoken registers, but it still remains very clearly distinguishable from spoken language. Many similarities between the corpora are observed, which should be attributed to the register features of student writing. The paper concludes that there is sufficient evidence to acknowledge BlSAfE as a variety of English, on the ground of the stylistic differences between the TLE and LOCNESS, particularly its greater interpersonal as opposed to informational focus, as well as discourse-functional differences in the use of linguistic forms.
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Discourse aspects of tense marking in Belizean Creole
Author(s): Shelome Goodenpp.: 306–346 (41)More LessDebates on the relationship between the aspectual properties of verbs and past marking in Caribbean English Creoles tend to focus on two main issues. The first is the semantic function of the “relative past” and its relation to the unmarked verb, and the second is the discourse functions of the relative past marker and the unmarked verb. This paper addresses two issues related to this debate. Using fieldwork data from Belizean Creole, I present a qualitative analysis of tense usage in discourse focusing on the role of the inherent lexical aspect (aktionsart) of predicates. I examine how two different notions of past meaning are distributed between marked and unmarked verbs with different aktionsarten. I also look at the discourse function of these verbs in the contexts of the meanings expressed. I argue that an analysis of both the aktionsarten of the verbs and discourse factors are critical to developing an understanding of the range of meanings and functions of both the relative past marker and the unmarked verb. The paper also presents a new approach to the study of temporal reference in creoles. The picture-based story method provides an objective way of evaluating speakers’ choice of grounding and also facilitates comparison across speakers, given that several potentially variable aspects of the narrative are controlled for.
Volumes & issues
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Volume 45 (2024)
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Volume 44 (2023)
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Volume 43 (2022)
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Volume 42 (2021)
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Volume 41 (2020)
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Volume 40 (2019)
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Volume 39 (2018)
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Volume 38 (2017)
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Volume 37 (2016)
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Volume 36 (2015)
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Volume 35 (2014)
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Volume 34 (2013)
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Volume 33 (2012)
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Volume 32 (2011)
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Volume 31 (2010)
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Volume 30 (2009)
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Volume 29 (2008)
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Volume 28 (2007)
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Volume 27 (2006)
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Volume 26 (2005)
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Volume 25 (2004)
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Volume 24 (2003)
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Volume 23 (2002)
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Volume 22 (2001)
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Volume 21 (2000)
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Volume 20 (1999)
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Volume 19 (1998)
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Volume 18 (1997)
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Volume 17 (1996)
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Volume 16 (1995)
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Volume 15 (1994)
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Volume 14 (1993)
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Volume 13 (1992)
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Volume 12 (1991)
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Volume 11 (1990)
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Volume 10 (1989)
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Volume 9 (1988)
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Volume 8 (1987)
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Volume 7 (1986)
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Volume 5 (1984)
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Volume 4 (1983)
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Volume 3 (1982)
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Volume 2 (1981)
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English in Hong Kong: Functions and status
Author(s): K.K. Luke and Jack C. Richards
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