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- Volume 34, Issue, 2013
English World-Wide - Volume 34, Issue 1, 2013
Volume 34, Issue 1, 2013
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The expression of the perfect in East and South-East Asian Englishes
Author(s): Elena Seoane and Cristina Suárez-Gómezpp.: 1–25 (25)More LessThis paper looks at variation in the expression of perfect meaning in Asian Englishes (Hong Kong, India, Singapore and the Philippines) as represented in the spoken component of the International Corpus of English. Findings confirm the existence of levelling between the present perfect and simple past in these varieties, and that the tendency of the present perfect to lose ground to the preterite is more pronounced in these New Englishes than in British English, especially in the expression of recent past. The occurrence of other variants in the corpus is accounted for in terms of the influence of the respective substrate languages, cognitive constraints characteristic of language-contact situations, pragmatic contextual factors such as the scant use of adverbial support, and, especially, diffusion from the input language, which is an earlier variety of spoken, non-standard English. Relevant intravarietal differences are also discussed and attributed to the different phases of development in which the four varieties currently find themselves.
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Prosodic marking of narrow focus across varieties of South African English
Author(s): Sabine Zerbianpp.: 26–47 (22)More LessThis paper reports on an elicited production study which investigates prosodic marking of narrow focus in modified noun phrases in varieties of South African English. The acoustic analysis of fundamental frequency, intensity, and duration in narrow focus is presented and discussed. The results suggest that these three acoustic parameters are manipulated differently in narrow focus in the varieties of English as a Second Language as compared to General South African English. The article compares the results to what is known about prosodic marking of information structure in other varieties of English as a Second Language and underlines the necessity of carefully controlled data in the investigation of phonological and phonetic variation in varieties of English.
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Quotatives down under: Be like in cross-generational Australian English speech
Author(s): Celeste Rodríguez Louropp.: 48–76 (29)More LessThe English quotative system (featuring forms such as say, think, zero, go, all and be like used in direct speech reproduction and thought) has been the subject of vigorous, in-depth sociolinguistic investigation, particularly in the past two decades. However, with the notable exception of Winter’s (2002) study of quotative be like in the speech of Melbourne adolescents, the Australian English quotative system remains virtually uncharted. I address this gap in the literature by offering a quantitative sociolinguistic analysis of the quotative system of Perth English, investigating to what extent linguistic (grammatical person, content of quote and tense) and social (age and sex) variables are implicated in the use of be like. My results stem from 32.5 hours (325 096 words) of spontaneous narratives of personal experience recorded with 47 speakers in Perth in 2011 and evince an overwhelming increase in the use of be like particularly amongst the youngest speakers — as compared to Winter’s (2002) findings for Melbourne in the late 1990s. Multivariate analysis using Goldvarb X (Sankoff, Tagliamonte and Smith 2005) indicates that — although some constraints like the favouring effect of first person subjects behave similarly across the generations and are in line with other Englishes — Australian be like is subject to different constraints across generations of young speakers. Pre-adolescent and adolescent girls are active agents of language change by upping be like’s frequency and its use with the historical present in narratives. Young adults are steady users of be like in historical present contexts but the significant effect of sex has reversed: it is young male adults — rather than women — who favour be like in this cohort. The findings are in line with trends noted in the literature on English quotation elsewhere and point once again to the irrevocable link between system-internal forces and social factors as speakers move through life.
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The endonormative standards of European English: Emerging or elusive?
Author(s): Rias van den Doel and Hugo Quenépp.: 77–98 (22)More LessIt has been asserted that a common European variety of English is currently emerging. This so-called “European English” is claimed to be the result of convergence among non-native English speakers, and to reflect a gradual abandonment of Inner Circle norms, which are deemed to be increasingly irrelevant to non-native speakers’ communicative needs. Evidence is so far lacking that Europeans judge each other’s proficiency in English by anything other than native-speaker standards — particularly as regards pronunciation. Nonetheless, it would be interesting to establish whether European non-native speakers of English demonstrated convergence when evaluating the pronunciation of fellow Europeans, and in this respect deviated significantly not only from Inner Circle English native speakers but also from non-European judges. To investigate this possibility, a large-scale Internet survey was carried out in which different groups of users of English (native and non-native, European and non-European, N = 373) evaluated the pronunciation features of five European accents of English, by means of global ratings and detailed responses. The observed convergence of native and non-native judges’ responses does not correspond with emerging endonormative pronunciation standards on the European continent. Hence these findings fail to support the claims about an emerging European English variety.
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 6 (1985)
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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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Volume 1 (1980)
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English in Hong Kong: Functions and status
Author(s): K.K. Luke and Jack C. Richards
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