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English World-Wide - Volume 36, Issue 1, 2015

Volume 36, Issue 1

Volume 36, Issue 1, 2015

  • Ageing meanings of (ing): Age and indexicality in Manchester, England

    Author(s): Erik Schleef and Nicholas Flynn
    pp.: 48–90 (43)
    https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.36.1.04sch
    This study examines the social meanings that speakers associate with variants of the variable (ing) in Manchester, focusing on a comparison of two age groups: a young age group of adolescents and those in very early adulthood, and an older age group. In most English varieties, (ing) has two possible realisations: [ɪŋ] and [ɪn]. However, in Manchester, a third possibility exists: [ɪŋg]. Social meanings differ between age groups on three scales: articulateness, poshness and reliability. When compared to the youths, those in the older age group consider [ɪŋ] to sound substantially more articulate than [ɪn], as well as posher and more reliable than [ɪŋg]. In contrast, those in the younger group consider [ɪŋg] more reliable and posher-sounding than the older speakers. This is due, we argue, to developmental constraints during adolescence, but, more importantly, to life-stage experiences, with social meanings on these three scales altering as speakers leave adolescence behind and become increasingly subject to the standardisation pressures of adult communities.

  • At the interface of contact linguistics and second language acquisition research: New Englishes and Learner Englishes compared

    Author(s): Gaëtanelle Gilquin
    pp.: 91–124 (34)
    https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.36.1.05gil
    This paper examines the possible interface between contact linguistics and second language acquisition research by comparing the institutionalized second-language varieties of English known as “New Englishes” and the foreign varieties of English called “Learner Englishes”. On the basis of corpus data representing several populations of various origins, it investigates four linguistic phenomena, ranging from syntax (embedded inversion) to lexis (phrasal verbs with up), through phraseology (word clusters) and pragmatics (discourse markers), with a view to identifying similarities and differences between the two types of varieties at several levels of the language. The paper also explores avenues for going beyond a descriptive account towards a more explanatory one, in an attempt to build the foundations of a theoretical rapprochement between contact linguistics and second language acquisition research.

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