English World-Wide - Volume 42, Issue 1, 2021

Abstract

This paper discusses the obsolescence of h-dropping as a local feature in Maryport, West Cumbria. Using sociolinguistic interview data, a quantitative approach and mixed-effects modelling is used to explain the linguistic changes in the community. Sociolinguistic accounts of h-dropping always state that the feature is and has been stigmatised in England since the 18th century. However, the oldest speakers in the sample do not change their level of h-dropping in more formal speech styles, which indicates that the standard language ideology of “proper” English might not be pervasive for them. However, for speakers born after 1960 the use of h-dropping is decreasing in apparent time. From the 1960s onwards, Maryport has seen social change as the strong neighbourhood ties broke up and from the 1980s experienced strong job losses. I argue that these social changes are correlated with the decline and eventual obsolescence of h-dropping in the community.

Abstract

This paper explores functions of pseudonyms in written threatening communication from a cognitive sociolinguistic perspective. It addresses the semantic domains present in pseudonyms in a corpus of 19th-century Irish English threatening notices and their cognitive functions in the construction of both cultural-contextualised threat and the threatener’s identity. We identify eight semantic domains that are accessed recurrently in order to create threat. Contributing to the notion of threat involves menacing war, violence, darkness and perdition directly, while also constructing a certain persona for the threatener that highlights their motivation, moral superiority, historical, local and circumstantial expertise, and their physical and mental aptitude. We argue that pseudonyms contribute to the deontic force of the threat by accessing cultural categories and schemas as well as conceptual metaphors and metonymies. Finally, we suggest that pseudonyms function as post-positioned semantic frame setters, providing a cognitive lens through which the entire threatening notice must be interpreted.

Abstract

While different automated procedures for vowel formant prediction have recently been proposed, it is unclear how reliably these methods perform in the phonetic study of vowels in New Englishes and how such approaches could be applied to specific varieties. This paper compares different automatic methods for vowel formant prediction in New Englishes, using manual measurements of Trinidadian English as a baseline. The results show that all methods perform significantly better than default formant parameters often used in speech analysis packages, and that a Bayesian formant tracker calibrated with American (US-FAVE) and Trinidadian English (TRINI-FAVE) generally provides better results than an automatic procedure that optimizes formant ceilings on a vowel- and speaker-specific level. TRINI-FAVE measures vowels characteristic of Trinidadian English most accurately. Phonetic studies of vowels in New Englishes can benefit from these methods.

Abstract

Negative attitudes of non-Singaporeans towards Singapore Colloquial English (SCE) are often used to support the “Speak Good English Movement” in Singapore. This article examines spontaneous metalinguistic discourse about SCE in an online Facebook group where Taiwanese migrants in Singapore gather for mutual support. Based on the idea that metalinguistic discourse is mediated through the social relation between interlocutors, this study reveals how the language ideologies surfacing in the investigated online space are formed through stance-taking processes between people sharing a nationality. We argue that this spatial context elicits and escalates negative ideologies of SCE, which are situated in popular hierarchies of varieties of English, and also hierarchies of Mandarin.

This article reviews Corpus Linguistics and African EnglishesEUR 99.009789027202192

This article reviews Creating Canadian English. The Professor, the Mountaineer, and a National Variety of EnglishGBP 21.999871108708753