Title: Innovative structures in the relative clauses of indigenized L2 Asian English varieties
Abstract:This paper examines morphosyntactic variation in World Englishes, looking specifically at processes of relativization. Drawing on data from the International Corpus of English, it analyzes adnominal r...This paper examines morphosyntactic variation in World Englishes, looking specifically at processes of relativization. Drawing on data from the International Corpus of English, it analyzes adnominal relative clauses in the spoken language of a selection of international varieties of English, namely those of Hong-Kong, India and Singapore. The study presents a qualitative analysis of relative structures and explores specific constructions which are found in these World Englishes but not - or only very exceptionally - in standard English. The existence of these constructions is examined in light of the following factors: (i) influence of the target language or geographical variety of English that acted as the colonizer language (British English) (ii) L1 transfer, which determines the preference of certain relative markers over others (e.g. preference for wh- forms in Indian English) (iii) language contact phenomena, which accounts for the occurrence of certain innovative structures as globalized features of world-wide varieties of English, following The Electronic World Atlas of Varieties of English (Kortmann and Lunkenheimer 2013) (iv) evolutionary factors in these norm-developing varieties taking into account the different degree of development of the corresponding localized variety of English, following Schneider’s Dynamic Model (2007).Read More
Publication Year: 2017
Publication Date: 2017-10-10
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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