Corpus Linguistics and Asian Englishes

Mukherjee, Joybrato; Bernaisch, Tobias

doi:10.1002/9781118791882.ch33

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…Generally, for Englishes labeled “postcolonial” in the literature, historical data offer the added benefit of relying less on cross-variety comparisons, in particular with American (AmE) and British English (BrE), to sketch language change. 1 Diachronic studies are necessary not only because they work towards describing the linguistic history of Englishes which have been far less scrutinized than British or settler colonial varieties, but also because they can propel forward the theoretical models which have been central to the study of variation in English worldwide (Mukherjee & Bernaisch 2020:756). Most notably, the Dynamic Model of postcolonial Englishes (Schneider 2007) proposes that postcolonial Englishes (including settler colonial Englishes) are the results of specific sociopolitical and linguistic processes that occur in five phases in a temporally linear fashion.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Diachronic Study of Modals and Semi-modals in Indian English Newspapers

Laliberté

2022

Journal of English Linguistics

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Although Indian English is the best-documented South Asian English, its diachronic development has not been described to a great extent. The present study begins to address this gap by offering a real-time perspective on the evolution of modals and semi-modals in Indian English. It sketches the changes in the frequency of modals and semi-modals in three corpora of Indian newspaper texts from 1939, 1968, and the early 2000s. Changes in the frequency of eleven modals and eleven semi-modals are found to be similar to the trends previously observed for written American and British English: semi-modals, as well as the modals can, could, and would, rise greatly in frequency. An analysis of the types of modality expressed by individual modal verbs provides in-depth insights into shifts in Indian English during the period. The study’s findings raise methodological and theoretical considerations for the diachronic study of modality in corpora in English generally: the increasing amount of direct quotation in news reportage partly accounts for a rise in modal frequency in this subgenre, which constitutes a confounding aspect seldom articulated in the study of newspaper language. Individual modal verbs exhibit different directions and speeds of change that are not reflected in the trajectory of modals as a category, demonstrating that an aggregate measure is not a suitable point of comparison between varieties to determine their degree of similarity or difference in terms of modal verb usage.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Diachronic Study of Modals and Semi-modals in Indian English Newspapers

Laliberté

2022

Journal of English Linguistics

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“…Studies conducted by scholars from home and abroad (e.g., Adhikari, 2018;Brett, 1999;Dewan, 2021;Dewan & Laksamba, 2020;Giri, 2015;Hartford, 1993;Jora, 2019;Karn, 2012;Rai, 2006) indicate that NE has its own distinctly identifi able features at different levels of language. Although scholars claim that NE is one of the South Asian standardizing Englishes (McArthur, 1987), an offi cially recognized variant (Brett, 1999, p. 85), an established variety of English (Daniloff-Merrill, 2010, cited in Pandey, 2017, a separately developing variant of English (Sharma et al, 2015), and a divergent variety of English (Jora, 2019;Karn, 2011), the English language used in Nepal still awaits a detailed empirical description (Mukherjee & Bernaisch, 2020). Since NE is one of the preferred varieties of English in Nepal, it should not be regarded as a subordinate or inferior form of communication (Paudyal, 2019), but rather as a variety of English that is gradually gaining its status (Kamali, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nepali English or Other Varieties of English: Perspectives from English Language Teachers in Nepal

Dewan¹

2022

J NELTA

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This qualitative content analysis article aims at exploring the perspectives of English language teachers on Nepali English (NE). I purposively selected six college level English language teachers from Sunsari and Morang districts and collected the required data through a semi-structured interview. The study reveals that NE has emerged in Nepal as a result of mother tongue inﬂuence, nativization of English to local contexts, and exposure from the non-native teachers during the second language acquisition process, and it is practically more appropriate than other varieties of English in Nepal. All the research participants favour NE as it is more intelligible and easier to teach and learn than the other varieties of English, promotes Nepali identity, boosts conﬁdence, reduces anxiety, and helps to resist the hegemony of British English (BE) or American English (AE). They, however, believe that more research and discourse on NE, its codiﬁ cation and standardization, and power (political, economic, and ideological) are necessary for bringing NE into concrete form. These perspectives from the English language teachers on NE pave the ground for appropriating English language policies, English language curriculum, textbooks, and pedagogy in Nepal, and rethinking the traditional treatment of errors.

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Corpus Linguistics and Asian Englishes

Cited by 2 publications

References 59 publications

A Diachronic Study of Modals and Semi-modals in Indian English Newspapers

A Diachronic Study of Modals and Semi-modals in Indian English Newspapers

Nepali English or Other Varieties of English: Perspectives from English Language Teachers in Nepal

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