Quotative like in the Englishes of the Outer and Expanding Circles

Abstract

The study aims at revising the major dichotomy between the Outer and Expanding Circles respectively. Taking the traditional sociolinguistic model of world Englishes as a starting point of discussion, I discuss the argument that classical macrosociolinguistic descriptions of linguistic varieties are helpful accounts that have also proven to be useful heuristic devices in the study of global variation as it is attested in English. Taking the linguistic variable ‘quotatives’ for illustration, I show that the patterns of use of innovative be like are uniform in the speech of young adults with elevated levels of exposure to mass media products and apply across the Outer and Expanding Circle English board. I conclude that the careful study of users’ individual profiles in a given sociolinguistic environment also holds the key to a nuanced understanding of the major sociolinguistic and sociocognitive determinants underlying the emergence of the new forms of English.

The role of social factors in the acquisition of vernacular English: A variationist study with pedagogical implications

“…The quote type was not selected as significant in a model that considers all of the predictors simultaneously, a finding previously reported in Davydova (2015) and Davydova and Buchstaller (2015). In line with the previous investigations of quotative marking by adult learners (Davydova, 2019a, 2019b, 2021), the learner grammar reported in Table 3 exhibits many of the properties reported for native‐speaker systems. I will take up this issue in the ensuing discussion of findings.…”

“…Drawing on data collected from a cohort of German learners, the study reported here has tested a set of social and sociopsychological variables in order to explore how these mediate acquisition of sociolinguistic competence in learners mastering English as a foreign language. While drawing on the domain of quotative marking as a diagnostic baseline, the study brings forth evidence demonstrating German learners’ largely wholesale acquisition of the target language patterns of variation, a finding consistent with previous research (Davydova, 2019a, 2019b, 2021, 2022; Davydova & Buchstaller, 2015). It also highlights the relevance of age, gender as well as learners’ linguistic identity to the process of mastering vernacular variation.…”

“…This empirical fact can be adduced as an additional argument advocating the merger of both variants in the quantitative modeling of data. With this said and following the methodology established in (Davydova, 2015(Davydova, , 2016(Davydova, , 2019a(Davydova, , 2019b(Davydova, , 2021(Davydova, , 2022Davydova & Buchstaller, 2015), the current study sets the application value including both be like and zero-like variants.…”

“…Ever since the late 1980s, there has been an increase in studies exploring acquisition of patterns of structured variability by adult learners (Bayley & Preston, 1996; Bayley & Regan, 2004; Howard, Mougeon, & Dewaele, 2013; Tarone, 2007). More recent sociolinguistic studies have highlighted the role of immersion (Mougeon, Rehner, & Nadasdi, 2004; Regan, 2010), stay‐abroad experiences (Howard, 2019), naturalistic exposure in immigrant settings (Schleef, 2017; Schleef, Meyerhoff, & Clark, 2011) as well as exposure to mass‐media products (Davydova, 2019b; Dion & Poplack, 2007) in approaching a native‐like ability in the usage of patterns of structured variation. Drawing on data collected from a cohort of German learners, the study reported here has tested a set of social and sociopsychological variables in order to explore how these mediate acquisition of sociolinguistic competence in learners mastering English as a foreign language.…”

Ideal izvornog govornika u svetlu varijetalne diversifikacije engleskog jezika u međunarodnoj upotrebi: istraživačke paradigme

“…Kačru je formulisao jedan od najznačajnijih teorijskih modela, koji istraživači engleskog jezika u međunarodnoj upotrebi veoma često koriste kao polaznu tačku u svojim razmatranjima -model tri kruga (v. npr. Yamanaka 2006;Kang 2015;Davydova 2019). Kako Kačru navodi, sve zemlje u kojima žive govornici engleskog jezika mogu se podeliti u tri grupe -unutrašnji krug, spoljašnji krug i širi krug (Kachru 1992: 3).…”