Tag Questions in Hong Kong English: A Corpus-based Study

Wong, May

doi:10.1080/13488678.2007.10801199

Cited by 13 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Accordingly, a set of constraints 5 were applied to eliminate potential tags that were not part of tag questions. This procedure was in line with previous studies such as Tottie and Hoffmann (2006) and Wong (2007). Most of the remaining potential tags were indeed tags which constituted tag questions, yet there still remained some potential tags that did not fit the definition of tag questions.…”

Section: The Extraction Methodsmentioning

confidence: 77%

“…Borlongan (2008) reported on a study on tag questions in Philippine English, using the Philippines component of the International Corpus of English. The results were compared to those in Tottie and Hoffmann (1996) and Wong (2007). She observed that the features and use of tag questions in Philippine English were similar to those in American English and British English, except that the frequency of occurrence was much lower.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 72%

“…In conducting a comparative study to investigate this point, it is necessary to 'recount' tag questions in the corpus. This is because Wong (2007) included extra-corpus data in her analysis, rendering the data unsuitable for accurate comparison with the other corpora of the International Corpus of English. In addition, the study did not include tags with analytic negation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…However, the data were rather limited in scope with only 25 instances of tag questions by nonnative speakers put to analysis. Wong (2007) looked at tag questions in Hong Kong English, using the Hong Kong component of the International Corpus of English, and compared the results with those in Tottie and Hoffmann (2006). Although the comparison itself was conducted based on the frequency per million words, the corpora used in Wong (2007) and those used in Tottie and Hoffmann (2006) were different both in terms of size and structure.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A comparative study of tag questions in four Asian Englishes from a corpus-based approach

Takahashi

2014

Asian Englishes

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The results of this study were presented at the 18th Annual Conference of the International Association for World Englishes in Guangzhou in December 2012.The purpose of this study was to describe and compare the features and use of tag questions in four Outer Circle Asian Englishes in order to investigate how a variant tag questions system of English has been modified in the process of indigenization. Four Asian Englishes were analyzed using the International Corpus of English, namely, Hong Kong English (ICE-HK), Philippine English (ICE-PHI), Indian English (ICE-IND), and Singapore English (ICE-SIN). The Canadian corpus of ICE was also analyzed in order to enable comparison with an Inner Circle English. A search using concordance software yielded 181 tag questions in ICE-HK, 54 in ICE-PHI, 125 in ICE-IND, 284 in ICE-SIN, and 167 in ICE-CAN. The features of tag questions were statistically analyzed and compared from the following points: frequency of occurrence, text types, polarity, features of tags, and grammatical agreement between anchors and tags. The use of tag questions was then analyzed by classifying tag questions into seven functional categories: informational, confirmatory, facilitative, attitudinal, peremptory, aggressive, and others. Relationships between polarity types and functions were investigated as well. The results indicated that Asian Englishes have characteristic features especially in terms of the polarity and the main use of tag questions. Two potential explanations, namely, the influence of substrate languages and the developmental phases of Englishes, are discussed.

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Section: The Extraction Methodsmentioning

confidence: 77%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 72%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A comparative study of tag questions in four Asian Englishes from a corpus-based approach

Takahashi

2014

Asian Englishes

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“…This period has witnessed the publication of several important monographs and edited volumes (Bolton, 2002(Bolton, , 2003Setter, Wong & Chan, 2010) as well as a plethora of article-length studies exploring key features and facets of HKE, such as phonology (Hung, 2000;Sewell & Chan, 2010), lexis (Benson, 2000;Groves & Chan, 2010), grammar and syntax (Wong, 2007(Wong, , 2009Gisborne, 2009), creativity (Chik, 2010) and attitudes (Bunton & Tsui, 2002;Lee & Collins, 2006;Li, 2009a). One consequence of the remarkable florescence of HKE research in recent years has been the recognition of HKE internationally as an autonomous variety of English (McArthur, 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hong Kong English: The Growing Pains of A New Variety

Evans¹

2011

Asian Englishes

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A recurring theme in the literature on English in Hong Kong is the belief that since English apparently plays a negligible role in the everyday lives of its mainly Cantonese-speaking population, there is no societal basis for the emergence of a nativised variety. One of the limitations of this entirely plausible view is that it is not substantiated by empirical evidence. This article seeks to bridge the gap in our knowledge in this area by reporting the findings of a large-scale, survey-based study of teenagers' and young adults' use of and exposure to English in their day-to-day lives. The findings indicate that spoken English is generally not used in the family and friendship domains and has a limited presence in most neighbourhoods across the territory. However, the evidence suggests that reading and writing in English occupy a considerable portion of many young Hongkongers' leisure time. The findings also indicate that they are exposed to a great deal of spoken English as a result of their interest in watching films and television and listening to music. The study's key conclusion is that English plays a much greater role in young Hongkongers' everyday lives than has hitherto been believed.

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Question Tags in Philippine English

Westphal

2020

Corpus Pragmatics

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This study investigates the use of question tags (QTs) in a subcorpus of dialogues from the Philippine component of the International Corpus of English. It takes into account the full range of QT forms used in Philippine English, including English variant QTs as well as English and Tagalog invariant forms. The analysis investigates the effects of text type and pragmatic function on the selection of particular forms. The results show that Filipino speakers use English and Tagalog forms to almost equal proportions, but invariant forms dominate by far over variant ones. Text type has a strong effect on the overall frequency of QTs and on the distribution of individual forms. In addition, function is shown to be a significant factor that influences QT use: speakers preferentially use specific QTs over others for particular functions in specific contexts. The results show that it is beneficial to analyze the full range of QTs to describe the characteristics of Philippine English and to illustrate variety-internal variation. Furthermore, the analysis of English and Tagalog QTs shows that variation in discourse-pragmatic features can provide valuable insights into language contact situations. In conclusion, the study highlights the benefits of small diverse corpora for corpus-pragmatic research as they allow studying pragmatic phenomena in a range of different contexts.

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Tag Questions in Hong Kong English: A Corpus-based Study

Cited by 13 publications

References 11 publications

A comparative study of tag questions in four Asian Englishes from a corpus-based approach

A comparative study of tag questions in four Asian Englishes from a corpus-based approach

Hong Kong English: The Growing Pains of A New Variety

Question Tags in Philippine English

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