A corpus-based comparative and integrated approach to non-native Englishes
(2016) 13th European Society for the Study of English Conference (ESSE-13) — Location: National University of Ireland, Galway (22.August.2016)
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- Abstract
- Back in the 1980s, Sridhar & Sridhar (1986: 3) described the “paradigm gap that has prevented research on second-language acquisition [SLA] theory and indigenized varieties of English from making substantive contributions to each other”. They were referring to the lack of communication between scholars working on foreign varieties of English, which are the focus of SLA research, and scholars working on institutionalized second-language varieties of English (also called “New Englishes”), whose study is covered by the field of contact linguistics. Surprisingly enough, despite Sridhar & Sridhar’s early call for a better integration of the two paradigms, it is only recently that a rapprochement between SLA research and contact linguistics has emerged, starting with Nesselhauf’s (2009) seminal paper on co-selection phenomena in New Englishes and foreign learner varieties. Relying on authentic data from corpora, Nesselhauf shows, among other things, that non-standard prepositional verbs like ‘discuss about’ can be found in both types of varieties. Since then, several (corpus-based) studies have demonstrated the feasibility and desirability of comparisons between learner English and New Englishes (e.g. Mukherjee & Hundt 2011, Davydova 2012, Gilquin 2015). The reason why it is interesting to compare these two types of varieties is that, while both of them correspond to non-native varieties of English, they are acquired and used in different contexts: foreign varieties are essentially learned and used in an instructional setting, within the frame of language courses; institutionalized second-language varieties, on the other hand, are not only learned through language courses but, because English is an official or semi-official language in these countries, they are also acquired and used in different intranational settings (schools and universities, where English is often the medium of instruction, media, administration, etc.). In this respect, any similarities appearing between learner English and New Englishes must be seen as pointers to general cognitive principles underlying the acquisition of a non-native language (e.g. analogy with ‘talk about’ or ‘discussion about’ in the case of ‘discuss about’), whereas differences can shed light on the possible effects of the context of acquisition. In this lecture, after setting the frame of comparative research on learner English and New Englishes, I will describe the findings of several case studies which use the tools and techniques of corpus linguistics (with data from ICLE, LINDSEI and ICE) to highlight differences and similarities between the two types of varieties. Several levels of language will be explored, among which syntax (through the phenomenon of embedded inversion), lexis (with phrasal verbs) and pragmatics (with discourse markers). The results concern quantitative and qualitative aspects of non-native speakers’ use of the language, and highlight both similarities (e.g. the non-standard phrasal verb ‘cope up with’) and differences (e.g. more fluent use of discourse markers in New Englishes). They will serve as a basis to discuss the possible areas of cross-fertilization between SLA research and contact linguistics, as well as the implications of a rapprochement between the two fields.
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Gilquin, G. (2016). A corpus-based comparative and integrated approach to non-native Englishes. 13th European Society for the Study of English Conference (ESSE-13), National University of Ireland, Galway. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/222381