Dagmar Deuber

Modal Verb Usage at the Interface of English and a Related Creole: A Corpus-based Study of Can/Could and Will/Would in Trinidadian English

In Trinidad, English coexists with an English-based Creole in a Creole continuum. Creole could is equivalent to international Standard English can, and would to will. Previous authors have observed that the Creole exerts a strong influence on the use of these modals in Trinidadian English. This article presents a detailed analysis, based on data from the International Corpus of English, of the use of can/could and will/would in this variety. Comparisons are drawn with other varieties, especially British English. Quantitative distributions as well as uses and meanings of the modals are analyzed. It is shown that distinctions between the members of each pair of modals are not lost generally but are liable to be blurred in particular categories of uses where they are relatively weak anyway, consisting only in the degree of tentativeness or politeness implied, for example. Furthermore, the data indicate that the use of will in present habitual contexts is more prominent in Trinidadian than in British English, probably as a result of influence from the Creole marker of present habitual aspect; would is commonly used in present habitual contexts as well.

Caribbean ICE corpora: Some issues for fieldwork and analysis

In the Caribbean, English forms the upper segment of speech continua ranging from the Standard to the broadest Creole of each territory; social and stylistic factors correlate with the linguistic range. This paper explores the implications of this for the Caribbean components of the International Corpus of English (ICE). The first issue addressed is how the most informal category of texts that field-workers are required to record for the corpus, conversations, can be made to fit into the segment of the continuum that can be described as English. It is shown that a compromise between the demands of recording ‘English’ and recording ‘conversations’ can be reached. The paper then goes on to discuss analytical approaches to grammatical variation in the Caribbean ICE corpora, demonstrating that the data can be fruitfully examined by a combination of quantitative and discourse analytic methods where corpus linguistics is closely integrated with sociolinguistics.

The Indian Tabloid in English: What Type of Community Does It Speak To, and How?

Contested Communities explores the concept of community in postcolonial and diaspora contexts from an interdisciplinary (linguistics, literature, cultural studies) perspective.