Sandra C. Deshors

A multifactorial approach to linguistic structure in L2 spoken and written registers

Abstract In this study, I contrast the uses of may and can by French and Chinese English learners in speech and writing. I annotated 4025 examples across four corpora according to more than 70 morpho-syntactic and semantic features and analyzed the features’ distribution using logistic regression modeling. The study reveals that when dissimilarities between the two learner varieties occur, they do so in speech rather than writing and they involve complex grammatical features such as the passive voice and heavy lexical verbs. Ultimately, those results suggest that non-native co-occurrence patterns found in conversations are more likely to be characteristic of learners’ individual interlanguage (IL) varieties compared to those found in writing. Overall, this study provides a first step towards multidimensional descriptions of IL registers. It also shows how four interacting factors contribute to the emergence of IL grammars: language processing demands, language production modes, grammatical contexts and individual IL varieties.

Zooming in on Verbs in the Progressive: A Collostructional and Correspondence Analysis Approach

Quantitative corpus-linguistic approaches that are compatible with cognitive-constructional theories of language are on the increase in variationist English studies, but remain rare when it comes to study of the progressive aspect. The purpose of this study is therefore to road-test a two-step methodological approach in the investigation of over 6000 progressive constructions in five comparable corpora: the British, US, India, and Singapore components of the International Corpus of English (ICE), in addition to the recently released Corpus of Dutch English. Because the latter corpus followed the ICE design, it provides a valuable opportunity to investigate an as yet virtually unexplored population of non-native English users across seven different genres. First, successive covarying collexeme analyses were conducted of the variables verb and variety and then semantic domain and variety. The results confirmed several previous findings about, among other things, the strong association of progressive knowing with Indian English. Next, the results were fed into a correspondence analysis to explore, for the first time, the interactions between three variables in the use of progressive marking, semantic domain, variety and genre, revealing complex interplay between them. Ultimately, by contributing to the stock of methodological approaches used in variationist studies of the progressive aspect, the study provides a first step towards the development of detailed constructional profiles of the progressive across English varieties.

Common ground across globalized English varieties: A multivariate exploration of mental predicates in World Englishes

Abstract This study tests for similarities and differences in the uses of near-synonymous mental predicates by speakers of different ENL and ESL speech communities to capture whether, and if so to what degree, speakers of different first and second language English varieties use the four near-synonymous predicates semantically differently. Specifically, we focus on I believe, I think, I suppose and I guess in eight native and second-language varieties of English (i.e. American, British, Canadian, Irish, Hong Kong, Indian, Singapore and New Zealand). We adopt a multivariate modeling approach to analyze mental predicates annotated for six semantic variables (verifiability, epistemic mode, epistemic class, epistemic type, evaluation and negotiability) as well as genre. Our findings show the usefulness of exploring Englishes through the lens of semantic structure. Although, on the surface, two groups of English varieties emerge with different preferential patterns of predicates (British, Indian, Irish and Singapore vs. Canadian, Hong Kong and American), at a more abstract level, those predicates share similar semantic combinatory patterns common to all varieties in focus. It emerges that modeling the development of Englishes based on theoretical frameworks that account for simultaneous development of generic (i.e. common to all Englishes) and specialized (i.e. specific to individual Englishes) linguistic patterns may be beneficial. At a time when English has become a worldwide language shaped by globalization, the present study adds to the discussion on the developmental pathways that characterize the evolution of non-native Englishes in the twenty-first century.