ISLE 2011 17 June 2011
1 New Englishes Empirical Studies Aspect in Nigerian Languages 2 3 Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations
Progressive Aspect in New Englishes New Englishes Empirical Studies Aspect in Nigerian Languages Usage of progressive with stative verbs typical of many new Englishes (Platt 1984: 72 3; Trudgill 2008: 107,130,137)
Progressive Aspect in New Englishes New Englishes Empirical Studies Aspect in Nigerian Languages Usage of progressive with stative verbs typical of many new Englishes (Platt 1984: 72 3; Trudgill 2008: 107,130,137) Feature of Black South African English (Makalela 2004; van Rooy 2005), Indian South African English (Meshtrie 2008a), Ghanaian English (Huber 2008), Nigerian English (Alo et al. 2004; Jowitt 1991), and East African English (Schmied 2008)
Progressive Aspect in New Englishes New Englishes Empirical Studies Aspect in Nigerian Languages Usage of progressive with stative verbs typical of many new Englishes (Platt 1984: 72 3; Trudgill 2008: 107,130,137) Feature of Black South African English (Makalela 2004; van Rooy 2005), Indian South African English (Meshtrie 2008a), Ghanaian English (Huber 2008), Nigerian English (Alo et al. 2004; Jowitt 1991), and East African English (Schmied 2008) Suggested as universal structure shared by all New Englishes (Kortmann et al. 2004: 1189; Meshtrie 2008b: 626)
Empirical Studies New Englishes Empirical Studies Aspect in Nigerian Languages Basilectal Indian English and educated Singapore English (Sharma 2009)
Empirical Studies New Englishes Empirical Studies Aspect in Nigerian Languages Basilectal Indian English and educated Singapore English (Sharma 2009) Extension in IndE to non-delimited habituals and stative verbs
Empirical Studies New Englishes Empirical Studies Aspect in Nigerian Languages Basilectal Indian English and educated Singapore English (Sharma 2009) Extension in IndE to non-delimited habituals and stative verbs No extension in SingE
Empirical Studies New Englishes Empirical Studies Aspect in Nigerian Languages Basilectal Indian English and educated Singapore English (Sharma 2009) Extension in IndE to non-delimited habituals and stative verbs No extension in SingE Specific substrate-superstrate interplay: In Hindi all clauses must be marked overtly as either perfective or imperfective.
Empirical Studies New Englishes Empirical Studies Aspect in Nigerian Languages Basilectal Indian English and educated Singapore English (Sharma 2009) Extension in IndE to non-delimited habituals and stative verbs No extension in SingE Specific substrate-superstrate interplay: In Hindi all clauses must be marked overtly as either perfective or imperfective. In Chinese dialects many imperfective and progressive senses are unmarked.
Languages in Nigeria New Englishes Empirical Studies Aspect in Nigerian Languages Major languages: Yorùbá, Igbo and Hausa Source: Wikipedia
Aspect in Yorùbá and Igbo New Englishes Empirical Studies Aspect in Nigerian Languages Aspect more prominent than tense
Aspect in Yorùbá and Igbo New Englishes Empirical Studies Aspect in Nigerian Languages Aspect more prominent than tense Considerable dialectal variation, but all dialects mark imperfective dynamic verb different from stative verbs.
Aspect in Yorùbá and Igbo New Englishes Empirical Studies Aspect in Nigerian Languages Aspect more prominent than tense Considerable dialectal variation, but all dialects mark imperfective dynamic verb different from stative verbs. Some dialects have an imperfective marker, others have separate markers for progressive and habitual.
1 New Englishes Empirical Studies Aspect in Nigerian Languages 2 3 Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations
ICE Nigeria: comprised 532,893 words of written and spoken language at the time
ICE Nigeria: comprised 532,893 words of written and spoken language at the time Searched for a form of BE + a word ending in -ing with a maximum of three intervening words.
ICE Nigeria: comprised 532,893 words of written and spoken language at the time Searched for a form of BE + a word ending in -ing with a maximum of three intervening words. Removed constructions with gerunds and present participles as well as incomplete sentences.
ICE Nigeria: comprised 532,893 words of written and spoken language at the time Searched for a form of BE + a word ending in -ing with a maximum of three intervening words. Removed constructions with gerunds and present participles as well as incomplete sentences. For comparison, the ICE-GB corpus was queried using IceCup 3.1.
ICE Nigeria: comprised 532,893 words of written and spoken language at the time Searched for a form of BE + a word ending in -ing with a maximum of three intervening words. Removed constructions with gerunds and present participles as well as incomplete sentences. For comparison, the ICE-GB corpus was queried using IceCup 3.1. Comparison with grammaticality judgments
Frequency 1,994 progressive forms analysed: overall frequency of 3,835 pmw in ICE-Nig
Frequency 1,994 progressive forms analysed: overall frequency of 3,835 pmw in ICE-Nig 71 % present, 17 % past, 7 % perfect, 5 % auxiliaries
Frequency 1,994 progressive forms analysed: overall frequency of 3,835 pmw in ICE-Nig 71 % present, 17 % past, 7 % perfect, 5 % auxiliaries Fewer past progressives in ICE-Nig (620 pmw) than in ICE-GB (1,288 pmw)
Frequency 1,994 progressive forms analysed: overall frequency of 3,835 pmw in ICE-Nig 71 % present, 17 % past, 7 % perfect, 5 % auxiliaries Fewer past progressives in ICE-Nig (620 pmw) than in ICE-GB (1,288 pmw) Present perfect progressive twice as frequent in ICE-NIG (218 pmw) as in ICE-GB (113 pmw)
Extended meanings Overall rare (104/1994)
Extended meanings Overall rare (104/1994) Most frequent: unbounded habitual (67 tokens/126 pmw) and stative mental state (25 tokens/47 pmw)
Extended meanings Overall rare (104/1994) Most frequent: unbounded habitual (67 tokens/126 pmw) and stative mental state (25 tokens/47 pmw) "You girls are really looking good"
Extended meanings Overall rare (104/1994) Most frequent: unbounded habitual (67 tokens/126 pmw) and stative mental state (25 tokens/47 pmw) "You girls are really looking good" "Why are you not understanding this already?"
Extended meanings Overall rare (104/1994) Most frequent: unbounded habitual (67 tokens/126 pmw) and stative mental state (25 tokens/47 pmw) "You girls are really looking good" "Why are you not understanding this already?" Rarer: stative recipient (11 tokens/21 pmw) and punctual (4 tokens/8 pmw)
Extended meanings Overall rare (104/1994) Most frequent: unbounded habitual (67 tokens/126 pmw) and stative mental state (25 tokens/47 pmw) "You girls are really looking good" "Why are you not understanding this already?" Rarer: stative recipient (11 tokens/21 pmw) and punctual (4 tokens/8 pmw) "I hope you have been hearing from your wife and children?"
Extended meanings Overall rare (104/1994) Most frequent: unbounded habitual (67 tokens/126 pmw) and stative mental state (25 tokens/47 pmw) "You girls are really looking good" "Why are you not understanding this already?" Rarer: stative recipient (11 tokens/21 pmw) and punctual (4 tokens/8 pmw) "I hope you have been hearing from your wife and children?" "we are collectively finding solution to the problems"
of extended meanings
Having and knowing In IndE, these two account for the majority of extended uses of the progressive (Balasubramanian 2009).
Having and knowing In IndE, these two account for the majority of extended uses of the progressive (Balasubramanian 2009). This is not the case in SingE and NigE (data taken partly from Sharma 2009: 182).
Having and knowing In IndE, these two account for the majority of extended uses of the progressive (Balasubramanian 2009). This is not the case in SingE and NigE (data taken partly from Sharma 2009: 182).
Having and knowing In IndE, these two account for the majority of extended uses of the progressive (Balasubramanian 2009). This is not the case in SingE and NigE (data taken partly from Sharma 2009: 182). ICE-India ICE-Nigeria ICE-Singapore stand. nonstand. stand. nonstand. stand. nonstand. BE+having 47 141 4 19 4 2 BE+knowing 0 24 0 0 0 0 Note that ICE-Nig, at the time, had about half the size as the other two corpora.
Questionnaire consisting of 23 utterances from ICE-Nig + 1 constructed item
Questionnaire consisting of 23 utterances from ICE-Nig + 1 constructed item Different usages: unbounded habitual, mental state, recipient stative, punctual verb, dynamic verb
Questionnaire consisting of 23 utterances from ICE-Nig + 1 constructed item Different usages: unbounded habitual, mental state, recipient stative, punctual verb, dynamic verb 20 distractors
Questionnaire consisting of 23 utterances from ICE-Nig + 1 constructed item Different usages: unbounded habitual, mental state, recipient stative, punctual verb, dynamic verb 20 distractors Instruction: "Please correct all errors (if there are any) in the student writings below."
Participants Questionnaire split into two parts
Participants Questionnaire split into two parts November 2010, during a national conference of Nigerian English teachers and lecturers held at Covenant University, Ota
Participants Questionnaire split into two parts November 2010, during a national conference of Nigerian English teachers and lecturers held at Covenant University, Ota 52 Nigerians: 28 English teachers & lecturers, 24 students
Participants Questionnaire split into two parts November 2010, during a national conference of Nigerian English teachers and lecturers held at Covenant University, Ota 52 Nigerians: 28 English teachers & lecturers, 24 students First language: 33 Yorùbá, 10 Igbo, 9 other
Corrections Five standard English progressives were changed in 6 % of all cases into non-progressive:
Corrections Five standard English progressives were changed in 6 % of all cases into non-progressive: "And it is getting worse by the day." (changed four times)
Corrections Five standard English progressives were changed in 6 % of all cases into non-progressive: "And it is getting worse by the day." (changed four times) Recipient stative (32 %) and stative mental state (27 %) showed highest rate of change into non-progressive.
Corrections Five standard English progressives were changed in 6 % of all cases into non-progressive: "And it is getting worse by the day." (changed four times) Recipient stative (32 %) and stative mental state (27 %) showed highest rate of change into non-progressive. Recipient stative: "Are you smelling this?" (change rate 60 %)
Corrections Five standard English progressives were changed in 6 % of all cases into non-progressive: "And it is getting worse by the day." (changed four times) Recipient stative (32 %) and stative mental state (27 %) showed highest rate of change into non-progressive. Recipient stative: "Are you smelling this?" (change rate 60 %) Stative mental state: "Why are you not understanding this already?" (change rate 65 %)
Corrections Unbounded habitual changed 19 % of the time
Corrections Unbounded habitual changed 19 % of the time "Make sure that your food is giving you the nutrients that you need."
Corrections Unbounded habitual changed 19 % of the time "Make sure that your food is giving you the nutrients that you need." Highly significant difference between correction rate of standard usage and extended usage
Comparison Usage and Acceptability ICE-Nigeria still relatively small, but findings suggest that high frequency of usage of specific verbs in the progressive implies high acceptability.
Comparison Usage and Acceptability ICE-Nigeria still relatively small, but findings suggest that high frequency of usage of specific verbs in the progressive implies high acceptability. E.g. unbounded habitual reside occurs with the progressive 25 % of the time and was accepted by 88 % of informants.
Comparison Usage and Acceptability ICE-Nigeria still relatively small, but findings suggest that high frequency of usage of specific verbs in the progressive implies high acceptability. E.g. unbounded habitual reside occurs with the progressive 25 % of the time and was accepted by 88 % of informants. Verbs that rarely occur with the progressive in ICE-Nigeria sometimes show high acceptability, somtimes low acceptability in extended usage.
Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations 1 New Englishes Empirical Studies Aspect in Nigerian Languages 2 3 Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations
Stylistic distribution Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations Stylistic variability and frequency distribution very similar in NigE and BrE
Stylistic distribution Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations Stylistic variability and frequency distribution very similar in NigE and BrE In NigE more present perfect progressive and less past progressive forms than in BrE
Stylistic distribution Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations Stylistic variability and frequency distribution very similar in NigE and BrE In NigE more present perfect progressive and less past progressive forms than in BrE Extended usage of the progressive: unbounded habitual activities, stative verbs denoting a mental state and recipient statives, and punctual verbs
Stylistic distribution Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations Stylistic variability and frequency distribution very similar in NigE and BrE In NigE more present perfect progressive and less past progressive forms than in BrE Extended usage of the progressive: unbounded habitual activities, stative verbs denoting a mental state and recipient statives, and punctual verbs Extended usage mainly in present tense and informal text types
Extended use of the progressive Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations A typical or characteristic feature of New Englishes?
Extended use of the progressive Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations A typical or characteristic feature of New Englishes? Not quite, only 5.3 % of all cases of the progressive
Extended use of the progressive Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations A typical or characteristic feature of New Englishes? Not quite, only 5.3 % of all cases of the progressive Below 15 % -> Incipient language change (Nevalainen 2003: 55)
Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations Comparison to other New Englishes In Nigerian English we found... Overextension like in basilectal IndE (Sharma 2009)
Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations Comparison to other New Englishes In Nigerian English we found... Overextension like in basilectal IndE (Sharma 2009) More overextension than in SingE (Sharma 2009)
Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations Comparison to other New Englishes In Nigerian English we found... Overextension like in basilectal IndE (Sharma 2009) More overextension than in SingE (Sharma 2009) Less overextension than in essays written by Black South African students (van Rooy 2005)
L1 influence? Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations L1 influence claimed to be responsible for overextension in IndE (Sharma 2009), Setswana English (van Rooy 2005) and NigE (Ajani 2001)
L1 influence? Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations L1 influence claimed to be responsible for overextension in IndE (Sharma 2009), Setswana English (van Rooy 2005) and NigE (Ajani 2001) Yes, Yorùbá and Igbo habitual markers and incompletive markers might be responsible.
L1 influence? Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations L1 influence claimed to be responsible for overextension in IndE (Sharma 2009), Setswana English (van Rooy 2005) and NigE (Ajani 2001) Yes, Yorùbá and Igbo habitual markers and incompletive markers might be responsible. Cf. the presence of still in some cases: "I am still trusting God concerning the postdoc offer."
L1 influence? Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations L1 influence claimed to be responsible for overextension in IndE (Sharma 2009), Setswana English (van Rooy 2005) and NigE (Ajani 2001) Yes, Yorùbá and Igbo habitual markers and incompletive markers might be responsible. Cf. the presence of still in some cases: "I am still trusting God concerning the postdoc offer." Punctual verbs in Igbo do not take progressive -> also rarely found in NigE.
Additional explanations Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations Stative progressives had lower acceptance rate than unbounded habituals.
Additional explanations Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations Stative progressives had lower acceptance rate than unbounded habituals. Syntactic behaviour of stative verbs can easily be taught in schools.
Additional explanations Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations Stative progressives had lower acceptance rate than unbounded habituals. Syntactic behaviour of stative verbs can easily be taught in schools. Non-realisation of the habitual aspect in Yorùbá and Igbo as an English progressive might be more difficult to explain in class.
Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations Mismatch between frequency and acceptability Usage-based theories of language hold that the perceived acceptability of a structure is strongly tied to its frequency of usage -> not supported by our results.
Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations Mismatch between frequency and acceptability Usage-based theories of language hold that the perceived acceptability of a structure is strongly tied to its frequency of usage -> not supported by our results. Results support previous findings by Bader et al. (submitted) that low acceptability implies low frequency, and high frequency high acceptability (but not vice versa).
References I Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations Ajani, Timothy (2001). Aspect in Yoruba and Nigerian English. PhD thesis. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida. Alo, M.A. and Rajend Meshtrie (2004). Nigerian English: morphology and syntax. In: A handbook of varieties of English. Ed. by Edgar W. Schneider, Kate Burridge, Bernd Kortmann, Rajend Mesthrie, and Clive Upton. Vol. 2. Berlin: de Gruyter, pp. 813 27. Bader, Markus and Jana Häussler (submitted). The primacy of grammaticality. In: University of Constance. Balasubramanian, Chandrika (2009). Register variation in Indian English. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Huber Magnus & Dako, Kari (2008). Ghanaian English: morphology and syntax. In: Varieties of English. Africa, South and Southeast Asia. Ed. by Rajend Meshtrie. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 368 380. Jowitt, David (1991). Nigerian English Usage. Lagos: Longman.
References II Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations Kortmann, Bernd and Benedikt Szmrecsanyi (2004). Global synopsis - morphological an syntactic variation in English. In: A handbook of varieties of English. Ed. by Edgar W. Schneider, Kate Burridge, Bernd Kortmann, Rajend Mesthrie, and Clive Upton. Vol. 2. Berlin: de Gruyter, pp. 1122 82. Makalela, Leketi (2004). Making sense of BSAE for linguistic democracy in South Africa. In: World Englishes 23, pp. 355 366. Meshtrie, Rajend (2008a). Indian South African English: Morphology and syntax. In: Varieties of English. Africa, South and Southeast Asia. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 501 520. (2008b). Synopsis: morphological and syntactic variation in Africa and South and Southeast Asia. In: Varieties of English. Africa, South and Southeast Asia. Ed. by Rajend Meshtrie. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 624 635.
References III Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations Nevalainen Terttu & Raumolin-Brunberg, Helena (2003). Historical sociolinguistics: Language change in Tudor and Stuart England. London: Pearson Education. Platt John, Weber Heidi & Ho Mian Lian (1984). The New Englishes. London: Routledge. Van Rooy, Bertus (2005). The extension of the progressive aspect in Black South African English. In: World Englishes 25, pp. 37 64. Schmied, Josef (2008). East African English (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania): Morphology and syntax. In: Varieties of English. Africa, South and Southeast Asia. Ed. by Rajend Meshtrie. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 451 471. Sharma, Devyani (2009). Typological diversity in New Englishes. In: English World-Wide 30.2, pp. 170 95.
References IV Nigerian English Other New Englishes Explanations Trudgill Peter & Hannah, Jean (2008). International English: A Guide to Varieties of Standard English. Oxford: Oxford University Press.