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Adopting a combination of Usage-based Construction Grammar and New Englishes approaches, the present study explores the constructional competition between preposition stranding (What is he talking about?) and pied-piping (About what is he talking?) in 12 varieties of English at different stages of Schneider’s (2007) Dynamic Model in order to gain more insights into the cognitive principles underlying the evolution of postcolonial Englishes. Analyzing 10,079 tokens from the International Corpus of English (ICE) and using mixed-effects logistic regression analysis, the study investigates whether the strength of processing factors and stylistic variables is correlated with Dynamic Model stages. Moreover, drawing on Hierarchical Configural Frequency Analysis (HCFA) and Large Number of Rare Events (LNRE) models, it tests Hoffmann’s (2021) Dynamic Model Productivity hypothesis, which predicts that more advanced varieties should exhibit a higher productivity of constructional slots, while varieties at lower stages of evolution should rely more on a small set of prototypical fillers.
The results are largely in line with Hoffmann’s (2011) analysis of preposition placement, which found that Kenyan English is more strongly affected by processing constraints than British English, while stylistic variables have a weaker effect in the L2 variety. Even though processing constraints turn out to strongly affect the constructional choices of speakers of all varieties, less advanced varieties are more likely to use pied-piped WH-interrogative constructions with adjunct PPs, which suggests that varieties at lower stages of evolution have a stronger preference for constructions that facilitate parsing in contexts in which the processing load is not maximal. Furthermore, in line with the frequent claim that New Englishes are characterized by a lack of register distinctions, the strength of stylistic variables turns out to be correlated with Dynamic Model stages. While Phases IV and V have formal pied-piped and informal stranded finite WH-relative clause constructions, Phase III only has the pied-piped variant. This effect can be attributed to two factors: the formal input that is typical of postcolonial Englishes, and the processing complexity of stranding constructions. That preposition stranding is less deeply entrenched in varieties at lower stages is also indicated by the fact that the slots of stranding constructions show a higher productivity in varieties at higher developmental stages, whereas less advanced varieties rely more on entrenched verb-preposition strings (e.g. refer to) and WH + P combinations (e.g. what…about). At the same time, earlier Dynamic Model phases exhibit more variation in the preposition slot of pied-piped finite WH-relative clause constructions, which can be attributed to the weaker entrenchment of constructions and a preference for explicit and transparent form-meaning pairings in these varieties. In sum, the results suggest that differences between the construction networks of varieties at different evolutionary stages result from a complex interplay of processing factors, input effects, second-language learning principles and, at least to a certain degree, cross-linguistic influence. In addition, the study shows that varieties of the same phase pattern very similarly in terms of their constructional choices, which provides support for Schneider’s (2007) classification of varieties according to Dynamic Model stages.
This study explores the distinctive patterns of language use in political discourse across selected outer circle (Cameroon and Ghana) and inner circle (US and South Africa) varieties, using a corpus-based approach. More specifically, the research sets out to investigate the use of two types of linguistic features, namely, personal pronouns and kinship metaphors. In a first analysis, I adopt an alternative approach to investigating the use of personal pronouns in political discourse. The approach essentially draws from the cognitive linguistic concept of ‘frames’ as articulated by the theory of frame semantics (Fillmore, 1976, 1977a, 1982, 1985, 2008; Fillmore & Baker, 2010). I use an automatic frame semantic parsing tool, the SEMAFOR parser (Das et al, 2014), to identify the different types of (semantic) frames and frame roles with which specific personal pronouns are instantiated across the four varieties. I then compare the findings to illustrate instances of universality and variation.
In a second analysis, I examine the types of metaphorical conceptualizations which are made using kinship terms across the varieties. Working top-down from conceptual schemas to linguistic instantiation, I identify and compare the frequencies of metaphors from the kinship field and also describe the types of cross-domain mappings typically involved in each of the varieties. My analysis is mostly informed by mainstream cognitive approaches to the study of metaphors, more especially cultural variations in the use of conceptual metaphors (Kövecses, 2002, 2005). I demonstrate that although there is empirical evidence for the use of a kinship conceptual schema across all four varieties, there are however significant variances in the specific metaphorical mappings used to instantiate this high-level conceptual structure.
Both analyses make a case for the fact that in the field of political discourse especially, language use may be structured and constrained by conceptual schemas which themselves are culturally determined.
Employing a two-pronged approach to analyzing language, this study uses evidence obtained from a large-scale corpus study and psycholinguistic experiments to investigate the Comparative Correlative (CC) construction (e.g. The more we get together, the happier we’ll be) across twenty varieties of English. More than 10,000 tokens from three of the largest corpora of English (COCA, BNC, GloWbE) and experimental data from almost 600 participants from four locations (Texas, South Africa, Singapore, and Kenya) are analyzed using advanced statistical methods, providing striking evidence for a high degree of parataxis between the subclauses of the construction and massive redundancy regarding cross-clausal associations which, it is argued, are best explained with a Usage-based Construction Grammar (CxG) approach that posits the existence of an elaborate network of interconnected mesoconstructions.
Addressing more general questions about the nature of human language, it is argued that this ‘bottom-up’ approach to language can account for one of the most fundamental riddles that the discipline of linguistics is striving to solve: Accounting for the potential of infinite creativity of language based on a finite set of rules. Furthermore, it is claimed that as an inclusive approach to language, CxG is better at accounting for construction-specific features that Mainstream Generative Grammar (MGG)-based approaches have struggled with. As it turns out, the evidence suggests that the English CC construction is anything but ‘peripheral’.
Additionally, this study examines the CC construction from a World Englishes perspective, addressing a significant gap in research: Schneider, for example, has noted that “[o]nly rarely have New Englishes been employed as test cases for general questions of language theory” (2003: 237), and Hundt writes of the challenge of “bring[ing] intricate, quantitative modelling of usage data to bear on theoretical modelling” (2021: 298). Accordingly, this study provides evidence for the predictive power of Schneider’s Dynamic Model (DM) (2003, 2007), which posits that there is a correlation between evolutionary stages of World Englishes and linguistic features. In this context, it is also shown how principles of cognitive approaches to language can explain both generalizations across varieties as well as variety- and DM stage-specific effects. Furthermore, this study provides strong evidence to support Kortmann’s claim of a continuum ranging from Pidgins and Creoles as “deleters” to L1 varieties as “preservers” (2014: 9) of grammatical formatives, contra Mesthrie and Bhatt’s claim of a geographical dichotomy between African and Asian varieties.