Modals and quasi-modals in world Englishes  

Oleh:

Collins, Peter

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: World Englishes (Full Text) vol. 28 no. 3 (Sep. 2009), page 281-292.
Fulltext: p. 281-292.pdf (103.09KB)

Isi artikel

This paper reports findings from a study of the frequency and distribution of a set of modals and quasi-modals in nine matching corpora representing British, American, Australian, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Hong Kong, Indian and Kenyan English. The analysis presented is form-based, with meanings dealt with only in an exemplary, qualitative manner. The findings are discussed in the light of two complementary trends noted by corpus linguists: a rise in the popularity of the quasi-modals, and a decline in that of the modals. The study notes a strong tendency for American English to be leading the way in these developments within the four ‘Inner Circle’ varieties, and for the South-East Asian varieties as a set to be leading the way within the ‘Outer Circle’ varieties. The evidence furthermore indicates that stylistic variation is a contributing factor in the trends observed, with quasi-modals flourishing in speech and their modal counterparts more at home in written registers.

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