Filipino and American online communication and linguistic variation
by Jack Hardy
Hardy, J. A., & Friginal, E. (2012). Filipino and American online communication and linguistic variation. World Englishes, 31, 143-161. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-971X.2011.01728.x
This paper investigates cross-cultural and cross-register variation from four corpora of internet blogs and online... more This paper investigates cross-cultural and cross-register variation from four corpora of internet blogs and online opinion columns written in English by Filipino and American authors. A multi-dimensional analysis following established linguistic dimensions from Grieve, Biber, Friginal, and Nekrasova was used to compare the relative distribution of frequently co-occurring linguistic features, with the goal of describing the statistical relationships and variations among the two selected internet-based registers of these two varieties of English. Parallel corpora of Filipino and American blogs and opinion columns (N total texts = 5,320), with approximately 13 million words, and collected across a wide range of topics, were analyzed for this purpose. The texts were tagged for grammatical and semantic markers to match the resultant dimensions from Grieve et al. (as the main basis for comparison. Results show significant variations in the linguistic composition of Filipino and American texts along four functional dimensions: (1) informational vs. personal focus; (2) addressee focus; (3) thematic variation; and (4) narrative style.
Download (.pdf) Patterns of Age-Based Linguistic Variation In American English.
Published in Journal of Sociolinguistics, 12(1), pp. 58-88.
In prior sociolinguistic research, speaker age has been considered the principal correlate of language change, but it... more In prior sociolinguistic research, speaker age has been considered the principal correlate of language change, but it ‘has not yet been explicitly studied as a sociolinguistic variable’ (Eckert 1997: 167). Consequently, little is knows about how language varies across the life span. The present study employs key word analysis on a large corpus of casual conversation in American English to explore age-based linguistic variation in spontaneous conversation. Analyses of the key words point to two major patterns of age-based lexico-grammatical variation: use of slang, and use of stance and involvement markers. Younger speakers’ talk is characterized by an unusually frequent use of slang and swear words, and by a marked use of features indexing speaker’s stance and emotional involvement, including intensifiers, stance adverbs, discourse markers, personal pronouns, and attitudinal adjectives; older speakers favor modals. These patterns are suggestive of functional differences in the discourse of youth and adults. It is argued that the expression of personal stance is more explicit and plays a key role in younger speakers’ discourse.
A corpus-based study of pragmatic markers in London English
Torgersen, E.N., Gabrielatos, C., Hoffmann, S. & Fox, S.
2011
Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory, 7(1), 93-118.
This article analyses the use of pragmatic markers in two corpora of spoken London English: the Linguistic Innovators... more This article analyses the use of pragmatic markers in two corpora of spoken London English: the Linguistic Innovators Corpus (LIC) and the Corpus of London Teenage Language (COLT). We found variation according to sex, ethnicity and geographical location, with a different distribution for each pragmatic marker. The innovative pragmatic marker you get me was most frequent among male non-Anglo Hackney residents, indicating innovation in inner London. We argue that a number of pragmatic markers, most notably you get me, should be regarded as elements of Multicultural London English, along with other features that have already been documented.