What is it about?
As a global language, English has many varieties across the world. These varieties are also used in literary production, increasingly so in postcolonial contexts. This paper investigates the use of local varieties of English in literary texts from West Africa, Southeast Asia, and Scotland.
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Why is it important?
Investigation of varieties of English in literary texts have so far been mostly impressionistic. In this paper, we use a corpus-based approach to empirically verify patterns of use. Two significant findings are that: a) each region under investigation focuses on one specific linguistic domain rather than using a 1:1 representation of the local variety and b) feature density varies greatly across regions.
Perspectives
This paper sets the stage for an empirical study of varieties of English in literary texts around the world. While many varieties of English have been studied in detail, their creative use in literature and the ensuing spread to an international audience deserves a thorough investigation.
Dr Michael Percillier
Universitat Mannheim
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A corpus-based investigation of world Englishes in literature, World Englishes, June 2016, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/weng.12208.
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