This paper analyzes fronting constructions in spoken Korean(ized) English. Non-canonical syntax is an important means of structuring discourse, but its use by speakers of Expanding Circle Englishes has so far received only insufficient attention in studies of World Englishes. Taking a corpus-linguistic approach, this study determines to which extent topicalization and left-dislocation are used by South Korean speakers of English in informal conversations. In our explanation of the results, which show that fronting constructions are clearly part of the Korean English repertoire albeit used with varying frequencies, we mainly draw on notions of language contact (i.e. Korean as the substrate being a topic-prominent language) and language acquisition processes.
Du Bois, John W., Wallace L. Chafe, Charles Meyer, Sandra A. Thompson, Robert Englebretson, and Nii Martey. 2000–2005. Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English, Parts 1–4. Philadelphia: Linguistic Data Consortium.
ICE Great Britain. International Corpus of English. Compiled at University College London.
ICE Hong Kong. International Corpus of English. Compiled at The University of Hong Kong and The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
ICE India. International Corpus of English. Compiled at the Shivaji University Kolhapur and the Freie Universität Berlin.
ICE Philippines. International Corpus of English. Compiled at the De La Salle University Manila.
ICE Singapore. International Corpus of English. Compiled at the National University of Singapore.
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