Why very good in India might be
pretty good in North America
Amplifier-adjective 2-grams in Global Englishes
Situated at the interface of several sub-disciplines (corpus linguistics, World Englishes, variationist
sociolinguistics), this study investigates patterns of adjectival amplification (very good, so
glad, pretty cool) in the Corpus of Global Web-Based English (GloWbE). It highlights regional
distributions/preferences of amplifier-adjective 2-grams and the idiosyncratic status of certain bigrams according to their
frequency status. Globally, clear regional preferences in amplification patterns as well as possible trends concerning change are
identified. Regionally, L1 varieties contrast starkly with some regions (Africa, Indian subcontinent) but – maybe unexpectedly –
not with others (Southeast Asia). The results offer insights into current trajectories of change concerning the investigated
amplifiers in certain regions and 2-grams: North American varieties are leading a trend away from very towards
so and possibly pretty in the future.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Adjectival intensification: Trends established in previous studies
- 3.Data and method
- 4.Adjective amplification world-wide: A first overview
- 4.1Overall intensification rates in GloWbE
- 4.2Type-token ratio of top 10 amplifiers in GloWbE
- 4.3GloWbE intensifier ranking
- 5.Focus on: Individual patterns
- 5.1Identifying 2-grams: Method
- 5.2
Very world-wide
- 5.3Frequent vs. infrequent adjectives and their amplifiers: Good vs. sick
- 5.4Top 10 amplifier-adjective 2-grams world-wide
- 5.4.1Interregional comparisons (amplifier comparisons across regions)
- 5.4.2Intra-regional comparisons (regional comparisons across amplifiers)
- 5.5Going large(r): Regional patterns emerging from the top 100 bigrams (very, so, really, pretty)
- 6.Discussion & conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References
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Cited by (2)
Cited by 2 other publications
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