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Article published In:
Register Studies
Vol. 3:1 (2021) ► pp.33–87

Diachronic register change

A corpus-based study of Australian English, with comparisons across British and American English

ORCID logo | University of NSW,
| Macquarie University,
| Utrecht University,
| Macquarie University,
| Renmin University of China,
A number of studies have found that grammatical differences across registers are more extensive than those across dialects. However, there is a paucity of research examining intervarietal register change, exploring how registers change differently over time in different regional varieties. The present study addresses this diachronic deficit, focusing on grammatical developments – from the early 20th to the early 21st century – in corpora representing three written registers and two speech-based registers in Australian, British and American English. We conducted a factor analysis on 68 lexicogrammatical features to identify six dimensions of register variation, and subsequently investigated the diachronic change of the five registers across these dimensions. We interpret our findings in terms of the differential effects of broad social changes on individual registers, in light of existing findings on trends of change in different registers and varieties.
Keywords: Australian English, British English, American English, multidimensional analysis, lexicogrammar, register change
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Historical sketch of Australian English in the 20th century
  • 3.Situational characteristics of the five registers
  • 4.The data
  • 5.The grammatical features
  • 6.Methodology
    • 6.1Factor analysis: Identifying dimensions
    • 6.2Regression analysis: Dimension scores across registers, varieties, and time
  • 7.Results
    • 7.1Factor analysis: Identifying dimensions
      • 7.1.1Dimension 1: Information presentation/elaboration and stance marking under production pressure
      • 7.1.2Dimension 2: Personal-active versus impersonal-informational-compressed discourse
      • 7.1.3Dimension 3: Unmarked/non-perspectival versus perspectivally marked information presentation
      • 7.1.4Dimension 4: Comparison and intensification (without stance marking)
      • 7.1.5Dimension 5: Contextualised speech reporting
      • 7.1.6Dimension 6: Descriptive specification of past events
    • 7.2Regression analysis: Registers across varieties and time
      • 7.2.1Dimension 1: Information presentation/elaboration and stance marking under production pressure
      • 7.2.2Dimension 2: Personal-active versus impersonal-informational-compressed discourse
      • 7.2.3Dimension 3: Unmarked/non-perspectival versus perspectivally marked information presentation
      • 7.2.4Dimension 4: Comparison and intensification (without stance marking)
      • 7.2.5Dimension 5: Contextualised speech reporting
      • 7.2.6Dimension 6: Descriptive specification of pastevents
  • 8.Summary and interpretation of findings
    • 8.1Synthesis of findings
    • 8.2Observable trends
  • 9.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Corpora
  • References
Published online: 3 June 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rs.20003.col
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