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

| 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: 03 June 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/rs.20003.col
References
Aarts, B., Close, J., Leech, G., & Wallis, S.
(2013) The verb phrase in English: Investigating recent language change with corpora. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Atkinson, D.
(2001) Scientific discourse across history: A combined multi-dimensional/rhetorical analysis of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London . In S. Conrad & D. Biber (Eds.), Variation in English: Multidimensional studies (pp. 45–65). London: Longman.Google Scholar
Biber, D.
(1988) Variation across speech and writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Biber, D., & Conrad, S.
(2009) Register, genre and style. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Biber, D., & Finegan, E.
(1989) Drift and the evolution of English style: A history of three genres. Language 65(3), 487–517. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2001) Diachronic relations among speech-based and written registers in English. In S. Conrad & D. Biber (Eds.), Variation in English: Multidimensional studies (pp. 66–83). London: Longman.Google Scholar
Biber, D., & Gray, B.
(2016) Grammatical complexity in academic English: Linguistic change in writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S. & Finegan, E.
(1999) Longman grammar of spoken and written English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Blair, D.
(1993) Australian English and Australian national identity. In G. Schulz (Ed.), The languages of Australia (pp. 62–70). Canberra: Highland Press.Google Scholar
Collins, P.
(2015) Diachronic variation in the grammar of Australian English: Corpus-based explorations. In P. Collins (Ed.), Grammatical change in English world-wide (pp. 15–42). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Collins, P., & Yao, X.
(2018) Colloquialisation and the evolution of Australian English: A cross-varietal and cross-generic study of Australian, British and American English from 1931 to 2006. English World-Wide 39(3), 253–277. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2019) AusBrown: A new diachronic corpus of Australian English. ICAME Journal 431, 3–29. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Desmond, V.
(1911) The awful Australian. Sydney: Shepherd: J. Andrews and Co.Google Scholar
Fritz, C.
2007a From Plato to Aristotle – investigating early Australian English. Australian Journal of Linguistics 241: 57–97. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2007b From English in Australia to Australian English: 1788–1900. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hu, L., & Bentler, P. M.
(1999) Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal 6(1), 1–55. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hundt, M., Röthlisberger, M., & Seoane, E.
(2019) Predicting voice alternation across academic Englishes. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory. Ahead of print CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hundt, M., Schneider, G., & Seoane, E.
(2016) The use of the be-passive in academic Englishes: Local vs global usage in an international language. Corpora 11(1), 29–61. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kruger, H., & Smith, A.
(2018) Colloquialisation versus densification in Australian English: A multidimensional analysis of the Australian Diachronic Hansard Corpus (ADHC). Australian Journal of Linguistics 38(3), 293–328. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kruger, H., & Van Rooy, B.
(2018) Register variation in written contact varieties of English: A multidimensional analysis. English World-Wide 39(2), 214–242. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kruger, H., Van Rooy, B., & Smith, A.
(2019) Register change in the British and Australian Hansard (1901–2015), Journal of English Linguistics. 47(3), 183–220. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Leech, G., Hundt, M., Mair, C., & Smith, N.
(2009) Change in contemporary English: A grammatical study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Mair, C., & Hundt, M.
(1999) “Agile” and “uptight” genres: The corpus-based approach to language change in progress. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 41, 221–242. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Mollin, S.
(2007) The Hansard hazard: Gauging the accuracy of British parliamentary transcripts. Corpora 2(2), 187–210. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Moore, B.
(2008) Speaking our language: The story of Australian English. Sydney: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
R Core Team
(2019) R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. https://​www​.R​-project​.org/
Reeve, J.
(1989) Community attitudes to Australian English. In P. Collins & D. Blair (Eds.) Australian English: The language of a new society (pp. 111–126). Brisbane: University of Queensland Press.Google Scholar
Revelle, W.
(2018) Psych: Procedures for personality and psychological Research. Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA, https://​CRAN​.R​-project​.org​/package​=psych Version = 1.8.12.
Schneider, E.
(2007) Postcolonial English: Varieties around the world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Seal, G.
(1999) The lingo: Listening to Australian English. Sydney: UNSW Press.Google Scholar
Westin, I.
(2002) Language change in English newspaper editorials. Amsterdam: Rodopi. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wilkes, G.
(1978) A dictionary of Australian colloquialisms. Sydney: Sydney University Press.Google Scholar
Yao, X., & Collins, P.
(2019) Developments in Australian English grammar from 1931 to 2006: A comparative, aggregate approach to dialectal variation and change. Journal of English Linguistics 47(2), 120–149. CrossrefGoogle Scholar