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Part of
Corpus Linguistics and African Englishes
Edited by Alexandra U. Esimaje, Ulrike Gut and Bassey E. Antia
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 88] 2019
► pp. 293–328

Chapter 2.5
Capturing the lexicon of Ugandan English

ICE-Uganda, its limitations, and effective complements

| Gulu University
| Ruhr-University of Bochum

This paper discusses corpus linguistics as one method to investigate the lexicon of Ugandan English, which is characterised by borrowing, calquing, semantic extension, narrowing, and shift. It documents how analysing a well-balanced corpus, such as the Uganda component of the International Corpus of English, allows for a contextualisation of observations made from current uses of English and for an assessment of the textual genres in which such innovations occur. At the same time, it critically discusses the limitations and biases associated with a comparatively small corpus and argues for a multi-method approach that involves using larger, though less well controlled, corpora as well as supplementing corpus analyses with experimental data, which tap into the spread of lexical innovations.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1English in Uganda
  • 2.Ugandan English and its lexicon
    • 2.1Ugandan English
    • 2.2The lexicon of Ugandan English
      • 2.2.1Introduction
      • 2.2.2Borrowing
      • 2.2.3Calques
      • 2.2.4Semantic change
      • 2.2.5Morphological and phraseological innovations
      • 2.2.6Conclusion
  • 3.The lexicon in ICE Uganda
    • 3.1ICE-UG compilation and issues
    • 3.2Lexical properties of ICE-UG
      • 3.2.1Borrowings in ICE-UG
      • 3.2.2English word stock in ICE-UG
  • 4.Limitations of ICE-UG and suggested supplements
    • 4.1Ugandan English on the Internet: Web-UG
    • 4.2Familiarity and attitudes: Results from acceptability ratings
    • 4.3Factual knowledge: Results of the production test
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 13 February 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.88.13isi
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