The Lexis and Lexicogrammar of Sri Lankan English
| Justus Liebig University Giessen
This book offers the first in-depth corpus-based description of written Sri Lankan English. In comparison to British and Indian English, lexical and lexicogrammatical features of Sri Lankan English are analysed in a complex corpus environment comprising data from the respective components of the International Corpus of English, newspapers and online sources to explore the status of Sri Lankan English as a variety in its own right. The evolution of Sri Lankan English is depicted against the background of historical as well as sociolinguistic considerations and allows deriving a fine-grained model of the emergence of distinctive structural profiles of postcolonial Englishes developing in a multitude of norm orientations. This book is highly relevant to readers interested in Sri Lankan English and South Asian Englishes. It also offers more general sociolinguistic perspectives on the dynamics of postcolonial Englishes world-wide and on the inextricable link between language and identity.
[Varieties of English Around the World, G54] 2015. xiv, 248 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
List of figures
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vii–viii
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List of tables
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ix–x
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List of abbreviations
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xi–xii
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Acknowledgments
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xiii–xiv
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Chapter 1. Sri Lankan English and Sri Lankan Englishes
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1–18
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Chapter 2. The development of Sri Lankan English
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19–54
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Chapter 3. Methodology
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55–82
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Chapter 4. Sri Lankan English lexis
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83–136
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Chapter 5. Sri Lankan English lexicogrammar
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137–204
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Chapter 6. A model of (the emergence of) distinctive structural profiles of semiautonomous varieties of English
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205–224
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References
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225–232
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Appendix
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233–244
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Index
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245–248
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“This first book-length study of acrolectal English in Sri Lanka taps into a wealth of electronic corpora and databases for an in-depth description of lexical and lexico-grammatical features of this semi-autonomous variety of English. It is a very welcome addition to the growing body of literature on (South) Asian Englishes and the discussions about norm developments, standardization and nativisation.”
Marianne Hundt, University of Zürich
“Sri Lankan English claims its place in the World Englishes arena: a thorough, richly corpus-based study of the evolution and distinctive properties of this hitherto underresearched variety, profiled in its South Asian context, with theoretically attractive insights into the emergence process of semiautonomous varieties.”
Edgar W. Schneider, University of Regensburg
“This volume makes an excellent contribution to the study of Asian Englishes, from both a sociolinguistic and corpus linguistic perspective. The empirical research for this study is meticulously done, and is complemented by insightful and nuanced analysis, while the volume also serves as an excellent introduction to the sociolinguistics of English in contemporary Sri Lanka. It is highly recommended to all those interested in corpus linguistics, Asian Englishes and world Englishes.”
Kingsley Bolton,
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Cited by
Cited by 14 other publications
No author info given
Deshors, Sandra C., Sandra Götz & Samantha Laporte
García‐Castro, Laura
Gries, Stefan Th. & Tobias Bernaisch
Gries, Stefan Th., Tobias Bernaisch & Benedikt Heller
Horch, Stephanie
Kraaz, Michelle & Tobias Bernaisch
Revis, Melanie & Tobias Bernaisch
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 29 january 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.
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Subjects
Linguistics
BIC Subject: CF/2AB – Linguistics/English
BISAC Subject: LAN009000 – LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General