Publications

Publication details [#56209]

Lange, Claudia. 2012. The Syntax of Spoken Indian English. (Varieties of English Around the World G45). John Benjamins. xv+265 pp.
Publication type
Book – monograph
Publication language
English
Language as a subject

Annotation

This book offers an in-depth analysis of several features of spoken Indian English that are generally considered as ‘typical’, but have never before been studied empirically. Drawing on authentic spoken data from the International Corpus of English, Indian component, the book focuses on the domain of discourse organization and examines the form, function and distribution of invariant tags such as isn’t it and no/na, non-initial existential there, focus markers only and itself, topicalization and left-dislocation. By focusing on multilingual speakers’ interactions, the study demonstrates conclusively that spoken Indian English bears all the hallmarks of a vibrant contact language, testifying to a pan-South Asian ‘grammar of culture’ which becomes apparent in contact-induced language change in spoken Indian English.