Publications
Publication details [#67509]
Gut, Ulrike B. and Foluke Olayinka Unuabonah. 2019. The use of stance markers in West African Englishes. In Gut, Ulrike B., Bassey Antia and Alexandra U. Esimaje, eds. Corpus Linguistics and African Englishes. (Studies in Corpus Linguistics 88). John Benjamins. pp. 206–229.
Publication type
Article in book
Publication language
English
Keywords
Language as a subject
Annotation
This chapter investigates the extent of similarity in the use of stance markers in
two national varieties of West African English, Nigerian English and Ghanaian
English, and compares them to British English. The frequency and stylistic variability
of four semantic groups of stance markers were examined in ICE-Nigeria
and ICE-Ghana and compared with ICE-Great Britain. The results are mixed:
the two West African varieties show an overall lower frequency of stance markers
compared to British English but the speakers of the two West African English
varieties do not demonstrate lower stylistic variability in the use of stance markers
across different text types. Notwithstanding, there are systematic differences
in stance marker usage between the two West African English varieties.