Corpus Linguistics and African Englishes (Studies in Corpus Linguistics)

Corpus linguistics has become one of the most widely used methodologies across the different linguistic subdisciplines; especially the study of world-wide varieties of English uses corpus-based investigations as one of the chief methodologies. This volume comprises descriptions of the many new corpus initiatives both within and outside Africa that aim to compile various corpora of African Englishes. Moreover, it contains cutting-edge corpus-based research on African Englishes and the use of corpora in pedagogic contexts within African institutions. This volume thus serves both as a practical introduction to corpus compilation (Part I of the book), corpus-based research (Part II) and the application of corpora in language teaching (Part III), and is intended both for those researchers not yet familiar with corpus linguistics and as a reference work for all international researchers investigating the linguistic properties of African Englishes. Read more... SCL 88 Corpus Linguistics and African Englishes 2 Editorial page 3 Title page 4 Copyright page 5 Table of contents 6 Preface 10 Introduction: Corpus linguistics and African Englishes 12 References 15 Part I. Corpus linguistics and corpus building 16 Chapter 1.1. What is corpus linguistics? 18 1. The concept of corpus linguistics 18 2. Key concepts in corpus linguistics 24 3. Types and applications of corpora 34 References 42 Appendix. Concordance lines for obvious 45 Chapter 1.2. Corpus-based research on English in Africa: A practical introduction 48 1. Introduction 48 2. Tools and resources for corpus-based research on African Englishes 50 3. Corpus-based studies of African Englishes: Three case studies 62 4. Future prospects 73 5. Resources and further reading 73 Acknowledgements 76 References 76 Appendix 79 Chapter 1.3. The purpose, design and use of the Corpus of Nigerian and Cameroonian English Learner Language (Conacell) 82 1. Introduction 82 2. Method and data 85 3. Conacell-based studies 93 4. Further challenges for Conacell and corpus linguistics in Nigeria and Cameroon 101 5. Chapter summary and conclusion 103 Acknowledgements 104 References 104 Appendix 1. Annotation scheme 107 Chapter 1.4. Introducing a corpus of English(es) spoken in post-independence Namibia: Insights into corpus design and quantitative analyses 108 Introduction 108 The Namibian linguistic situation 110 The Corpus of ESBNaPI 112 Morphosyntactic forms of English(es) spoken by black Namibians 117 Conclusion 121 References 122 Chapter 1.5. The historical corpus of English in Ghana (HiCE Ghana): Motivation, compilation, opportunities 130 1. Introduction 130 2. English in Ghana 131 3. Motivation for compiling a historical corpus of GhE 134 4. The compilation of HiCE Ghana 136 5. Digitisation and annotation 143 6. Opportunities 145 7. Conclusion and outlook 148 References 149 Chapter 1.6. Addressing a coverage gap in African Englishes: The tagged corpus of Cameroon Pidgin English 154 1. Introduction 154 2. Background to CPE 155 3. Building the CPE Corpus 156 4. Searching the CPE corpus 160 5. Conclusion 173 References 173 Chapter 1.7. Practical corpus linguistics: Designing and exploiting a written corpus for research with special reference to Cameroon English 176 1. Introduction 176 2. Compilation of the CCE 178 3. Some findings on the use of modals in CamE 181 4. Discussion and conclusions 190 Acknowledgements 191 References 192 Part II. Corpus-based analysis of African Englishes 194 Chapter 2.1. Evaluating explanations for past-time reference with unmarked verb forms in African Englishes 196 1. Introduction 196 2. Possible explanations for the non-marking of the past tense 198 3. Method 200 4. Results 205 5. Conclusion 212 Acknowledgements 214 References 214 Chapter 2.2. The use of stance markers in West African Englishes 216 1. Introduction 216 2. Stance markers within a variational pragmatic framework 219 3. Data and method 220 4. Results 222 5. Summary and discussion 229 6. Conclusion 233 Acknowledgements 234 References 234 Appendix 237 Chapter 2.3. Namibian English on the web: Lexical and morphosyntactic features in a Corpus of Namibian Online Newspapers (CNamON) 242 1. Introduction 242 2. Namibia: An overview 243 3. A Corpus of Namibian Online Newspapers (CNamON) 246 4. Lexical and syntactic features of NamE in CNamON 250 5. Summary and discussion 265 6. Conclusion 265 References 266 Chapter 2.4. Lexical expansion in Ghanaian English from a diachronic perspective: A structural and semantic analysis 270 1. Introduction 270 2. Background: Lexis in the dynamic model 271 3. Previous studies on the lexis of Ghanaian English 273 4. Methodology 275 5. Findings 278 6. Conclusion 297 References 298 Appendix 300 Chapter 2.5. Capturing the lexicon of Ugandan English: ICE-Uganda, its limitations, and effective complements 304 1. Introduction 304 2. Ugandan English and its lexicon 307 3. The lexicon in ICE Uganda 316 4. Limitations of ICE-UG and suggested supplements 322 5. Conclusion 332 References 333 Appendix 1. Results of acceptability test 336 Appendix 2. Examples of sentences, depicting UgE usage, constructed in the production test 337 Appendix 3. Informants’ demographic details 338 Part III. Applications of corpora in English language teaching and learning 340 Chapter 3.1. A corpus-based analysis of conjunctive cohesion in English essays of Nigerian university learners 342 1. Introduction 342 2. Conjunctions 344 3. Studies on the use of conjunctions in ESL/EFL learners’ academic writing 346 4. Methodology 349 5. Analysis and results 352 6. Discussion of results 357 7. Conclusion 359 Acknowledgements 360 References 361 Chapter 3.2. African corpora for standards in African academic English: Case studies on prepositions 366 1. Introduction 366 2. A corpus-based functional view on standards for Africa 368 3. Corpus data contexts 371 4. Prepositions as a special case for variability in English grammar 371 5. Conclusions 380 Acknowledgements 381 References 382 Chapter 3.3. Semiotic signature of transformation in a diachronic corpus of a South African political party 384 1. Introduction 384 2. South Africa: A historical précis of a political landscape 386 3. Negotiating organisational identities in political discourses 387 4. What’s in a name and a language?: Theorising heuristics for a corpus-based political discourse analysis 391 5. Method 393 6. Results 396 7. Discussion 404 8. Conclusion 407 References 408 Index 412 Preface / Doug Biber -- Introduction: Corpus linguistics and African Englishes / Alexandra U. Esimaje, Ulrike Gut and Bassey E. Antia -- 1.1. What is corpus linguistics? / Alexandra U. Esimaje and Susan Hunston -- 1.2. Corpus-based research on English in Africa: A practical introduction / Robert Fuchs, Bertus van Rooy and Ulrike Gut -- 1.3. The purpose, design and use of the Corpus of Nigerian and Cameroonian English Learner Language (Conacell) / Alexandra U. Esimaje -- 1.4. Introducing a corpus of English(es) spoken in post-independence Namibia: Insights into corpus design and quantitative analyses / Helene Steigertahl -- 1.5. The historical corpus of English in Ghana (HiCE Ghana): Motivation, compilation, opportunities / Thorsten Brato -- 1.6. Addressing a coverage gap in African Englishes: The tagged corpus of Cameroon Pidgin English / Gabriel Ozón, Sarah FitzGerald and Melanie Green -- 1.7. Practical corpus linguistics: Designing and exploiting a written corpus for research with special reference to Cameroon English / Daniel Nkemleke -- 2.1. Evaluating explanations for past-time reference with unmarked verb forms in African Englishes / Bertus van Rooy -- 2.2. The use of stance markers in West African Englishes / Ulrike Gut and Foluke Unuabonah -- 2.3. Namibian English on the web: Lexical and morphosyntactic features in a Corpus of Namibian Online Newspapers (CNamON) / Alexander Kautzsch -- 2.4. Lexical expansion in Ghanaian English from a diachronic perspective: A structural and semantic analysis / Thorsten Brato -- 2.5. Capturing the lexicon of Ugandan English: ICE-Uganda, its limitations, and effective complements / Bebwa Isingoma and Christiane Meierkord -- 3.1. A corpus-based analysis of conjunctive cohesion in English essays of Nigerian university learners / Adeyemi Iyabo -- 3.2. African corpora for standards in African academic English: Case studies on prepositions / Josef Schmied -- 3.3. Semiotic signature of transformation in a diachronic corpus of a South African political party / Bassey E. Antia and Tamsyn Hendricks -- Index.