The Syntax of Spoken Indian English (Varieties of English Around the World)

"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. The book will be highly relevant for anyone interested in postcolonial varieties of English, contact linguistics, standardization, and discourse-pragmatic sentence structure."--Publisher's website. The Syntax of Spoken Indian English 2 Editorial page 3 Title page 4 LCC data 5 Table of contents 6 List of figures and tables 10 List of abbreviations 14 Acknowledgments 16 Chapter 1. Introduction 18 1.1 English in India or Indian English? 18 1.2 Aims and scope of this study 21 1.3 Structure 26 Chapter 2. Conceptual background 30 2.1 New Englishes and outer circles 30 2.1.1 Ideology and terminology: From English to Englishes 31 2.1.2 The legacy of Braj Kachru 33 2.1.3 “The Kachru catch” 35 2.1.4 The Dynamic Model 37 2.1.5 Outlook 40 2.2 The native speaker: An elusive concept 41 2.2.1 The native speaker and the discourse of hegemony 41 2.2.2 The native speaker and linguistic variation 43 2.2.3 Outlook 48 2.3 Contact-induced language change 50 2.3.1 Introduction 50 2.3.2 Mechanisms of contact-induced language change 53 2.4 Norms and standards 60 2.4.1 Norms and the (post)colonial speech community 62 2.4.2 Spoken and written standards 64 Chapter 3. Multilingualism in India 68 3.1 Introduction 68 3.2 Typological survey 69 3.2.1 Patterns of multilingualism 69 3.2.2 South Asia as a sprachbund 72 3.2.3 South Asia as a discourse area 74 3.2.4 South Asia as a sociolinguistic area 78 3.3 English as an Indian language 81 3.3.1 Introduction 81 3.3.2 The Indian communicative space 82 3.3.3 Outlook 87 Chapter 4. The syntax of spoken Indian English 90 4.1 Introduction 90 4.1.1 Corpus-based approaches to IndE 91 4.1.2 ICE and ICE-India 93 4.1.3 The speakers 95 4.1.4 The data 104 4.1.5 Discourse-pragmatic sentence structure 107 4.2 Non-initial existential there 110 4.2.1 Definition 111 4.2.2 Existentials: Corpus evidence 117 4.2.3 Non-initial existential there in ICE-India 120 4.2.4 The canonical existential in ICE-India 130 4.2.5 Initial and non-initial existential constructions in spoken IndE: Speaker variables 131 4.2.6 Explanatory parameters 134 4.3 Topicalization 139 4.3.1 Definition 140 4.3.2 Topicalization in ICE-India and ICE-GB: Form and frequency 146 4.3.3 Topicalization in ICE-India: Contexts and function 149 4.3.4 Preposing of non-arguments 159 4.3.5 Unlinked topic constructions 162 4.3.6 Explanatory parameters 165 4.4 Dislocation 169 4.4.1 Definition 170 4.4.2 Left dislocation: Form and function 171 4.4.3 Right dislocation: Form and function 174 4.4.4 Dislocation: Corpus evidence 176 4.4.5 Explanatory parameters 188 4.5 Cleft constructions 192 4.5.1 Definition 193 4.5.2 Clefts in ICE-GB 195 4.5.3 Clefts in ICE-India 195 4.5.4 Explanatory parameters 196 4.6 Utterance modifiers 197 4.6.1 Focus markers: Only and itself 199 4.6.2 Invariant tags 212 Chapter 5. Conclusion 252 5.1 Indian English as a contact language 252 5.2 Multilingual competence: The norms of spoken Indian English 256 5.3 From norms to standards: Indian English in the 21st century 260 References 264 Author index 276 Language index 278 Subject index 280 Suitable for those interested in postcolonial varieties of English, contact linguistics, standardization, and discourse-pragmatic sentence structure, this book offers an analysis of several features of spoken Indian English that are generally considered as 'typical', but have never before been studied empirically.