Variation in the Grammar of Black South African English
©2010
Thesis
XII,
266 Pages
Summary
Black South African English, the variety of English used by mother-tongue speakers of South Africa’s indigenous languages, has received considerable attention during the last two decades. However, so far most of the accounts of this variety have been only qualitative in nature. This book reports on one of the first studies offering extensive quantitative analyses of four typical features of Black South African English grammar: omission of past tense marking, extended use of the progressive aspect, article omission, and use of left dislocation. Drawing on a corpus of spoken data, the study’s focus lies on the investigation of the stability of the selected features and hence aims to ascertain which of these are characteristic of Black South African English as a whole. Speakers exhibiting differing levels of competence in English are compared. It is shown that the analysed features are used by speakers of Black South African English regardless of their proficiency level, but, at the same time, there are considerable differences concerning the frequency of occurrence of these features.
Details
- Pages
- XII, 266
- Publication Year
- 2010
- ISBN (Softcover)
- 9783631601488
- Language
- English
- Keywords
- Progressive aspect Article omission Left dislocation Past tense marking
- Published
- Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien, 2010. XII, 266 pp., num. tables and graphs
- Product Safety
- Peter Lang Group AG