A comparative study of tag questions in four Asian Englishes from a corpus-based approach

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to describe and compare the features and use of tag questions in four Outer Circle Asian Englishes in order to investigate how a variant tag questions system of English has been modified in the process of indigenization. Four Asian Englishes were analyzed using the International Corpus of English, namely, Hong Kong English (ICE-HK), Philippine English (ICE-PHI), Indian English (ICE-IND), and Singapore English (ICE-SIN). The Canadian corpus of ICE was also analyzed in order to enable comparison with an Inner Circle English. A search using concordance software yielded 181 tag questions in ICE-HK, 54 in ICE-PHI, 125 in ICE-IND, 284 in ICE-SIN, and 167 in ICE-CAN. The features of tag questions were statistically analyzed and compared from the following points: frequency of occurrence, text types, polarity, features of tags, and grammatical agreement between anchors and tags. The use of tag questions was then analyzed by classifying tag questions into seven functional categories: informational, confirmatory, facilitative, attitudinal, peremptory, aggressive, and others. Relationships between polarity types and functions were investigated as well. The results indicated that Asian Englishes have characteristic features especially in terms of the polarity and the main use of tag questions. Two potential explanations, namely, the influence of substrate languages and the developmental phases of Englishes, are discussed.