Abstract
Modern English includes a range of standard and nonstandard varieties that are spoken around the world and differ at all levels of language structure. The purpose of this article is to overview international variation of English lexis, discover similarities intersecting this diversity, find out about productive patterns of lexical change and interpret them from a cognitive perspective. The paper demonstrates the importance of internal and external sources of borrowing, considers the ways of coining new vocabulary, gives attention to efficient strategies employed to name colonial settings and to distinguish newly forming identities from British and other English-speaking communities. Varying experience of adjustment to overseas environments stimulated a high degree of lexical change and heteronymy. Although in different regions English emerged from unique colonial contexts, speakers’ precolonial experience, knowledge and intuitions about the world played a significant role in the processes of categorization and conceptualization, and hence naming. It is argued that it is possible to discern common cognitive ground for such diversity in lexis.
Highlights
The transformation of English from national into international means of communication, the process of its geographical dissemination and its linguistic consequences have long been studied in detail in descriptive (Hay, 2008; Hickey, 2012; Ramson, 1963; 1970), comparative (Boberg, 2010; Siemund, 2013; Peters 2009), sociolinguistic (Cheshire, 1991), and cultural (Bailey, 2012; Damousi, 2009; Laugsen, 2002) perspectives
Does the examination of naming strategies provide an insight into a changing cultural identity of speakers, their attitudes with local inhabitants, degree of cultural loyalty, it reveals how previous experience, established values and cultural practices were exploited to adapt to new environments, how new knowledge was gained and categorized
This paper examines colonial naming practices in the main overseas varieties of English spoken in North America, Australia, and New Zealand
Summary
The transformation of English from national into international means of communication, the process of its geographical dissemination and its linguistic consequences have long been studied in detail in descriptive (Hay, 2008; Hickey, 2012; Ramson, 1963; 1970), comparative (Boberg, 2010; Siemund, 2013; Peters 2009), sociolinguistic (Cheshire, 1991), and cultural (Bailey, 2012; Damousi, 2009; Laugsen, 2002) perspectives. When colonies were established overseas, the first settlers had to give names for new geographical features, animals and plants, local inhabitants and their cultural attributes. This paper examines colonial naming practices in the main overseas varieties of English spoken in North America, Australia, and New Zealand. The sociocultural and linguistic consequences of the English language adaptation in America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are complex and unique. They share some features that should not be neglected: strong cultural ties with the metropole of the British empire; restricted availability of autochthonous cultural and linguistic element over the. This study follows several theoretical approaches developed by cognitive psychologists to principles and levels of categorization, and building taxonomies (Rosch, 1999); linguistic application of categorization and prototype principles to lexical semantics (Taylor, 2003), including polysemy, metaphoric and metonymic extensions (Díaz-Vera, 2015; Dirven, Pörings, 2002; Geeraerts 1997)
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