Extended Uses of Would in Some Asian Englishes

Abstract

Extended would is argued to derive from the common tentative use of would found in Standard English, in turn an extension of its hypothetical use. The development of extended would in the New Englishes is most likely motivated by the desire that speakers have to exploit the capacity of this form to convey a high level of polite and tactful unassuredness. The study, which was based on a grammaticality judgement test and inspection of naturally occurring corpus data in a set of six Asian Englishes, noted extended would to be widely accepted in Indian English, Hong Kong English and Philippine English, but less in favour in Singapore English (possibly due to the more advanced evolutionary status of that variety). It was found to be less in favour in the Expanding Circle varieties examined – Indonesian English, Japanese English and Korean English – possibly as a result of exonormative influence.