Individual Sensitivity to Change in the Lingua Franca Use of English

Irene Taipale,Mikko Laitinen

doi:10.3389/fcomm.2021.737017

Abstract

The study of ongoing change in English typically focuses on studying evidence from codified varieties of the language. Recent corpus studies show, however, that advanced non-native users of English may display heightened sensitivity to features undergoing frequency shifts similar to that experienced by native speakers. In addition, most studies aiming to detect patterns of linguistic regularity utilize large data sets that attempt to minimize the presence of the individual. In this study, we focus on change in ELF and place non-native individuals at the center of attention. Our empirical section examines how aggregated features that are currently undergoing change in codified varieties of English vary in the repertoires of ELF users of Twitter. To carry out this task, this study utilizes geo-tagged tweets retrieved from the Nordic Tweet Stream. The data obtained from this real-time monitor corpus are freely available for research and re-use athttps://cs.uef.fi/nts/. For the analysis itself, we selected the idiolects of 150 individual users who actively tweet in English from geographically varying locations in Finland. As American English predominates with several patterns of linguistic change in codified varieties of English, a simplified dichotomy between American and British features is utilized as a conceptual tool for inspecting variation. The idiolects are analyzed from the perspective of spelling and lexico-grammatical and morphological variation, such as V+ -ing|V + infinitive (e.g.start doing|start to do) and expanded predicates (e.g.take a look|have a look). The quantitative observations show that, particularly in the case of grammatical features, ELF speakers appear to have generally adhered to ongoing linguistic change.

Highlights

This study focuses on ongoing frequency shifts in English as observed in advanced lingua franca use of English (ELF)
The findings show that people in urban areas prefer British English, whereas those living in the countryside prefer American English
While preliminary, takes on understudied areas of linguistics that are related to large-scale changes in the English language continuum

Summary

Introduction

This study focuses on ongoing frequency shifts in English as observed in advanced lingua franca use of English (ELF). On some platforms the share of English social media posts in the Nordic region covers roughly 30–40% of all the available data (Coats 2019) This has created a unique sociolinguistic setting, which calls for novel empirical approaches in studying the role of advanced non-native users of English. In Mair (2013) system of world Englishes, he suggests that it is appropriate to label AmE as the “hub variety,” a variety that is relevant to speakers of all other varieties Keys to understanding this hierarchical system of Englishes, as proposed by Mair, can be found in social factors, and he argues that the fact that linguistic forms preferred in AmE have spread to other varieties stems from the demographic weight of the US and a range of institutional factors prevailing in the country. A range of studies has focused on empirical evidence concerning Philippine English syntax (Schneider 2011; Collins et al, 2014a; Collins et al, 2014b; Collins 2015), while the spelling and lexis of this variety may be found in Fuchs (2017)

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