Word-Formation in New Englishes – A Corpus-Based Analysis (Biermeier)

My PhD thesis is the first systematic investigation of word-formation in the new varieties of English around the globe. The first part deals with theoretical questions and provides useful methodology. In the second part the findings drawn from eight sub-corpora of the International Corpus of English (ICE) are presented and analysed. The sub-corpora represent varieties of English in Great Britain, India, Singapore, the Philippines, Kenya, Tanzania, Jamaica and New Zealand. The extent of use of the words examined (frequency), the number of new coinages (productivity) and the text types (style) are important parameters for an in-depth analysis of individual word-formation categories.

This study deals with selected word-formation categories, such as compounding, affixation, conversion and shortening processes (e.g. clipping and abbreviation), and it analyses frequencies obtained by carefully devised test methods. It shows that English in the Philippines and Singapore, for instance, often exceed British English, which is used as a kind of measuring stick, in terms of type and token frequencies. On a qualitative level, the study documents the varieties’ enormous productive potential (especially with regard to compounding and affixation), which attests to the process of structural nativization. In many cases new formations are created by hybridization, but we encounter variety-specific non-hybrid formations, too. Furthermore, the wide range of variants to mark gender is presented. Finally, my study argues that the current lexical trends indicate independent developments in New Englishes.

Of key interest to lexicologists and dialectologists, this study provides a comprehensive examination of word-formation in New Englishes from a qualitative and quantitative perspective.

Publications

Biermeier, Thomas. (2008) Word-formation in New Englishes – A corpus-based analysis. Berlin: LIT.

Biermeier, Thomas. (2009) “Word-formation in New Englishes. Properties and trends.” In Lucia Siebers & Thomas Hoffmann (eds.) World Englishes: Problems – Properties - Prospects. Proceedings of the IAWE conference 2007 in Regensburg. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 

Contact details:

Dr. Thomas Biermeier, Goethe-Gymnaisum Regensburg