Variation in English Worldwide
Registers and Global Varieties

Provides a comprehensive overview of how variation in English world-wide is structured and the factors that motivate this structure.

Axel Bohmann (Author)

9781108485456, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 November 2019

182 pages
23.5 x 15.6 x 1.8 cm, 0.49 kg

World Englishes is one of the most active fields of present day linguistic research. This book provides a comprehensive overview of variation in English across the globe, by analysing a large corpus of texts from the English speaking world. The analysis draws on a larger number of individual texts and linguistic features than previous studies have done. It includes a systematic comparison of the influence of register and national variety on variation in English world-wide, and explores patterns of variation in both qualitative and quantitative terms. The results provide a testing ground for theoretical models, and highlight the importance of register in mediating linguistic differences across national varieties.

1. Introduction
2. The world of English: variation in geography and register
3. Quantifying linguistic variation
4. The space of variation in the present study
5. General situational dimensions of variation
6. Register-specific dimensions
7. Dimensions with other patterns of distribution
8. Discussion: feature space and geographic space
9. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Historical & comparative linguistics [CFF], Sociolinguistics [CFB], Linguistics [CF]