Register Variation in Indian English [1 ed.] 9789027289032, 9789027223111

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Register Variation in Indian English

Studies in Corpus Linguistics (SCL) SCL focuses on the use of corpora throughout language study, the development of a quantitative approach to linguistics, the design and use of new tools for processing language texts, and the theoretical implications of a data-rich discipline.

General Editor

Consulting Editor

Elena Tognini-Bonelli

Wolfgang Teubert

The Tuscan Word Center/ The University of Siena

Advisory Board Michael Barlow

Graeme Kennedy

Douglas Biber

Geoffrey N. Leech

Marina Bondi

Anna Mauranen

Christopher S. Butler

Ute Römer

Sylviane Granger

Michaela Mahlberg

M.A.K. Halliday

Jan Svartvik

Susan Hunston

John M. Swales

Stig Johansson

Yang Huizhong

University of Auckland Northern Arizona University University of Modena and Reggio Emilia University of Wales, Swansea University of Louvain University of Sydney University of Birmingham Oslo University

Volume 37 Register Variation in Indian English by Chandrika Balasubramanian

Victoria University of Wellington University of Lancaster University of Helsinki University of Michigan University of Liverpool University of Lund University of Michigan Jiao Tong University, Shanghai

Register Variation in Indian English Chandrika Balasubramanian Western Carolina University

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam / Philadelphia

8

TM

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

Cover design: Françoise Berserik Cover illustration from original painting Random Order by Lorenzo Pezzatini, Florence, 1996.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Balasubramanian, Chandrika. Register variation in Indian English / by Chandrika Balasubramanian. p. cm. (Studies in Corpus Linguistics, issn 1388-0373 ; v. 37) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. English language--Variation--India. 2. English language--India--Usage. 3. Languages in contact--India. 4. Bilingualism--India. 5. India--Languages. I. Title. PE3502.I6B25   2009 427'.954--dc22 isbn 978 90 272 2311 1 (hb; alk. paper) isbn 978 90 272 8903 2 (eb)

2009023005

© 2009 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa

For You Who helped me “change rooms in my mind.” (Hafiz, 1326 to1390; “All the Hemispheres”)

Table of contents List of figures List of tables chapter 1 Introduction 1.0 English as a global language: Emergence of new varieties  1 1.1 Understanding New Englishes  2 1.2 International Corpus of English: Role in Dialect Research  5 1.3 Development of Corpus of Contemporary Indian English (CCIE): Outcomes of Project  5 1.3.1 Combining CCIE with ICE-India  6 1.4 English in India: Context for the book  7 1.5 Outline of the book  11

xv xvii

1

chapter 2 Literature review 13 2.0 Introduction  13 2.1 Methodologies employed in dialect studies  14 2.1.1 Regional and Social Dialectology  14 2.1.1.1 Regional Dialectology  14 2.1.1.2 Strengths and weaknesses of regional dialectology  15 2.1.2 Sociolinguistic studies  16 2.1.2.1 Strengths of sociolinguistic dialect studies  17 2.1.3 Similarities and differences between regional dialectology and social dialectology.  17 2.1.4 Corpus linguistics and dialectology: the study of register  19 2.1.4.1 Corpus linguistics and representativeness  21 2.1.4.2 Strengths and weaknesses of corpus linguistics as a methodology to study dialect  22 2.2 Variety studies today  23 2.2.1 Illustrative/Impressionistic studies  24 2.2.2 Empirical/Data-based studies  24

 Register Variation in Indian English

2.2.3 Corpus-based studies  25

2.3 Treatment of varieties in variety studies: Representation of variety being examined and Implications  29 2.4 Situating the study of Indian English  30 2.4.1 Previous literature on linguistic features examined in current study  31 2.5 Conclusion  38 chapter 3 Corpus design and methodology 39 3.0 Introduction and overview of methodology  39 3.1 Construction of the Corpus of Contemporary Indian English  41 3.1.1 Written corpus  45 3.1.1.1 Major sources of the written corpus  45 3.1.1.2 Registers and sub-registers of the written corpus  48 3.1.1.2.1 Register: Written news  48 3.1.1.2.2 Register: Fiction  49 3.1.1.2.3 Register: Written entertainment  50 3.1.1.2.4 Register: Business correspondence  50 3.1.1.2.5 Register: Personal correspondence  51 3.1.1.2.6 Register: Written sports  51 3.1.1.2.7 Register: Written travel news  51 3.1.1.3 Summary of Written registers and their sources  51 3.1.2 Spoken corpus  52 3.1.2.1 Register: Spoken news  53 3.1.2.2 Register: Spoken Academic English  53 3.1.2.3 Register: Conversational English  55 3.1.2.4 Register: Spoken sports  56 3.2 Methodology  57 3.2.1 Initial processing of written texts  57 3.2.1.1 Saving the texts  57 3.2.1.2 Naming the texts  57 3.2.2 Initial processing of spoken texts  59 3.2.2.1 Recording spoken data  59 3.2.2.2 Transcription  60 3.2.2.3 Naming spoken files  60 3.2.3 Combining CCIE with ICE-India  61 3.2.4 Computer programs used for the initial analysis of both spoken and written files  64 3.2.5 Initial processing of all corpus files  64



Table of contents 

3.2.6 Analysis of the files: Computer programs for different kinds of analyses  65 3.2.7 Kinds of analyses  66 3.2.7.1 Type I analysis: Identifying Indian and non-Indian variants  66 3.2.7.2 Type II analysis: General descriptions of patterns of occurrences  66 3.2.8 Linguistic features and methodology employed in their initial analysis  67 3.2.8.1 Features examined in study  67 3.2.8.2 Rationale for choice of and description of linguistic features  68 3.2.8.3 Lexical features  69 3.2.8.3.1 Keep used meaning Put  69 3.2.8.3.2 Stay used meaning live  70 3.2.8.3.3 Indian words  71 3.2.8.4 Grammatical features  74 3.2.8.4.1 Stative verbs in the progressive  74 3.2.8.4.2 Patterns of occurrence of the present and past perfect  75 3.2.8.4.3 Prepositional verbs and preposition use  76 3.2.8.4.4 Articles  76 3.2.8.4.5 Use of future instead of simple present  78 3.2.8.4.6 Use of the progressive instead of simple or perfect aspect verbs  78 3.2.8.4.7 Absence of subject-auxiliary inversion in WH-question formation  79 3.2.8.4.8 Transitive verbs used intransitively  80 3.2.8.4.9 Relative clauses  81 3.2.8.4.10 Patterns of occurrence of modals  81 3.2.8.4.11 Initial and non-initial existential There  81 3.2.8.4.12 Invariant tag Isn’t it? and No?  82 3.2.8.4.13 Also and Too  83

3.3 Conclusion  84

chapter 4 Lexical and grammatical features in spoken and written Indian English 4.0 Introduction  85 4.1 Analysis of lexical features  86 4.1.1 Keep meaning Put: Type I analysis  86

85

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Register Variation in Indian English

4.1.2 Stay meaning Live: Type I analysis  87 4.1.3 Indian words: Type II Analysis  89

4.2 Grammatical features  89 4.2.1. Stative verbs in the progressive: Type I Analysis  90 4.2.2 Past and present perfect: Type I Analysis  91 4.2.2.1 Past Perfect  91 4.2.2.2 Present Perfect  92 4.2.3 Prepositional verbs and prepositions: Type II Analysis  93 4.2.3.1 Productivity of particular verbs and prepositions  93 4.2.3.2 Prepositional verbs in British and American English versus Indian English  98 4.2.3.3 Most common prepositional verbs  99 4.2.4 Article use: Type I Analysis  100 4.2.4.1 Articles before ordinal numbers  100 4.2.4.2 Articles before noun phrases (spoken corpus only)  101 4.2.4.3 Articles before lot of  101 4.2.4.4 Articles before little  102 4.2.4.5 Articles before few  102 4.2.4.6 Articles before number of  103 4.2.4.7 Summary of article analysis  103 4.2.5 Future instead of simple present: Type I Analysis  104 4.2.6 Progressives of non stative verbs: Type II Analysis  105 4.2.7 Absence of subject-auxiliary inversion in WH-questions: Type I Analysis  106 4.2.8 Transitive verbs used intransitively: Type I Analysis  106 4.2.9 Relative constructions: Type II Analysis  108 4.2.9.1 Common relativizers  108 4.2.9.1.1 Who versus which and that  108 4.2.9.1.2 Which versus that  109 4.2.9.2 Frequency of relative clauses  109 4.2.9.3 Non-standard relativizers  109 4.2.9.4 Summary of Relative Clause Analysis  109 4.2.10 Modals: Type II Analysis  110 4.2.10.1 Observations about the distribution of modals and semi-modals in Indian English  111 4.2.11 Initial and non-initial Existential There: Type I Analysis  111 4.2.12 Invariant tag isn’t it? and No?: Type I Analysis  112 4.2.12.1 Isn’t it  112 4.2.12.2 No  113



Table of contents 

4.2.13 Circumstance Adverbials Also and Too: Type II Analysis  114 4.2.13.1 Results on general distribution  114 4.2.13.2 Results on position  115 4.2.13.3 Results on position of also and focus of sentence  116

4.3 Conclusion  117

chapter 5 Register variation Lexical features 5.0 Introduction  119 5.1 Keep meaning Put: Type I analysis  120 5.2 Stay meaning Live  123 5.3 Indian words  126 5.3.1 Discussion of Indian words in Conversational English  130 5.3.2 Discussion of Indian words in Spoken Academic Language  133 5.3.3 Discussion of Indian words in Spoken News  134 5.3.4 Discussion of Indian words in Written News  135 5.3.5 Discussion of Indian words in Written Academic English  137 5.3.6 Discussion of Indian words in Business Correspondence  138 5.3.7 Discussion of Indian words in Personal Correspondence  139 5.3.8 Discussion of Indian words in Written Entertainment News  141 5.3.9 Discussion of Indian words in Fiction  143 5.3.10 Discussion of Indian words in Written Travel News  144 5.3.11 Discussion of Indian words across registers  146 5.4 Conclusion  147

119 119

chapter 6 Register variation 149 Grammatical features 149 6.0 Introduction  149 6.1 Stative verbs in the progressive: Type I analysis  149 6.2 Past and present perfect  156 6.2.1 Past perfect  156 6.2.2 Present perfect  157 6.3 Articles  165 6.3.1 Article use before ordinal numbers  165 6.3.2 Articles before phrases  171 6.3.3 Articles before quantifiers  171 6.3.4 Summary of article analysis  177 6.4 Use of the future instead of the simple present (for habitual present)  178

 Register Variation in Indian English

6.11 Invariant tag isn’t it  204 6.11.1 Isn’t it  204 6.11.2 No  205 6.12 Also and Too  209 6.12.1 General distribution results  209 6.12.2 Positions of also and too  212 6.12.2.1 Also  213 6.12.2.2 Too  213 6.12.3 Also and focus  214 6.13 Conclusion  225 chapter 7 Conclusion 7.0 Introduction  227 7.1 Summary of Type 1 analyses  227 7.2 Summary of Type II analyses  229 7.3 Conclusions to be drawn from Type I and Type II analyses  232 7.4 Co-occurrence of Indian variants  232 7.5 What, then is, Indian English?  233 7.6 Revisiting Kachru’s Concentric Circles  234 7.7 Limitations of the study  235 7.8 Directions for future research  236

227

References

237

appendix 1 Methodologies employed in the study of language varieties

243

appendix 2 Review of variety studies

249

appendix 3 List of Indian Fiction

255

appendix 4 Tape insert

259

appendix 5 Corpus contributor questionnaire

261



Table of contents 

appendix 6 Header for spoken file

263

appendix 7 Tables of Indian words in registers of Indian English

265

Index

281

List of figures

Figure 1. Figure 2. Figure 3. Figure 4. Figure 5. Figure 6. Figure 7. Figure 8. Figure 9. Figure 10. Figure 11. Figure 12. Figure 13. Figure 14. Figure 15. Figure 16. Figure 17. Figure 18. Figure 19. Figure 20. Figure 21. Figure 22.

The Corpus of Contemporary Indian English and its Registers Written Registers of the CCIE Spoken Registers of the CCIE Map of India Combined Corpus with Registers Written registers of Combined Corpus Spoken registers of Combined Corpus Indian words in Spoken and Written Indian English (Normalized to 1,000,000) Progressive and Perfect aspect verb phrases in Indian corpus Modals in Indian Corpus Semi-modals in Indian Corpus Also and too in entire, spoken, and written corpora (Normalized to 1,000,000 words) Distribution of Indian words across spoken and written registers (Normalized to 1,000,000) Distribution of Indian words across spoken registers (Normalized to 1,000,000) Distribution of Indian words across written registers (Normalized to 1,000,000) Indian words in Conversational English (Normalized to 1,000,000 words) Counts of Indian word categories in Spoken Academic Language Counts of Indian word categories in Spoken News Counts of Indian word categories in Written News Counts of Indian word categories in Written Academic English Counts of Indian word categories in Business Correspondence Counts of Indian word categories in Personal Correspondence

43 44 44 48 63 63 64 89 105 110 111 114 127 127 128 132 133 135 136 137 138 140

 Register Variation in Indian English

Figure 23. Figure 24. Figure 25. Figure 26. Figure 27. Figure 28. Figure 29. Figure 30.

Figure 31.

Figure 32. Figure 33. Figure 34.

Figure 35.

Figure 36.

Figure 37.

Figure 38. Figure 39.

Counts of Indian word categories in Written Entertainment 141 News Counts of Indian word categories in Fiction 143 Counts of Indian word categories in Written Travel News 145 Progressive vs. perfect in written registers (frequency in 180 1000s, normalized to 1,000,000) Progressive vs. perfect in spoken registers (frequency in 181 1000s, normalized to 1,000,000) Relativizers in British and American Conversation vs. Indian 190 Conversation (in thousands, normalized to 1,000,000) Relativizers in British and American Fiction vs. Indian 191 Fiction (in thousands, normalized to 1,000,000) Relativizers in British and American Written News versus 192 Indian Written News (in thousands, normalized to 1,000,000) Relativizers in British and American Written Academic 193 English versus Indian Written Academic English (in thousands, normalized to 1,000,000) Modals and Semi modals in Indian spoken registers 195 Modals and Semi modals in Indian written registers 196 Indian vs. American and British: Also Conveng = Conversa- 209 tional English; wracad = Written Academic English; wrnews = Written News Indian vs. American and British: Too Conveng = Conversa211 tional English; wracad = Written Academic English; wrnews = Written News American and British (also and tooConveng) = Conversa211 tional English; wracad = Written Academic English; wrnews = Written News Indian also and tooConveng = Conversational English; 212 wracad = Written Academic English; wrnews = Written News Continuum of Indian English 232 India’s New Concentric Circles 234

List of tables

Table i. Table 1. Table 2. Table 3. Table 4. Table 5. Table 6. Table 7. Table 8. Table 9. Table 10. Table 11. Table 12. Table 13. Table 14. Table 15. Table 16. Table 17. Table 18. Table 19. Table 20. Table 21. Table 22. Table 23. Table 24. Table 25. Table 26. Table 27. Table 28.

Corpus Based Investigations of New Varieties of English Overview of the project The Corpus of Contemporary Indian English and its Registers Written registers and their sources Combined corpus Features examined in the study Keep meaning Put in the entire corpus Stay meaning Live in the entire corpus Stative progressives Past perfect in entire corpus Present perfect in entire corpus Prepositional verbs in corpus: Verbs Prepositions that occur in prepositional verbs in Indian Corpus Comparing common prepositions in British and American English and Indian English Articles before ordinal numbers Articles before noun phrases Articles before lot of Articles before little Articles before few Articles before number of Total articles examined Use of the future instead of the simple present Absence of subject-auxiliary inversion Transitive verbs used intransitively Non-initial existential There Isn’t it as invariant tag No as invariant tag Also in the entire corpus Too in the entire corpus

26 39 41 52 62 68 87 88 91 91 92 94 97 99 101 101 102 102 103 103 104 105 106 107 112 112 113 115 115

 Register Variation in Indian English

Table 29. Table 30. Table 31. Table 32.

Also and focus Keep meaning Put Stay versus Live Frequency of Indian Words in Registers of Indian English (Normalized to 1,000,000) Table 33. Stative verbs in the Progressive Table 34. Past Perfect Table 35. Present Perfect Table 36. Articles before ordinal numbers – both spoken and written corpus Table 37. Articles before noun phrases – spoken corpus only Table 38. Articles before quantifiers in spoken and written registers Table 39. Article use in general Table 40. Future for simple present Table 41. Absence of subject-auxiliary inversion in WH-question formation Table 42. Transitive verbs used intransitively across all registers Table 42a. Frequency of transitive verbs occurring intransitively across registers of Indian English Table 43. Distribution of modal verbs across registers of British and American English versus Indian English Table 44. Non-initial Existential there Table 45. Invariant tag isn’t it Table 46. No as invariant tag Table 47. Also: Distribution Table 48. Too: Distribution Table 49. Also: Focus Table 50. General conclusions about Type 1 analyses Table 51. Conclusions about Individual Registers for Type 1 analyses

116 121 124 129 152 158 161 166 172 174 177 179 183 186 189 197 199 206 207 216 217 218 230 230

chapter 1

Introduction 1.0 English as a global language: Emergence of new varieties The rapid spread of English and its rising status as a world language has been a subject of discussion in the field of Applied Linguistics for several years, and accompanying this spread has been the emergence of several new varieties of English (called NVEs, New Englishes, non-native Englishes, etc.). As Schneider (2003) describes, “present-day English as a global language is more than the world’s predominant lingua franca – it is also a language which is currently growing roots in a great many countries and communities around the world, being appropriated by local speakers, and in that process it is diversifying and developing new dialects…” (p. 233). The way regional and social factors have influenced the growth of New Varieties of English and fostered change has formed the subject matter of sociolinguistics and dialectology from both theoretical and practical standpoints, and today, nobody would deny the fact that “World English exists as a political and cultural reality” (Crystal, 2003, p. xii). Irrespective of where it developed, according to Platt et al. (1984, p. 2–3), a New English has the following characteristics: 1. It has developed through an education system. This means that it has been taught as a subject and, in many cases, also used as a medium of instruction in regions where languages other than English were the main languages. 2. It has developed in an area where a native variety of English was not the language spoken by most of the population. 3. It is used for a range of functions among those who speak or write it in the region where it is used. 4. It has become ‘localized’ or ‘nativized’ by adopting some language features of its own, such as sounds, intonation patterns, sentence structures, words, and expressions. Today, fundamental to our understanding of World Englishes, is an acceptance of the concept that English is not monolithic. How could it be, if it is used by millions of people in areas of the world as different and apart as India, on the one hand, and Kenya, on the other?

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Register Variation in Indian English

1.1 Understanding New Englishes Braj Kachru (1988) first explained the spread of English in the world and the different roles it plays in different countries by suggesting we think of three concentric circles: the inner circle, the outer circle, and the expanding circle. Kachru suggested that the inner circle included countries where English is spoken as the primary language – countries like the UK and the USA, countries that are the “traditional cultural and linguistic bases of English” (Kachru, 1992, p. 356). The outer circle includes countries like India and Singapore, where English functions as an important second language; these outer circle countries are typically multilingual, and English also plays the role of common language of communication. Platt’s New Englishes, then, fit into Kachru’s outer circle. The last circle, the expanding circle, includes countries like China and Russia, countries “which recognize the importance of English as an international language, though they do not have a history of colonization by members of the inner circle, nor have they given English any special administrative status” (Crystal, 2003, p. 60). Today, by many estimates, outer circle English speakers (300–500 million) far exceed inner circle speakers (320–380 million, Crystal, 2003). Crystal also says that there are 75 territories which are either members of the inner or outer circles in which English holds a special place. The sheer number of speakers who speak English as a second (and in countries like India, many speak it as a first) language alone necessitates moving away from the traditional notions such as “native” and “non-native.” Graddol, Leith, & Swan (1996) state that “In practice it is difficult to draw hard and fast boundaries between… the ‘native’/’non-native’ distinction” because in contexts like India and Singapore, “some (notionally) non-native speakers become familiar with English from an early age and use the language routinely” (p. 13). Other terms synonymous with “native” and “non-native” are “L1 English” and “L2 English.” This distinction, too, is no longer entirely valid, given that in a number of traditionally non-English speaking countries like India and Singapore, there are increasing numbers of people who speak English as a first language, i.e., an L1. As D’Souza (1997) explains, “If non-native speakers are those to whom the language is not ‘native’, then we should accept that speakers from America and Australia should be considered ‘non-native,’ too. English now belongs to the world, and multilinguals who speak English do not need to apologize for not being monolinguals. Terms like ‘nonnative’, ‘second-language’ etc. can no longer be used unless one defines them anew in every instance of use. Their meanings cannot be taken for granted.”

(p. 102). Terms like New Englishes, Other Englishes, and New Varieties of English then, have gained prominence.



Chapter 1.  Introduction

D’Souza, who uses the term New Varieties of English, or NVEs, explains that “the NVEs are a phenomenon peculiar to the ex-British and American dominions where English stayed on after the colonial masters left, stayed on to become more than a second language, though not really a first” (1997, p. 241). D’Souza further comments that in these contexts, English “took on certain characteristics that seem to justify the study of these varieties as phenomena different from those in all other countries in which English is spoken” (p.  241). Schneider (2003) proposes a model for understanding the shared processes that he explains all New Englishes go through in their development. He explains that the development of any New English entails five processes: “Foundation, Exonormative Stabilization, Nativization, Endonormative Stabilization, and Differentiation” (p. 243). He explains that the first process, Foundation, is the initial phase where “English begins to be used on a regular basis in a country that was not English-speaking before” (p. 244) and that characterizing this phase is a “complex contact situation” (p. 244). In this phase, contact between the two language groups remains restricted, with cross-cultural communication being achieved by just a few people. Further, during this phase, indigenous languages do not influence the English spoken by the settlers. During Phase 2, Exonormative Stabilization, the “external norm, usually written and spoken British English as used by educated speakers, is accepted as a linguistic standard of reference” (p.  245). Also, this phase is characterised by Structural Nativization, where “as soon as a population group starts to shift to a new language, some transfer phenomena at the level of phonology and structure are bound to occur” (p. 246). Phase 3 is Nativization, which, according to Schneider, is “the most important, the most vibrant one, the central phase of both cultural and linguistic transformation in which both parties realize that something fundamental has been changing…” (p. 247). It is during this phase of Nativization that the New English starts to construct its identity independent of the “native” English. It is during this phase, then, that characteristic “features” of the new English emerge. Phase 4, or Endonormative Stabilization, is “marked by the graduate adoption and acceptance of an indigenous linguistic norm, supported by a new locally rooted self-confidence…” (Schneider, 2003, p. 249). During the fifth phase, Differentiation, “the focus of an individual’s identity construction narrows down, from the national to the immediate community scale… Consequently, new varieties of the formerly new variety emerge as carriers of new group identities within the overall community” (p. 253). Despite this view of New Englishes as evolving, growing entities, the study of New Englishes over the past several decades has not gone beyond studying the features that supposedly characterize these varieties, i.e., determining and describing what features emerged during Schneider’s phase 3 (Nativization). Khubchandani and Hosali (1999) state that “in the past few decades, various aspects of

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Register Variation in Indian English

non-native varieties of English have been explored in South Asia and neighboring countries like Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Philippines. Most of these studies are concerned with determining representative normative varieties of English prevalent in specific regions” (p. 251). Many of the studies of different national varieties, then, have focused on identifying their “characteristic features,” (Schmied, 1994), and differentiating these features from features in “native” varieties such as British and American English, without beginning to capture the complexity of the varieties. In the study of these new varieties, it is important, then, to determine if and how they enter Schneider’s fourth and fifth phases of development, i.e., Endonormative Stabilization and Differentiation. Today, many scholars (Singh et al., 1998) advocate the recognition of different national varieties of English, i.e., British English, American English, Singapore English, Nigerian English, etc., and the replacement of terms such as New varieties, Native versus Non-native varieties, etc. Singh et al.  claim that the use of simple terms such as Nigerian and Indian English would result in a treatment of all varieties of English being equal.  Singh et al.  recognize that such an equal treatment would entail studying and describing each national variety “as a system in its own right, and not with reference to any other branch. Each variety should be seen as a totality and not as a set of differences” (p. 286). Descriptions of these national varieties (as opposed to mere lists of features) in and of themselves, then, are, or should be, imminent. Such descriptions would work toward dispelling the negative attitudes that still persist today toward certain varieties of English (Jenkins, 2003). Further, just as traditionally recognized “native” varieties of English are recognized for the variation within them, so too, should the emerging new varieties. The “native” varieties of English are recognized for the differences within them stemming from region, social status, and reason for use or register (Biber, 1988) to name just a few variables. As McArthur (1998) points out, the English in inner circle countries is “not a single variety of English, but differs markedly from one territory to another, and even from one region within a given territory to another” (p. 43). It stands to reason, then, that the English used in any outer circle country, too, cannot and should not be regarded as a variety, as there is no single geographical region to talk about, no single language background affecting the kind of English spoken by people in different parts of the country (particularly in a highly multilingual situation like India), and no one situation of use. At best, we can talk of these national new varieties as clusters of varieties of English, comprising several registers and dialects. Any study of a new variety of English, then, should focus on identifying the variation within it, (and not just on describing a set of features that characterize the national variety), and provide detailed descriptions of the national variety, as has been done with British and American English (Biber et al., 1999).



Chapter 1.  Introduction

1.2 International Corpus of English: Role in Dialect Research The development of the International Corpus of English (ICE) has been to promote just such scholarship. As Greenbaum & Nelson (1996) describe, “ICE was initiated to provide the resources for comparative studies of the Englishes used in countries where it is either a majority first language or an official additional language” (p. 3). As described by the compilers of the corpus, compilation began with the aim “of collecting material for comparative studies of English worldwide. Fifteen research teams around the world are preparing electronic corpora of their own national or regional variety of English” (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/english-usage/ ice/). The participating countries include Australia, Canada, East Africa, Great Britain, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Jamaica, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and the USA. The developers of the ICE go on to explain that “for most countries, the ICE project is stimulating the first systematic study of the English used in their country” (Greenbaum, 1996, p. 3). While ICE has certainly spurred a number of research studies focusing on isolated features of the different national varieties, systematic and detailed investigation, the kind of which would result in a description of the national variety itself, and not just a few of its features, however, has not taken place yet, with any national variety other than British and American English; it is this gap that the current book aims to fill with Indian English in particular. 1.3 Development of Corpus of Contemporary Indian English (CCIE): Outcomes of Project The Indian component of ICE was released in 2002, and has so far not been used for a large-scale investigation of the variation in Indian English. There are two possible reasons for this; firstly, many of the texts of the corpus are old (see in particular, the fiction section), and do not necessarily represent the language as it is used today. Secondly, the corpus exists only in untagged form, restricting the possible analyses for which it can be used. ICE-India has been used in several smaller investigations of a few linguistic features; some of these studies are described in Chapter 2. With the limitations of ICE-India, for the purpose of this project, a new corpus of more contemporary Indian English was developed at the same time ICEIndia was being developed. The outcomes of this book are twofold. First, the book describes how aspects of current corpus linguistics research resulted in the production of a sophisticated research tool in the form of a corpus of contemporary Indian English with both spoken and written registers. This corpus draws from existing corpora such as ICE-India for its basic composition. Further, in addition

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Register Variation in Indian English

to representing certain registers of English that ICE-India does not, it also exists both in tagged and untagged forms, allowing for more sophisticated grammatical analyses. This corpus has been called the Corpus of Contemporary Indian English, or CCIE. Section 1.3.1. below describes how the CCIE was combined with certain sections of ICE India to yield a corpus for this project that better represents the range of settings and functions which English is used in India. The second and perhaps more important outcome of the book is that it provides the first systematic empirical investigation of the variation within a new variety of English. It provides a definitive outcome of the variation (both grammatical and lexical) in contemporary Indian English. In achieving the second outcome, it challenges the assumption that English in India (and by extension, any other international variety of English) is homogeneous. It shows definitively, that Indian English has gone beyond Schneider’s Phase 3 (Nativization), and has entered phases 4 and 5 in its developmental process. This, then, is a study of Indian English, “an analysis and description of language use, as realized in texts” (Tognini-Bonelli, 2001, p.2). 1.3.1 Combining CCIE with ICE-India In representing a national variety of English, a corpus tries to be as representative as possible by including wide range of registers (both spoken and written) as well as users of English. In a multilingual situation like India, this entails getting both as wide a representation of users from as many different parts of India as possible, in addition to as wide a range of uses (registers) as possible. With the obvious limitations of time and resources, many corpora tend to be somewhat opportunistic, using what material is available, with the result that the corpus is somewhat less representative of the national variety than might have been hoped for. This issue influenced both the structure of ICE-India as well as the CCIE. With ICE-India, for example, Professor Shastri, who was primarily responsible for compiling the corpus, mentions in the Overview released in 2002, that much of the non-professional writing was obtained entirely from two universities – both in the state of Maharashtra. This suggests that most texts were produced by writers from a certain language background. Further, he explains that texts for several other registers came primarily from Mumbai, again restricting the possible diversity in corpus contributors. The compilation of CCIE had similar restrictions, many of which are described in Chapter 3. Given the obvious limitations such opportunistic sampling placed on the structure of both corpora, for this sake of this project, sections of ICE are combined with the CCIE to produce a corpus that much better represents the range of variation within spoken and written Indian English. Chapter 3 provides a detailed description of both CCIE and the sections of ICE-India that were



Chapter 1.  Introduction

used in this project. No detailed description is provided in this book of ICE-India, as such a description is available elsewhere (Greenbaum, 1996). Tognini-Bonelli (2001) points out that the “issues of authenticity, representativeness and sampling will be with us for some time” (p. 62). In using a combination of the CCIE and ICE-India, however, this project is to address as many of these issues as possible. 1.4 English in India: Context for the book English was introduced to the Indian sub-continent during the second half of the eighteenth century, and was introduced into the Indian education system in Macaulay’s famous “minute” of 1835. Since then, it has become the language of the Indian education system, and has officially and unofficially assumed the position of lingua franca in the country. The language has since undergone “a process of Indianization in which it has developed a distinctive national character comparable to that of American or Australian English” (Jenkins, 2003, p. 7). The English used in India has long been the subject of inquiry from theoretical and sociolinguistic perspectives. Kachru, the most major proponent of Indian English, has for long advocated the recognition of how different the English used in India is from other varieties, and began studying in the 1960s what makes Indian English Indian. The focus of much of his work has been on establishing the Indianness of Indian English. Kachru pointed out in 1976, that studies of Indian English considered “linguistic interference and the Indian cultural context as essential for the understanding and description of the Indianness in this variety of English” (p. 5). Kachru (1997) explains that the study of English in countries like India has “motivated a three-way variety-specific set of distinctions; uses may be seen as innovations, deviations, and mistakes (errors)” (p.  71). He goes on to explain that innovations entail formal explanations, deviations have “comparative and contrastive implications,” and mistakes are “acquisitional deficiencies” (p.  71). Kachru stresses the importance of understanding these distinctions in order to appreciate the creativity of speakers of English from various traditionally non-native settings like India. These distinctions, he explains, are crucial to our understanding of the acculturation and nativization of English in these traditionally non-native settings, and to recognize the separate identities of the New Englishes. Indeed, as Schneider (2003) explains of any New English, “…choosing in-group specific language forms is a relatively simple and usually achievable goal, and thus a natural choice as a means of identity expression” (p. 240). It is a recognition and appreciation of this very identity that has been the focus of much scholarship on Indian English for several years. Kachru has for long stressed that in order for the English in India to be regarded as a variety in its own right (as opposed to a deviant form of the “real”

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Register Variation in Indian English

or “standard” variety), a study of its innovations is important. Since the 1960s, Kachru (and many others since; much of this research is discussed in Chapter 2) has provided us with lists of features he considers innovations of Indian English, or those features that he claims occur consistently across the English spoken on the sub-continent. Much of the work that currently exists on the Indian English follows the Kachruvian tradition and provides lists of characteristic features of the variety in order to establish its identity. To this end, much discussion has focused on establishing standards of an Indian variety of English. Researchers following in Kachru’s footsteps include Hosali (1991), Verma (1980), Shekar and Hegde (1993), Bansal (1976), Lukmani (1992), Mehrotra (1998), and Agnihotri and Khanna (1984), to name just a few. Nihalani et al.  (2004) state that “there are certain features of Englihs usage which are widespread in India, some of them being found virtually everywhere English is used in this country” (p.  3). In their work, they identify 1000 such features. While these researchers provide lists of features that characterize Indian English and are therefore, innovations, much of this research on Indian English, to date, remains largely unempirical. The Kolhapur corpus and ICE-India have provided data for a number of empirical studies on Indian English (Ramthirthakar (1987), Shingate (1986); and more recently, Sand (2004), Schneider (2004), Lange (2007), Nelson (2004); Mukherjee and Hoffman (2006), to name just a few); while these studies are certainly empirical, they still focus on certain isolated features of the language and have not yet attempted to capture the variation within it. Further, though researchers have recognized that the English spoken in India does differ with respect to a number of variables (register and region, to name just a couple), research thus far on Indian English has largely characterized it as being homogeneous. Verma (1980), for example, claims that certain features have become so well-established in the English spoken in India that they have become stable features of the language. Verma, however, provides no empirical evidence for this claim. As Sahgal and Agnihotri (1985) point out, “Verma claims that certain patterns have become so well established in IndE that they get passed on from, one generation to the next, acquiring the status of stable dialectal innovations. He also claims that these patterns differ systematically in a rule-governed way from the native varieties of English” (p. 117). Sahgal and Agnihotri, however, point out that “the frequency, with which educated Indians use these patterns in their actual behavior, is, however, an empirical question” (p. 117). This is one of the issues that this book attempts to address. Some researchers of Indian English have begun to acknowledge the variation within Indian English, and therefore, the need to study it. As Valentine points out (1997), “scholars show that within the context of cross-cultural communication, the



Chapter 1.  Introduction

most subtle linguistic cues ranging from the placement of stress, to the rhetorical structure of argument, to styles of involvement, can differ not only between language varieties, but within varieties of the same language as well” (p. 224). Kachru (1997) does explain of Indian English, that “The cover term Indian English does not mean there is complete homogeneity in the use of English in India, nor does it imply that all the Indian users of English have uniform proficiency in the understanding of and performance in English.” He claims that “The variation in Indian English may be explained basically on three parameters, namely those of region, ethnic group, and proficiency” (p. 6). Many studies have focused on regional and ethnic differences (for example, Sridhar, 1992), and proficiency (for example, Sharma, 2005); of the latter, one thinks of studies on Babu English and Butler English (Hosali, 1991), and Kitchen English (Kachru, 1976). Sridhar (1992), however, points out that with studies on Indian English which have taken regional or ethnic variation into account, “features that may be characteristic of only a particular regional variety have been discussed as though they represent all of Indian English” (p. 146). Bhatt (2000) also acknowledges the variation within Indian English by saying “At present, India is the third largest English-using nation (60 million) after the USA and the UK. As a result of over 200 years of contact with native Indian languages, English has become an Indian language, both in its structure and use. And like other natural languages, English in India displays a hierarchy of varieties – from standard (monitored) to vernacular (unmonitored).” (p. 72). While acknowledging such variation, Kachru (1997) and researchers of Indian English since have, however, still focused on the existence of a “standard variety of Indian English,” which “is used by those bilinguals who rank around the central point on the cline of bilingualism,” (p.7) i.e., people who constitute the “educated” Indians. To support this line of thought, Kachru explains that “it is worth emphasizing that in spite of variation of various types, the concept of homogeneity can easily be applied to the Indian English speech community. An Indian English speaker intuitively recognizes another Indian English speaker and also categorizes him as an “educated” speaker, or as one who does not come up to that standard. In India, then, the concept of a standard or educated Indian English is not as elusive as purists or cynics tend to believe” (p. 11).

(It would be necessary to note here, however, that much of this claim could be supported exclusively by accent, a fact that is not acknowledged). The assumed homogeneity of Indian English is also apparent when one reads researchers such as Jacob (1998) who claims about Indian English, that it “is important to distinguish between, on the one hand, the errors in Indian English that violate the norms of grammaticality and, on the other hand, deviations that are within the grammaticality and the comprehensibility range of the language” (p. 15). He goes on to provide a

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Register Variation in Indian English

list of just those deviations that are considered within the “grammaticality and comprehensibility range” (which would correspond with Kachru’s innovations). Most studies, similar to Jacob’s, have focused on describing the features of this educated (or as Dubey (1991) puts it, “normal” (p. 19)) Indian English variety of Indian English, irrespective of regional, ethnic, or any other differences. As Kachru admits then, “There is as yet no large-scale study of spoken or written South Asian English. Nor has any serious attempt been made to distinguish the features in terms of proficiency scale, the register-specificity of the features, and the distribution of grammatical features with reference to the regions” (1994, p. 518). Bailey points out that “Indian English has emerged as a self-perpetuating national variety, though one mainly used by Indians whose native language is not English. A minority tongue, and yet the language of national affairs, its status as a transplanted language continues to be called into question, not only by foreign visitors who bring outside ideas of proper English to bear in criticizing it, but also by Indians who remain ambivalent about its distinctive features” (1991, p. 145). Greenbaum echoes this point (1986) in D’Souza by saying, “no established and acknowledged standard dialect of say Indian or Nigerian English yet exists on which grammarians can draw for the data to be described in their grammars of the standard language. (p. 95 of D’Souza). Quirk (1988) also says “There is still no grammar, dictionary, or phonological description of non-native norms in Indian English… “(in Burchfield, 1994, p. 7). Leitner (1994), who empirically investigated certain features in Indian English, strongly argues that the differences between different varieties of English, or within the same national variety, are tied not only to regional or social differences, but also to text types within each variety: “…evidence presented suggests clear influences related to the parameter of text categories” (p. 119). It is clear that the study of Indian English has made progress in the last several years. As Sridhar (1992) puts it, “The study of Indian English (IE hereafter) has made major strides in the last quarter of a century, moving away from the prescriptivist paradigm (‘Indianisms’ or ‘common errors in IE’ approach) to what Kandiah (1991) has referred to as the ‘Kachruvian paradigm’ in which the distinctive characteristics of IE are viewed as natural, and necessary developments as a transplanted language is used to express a unique socio-cultural content” (p. 141). Given the natural variation in language, we now need to move away from this Kachruvian paradigm where certain features are just taken as a given, and determine what features actually occur, in what contexts they occur, how they vary with context, and how frequently they occur. The need for an empirical investigation of the variation in Indian English is provided by Schmied (1994) who is frank in his criticism of the existing research on Indian English:



Chapter 1.  Introduction

“In any article on IndE, we find the famous features lists. But, at least as far as syntax is concerned, these lists are usually short, giving only a few examples of ‘typical’ constructions and a general reference to tendencies. I do not want to bore you with more examples of this type, because one tends to wonder just how valid they are” (p. 220). 1.5 Outline of the book This book is divided into seven chapters. The rest of Part I (Chapter 2) is a literature review which provides a background for the project. It describes various methodologies employed in sociolinguistic analyses of language varieties thus far, and provides a rationale for using corpus linguistics methodology in this study. It then describes various studies (including those on Indian English) that have been conducted so far on different varieties of English. This section elaborates the importance of taking a register perspective for the study of language variation. Lastly, the literature review focuses specifically on previous research on Indian English. It describes the kinds of features studied in Indian English thus far, and summarizes claims made about the features characterizing Indian English. The chapter also provides a rationale for the grammatical and lexical features analyzed in this project. Part II of the book provides details of the methodology employed in the study. Chapter 3 first provides a detailed description of the corpus compiled for this project (the CCIE). It details the components of the corpus, and the methodology employed in the compilation of the corpus. Next, it outlines how the relevant sections of ICE-India were combined with the CCIE to result in a corpus that is more representative of the range of variation within Indian English. Finally, it details the methodology employed in each linguistic analysis. It begins by providing a list of the lexical and grammatical features, and provides a rationale for the investigation of the features. Next, it provides a detailed description of each of the linguistic features and their treatment in the analyses. Part III, which comprises Chapters 4, 5, and 6, constitutes the heart of the study. Chapter 4 outlines the results obtained from the analyses of both grammatical and lexical features in this project. It presents results first for Indian English as a whole, and then separately for spoken and written Indian English. This chapter is a foundation for Chapters 5 and 6, where variation in Indian English is explained in terms of the different registers in the corpus. Chapter 5 provides a detailed account of register variation with respect to lexical features. It provides results in terms of differences between registers for each lexical feature studied.

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Register Variation in Indian English

Chapter 6 provides a detailed account of register variation with respect to grammatical features. It provides results in terms of differences between registers for each grammatical feature studied. Finally, Chapter 7 discusses the results obtained in chapters 5 and 6, and draws conclusions about variation in Indian English. It also draws attention to limitations of the current study, and makes recommendations for future studies.

chapter 2

Literature review The following literature review includes a historical account of various methodologies employed in sociolinguistic analyses of language varieties thus far, and provides a rationale for using the current methodology (corpus linguistics). The review elaborates on the importance of adopting a register perspective for the study of language variation. It then describes various studies (including those on Indian English) that have been conducted so far on different varieties of English. Finally, the literature review focuses specifically on previous research on Indian English. It describes the kinds of features studied in Indian English thus far, and summarizes claims made about the features characterizing Indian English. This final section of the chapter also provides a rationale for the grammatical and lexical features analyzed in this project. 2.0 Introduction Variation in language has been accepted as a norm for many years now, and has been the primary interest of dialectologists. It has been widely recognized that languages vary depending on a number of non-linguistic factors. Some of these factors are differences in the region or social class the person speaking the language belongs to, while others include differences in the speaker’s purpose for communicating, and the relationship between the producer of the language and the recipient. Dialectology, according to Chambers and Trudgill (1998) is the “study of dialect and dialects,” (p.  3) and dialectologists have spent much time studying regional and social dialects. Biber (1995) explains that “analysis of the systematic patterns of variation… has led to the recognition of two main kinds of language varieties: registers, referring to situationally defined varieties, and dialects, referring to varieties with different groups of speakers” (p. 1). Today, then, dialectologists have expanded their definition of dialectology, which focuses on the study of regional and social dialects as well as the study of situational dialects or registers. The first part of this literature review will describe the major methodologies for conducting dialect research, and compare and contrast these different methodologies. Three major methodologies will be discussed; these include regional studies of dialect, sociolinguistic studies of dialect, and corpus linguistic studies of dialect. The

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Register Variation in Indian English

characteristics of each of these methodologies are outlined in Appendix 1. Included in the table in Appendix 1 are examples of studies employing these methodologies, as well as information on the strengths and weaknesses of all the methodologies. The next part of the literature review describes various national and new varieties of English that have been studied, and examines the kinds of features that have been examined thus far. It also focuses on the non-corpus-based methodologies employed in these studies. A summary of the studies of different national varieties of English is provided in Appendix 2. The next section of the literature review focuses on studies employing corpus linguistics methodology. This section concludes with a Table which provides an overview of several corpus based studies. The final part of this literature review focuses specifically on the study of Indian English. Different grammatical and lexical features identified in Indian English are described. 2.1 Methodologies employed in dialect studies This section outlines the three major methodologies employed in dialect research. These include regional dialectology, social dialectology, and corpus linguistics. Each of these methodologies is discussed with their strengths and weaknesses. 2.1.1 Regional and Social Dialectology Two main kinds of dialects that have long been recognized by linguists are geographic dialects and social dialects, and the methodologies for studying these kinds of dialects will be discussed first. This is followed by a brief discussion of the similarities and differences between these methodologies. 2.1.1.1 Regional Dialectology Regional dialectology, also called dialect geography, according to Chambers and Trudgill (1998), is defined as “a methodology or (more accurately) a set of methods for gathering evidence of dialect differences systematically” (p. 14). The first study of dialect geography was conducted more than a hundred years ago (Chambers & Trudgill, 1998; Linn, 1998). This study, conducted in Germany in 1876 by George Wenker, involved “sending a list of sentences written in standard German to schoolmasters in the north of Germany and asking them to return the list transcribed into the local dialect” (Chambers & Trudgill, 1998, p. 15). Wenker sent out an astounding 50,000 surveys, and perhaps more astoundingly, got back 45,000 of them. He plotted some of his findings on a map of Germany, producing the first dialect map of its kind. Since Wenker’s results depended on the “varying abilities



Chapter 2.  Literature review

of schoolmasters to translate High German sentences into dialectal ones” (Linn, 1998, p. 6), his method was not considered very reliable. His methodology was improved slightly in the second dialect geography study, one conducted by Jules Gillieron, in France. While continuing to use the questionnaire as a tool to gather data, he sent trained field workers out with the questionnaires so as not to have to rely on the varying abilities of his informants. This time, the result of Gillieron’s efforts was the Atlas linguistique de la France. Since then, according to Trudgill (1974), numerous European and American atlases have been produced using the methodology pioneered by Wenker and Gillieron. The methodology of using surveys and questionnaires to produce atlases of geographic dialects continues today in America and the United Kingdom. Given the vastness of the United States, several dialect atlases have been produced, and several are still under production. These include the Linguistic Atlas of New England, in 1939; the Linguistic Atlas of the North Central States, begun in the late 1930s; A World Geography of the Eastern United States, in 1949, and the Linguistic Atlas of the Middle and South Atlantic States, in 1980, to name just a few. Two more recent and on-going projects are DARE, the Dictionary of American Regional English; and The Atlas of North American English (Labov, Ash, & Boberg 2006). Chambers and Trudgill (1998) state that using DARE, “we can derive a reliable general picture of the regional dialects of the United States” (p. 16). Typically, the informants for studies of regional geography included rural populations of nonmobile, older males, or NORMS, as Chambers and Trudgill refer to them. Mesthrie, Swann, Deumert, & Leap (2000) provide a concise outline of the procedures employed in traditional dialectology. These are summarized below: a. A pilot study to determine what area is to be covered, and what linguistic features of interest might be investigated. b. The geographic area to be covered is decided upon. c. A list of linguistic items to be investigated is drawn up in the form of a questionnaire. d. Fieldwork - either in the form of sending out questionnaires in the mail, or sending out trained field workers, is conducted. e. Data is analyzed, and maps and lists are produced. 2.1.1.2 Strengths and weaknesses of regional dialectology All the studies discussed so far are studies in traditional dialectology, which, according to Labov (1998), “takes as a primary task, the location of dialect boundaries and the explanation of these locations” (p. 40). Studies in dialect geography are very useful in pointing out, at a glance, possible directions of language change. The criticisms of dialect geography, however, are manifold. First, it has been pointed out that the “main focus of traditional surveys fell on bits of language, rather than of speakers of

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Register Variation in Indian English

a language” (Mesthrie, Swann, Deumert, & Leap, 2000, p. 61). Further, the result of a study in regional dialectology is a dialect map, which “is merely a static representation of a phenomenon whose most salient characteristic is its fluidity” (Carver, 1998, p. 25). Another disadvantage of this methodology is that traditional dialect studies focused largely on phonological and lexical differences between dialect areas. Though they attempt to describe the dialect of a region, the results of studies on dialect geography cannot give us “definitive descriptions of regional dialects… because such a description is impossible” (Carver, 1998, p. 25). As Chambers and Trudgill (1998) explain, this impossibility comes from the fact that the population surveyed by dialect geography was not representative – “The classic works of dialect geography recorded the speech of NORMS faithfully and in a sense enshrined it, but it is likely that the future of dialect studies will have to be directed towards more representative populations” (p. 30). Sociolinguists attempted to address this issue. 2.1.2 Sociolinguistic studies While dialect studies described thus far have focused on geographic dialects and how language varies regionally, with the development of sociolinguistics came the interest in social dialects, and a new methodology. Linn (1998) explains that “while regional dialectology is concerned with how language varies regionally, sociolinguistics is primarily concerned with accent or dialect as a marker of an individual membership in a particular social group…” (p. 2). Labov states that “the validity and social significance of the basic dialect areas so defined… can hardly be disputed” (1998, p. 40). Acknowledging this, however, Labov goes on to explain that “the list of differences between dialects” that traditional dialect studies produce, “has a miscellaneous character with little relation to phonological or grammatical theory” (1998, p. 40). This occurred because in the dialectology studies conducted so far, the “spatial dimension of linguistic variation had been concentrated to the exclusion of the social dimension” (Chambers & Trudgill, 1998, p.  45). Labov maintained that dialectology had to be concerned with “correlating linguistic variability” (Chambers, 1998a, p. 271) with social factors such as the age, gender, social class, etc. of the speakers, and it had not achieved this in the studies conducted so far. As Mesthrie, Swann, Deumert, & Leap (2000) explain it, “Researchers had certainly been aware of linguistic distinctions of a social nature within a region, but had not developed systematic ways of describing them” (p. 76). (Labov’s New York City study, though not the first of its kind (Louie Gauchat, in 1905, “broke the conventions of traditional dialectology by correlating linguistic variability with the sex and age of the individual informants, prefiguring at least sociolinguistic network studies” (Chambers, 1998a, p. 271)), has been so influential that it is undoubtedly considered the fountainhead of studies in social



Chapter 2.  Literature review 

dialectology). Following this monumental study, there have been numerous studies that have used the methodology. Some notable ones include Trudgill’s (1974) studies of Norwich English and Labov’s (1963) study of language variation and change in Martha’s Vineyard. With such studies, then, the central concern of dialectologists became the correlation of linguistic variation with social differences. Mesthrie, Swann, Deumert, & Leap (2000) provide an outline of the basic methods employed by social dialect studies. These are summarized below: a. The linguistic features that vary in a community are identified. These are the dependent variables. b. A suitable sample of people from the community is chosen, and data is gathered. c. The data is gathered so as to represent both informal continuous speech and formal speech (such as that obtained by asking someone to read a passage aloud). d. The data is analyzed, and frequencies of each linguistic feature being examined are noted. e. Relevant social factors, such as age, gender, social class, etc. are selected. These are the independent variables. f. Correlations between the dependent and independent variables are determined. 2.1.2.1 Strengths of sociolinguistic dialect studies One of the most major contributions of sociolinguistic studies to the field of dialectology was the idea that variation in language is not random. Prior to sociolinguistic studies, studies on language variation were based on the premise that variation in language was “free,” i.e., the “random use of alternate forms within a particular dialect” (Mesthrie, Swann, Deumert, & Leap, 2000, p. 77). With Labov, however, came the argument that language variation was far from random, that language variation involved “structured heterogeneity” (Mesthrie, Swann, Deumert, & Leap, 2000, p. 77). 2.1.3 Similarities and differences between regional dialectology and social dialectology. The review so far has focused on two main methodologies employed for the study of dialects. In this section, I briefly outline their main similarities and differences. The main difference between regional and social dialectology studies is that while regional dialectology does not correlate linguistic variation with non-linguistic variables other than region, social dialectology demonstrates how “the analysis of variable data proceeds and what its correlations with independent variables reveal” (Chambers, 1998a, p. 271). Regional dialect studies result in maps that demonstrate dialect differences, usually phonological or lexical, entirely based on different regions. The sample population, as mentioned earlier, typically consisted of a fairly uniform group of NORMS – non-mobile, older, rural males. With the influence of

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Register Variation in Indian English

sociolinguistics on the study of dialects, however, social dialectology moved on to studying language variation in a social context. The population of informants, therefore, changed drastically, to a population that would more accurately reflect the language of the area being studied. As explained in Mesthrie, Swann, Deumert, & Leap (2000), “Labov developed an empirical approach to the study of language that involved careful sampling of populations to ensure representativeness, fieldwork methods designed to elicit a range of styles from the least to the most formal, and analytic techniques based on the concept of the linguistic variable” (p.  84). With sociolinguistics and the study of social dialectology came the idea that “Socially significant linguistic variation requires correlation: the dependent (linguistic variable) must change when some independent variable changes” and “the change must be orderly: the dependent variable must stratify the subjects in ways that are socially or stylistically coherent” (Chambers, 1998a, p. 280). The results of sociolinguistic studies on language variation, therefore, include accounts of how language varies depending on social factors, whatever they are. A similarity of both traditional dialectology studies and sociolinguistic studies is that both methodologies use as their starting point the linguistic variable, defined by Wolfram (1998) as being “made up of a class of variants – varying items that exist in a structurally defined set of some type” (p. 287). Thus with early dialectology studies like Wenker’s, some of the linguistic variables included variants of lexical items such as ‘winter,’ ‘leaves,’ and ‘fly.’ In Trudgill’s sociolinguistic study, the linguistic variable was /in/ vs. /ing/, and in Labov’s New York City study, the linguistic variable was the investigation of the variable pronunciation of postvocalic /r/. Of early studies of language variation, both regional and social, Wolfram explains that “the definition of the linguistic variable… was largely motivated by the desire to reveal the most clear-cut pattern of social and linguistic co-variation” (1998, p. 288). Both traditional dialect studies and sociolinguistic studies of language variation, therefore, identified their linguistic variables prior to data collection. Despite the fact that prior to the development of corpus linguistics, dialect studies using one of the two methodologies outlined above were criticized for a number of reasons (Oostdijk, 1991), they did have their strengths. Geographic dialect studies provided (and continue to provide) information of directions of language change; they also provide information at a glance on different dialects in a region. Sociolinguistic dialect studies took the field of dialectology to a new level in correlating the variability in language to non-linguistic factors. Sociolinguistic studies have given us information on social dialects; they have also shown that linguistic variation is not free, that it is constrained by social factors. Having discussed these



Chapter 2.  Literature review 

two methodologies in some detail, I now turn my attention to a third methodology1 that is now being increasingly used for the study of dialects, Corpus Linguistics. 2.1.4 Corpus linguistics2 and dialectology: the study of register So far, this review has focused on the study of one kind of variety: the dialect. According to Biber, however, there is another, perhaps more important kind of variety to study, the register. Biber (1995) explains that “Although linguistic differences among geographic and social dialects have been more extensively studied, it turns out that the linguistic differences among registers within a language are in many ways more noteworthy” (p. 1–2). He goes on to say that “given the ubiquity of register variation, analysis of the linguistic patterns across registers is of central importance for… linguistic descriptions of particular languages” (p. 5). To provide a thorough linguistic description of a variety, therefore, it is important to study registers of that variety – i.e., to study the variation within the dialect. Such study of register was missing in the earlier methodologies of dialectology discussed so far. The study of registers to provide descriptions of and variation within language varieties is the central concern of Corpus Linguistics in the study of dialect. Oostdijk (1991) comments that “corpus linguistics stands out from other branches of linguistics mainly because of its methodology” (p.  1). She adds that “corpus linguistics today must be characterized as a formalized approach to descriptive linguistics” (p. 3). Of central concern to this study, then, is how Corpus Linguistics methodology can be successfully used to study language variation that was so far undertaken by methodologies very different from that of Corpus Linguistics. Oostdijk (1991) explains that language variation can be efficiently carried out by corpus linguistics because with corpora, linguists are “very well equipped to carry out large-scale, formal empirical analyses which enable them to systematically vary extralinguistic features and examine the accompanying linguistic variation” (p. 20). Corpus linguistics achieves this sort of analysis by studying register variation. The study of register variation (not necessarily under the auspices of corpus linguistics) is not new. As Biber (1995) explains, this interest in register analysis can be traced back to “the merging of situational, social, and linguistic descriptions” (p. 6) by anthropological linguists like Boas, Sapir, Wharf, and Bloomfield. A little later, in the 1950s and 1960s, Charles Ferguson contributed to the field his well known studies on registers like baby talk and sports announcer talk. Over the last 1.. For more on the methodologies used for dialect studies, see Bailey, Wickle, & Tillery, 1998. 2.. The CL methodology discussed here focuses just on synchronic studies of language variation. For an account of corpus linguistic studies of diachronic variation, see accounts of the Helsinki Corpus.



Register Variation in Indian English

two decades, however, the interest in register studies has increased. As Chambers & Trudgill (1998) explain, this interest could be due to technological developments the world has seen. Atkinson & Biber (1994) studied and categorized register studies into four major groups. These major categories and examples of studies in each category are provided below. a. Synchronic descriptions of a single register (Ferguson, 1985; Janda, 1985) b. Diachronic descriptions tracing the evolution of a single register (Atkinson, 1991) c. Synchronic descriptions of the patterns of variation among multiple registers i. Differences between multiple registers – with a single situational parameter taken into account (Tannen, 1982) ii. Differences between multiple registers differing along multiple non-linguistic parameters (Biber, 1988; Biber & Finegan, 1989) d. Diachronic descriptions tracing changes in the patterns of variation among multiple registers (Merkestein, 1998) The use of corpus linguistics methodology to study variation within dialect by studying register variation is perhaps best exemplified by Biber (1988), who strongly advocated its use. Biber argued that using corpus linguistics methodology would allow a researcher to provide a linguistic analysis of the whole range of spoken and written registers in English, something that dialectologists had hitherto not done. As Biber & Finegan (1991) explain, such studies are significant in that they analyze particular constructions in naturally occurring discourse rather than made-up sentences” (p. 209). Biber (1993) claims that “the use of computer-based corpora provides a solid empirical foundation for general purpose language tools and descriptions, and enables analyses of a scope not otherwise possible” (p. 377). Biber (1990) also claims that “corpus-based analyses of linguistic variation have provided fresh insights into previously intractable issues” (p. 257). Biber, with his Multi-feature/Multidimensional approach, fully exploits corpora as a resource in the study of language variation. As Biber & Finegan (1991) explain, the goal of the Multidimensional approach is the “linguistic analysis of texts and text types, and of styles or register, rather than of individual linguistic constructions” (p. 210). Biber (1995) explains that one of the main motivations for the use of the Multidimensional approach is that “no single linguistic parameter is adequate in itself to capture the range of similarities and differences among spoken and written registers. The approach thus requires analysis of numerous spoken and written registers with respect to numerous linguistic features” (p. 19). Aside from the studies by Biber (1988, 1995) on the differences between speech and writing, which focus on differences between multiple registers differing along multiple non-linguistic parameters, most dialect studies using corpus linguistics



Chapter 2.  Literature review 

methodology to date have focused on isolated linguistic features within one or two registers; these linguistic features studied have then been regarded as markers of the variety being studied. Studies, such as Peters’ (1998) study on Australian English, Schmied’s (1994) study on Indian English, Bauer’s (1989) study on New Zealand English, and de Ersson and Shaw’s (2003) study of complementation patterns in Indian English, are but a few examples. These studies share commonalties with earlier studies on dialectology (both regional and social) in that a body of data is examined for the occurrence/patterns of occurrence of a few linguistic features. The major difference is that with the earlier studies, the data was collected after the variable being examined was decided upon. With corpus-based studies, on the other hand, the features were examined in an existing corpus. While making use of a larger body of data than earlier studies on traditional dialectology, studies like these unfortunately come no closer to understanding the complexity of language variation. Biber & Finegan (1991) note, that despite the availability of corpora for studies on language variation, “few studies have exploited the corpora to analyze the characteristics of texts…” (p. 209). 2.1.4.1 Corpus linguistics and representativeness Oostdijk (1991) recognizes that while language corpora so far have not been used to their full potential in investigating language variation, corpus linguistics can provide a powerful tool for the study of linguistic variation, given that a corpus, unlike data used in previous studies on language variation, provides “ample quantitative data... about the frequency of occurrence of syntactic structures” (p. 29). Biber (1993) characterizes the need to use language corpora in the study of dialect cogently: “if dialectology is the study of variation in language, researchers require language samples that are representative in the sense that they include the full range of linguistic variation existing in a language” (Biber, 1993, p. 386). Further, Biber & Finegan (1991) explain that by assuming a variationist perspective, corpus linguistics methodology “recognizes that different types of text differ linguistically and regards analysis of any one to two text types as an inadequate basis for conclusions concerning a discourse domain” (p. 210). This issue of accurately representing a dialect in the data, therefore, is of central concern to dialectologists, and the current section briefly focuses on it. Biber (1994) explains that “Representativeness refers to the extent to which a sample includes the full range of variability in a population” (p. 378). “An assessment of this representativeness thus depends on a prior full definition of the ‘population’ that the sample is intended to represent, and the techniques used to select the sample from that population” (p. 378). Unlike the earlier methodologies for dialect studies, corpus linguistics takes, as its starting point, an empirical investigation of exactly what needs to be collected – just what the data needs to represent. In the



Register Variation in Indian English

case of a variety study, if the corpus should represent an entire variety, Biber (1993) describes the “cyclical fashion” in which the investigation proceeds (p. 400): pilot empirical →→→ corpus design →→→ compile portion of corpus →→ empirical investigation/theoretical investigation This cyclical fashion of investigation, data collection, investigation, and revision of corpus design if necessary, sets this methodology apart from other earlier methodologies in that it achieves a sample of language that more closely represents what the study is investigating than do the other earlier methodologies. While Corpus Linguistics methodology has been criticized (Oostdijk, 1991) as not being suitable for conducting variety studies because of the nature of the corpus constructed, Biber (1990) addresses the issues of how to make a corpus “suitable” for the study of linguistic variation. His paper includes an empirical investigation of issues such as: (a) how many texts are needed within each genre category, and the validity of these genre categories; (b) how many texts are necessary in a corpus to adequately identify the parameters of linguistic variation among texts; and (c) “how much of a cross section is required to identify and analyze the salient parameters of variation among texts” (p. 379). He concludes that existing corpora are indeed suitable for the study of linguistic variation, and further, the construction of future corpora is greatly aided by current research on corpus construction. 2.1.4.2 Strengths and weaknesses of corpus linguistics as a methodology to study dialect From the previous discussion of corpus linguistics methodology, it is obvious that this is a powerful methodology with which to study dialect. One of the major advantages it has over the two other methodologies employed is the large volume of data it provides, and its reliance on computers. As Kretzschmar, Schneider, & Johnson state (1989), The development of dialect studies, whether geographical or sociolinguistic, has always been hampered by a superfluity of data… Even smaller surveys have had to settle for selective analysis of their data because the wealth of possibilities for analysis overran the editors’ time and the human capacity for holding in mind only so much information at once. Computers can help overcome these problems: they are wonderful tools for quickly sorting and matching pieces of information and for performing complex calculations on the results, and these days, they are practically unlimited in their ability to store data.

Another advantage corpus linguistics provides is the nature of the data itself. Svartvik (1991) explains that “To students of language variation, dialect, register, and style, samples of different areas of language use are necessary for attesting the wide repertoire of uses to which a language is put.” This concerns the issue of representa-



Chapter 2.  Literature review 

tiveness, which was dealt with earlier. While in regional dialect studies the dialect is represented in the form of a specific group of informants’ responses to items on a questionnaire, and sociolinguistic dialectology studies represent language by interviewing a specific group of informants on different subjects, corpus linguistics uses a more sophisticated approach to the representation of the dialect being studied. While corpus linguistics has allowed us to “come a long way from the examination of co-variation between simple descriptive tabulations of linguistic variants and various isolated demographic characteristics of subjects” (Wolfram, 1998, p. 292), there are disadvantages to the methodology. For one, it relies very heavily on the use of sophisticated technology, which is not always easy to access. The methodology also necessitates specialized knowledge of technology, knowledge that is not always available to researchers. Another drawback of the methodology, as it currently exists, is that it usually does not account for phonological variation, which is the subject of numerous variation studies. An ideal methodology for a dialect researcher today, then, would be corpus linguistic methodology with some of the strengths of the other methodologies incorporated into it. It is, however, the “wave of the future in variation studies” (Wolfram, 1998, p. 298). Thus far, the literature review has focused on the different approaches for studying dialects and variation in language. The following section focuses on different national varieties of English that have been studied so far, and the methodologies employed in their study. 2.2 Variety studies today To date, numerous studies have been conducted on the different New Varieties of English. British and American English have been studied in detail; the studies have resulted in descriptions of variation in a range of spoken and written registers. The study of other national varieties, however, has been less detailed, and has usually focused on the study of a single linguistic feature in a single register. By and large, phonological studies are the most common, followed by studies on lexical features. The study of national varieties of English falls into three broad categories, based on the methodology (with specific reference to the nature of the data in the study) employed. These kinds of studies can be categorized as Illustrative or Impressionistic studies, Empirical studies, and Corpus Based studies. Appendix 2 provides an overview of the first two categories of studies conducted on different varieties of English. Appendix 2 also provides information on the linguistic feature examined, whether the study contrasted the national variety being studied with either British or American English, and whether the study used a register-based approach in its



Register Variation in Indian English

analysis. Table i following Section 2.2.3. below provides an overview of several corpus based studies of different national dialects conducted to date. 2.2.1 Illustrative/Impressionistic studies First, there is the group of studies for which the methodology makes no specific mention of the nature of the data used. These studies provide example sentences of the feature(s) being examined. The authors usually do not mention the source of the examples they use as illustrations. Some studies contrast the patterns of occurrence of these features with their patterns of occurrence in British or American English, while others do not. Some examples of studies in this category include Verma (1980) on Indian English, Hosali (1992) on Indian English, Trudgill & Hannah (1982) on International Englishes as a whole, Watermeyer (1996) of Afrikaans English, Henry (1995) on Belfast, and English Schmied (1996) on the English in Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi, to mention just a few. More examples are provided in Appendix 2. The linguistic features examined in such studies include phonological, lexical, and syntactic features, although studies on phonological and lexical features were far more common than those on syntactic features. With regard to the authors’ motivation for choosing certain features, most authors claim to make the choice based on previous literature. The choices are also made based on people’s perceptions of what “typically” occurs in these different national varieties of English. The results of such studies, then, are typically lists of features that are said to characterize different national varieties of English. Such “features lists” (Schmied, 1994) are available in works of authority such as Crystal (1995), and serve as a starting point for further research on the different national varieties. 2.2.2 Empirical/Data-based studies The second type of study represented in the literature on different national varieties of English includes those that are empirical, and in which the data was compiled specifically for the purpose of the study. Data usually comes in the forms of questionnaires given to respondents or sociolinguistic interviews. Once again, as with the previous group of studies, the motivation for the examination of certain features comes from previous literature on the particular variety in question. Examples of studies in this group include Kallen (1997) on Irish English, Newbrook (1997) on Malaysian English, and Craig (1997) on the English of West Indian university students. Other examples are provided in Appendix 2. Several of these studies are contrastive in nature, contrasting the patterns of occurrence of the features under examination with their patterns of occurrence in British or American English. In this case, the authors usually used an authority on “standard” English, such as Quirk



Chapter 2.  Literature review 

et al. (1985) to note patterns of occurrence of the features in “standard” English. Further, they supplemented their data with responses (usually in the form of grammaticality judgment exercises) from informants. Some studies used only surveys as their data source, such as the study of Canadian English by Woods (1993), which used data from the “urban socio-dialectology survey of Ottawa” (p. 151). The features examined in these studies, similar to those in the previous group, were again mainly determined by previous research. Features included phonological, lexical, and syntactic features. As with the previous group of studies, once again, studies on phonological and lexical features were far more common than those on syntactic features. The studies in this group also provide a researcher on language varieties with a starting point for further research. The authors of these studies usually examined one register, and outlined features that were characteristically present in that register. A natural direction for future research, then, is an examination of a larger sample of language, one that is more representative of the national variety under study to examine the patterns of occurrence of the features mentioned by the authors of the studies in this group. 2.2.3 Corpus-based studies The last group of studies is those whose results are based on an analysis of an existing corpus of the national variety. Several of these studies draw from the relevant sections of the International Corpus of English (Greenbaum, 1996) for their analyses. Others rely on existing corpora of their national variety, like the corpus of Australian English, and the corpus of New Zealand English. Examples of such studies include those by Banjo (1997) on syntactic features of Nigerian English, and Schmied’s (1994) study on syntactic features of Indian English. Other studies include those by Starks, Christie, and Thompson (2007) on Niuean English; Nelson (2004) on the negation of the lexical have in conversational English in five different national varieties. Interestingly, even though these studies make use of Corpus Linguistics methodology, they are similar to those in the previous group in that they do not include, as part of the investigation, a register analysis. Often, there is no information on which part of the corpus the examples the authors use as illustrations come from. Where the source of examples is mentioned, I noted that most of the examples came from a single register (such as fiction), making these studies similar to those discussed in the previous group. Table i below provides an overview of several corpus based studies that have been conducted thus far on different national varieties of English.

To examine the variation in linguistic features across speech and writing. Uses a Multidimensional approach To analyze the Kolhapur Corpus for patterns of occurrence of a few grammatical features A contrastive study To examine the patterns of occurrence of six grammatical features in the Kolhapur Corpus of Indian English. A contrastive study, contrasting patterns of occurrence of the features examined in Kolhapur Corpus results, compared with patterns of occurrence of the features in “native varieties” To examine the status of the subjunctive and its manifestation in subordinate clauses in Australian English, contrasted with British and American English

British and American English Biber, 1988

Indian English, Leitner, 1991

Indian English, Schmied, 1994

Australian English, Peters, 1998

Purpose of study

Table i.  Corpus Based Investigations of New Varieties of English

Corpus-based investigations

Subjunctive in subordinatae clauses

Sentence complexity Verb order in questions Invariant tag – isn’t it? Progressive forms of stative verbs Use of articles Relative constructions

The subjunctive Complex prepositions Modal verbs

63 different linguistic features

Linguistic feature

Australian ACE corpus. Contrastive with British LOB and American Brown Not a register study, although only written registers were examined

The Kolhapur Corpus of Indian English Register differences not investigated

The Kolhapur Corpus of Indian English Register differences not investigated

Data

 Register Variation in Indian English

Corpus-based investigations

Relative clauses

Definite article the; indefinite article a/an

To provide a description of the relative clause system in HKE and to show that it is different from the system in either Cantonese Eng or Standard Eng. Therefore, to show that HK English is an independent variety of English. To determine the use of the and a/an in various ICE corpora and contrast their use in different native varieties like British or New Zealand English

Hong Kong English Gisborne, 2000

Different contact varieties of English, Sand, 2004

The uses of “out” versus “out of ” in written and spoken sections of the corpora of the two varieties under study

To study the use of “out” vs. “out of ” in British and American English (both written and spoken)

British and American English Estling, 1999

Pick vs. pick up Fill a form vs. fill in a form Vicious cycle vs. vicious circle Overlisten vs. overhear Use of “thank you” Use of lexical items such as “second husband”

To examine features considered typical of Kenyan English and compare these to the features identified by a corpus analysis.

Linguistic feature

Kenyan English, Skandera, 1999

Purpose of study

Different section of ICE

Report on work of other scholars with some examples from ICE Hong Kong. No mention of which registers of ICE the examples come from.

Parts of COBUILD Direct Parts of the BNC The New York Times – CD The Independent – CD Not a register study

Written section of ICE – Kenya, elicitation tests (questionnaires), introspective knowledge of ten Kenyan speakers from different ethnic backgrounds Contrastive with British English

Data

Chapter 2.  Literature review 

Corpus-based investigations

To apply the principles of language transfer and discourse universals to the use of articles in Indian English To provide a description of the semantics of the modals can, could, may, and might in three parallel corpora

To determine the syntactic and semantic uses of the focus markers itself and only in registers of Indian English To investigate the effect on external non linguistic variables such as speaker age and sex on the use of quotatives To determine status of variable agreement as a vernacular universal in Quebec English

Indian English, Sharma, 2005a

British, American, Australian English, Collins, 2007

Indian English, Lange, 2007

American English, Barbieri, 2007

Quebec English, Walker, 2007

Purpose of study

ICE India

2.5 million word American English Conversation component of Longman Spoken and Written English corpus Quebec City component of Quebec English Corpus; register differences not investigated

Quotatives be like, be all, and say

Existential there

British and Australian ICE sections; specially compiled American corpus

12 sociolinguistic interviews; not a register study

Data

Focus markers only and itself

Modals

Articles; the use or absence of articles in different linguistic environments

Linguistic feature

 Register Variation in Indian English



Chapter 2.  Literature review 

2.3 Treatment of varieties in variety studies: Representation of variety being examined and Implications Having dealt with the nature of the studies on language variation and language varieties to some extent, I now turn to the treatment of the different national varieties by the researchers studying them. An examination of many variety studies (even the corpus-based ones) reveals that by and large, researchers seem to regard language (the variety they are studying) as homogeneous. However, as Oostdijk (1991) and others point out, “It is a well known fact that a language is not a homogeneous phenomenon, but rather a complex of many different varieties.” In the studies of these varieties, however, as Chambers and Trudgill (1998) show, researchers have “started on the assumption that variability in language is unmanageable, or uninteresting, or both” (p. 21). Such an assumption has led to certain attitudes towards the new varieties of English. These are discussed below. Following this is a section calling for a re-assessment of the methodology used to study varieties of English, and a re-evaluation of the term “standard” as it has been applied to the new varieties of English. Most researchers, by ignoring the inherent variation within their national variety, have failed to provide a guide to the underlying system. Crystal (1995) explains that Several researchers have now assiduously collected samples from their individual countries, and identified differences from Standard British or American English. They have compiled lists of distinctive words and idioms, and noted points of local usage in grammar and pronunciation. Sometimes the projects have also investigated local patterns of spoken or written discourse, such as the way linguistic distinctiveness emerges in a national literature. But in almost all cases, the point remains stubbornly intranational. The authors are usually mother-tongue inhabitants or long term residents of the country they are studying. Their accounts tend to be impressionistic or based on few speakers. They are thus guides to individual performance, and there is no way of knowing whether a work encountered is a casual error or a stable feature of usage. Nor is it always clear whether what has been observed is also to be found in other territories. As a result, varieties are being postulated for individual countries which may turn out to be chimerical. (p. 360)

With the vast amount of literature on different varieties, the lack of empirical investigations of the entire variety of English spoken in a country, and the fact that the field has so far provided us with little more than lists of features that characterize the variety, is surprising. As Quirk points out, “No one would quarrel with any of this provided there was agreement within each country that it was true, or even that there was a determined policy to make it true. So far as I can see, neither of these conditions obtains…” (in Graddol, Leith, & Swann, 1996, p. 38). This lack of empiricism in the

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Register Variation in Indian English

study of national varieties of English has led to views such as those held about Kenyan English, that it is merely a result of “the increasing failure of the education system,” and not “real African English” (Graddol, Leith & Swann, 1996, p. 38). Attitudes such as these largely stem from the fact that, as mentioned above, in most of the studies reviewed, people have characterized their national variety as being a homogeneous standard national variety, or have advocated for its recognition as a standard national variety based on the existence of certain features (grammatical, phonological, and lexical) – usually presented in the form of a list of features. As Skandera (1999) puts it, “Despite the growing interest in the New Englishes, systematic research into the features of many of these varieties is still lacking” (p.  217). With the development of corpora, and in particular, the ICE corpus, scholarship on different emerging national varieties of English has progressed and needs to continue progressing. Algeo’s (1989) “masterly demonstration of how subtle but nevertheless consistent and unavoidably conspicuous the differences are: in terms of lexical choice, mode of expression, choice between structurally equivalent alternatives, and the like, each variety has its own distinct preferences, and speakers of one variety typically rate the expressions used by the other as certainly not wrong but somehow odd and alien, simply not the way they would express things themselves” (quoted in Schnieder, 2004, p.  228) has been taken to a different level with empirical investigations of the linguistic characteristics of the different national varieties. 2.4 Situating the study of Indian English I would now like to situate the present study on Indian English into this larger realm of studies on new varieties of English. Indian English, along with other varieties, has been called various terms: non-native variety, “extraterritorial” variety, and “New” variety. As with all the other national varieties reviewed and discussed in this chapter, a lot of research has gone into identifying features of Indian English. Further, as with the other varieties, researchers have advocated the recognition of a “standard” variety of Indian English. The arguments for the acceptance of a distinctly different Indian variety of English are not purely linguistic. Verma’s (1980) position on Indian English is that it is used as “a vehicle of Indian culture to express culturally determined networks of activities that are typically Indian; for example, the social stratification in India, the caste systems, and a complex network of personal and societal faiths and beliefs” (p. 178). As with researchers of other national varieties, Verma has talked of “standard” Indian English: “We must note that English does not necessarily mean British English or American English. There are a number of standard Englishes,



Chapter 2.  Literature review

for there are several English speaking countries in each of which there is a standard English peculiar to that country (Verma, 1982, quoted in Graddol, Leith, & Swan, 1996, p. 24). Other than a few papers by Schmied (1991, 1994), those by Leitner (1991), a few by Shastri (1986, 1996), and some unpublished PhD dissertations based on the analysis of the Kolhapur Corpus of Indian English (Patil, 1986; Ramtirthakar, 1987; Shingate, 1986), and some more recent work by Lange (277), Schneider (2004) and Sharma (2005 a & b), little empirical work has been done to truly describe this variety and the variation within it. These studies mainly look at isolated features (grammatical and lexical) and have not taken a register perspective to provide a description of the systematic differences across registers. As Mesthrie and Dunne (1990) point out about studies on New English varieties on the whole (which is relevant to the treatment of Indian English), “One of the shortcomings of these studies, which impedes systematic comparisons among them and consequent theorizing, is the unquantified treatment of features claimed to belong to individual New English varieties” (p. 31). Previous studies on Indian English have provided researchers interested in this national variety of English a starting point. The lists of features mentioned by many researchers on Indian English will be the first to be examined in future studies on Indian English. Future studies should, however, go beyond this point and examine a range of registers in the hope of presenting a detailed description of the variation within Indian English. Shastri said as early as 1986, “a systematic and comprehensive description of Indian English is overdue” (p. 1). Such a description, however, has, until now, not been undertaken. The following section focuses on the specific linguistic features examined in previous studies on Indian English. 2.4.1 Previous literature on linguistic features examined in current study As mentioned earlier, studies of Indian English have focused on isolating lists of features that characterize the language used on the Indian sub-continent. Several studies isolate the same features. Features commonly examined in previous literature include the use of Indian words, use of stative verbs in the progressive, problems with articles, problems with prepositions, and the use of the present perfect instead of the simple past. This section of the literature review focuses on what claims researchers have made about the features that have been identified as Indian. The discussion focuses on the following features: – Indian words, – stative verbs in the progressive, – use of perfect aspect verb phrases instead of simple aspect verb phrases,





Register Variation in Indian English

– – – – – –

errors with preposition use, errors with article use, absence of subject-auxiliary inversion in question formation, use of “isn’t it” as an invariant tag, relative clause constructions, and the use of transitive verbs intransitively.

The features have all been analyzed for this project. However, there are a number of additional features that have been analyzed which, to my knowledge, have not been mentioned in any previous studies. Schneider (2004) stresses that part of the purpose of studying New Englishes is to enhance our understanding of the principles that underlie language variation, contact, and change. He explains that in order for us to truly understand these processes, it is important to “detect and trace…structural innovations” in the New Englishes “as early as possible” (p. 227). It is for this reason that in addition to the features already identified in previous literature on Indian English, this project looks at several other lexical and grammatical features. Indian words in Indian English have been examined mainly because of their stylistic implication. Many researchers (Kachru, 1969, 1994; Dubey, 1991) have examined the occurrence of Indian words in Indian English based on the assumption that they occur because the English used in India “has proved to be ineffective in conveying aspects or messages from a culture alien to it” (Dubey, 1991, p. 21). Baumgardner (1996) regards the presence of foreign words in a variety of English (such as Pakistani English) as lexical innovations “through which local, social, and cultural phenomena can find expression” (p. 175). Schneider (2003) explains with reference to borrowing vocabulary in any New English that “characteristically, the earliest and the most numerous borrowings from indigenous languages as well as new coinages with English morphemes designate the local fauna and flora, followed by words for cultural conventions or other customs and objects” (p. 246). On the occurrence of Indian words in Indian English, Kachru (1994) explains that there exist two groups of such words. The first is a group of words that have been “assimilated across varieties of language, specifically in British and American English”, while the second group of words consists of those that “occur frequently in various registers of the South Asian varieties of English” (p. 523). Kachru further divides the second group into three classes: single lexical items, hybridized lexical items, and “English lexical items used with extended or restricted semantic connotations” (p. 525). Hosali (1991) mentions the same categories and calls them “loan words”, “loan compounds”, and “collocatives”. As an example of the third class, she uses the sentence “I had my ears bored so that I could wear my diamond ear-rings”. She explains how the meaning of “bore” is extended to mean “pierce”.



Chapter 2.  Literature review 

While the first two types of loan words will be examined in this study, the third class cannot. It would, however, make an interesting study in the future. Kachru (1983) has provided a basis for the study of Indian words in Indian English, and often comments on the presence of Indian words as contributing to its Indianness. However, a detailed analysis of the types of Indian words, and the contexts in which they occur, does not exist yet. Mesthrie (1993), with respect to South African Indian English (SAIE), mentions that in written SAIE, “terms denoting religious and cultural festivals,” “cultural and religious bodies,” “other religious terms,” and “certain items of clothes, food, and domestic utensils” “regularly occur without glosses” (p. 7). Mesthrie a lexicon of SAIE, “consisting of about 1000 words,” (p. 6), but does not, however, provide an indication of the use of these Indian words across registers. Researchers of Indian English whose work has been examined so far all make the claim that the use of stative verbs in the progressive is a characteristic feature of Indian English. Mesthrie (2005), in a study on South African Indian English, identifies what he calls “the well-known Indian English predilection for extension of progressive –ing to habitual and stative contexts” (p. 322). Hosali (1991) claims that, “there are certain features of English usage which are widespread in India” (p. 65), and that the use of stative verbs in the progressive is one such feature. (The example she provides us with is Are you having a cold?) Kachru (1976) claims that the “be + ing” verb constructions in Indian English seem to violate the selectional restriction applicable to such constructions in the native varieties of English, where members of the sub-class of verbs such as hear and see do not occur in the progressive tenses” (p.  17). A possible reason for their occurrence in Indian English, Kachru explains, is that the progressive form is permissible in Hindi. It is not possible, however, without empirical investigation, to support such a claim about Indian English in general, where there are so many Indian languages (other than Hindi) influencing it. Also without empirical support, several other researchers (Bakshi, 1991; Lukmani, 1992; Verma, 1980; Jacob, 1998) mention the same feature as being characteristic of Indian English. Shekar and Hegde (1996), too, add that “IE speakers appear to violate the selectional restriction on the progressive aspect of the stative predicate in American English” (p. 60). Some examples that appear in the literature include the following: – I am not understanding the lesson. – They were now knowing one another. Among the earlier research on Indian English, Schmied’s (1994) work is notable and different from other work on Indian English, as it is largely empirical. He conducted a study of the syntactic features of Indian English on the Kolhapur Corpus, an untagged written corpus of Indian English compiled in 1976. On progressive use in



Register Variation in Indian English

Indian English, he states: “To tackle the question of whether Indians tend to overuse the progressive form, a broader retrieval form has been applied… And indeed, although we have taken into account a certain error margin, the construction’s frequency in the Kolhapur corpus exceeds that in the LOB corpus by far” (p. 224). From Schmied’s statement, however, it is not clear whether he is referring to all progressive forms on the whole, or merely to occurrences of stative verbs in the progressive. Another researcher who mentions the use of the progressive instead of other tenses is Sridhar (1992). Sridhar studied the speech of a single speaker of Indian English, and made note of both “performance errors” and “representative examples of the speaker’s competence” (p. 142). In the latter category, he noted “the consistent use of the present continuous aspect in situations involving habitual occurrences, universal propositions, or even one-time occurrences of states in the remote past (where native varieties employ simple non-past or past)” (p.  143). Sridhar’s only conclusion here, however, was that “this is characteristic of Telugu speakers of English, though not necessarily speakers of other mother tongue” (p. 143). Mesthrie (2005) shows “the use of the verb suffix –ing in contexts wider than those permitted in formal standard English” (p.  304). Further, in his study, he identifies several functions that the construction is used to perform in South African Indian English. While identifying the different functions progressive aspect verb phrases could perform in Indian English is beyond the scope of this project, this is a study that could be undertaken in the future. That the use or overuse of progressive aspect verb phrases in Indian English has become stereotypical has been stressed by Mesthrie, who says that the “stereotype overgeneralizes the rule stylistically insofar as the speakers speak in this way in all styles” (p. 314). Indeed, this recognition shows the importance of a register analysis to study variation within the language. Use of the present or past perfect instead of the simple past tense is another feature that researchers often quote as being characteristic of the English spoken in India. This is explained by Verma (1980), who states the following of the present perfect: “In English, the present perfect establishes a link between the past and the present. It is not used in the environment of the simple past. In Indian English, this distinction is neutralized” (p. 80). His examples of the past and present perfect in Indian English, as well as examples from other researchers (Shekar & Hegde, 1996) include the following: – I have worked there in 1960. – I have read this book yesterday. – I had been there last year. Sridhar (1992) also mentions this feature, though his conclusions are based on a study of a single speaker of Indian English.



Chapter 2.  Literature review 

With reference to the use of prepositions, researchers comment that Indian English contains “errors” of three types: prepositions are deleted where essential, prepositions are inserted where inessential, and “wrong” prepositions are used (Hosali, 1991; Bakshi, 1991). The following are examples of sentences to illustrate Indian patterns of preposition use: – She said she would neither resign nor bow down to their demands. – The next course will commence from Monday, 8 January. Lukmani (1992) says of preposition use in Indian English that prepositions are “mishandled so commonly, even by people who otherwise speak and write good English, that wrong usage of prepositions could perhaps be considered a part of educated English in India” (p.  160). Preposition use in Indian English has also been studied in the context of prepositions occurring as part of multi-verb constructions. Schneider’s work on particle verbs in world Englishes (including Indian English) is a welcome addition to the literature on Indian English as it is empirically-based. His analysis of particle verbs in ICE-India reveals that in Indian English, “PVs are less commonly used than in BrE” (p. 246). His analysis, however, was based not on an investigation of prepositional verbs that occur in Indian English, but on a comparison of the frequency with which a sample list of verbs occurs in British English and Indian English. He notes that his inability to go beyond this analysis was in part due to the lack of tagged corpora; this is something that the current study has accomplished. Ahulu (1995) states of World Englishes in general (rather than Indian English in particular) that there are differences in their use of what he calls complex verbs. Article use in Indian English has been discussed in terms of “missing and intrusive articles” or “wrong, usurping, and dispossessed articles” (Kachru, 1976, p. 17). Shekar and Hegde (1996) claim that “the use of articles a, an, and the in IE provides a striking example of the grammar of IE.” They go on to explain that “IE speakers generally tend to delete the English definite/indefinite articles or use them inconsistently” (p. 60). They explain these tendencies as being due to an “absence of the article system in Indian languages” (p. 60). In differentiating Indian English from British English, Jacob (1998) explains about article use that “Indian English is also characterized by obvious violations of some British norms of grammaticality, for example the tendency to avoid the use of both definite and indefinite articles” (p. 18). Agnihotri and Khanna (1984), in a study of article use by 366 Indians, made the same claim as Shekar and Hegde (1996), by stating that the subjects in their study had “a strong tendency… to omit the articles” (p. 118). Lukmani (1992) supports what many other researchers say about article use in Indian English by saying that “articles are consistently being dropped where necessary, added where not necessary…” (p. 161). Sand (2004) says of article use in Indian



Register Variation in Indian English

English that “typically we find reference to a ‘lack of articles’ in descriptions of contact varieties like Indian English…” (p. 286). The absence of subject-auxiliary inversion in question formation is a commonly mentioned feature in studies on Indian English. Kachru (1976) claims that “Indian English speakers do not necessarily change the position of subject and auxiliary items” (p. 18). As an example, he provides the sentences – What you would like to eat? – Really, you are finished? While the former is clearly an example showing a lack of subject-auxiliary inversion, the latter is a question one might find in other varieties of English, too. Coelho (1997) describes a study that showed that speakers of American English use intonationbased questions almost as frequently as speakers of Indian English, but “that their usage differs significantly from that of the Indian English speakers in a discourse feature – namely that American speakers use discourse markers like so… to most intonation-based questions, whereas the Indian English speakers used relatively more “bare” intonation-based questions, devoid of discourse markers” (p. 563). Jacob (1998) provides support to Kachru’s claim by stating that “direct questions may ignore the norm of subject-verb inversion” (p. 18). Sridhar (1992) also makes the claim that “a common feature of some varieties of Indian English is the use of declarative sentence word order in yes-no and wh-questions” (p. 143). Rather than focusing on question formation on the whole, Shekar and Hegde (1996) focus on WH-questions in particular, and state that “IE speakers do not necessarily apply subject-Auxiliary inversion rule in forming WH-questions” (p. 60). Verma (1980) supports other researchers’ claims about the absence of subjectauxiliary inversion in Indian English by saying that it “does not use the SubjectAuxiliary inversion rule, but rather intonation or intonation + the structure of a statement” (p. 79). As examples, he provides the following: – Why you are leaving? Hosali (1991) claims that “In questions such as (those) beginning with ‘how,’ the subject and verb which follow are always inverted in British English. The absence of inversion is a common feature of the rapid, informal speech of many Indian speakers of English” (p. 71). Several researchers mention isn’t it, used as an invariant tag, as being characteristic of Indian English. Kachru (1976, 1994) explains that “the tag questions in Indian English also show the influence of the first language. It is not uncommon to find either a general “it”, in all tag questions” (p. 18). As examples, he provides the following sentences: – You have taken my book, isn’t it? – He has left, isn’t it?



Chapter 2.  Literature review 

He adds that instead of isn’t it, it is also common to find a simple negative particle in the tag question: She borrowed my book, no? The use of isn’t it and no as invariant tags is also described by Shekar and Hegde (1996), Hosali (1991), and Verma (1978). All the studies reviewed on Indian English mentioned transitive verbs used intransitively as a characteristic feature. Jacob (1998) explains that in Indian English, “inaccuracies relating to verb phrases are very common” (p. 19). To support this claim, he gives the example of transitive verbs being used intransitively. As an example, he gives us the following sentence: – We would appreciate if you could send us the details soon. Sridhar (1992) states that since “the discourse norm in Indian languages is to omit object noun phrases … when they are recoverable from context,” (p. 144), the omission of direct object with some transitive verbs is common in Indian English. Hosali (1991) explains that strongly transitive verbs used intransitively is a feature which is used “in a distinctive manner by large numbers of educated Indian speakers of English” (p. 65). To support this claim, however, she only provides one example: – I would appreciate if you would reply quickly. Relative clauses were not mentioned frequently in the literature on Indian English. However, Sridhar (1992) explains about Dravidian languages, that “Dravidian speakers of English typically avoid clausal relative clauses and instead resort to a variety of alternative structures, including the participial relatives and topic-comment structures” (p. 144). As examples, Sridhar provides the following sentences: – For others who are not taking…, for them … – Anybody worshipping with devotion, they will be rewarded. The other study that focused on relative constructions was one on South African Indian English, by Mesthrie and Dunn (1990). They examine the relative clause in South African Indian English, and divide them into four categories: Standard Relative Clauses, Almost-Standard Relative Clauses, Substrate-Influenced Relative Clauses, and Discourse-governed Relative Clauses.The results in this study are interesting in that they point to facts such as different relative pronouns used in South African Indian English. Such a study would be interesting to conduct on registers of Indian English, but is beyond the scope of the current study. Both these studies show that the study of relative constructions in Indian English would be interesting, but would entail a much greater depth of analysis than is currently possible. Lange’s (2007) study on focus marking in Indian English is interesting in that it focuses on a feature not mentioned in previous literature on Indian English. She explains, as does Rogers (2003), that certain focus markers such as also and only are used far more frequently in Indian English than other varieties. Indeed, Lange



Register Variation in Indian English

points out that “liberal use of sentence final only and also has become almost as stereotypical for characterizing the Indian variety of English as using the progressive with practically all verbs” (p. 89). In addition to commenting on these focus markers, Lange investigates the use of only and itself and contrasts their use in spoken and written Indian English. Other studies on Indian English include the following: Mukherjee & Hoffman (2006) and Olavarria de Ersson & Shaw (2003) on verb complementation patterns; Schneider (2004) on particle verbs; and Sharma (2005a) and Sand (2004) on article use. It is interesting that even more recent studies continue to examine a single linguistic feature, and often do not have a register analysis to study the variation within Indian English. Much of the literature that currently exists on Indian English has shown that the variety of English used in the country has indeed undergone Schneider’s (2004) first three phases of development: Foundation, Exonormative Stabilization, and Nativization. All the features lists that exist on Indian English have shown without a shadow of a doubt that the English used in India has indeed undergone Nativization and created an identity of its own. It is therefore important now to determine how the language continues to develop and go beyond the Nativization phase. 2.5 Conclusion It is clear, from this review of literature both on variety studies in general and Indian English in particular, that there is a gap with regard to detailed investigations of the variation in new varieties of English such as Indian English. Taking both the state of the art in dialect studies in general, and specific studies on Indian English as a starting point, the present book uses corpus linguistics methodology in a dialect study of Indian English; the present study therefore not only extends prior research findings, but also provides the field with the first empirical investigation and resulting description of a national variety of English (other than British and American English) of this magnitude.

chapter 3

Corpus design and methodology 3.0 Introduction and overview of methodology The corpus used for this study is a combination of a Corpus of Contemporary Indian English (henceforth CCIE) compiled specifically for this study and relevant sections of the Indian component of the International Corpus of English (ICE). ICE India and the CCIE were compiled at the same time. For the purpose of this study, certain sections of ICE India have been combined with the CCIE to provide a corpus that better represents the English used in India in terms of regions of India the language came from, as well as a more even spread of language among the different registers represented. This chapter first describes the process of the compilation of the CCIE and its composition. The next section discusses the sections of ICE added to the CCIE for use in the current study (a more detailed description of ICE India is available in Greenbaum, 1996). Finally, the methodology employed in this study is described. First, the methodology employed in the initial processing of files to compile the CCIE is described. This is followed by an identification of the lexical and grammatical features analyzed in this project, and a description of the methodology employed in the analysis of each linguistic feature. Table 1 below provides an overview of the entire study and outlines each of the steps of the study. Table 1.  Overview of the project Overview of project 1.

Surveying literature on Indian English to determine kinds of existing studies, kinds of features examined, and claims made about Indian English

2.

Determining an initial small list of features to study

3.

Studying pre-existing corpora for structure, with particular attention paid to the construction and structure of the Kolhapur Corpus of Indian English ICE India

4.

Compiling a pilot written corpus (initial CCIE)

5.

Analyzing initial features in a pilot study, and determining importance of a corpus-based investigation of the variation in Indian English



Register Variation in Indian English

Overview of project 6.

Compiling of written corpus – Choosing registers to be represented – Choosing sources (both online and hard-copy) – Choosing texts from sources; downloading them from the Internet or scanning them from hard-copy sources. – Saving texts in appropriate format (Text-only-with-line-breaks) – Inserting headers at the beginning of each text – Naming texts according to naming convention decided upon

7.

Compiling of spoken corpus – Preliminary identification of registers to be represented in corpus – Tape recording in India in the summer of 2000 – Transcribing spoken corpus – Generating transcription rules – Finalizing different registers to be represented based on the material obtained on tape – Transcribing all tapes – Inserting headers at the beginning of each text – Naming texts according to naming conventions decided upon – Inserting @ symbol before Indian words to identify Indian words in subsequent analysis

8.

Inserting @ symbol before Indian words in written texts

9.

Determining what sections of ICE-India to add to CCIE for current study

10.

Tagging and Fix-tagging CCIE and ICE-India

11.

Finalizing list of features to examine in study based both on previous literature and observations during transcription.

12.

Dividing list of features into two types of analyses: – Type I analyses: Those features for which a non-Indian and an Indian variant could be clearly identified. The analyses entailed determining the frequency of Indian variant across registers. – Type II analyses: Those features for which non-Indian and Indian variants could not be identified. The analyses entailed determining the patterns of occurrence of the features in different registers represented in the Indian corpus

13.

Determining method of analysis for each feature: using Delphi or Monoconc.

14.

Using appropriate program for each feature, and generating frequencies and KWIC concordances of the features

15.

Studying lists and compiling results based on differences between registers and contrasting patterns of occurrence with those in British and American English based on Biber et. al. 1999

16.

Making conclusions about either features being characteristic of registers of Indian English or their patterns of occurrence across registers of Indian English



Chapter 3.  Corpus design and methodology 

3.1 Construction of the Corpus of Contemporary Indian English The CCIE consists of eleven large registers, each with several sub-registers. The overall aim in compiling this corpus was to gather a set of spoken and written registers that together attempt to represent the range of settings and functions of the English used in India. As mentioned earlier, sections of ICE India were added to the CCIE for the current study to make the corpus better represent the range of settings and functions of the English used in India. The sections of ICE are discussed in Section 3.2.4. below. The following section describes the registers of CCIE and the process of its compilation. The design of the CCIE was greatly influenced by comparable large-scale corpora (prior to the development of ICE) that were developed for the quantitative investigation of linguistic characteristics of different varieties of language in different settings. Examples of existing corpora that influenced the design of the present corpus include the Brown Corpus, the LOB corpus, the Kolhapur corpus of Indian English, and ICE India. New registers that are absent in other corpora, such as Correspondence, differentiate the corpus from existing corpora; further, they include a substantial spoken component while other corpora (previous to ICE) do not. Also, given the fact that English in India is not homogeneous, with both the written and the spoken components, it was important to get as varied a population of contributors as possible. Thus the contributors for the CCIE range from students to drivers, from store keepers and housewives to professional writers and journalists. As will become evident from the discussion that follows, I also tried to represent speakers from as many parts of India as possible. Table 2 below shows all the registers of the CCIE and provides the word counts of the sub-registers, and Figure 1 represents the different registers and their sizes. Figures 2 and 3 below depict the written and spoken registers of the corpus respectively. Table 2.  The Corpus of Contemporary Indian English and its Registers Registers

Sub-registers

Written News

News

# of files

# of words

Editorials

29

101,759

Features

42

92,800

Regional News

64

142,375

Business News

36

110,612

TOTAL: 171 Spoken News

Spoken News Spoken Political Discussions

TOTAL: 447,546

12

45,304

5

12,770

TOTAL: 17

TOTAL: 58,074



Register Variation in Indian English

Academic English

Registers

Sub-registers

# of files

Spoken Academic English

Office Hours

1

4041

Oral Presentations

2

11,765

Lectures

4

19,678

TOTAL: 7

Conversational English

Conversational English

Conversation

9

65,324

28

54,577

Service Encounters

21

15,404

Interviews

26

94,404

3 TOTAL: 87

Fiction

Written Entertainment News

27

95,993

English Fiction

36

95,804

Written Entertainment News

38 TOTAL: 38

Business Correspondence

23,339

72

45,219

Emails

Written Sports News

25

19 TOTAL: 19

Sports

Travel

Written Travel News

Spoken Sports Reporting

Written Travel News

TOTAL WORD COUNT: 1,288,018

TOTAL: 68,558 24,340 TOTAL: 24,340 54,823 TOTAL: 54,823

2

5,713

TOTAL: 2

TOTAL: 5,713

6 TOTAL: 6

TOTAL FILES IN CCIE: 566

TOTAL: 86,378

59

TOTAL: 25

Spoken Sports

86,378

Dear Abby Letters

TOTAL: 131

Written Sports

TOTAL: 191,797

Letters to the Editor

Correspondence Personal Correspondence

4203 TOTAL: 233,912

Indian Fiction

TOTAL: 63 Entertainment

TOTAL: 35,484

Oral Interviews

Spoken Entertainment

Fiction

# of words

81,393 TOTAL: 81,393



Chapter 3.  Corpus design and methodology  500000

400000

Mean

300000

200000

100000

0

Wrnews Spacad Fiction Buscorr Writspor Wrtrav Spnews Convlang Wrent Perscorr Spspor

Figure 1.  The Corpus of Contemporary Indian English and its Registers

The registers represented in the figure include the following: WRNEWS – Written News SPNEWS – Spoken News SPACAD – Spoken Academic English CONVLANG – Conversational English FICTION – Fiction WRENT – Written Entertainment News BUSCORR – Business Correspondence PERSCORR – Personal Correspondence WRITSPOR – Written Sports News SPSPOR – Spoken Sports Reporting WRTRAV – Written Travel News

Register Variation in Indian English 500000

400000

Mean

300000

200000

100000

0 Wrnews Fiction

Wrent

Buscorr Perscorr Wrspor

Wrtrav

Figure 2.  Written Registers of the CCIE

300000

200000

Mean



100000

0

Spnews

Figure 3.  Spoken Registers of the CCIE

Spacad

Convlang

Spspor



Chapter 3.  Corpus design and methodology 

The following section outlines the compilation of the individual registers. Details about the written registers are provided first, followed by details on the spoken registers. Following this description is a brief section outlining the steps followed for the initial processing of both the spoken and written files of the CCIE. 3.1.1 Written corpus As shown in Figure 2 above, the written corpus consists of 7 registers, and has a total word count of 954,835. To gather texts for all the sub-registers except E-mail, Dear Abby Letters and Fiction (both English and Indian) material was downloaded from the Internet. Materials mainly included articles from Indian newspapers and magazines. Newspapers and magazines from different parts of India were chosen in order to get as wide a representation as possible of the different language backgrounds in India. Texts for the written corpus were chosen only if they could be ascertained with a degree of certainty that the articles were written by an Indian who lived in India. Once the texts were chosen, all author names and any other forms of author identification were deleted. In this section, first, details on the sources for the texts in all the sub-registers except E-mail and Fiction are provided. Following this is a description of all the registers and sub-registers of the written corpus. Details on the sources of texts in E-mail and Fiction are outlined within the descriptions of the registers and subregisters themselves. As mentioned earlier, all the texts in the written corpus were written after 1990. 3.1.1.1 Major sources of the written corpus The major sources of texts for the written corpus were online versions of several major newspapers and magazines in India. While most of them have print versions (newspapers from various parts of India, for example), a few do not. Following this description of each of the sources is Figure 4, a map of India which shows the different regions from where that the sources originate. Figure 4 provides an idea of the regional representativeness of the corpus. Deccan Herald This is the main newspaper for the state of Karnataka, one of the four southern states of India. The paper is published in Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka, and is circulated throughout the state. While much of its news is about Karnataka, its national coverage is excellent. It is published only in English. Deccan Chronicle This is the main newspaper of the state of Andhra Pradesh, another of the four south Indian states, and is published in Hyderabad, the capital of the state. Like the



Register Variation in Indian English

Deccan Herald, it is published only in English and is well-known for its national coverage. The Times of India This is a national newspaper published in New Delhi, and circulated throughout the country. This newspaper is also published only in English. Bangalore Weekly This is a weekly online magazine with news from in and around Bangalore, the capital of the state of Karnataka. All contributors to this magazine come from Bangalore. Bollywood Masala This is a magazine which has as its focus the very large Indian film industry. Given the nature of the written material, therefore, articles from this magazine have been included in the register titled Written Entertainment. Sangat This is a bi-weekly newsletter from the Punjab with news from in and around this northern state. The Hindu This is a national newspaper originating in Chennai, the capital of the southern state of Tamil Nadu. It is circulated all over the country. Like the Deccan Herald, while it does cover a lot of regional news, its coverage of news from around the country is excellent. Filmfare This is one of India’s top film magazines. It focuses on the latest films being made/ released, and on the lives – both professional and personal – of anyone connected with the film industry. Most material collected from this magazine has been included in the Written Entertainment register. The magazine is published in Mumbai, the capital of the film world in India. Femina This is one of the most popular women’s magazines currently published in the country. While it has a lot of material of interest to women, it also has articles which are relevant to a wider audience – those pertaining to the latest medication, religion, health trends, etc. The magazine is published in Mumbai, but has contributors from all over India. The Economic Times The Economic Times is a popular national business-oriented newspaper circulated throughout India. The newspaper is published in New Delhi.



Chapter 3.  Corpus design and methodology 

Hindustan Times This is also a national newspaper published in New Delhi with a more political slant than the other newspapers published in the country. Statesman This is a national newspaper published in Calcutta, the capital of the state of West Bengal. While it has a lot of news from the northeastern parts of India, its national coverage is excellent. Rediff Interviews This source does not have a print version. It is a collection of interviews conducted by well-known newscasters in India. The interviewees include politicians, authors, directors, actors, etc. The interviews that appear online are the transcripts of interviews conducted earlier, and have been included in the Conversational Language register because after studying several of the interviews, it was ascertained that the interviews proceeded much like conversations. Restaurant Guide This is an online guide of the restaurants in Mumbay. The actual guide is a gentleman based in Mumbai, who prides himself on having visited every one of the city’s numerous restaurants. His amusing accounts of several of these restaurants have been included in the Travel News section of the corpus. India Today This is a well known current news magazine in India with a political slant. Articles on business issues are also common in this magazine. India Travel Guide This is an online publication providing readers with travel information on India. It has information on individual cities, states, and regions. It provides information on places to visit, places to stay, restaurants, etc., and texts from this publication have also been included in the Travel News section of the corpus. Women’s Era This is another popular women’s magazine in India, and is circulated throughout the country. The only register this magazine provided texts for was English Fiction, and authors of the stories came from all over India. The magazine is published in the north of India.



Register Variation in Indian English

Figure 4.  Map of India

3.1.1.2 Registers and sub-registers of the written corpus This section provides a description of all the registers and sub-registers of the written corpus. At the end of this section is Table 3, which shows each register and sub-register and the sources that contributed to it. 3.1.1.2.1 Register: Written news This register consists of the following sub-registers: Business news, Regional news, Editorials, and Features. Following is a description of each of these sub-registers. Written News with all its sub-registers has a total word count of 447,546.



Chapter 3.  Corpus design and methodology 

Business news This sub-register includes business news from all the newspapers and the magazine, India Today, and has a word count of 110,612. Business news ranges from news regarding the status of the Reserve Bank of India to the price of washing machines. Articles included in this register came from the business sections of the newspapers and magazines examined. Regional news This sub-register contributes 142,375 words to the corpus. Included in it are news articles from all over India. Articles were chosen if they were written by Indians in India. No articles written by foreign correspondents to the newspapers were included in the corpus. Editorials This sub-register contains articles by the editors of the various newspapers included in the corpus, and has 101,759 words in it. Editorials were chosen only if the authors lived in India. Features This sub-register has 92,800 words, and includes articles both from magazines and newspapers. The articles are on diverse subjects, from child-bearing issues to gardening, from religion to tips on doing laundry. 3.1.1.2.2 Register: Fiction This register consists of two sets of short stories in two sub-registers: Indian Fiction and English Fiction. The former is a collection of stories originally written in different Indian languages, while the latter consists of stories originally written in English. The register has a word count of 191,797. The two sets of fiction have been maintained as separate sub-registers to facilitate future studies on translation. In all subsequent chapters of the current study, however, results for all linguistic analyses are presented for the register as a whole, and not for the individual sub-registers, as a pilot study revealed that the Indian Fiction and English fiction were similar, and that translation did not affect the language produced (for the features studied). English fiction This register contains 36 short stories originally written in English, and taken from two women’s magazines, Femina and Women’s Era. This sub-register has 95,804 words in it. In all subsequent chapters, the two types of fiction are referred to just as Fiction.



Register Variation in Indian English

Indian fiction This collection of fiction consists of 27 short stories originally written in one of seven different Indian languages distributed as follows: Hindi: 2,171 Urdu: 26,103 Bengali: 21,925 Punjabi: 7,039 Telugu: 20,331 Malayalam: 8,741 Kannada: 9,728 _________ Total: 96,038 All the stories were published after 1990, and came from a journal titled Indian Literature in English. Details on the stories in this register are provided in Appendix 3. Appendix 3 also outlines details about the language the story was written in, the translator, etc. While this demographic information is not used in this study, it will be useful for a different study in the future. 3.1.1.2.3 Register: Written entertainment This register contains mostly news from the film world in India, and provides 86,378 words to the corpus. The register contains articles on films being produced, reviews of films already produced, and also articles on film personalities. 3.1.1.2.4 Register: Business correspondence This register has two sub-registers: Letters to the Editor and what I have called “Dear Abby” Letters after the popular Dear Abby column in the west. The register has a word-count of 68,558. Letters to the editor This sub-register contributes 23,339 words to the corpus. The letters are by Indians all over India to the editors of the various newspapers, and deal with various issues of relevance to the common person. Dear Abby letters This sub-register has 45,219 words, and consists of letters requesting advice on various issues, from legal matters to dental problems. Most of the letters came from the magazine Femina, which publishes a different genre of letters in each issue. The different genres include health, legal matters, baby care, pet care, dental care, relationships, matters relating to astrology, etc. These letters are written by people from different parts of India. While often the names of people were shortened (to provide



Chapter 3.  Corpus design and methodology

the writers with anonymity), the places the writers lived were mentioned. It was possible to ensure, therefore, that the writers were from as many different parts of India (and therefore, as many different language backgrounds) as possible. 3.1.1.2.5 Register: Personal correspondence This register has one sub-register in it, E-mails, and has a word count of 24,340. Emails This sub-register has texts written by approximately 50 writers. Texts from this register came from email messages written by speakers of Indian English. While many of these email messages were written to me, I requested Indian friends and relatives to send me emails written to them by other Indians. This ensured both that I got a range of topics and that the language produced was not influenced by me (being one of the participants) in any way. This ensured a wider range of contributors than otherwise might have been possible. 3.1.1.2.6 Register: Written sports This register contains sports news from all the newspapers included in the corpus, and has 54,823 words in it. All the articles deal with sports events in India and are written by Indians living in India. 3.1.1.2.7 Register: Written travel news This register has 81,393 words in it, and includes travel information and information about restaurants and Indian food mainly from two online publications – the Restaurant Guide and the India Travel Guide. Articles from both these online publications are by Indians living in India. 3.1.1.3 Summary of Written registers and their sources Table 3 below summarizes information on the written registers with their subregisters and the sources that contributed to each of the written registers.





Register Variation in Indian English

Table 3.  Written registers and their sources Register

Sub-Register

Source(s)

Written News

Business

Deccan Herald, Deccan Chronicle, Times of India, Economic Times, Statesman, India Today, Hindustan Times Deccan Herald, Deccan Chronicle, Times of India, Statesman, Sangat, Hindustan Times Deccan Herald, Deccan Chronicle, Times of India Deccan Herald, Deccan Chronicle, Times of India, Femina, Women’s Era

Regional News

Editorials Features

Fiction

Women’s Era, Femina, Indian Literature in English

Written Entertainment News

Written Entertainment

Deccan Herald, Deccan Chronicle, Times of India, Bollywood Masala, Filmfare, Bangalore Weekly

Business Correspondence

Letters to the Editor Dear Abby

Deccan Herald, Deccan Chronicle, Times of India Femina

Personal Correspondence

Email

Personal contact

Written Sports

Written Sports News

Deccan Herald, Deccan Chronicle, Times of India

Written Travel

Written Travel News

India Travel Guide, Restaurant Guide

Interviews

Rediff Interviews, Filmfare, Times of India

3.1.2 Spoken corpus The spoken corpus consists of 4 registers each with sub-registers, and has a total word count of 333,183. This section describes each of these registers with their sub-registers. A major part of the initial compilation of the spoken corpus occurred in India in the summer of 2000, when spoken language in different contexts and settings was recorded.



Chapter 3.  Corpus design and methodology 

Taping occurred in two modes – direct and distant. Recording spoken language directly usually entailed leaving a tape recorder on in a situation where there was spoken language. Distant recording involved leaving a tape recorder by a television after deciding which shows to tape. 3.1.2.1 Register: Spoken news This register has two sub-registers in it – Spoken News and Spoken Political Discussions, with a word count of 58,074. Spoken news This sub-register has twelve files with a total of 45,304 words. The language for this sub-register was recorded from four different news channels originating from different parts of the country. Star News and Doordarshan are two channels from the north of the country. Star News is a cable channel from Mumbai, and Doordarshan is the main news channel in India, also from Mumbai. Newscasters in these two channels came from all across India (judging by their names). The third channel is Udaya News, which is a southern news channel with news readers from all over South India. The last channel, Jain News, is also from the north, but focused largely on business news. In addition to reporting news, Star News and Jain News conducted short interviews as part of the news hour. Spoken political discussions This sub-register has five files and a word count of 12,770. Four of the files are transcripts of a political discussion called Question Hour, which is a live telecast of the Parliamentary Question hour telecast every morning. In this hour, there are politicians from various parts of India discussing different issues of relevance, in the form of questions and answers. The fact that most questions and answers were scripted accounts for their inclusion in this register. Like Movers and Shakers, this show also took place both in Hindi and in English. The politicians who could speak English did so, while others spoke Hindi. There were, therefore, large sections of the tapes which could not be used. They will however be used in the future for a string on code-switching. The fifth file in this category is the transcript of a tape of another political show called Line of Fire. The host and his guests are always people based in India, and the guests invariably have opposing points of view on the political issue being discussed. 3.1.2.2 Register: Spoken Academic English This register has three sub-registers – Office Hours, Oral Presentations, and Lectures. In all, this register has 35,484 words in it. All three sub-registers contribute unscripted spoken language to the corpus. Unfortunately, the political situation in



Register Variation in Indian English

the state of Karnataka, where I was in the summer of 2000, made it impossible for me to compile more material for this register. Due to some political unrest, all schools and colleges were closed for several weeks of my stay in India. Office hours This conversation took place between a professor and his student at a university in Bangalore, and is an advising session which contributes 4041 words to the corpus. The professor is from South India, while the student is from the north. The dearth of material for this register is due to the political situation in the country; the temporary closing of educational institutions prevented the collection of more files for this sub-register. Oral presentations This sub-register has two files in it, both of which were recorded from a video tape made by a software company, as part of a training package for their employees. The employees were going through a workshop which dealt with presentation skills. The employees were given a topic on which to present, and asked to prepare a short (10 minute) presentation on this topic. The presentations were recorded so that they might later be analyzed by the employers, and in turn, recommendations could be made to the employees. These files have been included in spoken academic English because they are similar to the presentations conducted in academic environments. The two texts have 15 speakers in them, from different parts of India. While the presentations had been prepared, the speeches were far from scripted. All participants were software engineers with Bachelor’s degrees in Engineering/Computer Science. Some had studied in their first languages and switched to English at college, while others had done all their education in English. Lectures This sub-register has five texts in it, four of them recorded live, and one off the television. The first four were taped by contributors in different educational institutions; three in Bangalore, Karnataka, and the fourth, in Tanjavoor, Tamil Nadu. The participants making the recordings were professors at these institutions, and they taped their classes. In all tapes, there is a lot of class discussion with students in the classes coming from different parts of India. The students in Tanjavoor were all women from different parts of Tamil Nadu. The fifth text in this register is a televised Yoga lecture. I included it in this register since it was very informative, like a lecture. However, unlike the other classroom situations where there is a lot of discussion, there is only one speaker who is doing all the talking. The yoga teacher is a Tamilian male who said that the lectures were entirely spontaneous.



Chapter 3.  Corpus design and methodology 

3.1.2.3 Register: Conversational English This register has five sub-registers: Conversation, Oral Interviews, Service Encounters, Interviews, and Spoken Entertainment. The register contributes 233,912 words to the corpus. Following is a description of all the sub-registers in this register. Conversation There are nine files in this sub-register, with a word count of 65,324 words. There are two kinds of conversations in the corpus. The first seven files include those in which a tape recorder was left on during a conversation among friends and/or family. The other two tapes were recorded on the phone in 1999, where I taped two conversations with some Indian friends for a previous project. The content of the conversation, and in particular, my participants’ impressions about a subject, was the focus of that study, and this ensured that my participants’ contribution was extensive, and mine, minimal. Conversation was a difficult register to collect due to the fact that people seemed hesitant to record themselves in an informal setting, and more importantly, take the responsibility to record the conversation well if I was not a participant. Often, however, I found that once I turned the tape recorder on, the participants of the conversation forgot that it was on until it clicked off. This ensured that the language I recorded in these situations was natural. These conversations took place in a variety of settings, with different friends and relatives. For both kinds of conversations, the majority of the participants were South Indian, speaking all four Dravidian languages as mother tongues. Oral interviews This sub-register has a word count of 53,577. Material in this sub-register was initially obtained for another project; a colleague asked me to interview two social groups of people during my summer in India and to tape these interviews for her research. I was instructed to ask short questions, and request my interviewees to provide answers as detailed as possible to these short questions. These “interviews” turned out to be, in a majority of the cases, close to conversations. Given the richness of the material I obtained here, I decided to add them to the corpus. For the Oral Interviews, I had speakers who came from various parts of India, both the north and the south. The populations interviewed included mainly teachers (both at the school level and the university level). These files constitute a subregister distinct from Conversation because of the setting and the manner in which they took place. Service encounters This sub-register has 21 files in it, with a word count of 15,404. I had initially planned on obtaining material for this register by asking a few store keepers in



Register Variation in Indian English

Bangalore if a tape recorder could be left on their counter for a length of time. Unfortunately, this did not work, as there was too much noise. All the service encounters, therefore, were taped when friends or relatives went shopping. The encounters were taped in many different settings; given the cosmopolitan setting that is the city of Bangalore, the service encounters included contributions from people from various parts of India. In most of the situations that were taped, I got a lot of demographic information from the store owners in the course of my conversation with them. Service encounters in India tend to be much more of a social phenomenon than they are in the United States. In India, there are often long conversations between the servee and the server, and also between the different servees. Therefore, what I have labeled a service encounter in this corpus is really a combination of true service encounters (of the kind one might expect in the US) and conversation, which is the reason this material has been included in the Conversational Language register. Interviews This register contains transcripts of interviews, both Rediff Interviews (described earlier) and interviews published in newspapers and magazines. Only if both the interviewees and the interviewers were Indian (based on names I recognize) were the interviews included in the corpus. This sub-register has 94,404 words in all. Spoken entertainment This sub-register includes three texts, with a word count of 4204. These tapes were recorded distantly, and the TV show recorded was a talk show called Movers and Shakers. This is conducted partly in English and partly in Hindi, providing some extremely interesting material to study code switching should such a study be conducted in the future. The talk show host was a north Indian based in Mumbai (the film capital), and his guests were people from all walks of life – entertainers, artists, politicians, etc., from different parts of India. The speech recorded for this register was almost entirely unscripted. The talk show host did prepare some questions for the show, which he asked his guests. However, the actual show proceeded more like a conversation between the talk show host and his guests. 3.1.2.4 Register: Spoken sports This register, unfortunately, has only two files in it, and has a word count of 5714. One of the files is a transcript of a Billiards final played in Bangalore, and has local sports casters speaking. The other is a horse show jumping competition, a local event with local sportscasters. This register was included in the corpus, despite its size, to determine whether the language was different in any significant way. In a future study, it would be interesting to add to this register.



Chapter 3.  Corpus design and methodology 

3.2 Methodology This section outlines the methodology employed in this project. First, the methodology employed in the initial processing of the texts (both spoken and written) is described, and this is followed by the methodology employed in the analyses of each of the linguistic features. 3.2.1 Initial processing of written texts This section briefly describes the processes followed after a written text was chosen to be a part of the corpus. 3.2.1.1 Saving the texts For all the registers and sub-registers, a text was selected to be included in the corpus only if, as mentioned earlier, it could be ascertained with a degree of certainty that it was written by an Indian. Thus, from newspapers, no texts were selected if they were written by foreign correspondents. All texts selected were written after 1990. Once a text was selected, it was copied from its internet source and pasted into a Microsoft Word document. If the source of a text was not the internet, the original document was scanned into a computer, and then saved as a Microsoft Word document. The texts were then studied to make sure they were correctly copied. If there were spelling errors in the original document, these errors were maintained. Once any information identifying the author was deleted, the texts were cleaned up and saved in Text-only-with-line-breaks format. At this stage, a header was added to each file; this provides information about the source of the document, the register and sub register, the date it was originally written, and the number of words the text contained. The information in the headers in the text files ensure that one can return to the original file if necessary. Below is a sample header of a written file:



3.2.1.2 Naming the texts The files were named following certain conventions. For all the sub-registers except E-mail, Dear Abby, and Fiction, the same conventions were followed. Either the first or first two letters of the file name corresponded with the source of the file



Register Variation in Indian English

(except for the India Travel Guide, which is abbreviated ITG, for simplicity). Below are all the sources and their abbreviated versions. DH – Deccan Herald TI – The Times of India BW – Bangalore Weekly BM – Bollywood Masala S – Sangat H – The Hindu F – Filmfare FE – Femina ET – The Economic Times HT – Hindustan Times ST – Statesman R – Rediff Interviews Re – Restaurant guide IT – India Today ITG – India Travel Guide Following the source, the next two or three letters corresponded with the subregister to which the file belonged for all registers except for Letters to the Editor, which was represented as “mail” in the file name. Below is a list of the sub-registers and their abbreviations. Bus – Business Ed – Editorials Ent – Entertainment Fe – Features Int – Interviews Reg – Regional News Sp – Sports Tr – Travel Mail – Letters to the Editor Following the source abbreviation and the sub-register abbreviation is a number, beginning with a 1, that corresponds to the number of the text from a certain source and belonging to a certain sub-register. Thus, DHsp1 means the text comes from the Deccan Herald, it belongs to Sports, and it is the first sports article from this particular source. Similarly, TImail21 means that this text comes from the Times of India, and belongs to Letters to the Editor, and is the 21st letter from this newspaper. As mentioned above, files for all registers were named according to these conventions except Fiction, E-mails, and Dear Abby. E-mails were simply called Email



Chapter 3.  Corpus design and methodology 

followed by a number. Since there are 25 files in this register, the file names ranged from Email1 to Email25. For the Dear Abby files, the first letter or the first two letters corresponded with the first letter(s) of the source. Following this was DearAb and a number, as with the other files. The Indian and English fiction files followed different naming procedures. All file names in the Indian Fiction register begin with IE, and those in English Fiction begin with EF. Following these letters are the first eight letters of the name of the short story saved in the file. In the header of the fiction files are the entire names of the short stories, their authors, the source and the word count, as with other files. 3.2.2 Initial processing of spoken texts This section describes the initial processing of the spoken material. Details are provided on the transcribing, naming, and file saving procedures. 3.2.2.1 Recording spoken data As mentioned earlier, all the taping occurred during the summer of 2000 when I had the opportunity to visit India. Before the trip, a set of tapes was readied; each tape had a number on it, to help process files at a later stage. In addition to the number, each tape jacket had an insert, which is provided in Appendix 4. Each time a tape was recorded, the information on the tape insert was filled. While most of this information was not used for this project, it will be useful if the data were to be used at a later stage for a study of a different nature. A questionnaire on the corpus contributors was also filled every time a tape was made. This is information that either I or the contributor filled out, provides the demographic information on the corpus contributors. It was not possible to fill out this information for every person contributing to the corpus, since there were many situations (the service encounters, for example) where this information was unavailable. After the questionnaires were filled in, the tape number was added to the questionnaire with which it corresponded. This ensures that at a later stage, this corpus can be used to conduct a sociolinguistic inquiry of a different nature. The questionnaire is provided in Appendix 5. The names of the contributors, or any other identifiers, do not appear anywhere in the questionnaires or the tapes. In planning for the compilation of the spoken corpus, I had planned on obtaining as wide a range as possible of corpus contributors. Since the corpus served as the starting point for a dialect study, it was important that the contributors represented as many different language backgrounds and occupations as possible. While many of the contributors in the live recordings (conversations, lectures, etc.) are South Indians, most of the speakers in the distant recordings are North

 Register Variation in Indian English

Indians. With respect to occupations, it is difficult to say at the moment how many different occupations my speakers represent; however, this is not a small number. I had initially planned on controlling for educational and socio-economic levels, but could not do so with some of the registers like Service Encounters and News. With many of the news shows recorded, it was impossible to determine how educated the people interviewed on live coverage were, or to what socio-economic group they belonged. This was also true for the people recorded in the service encounters. Therefore educational level and socio-economic levels were factors I did not entirely control for. However, it is fair to say that the majority of the corpus contributors have at least a high school education, and most have at least a college degree. Further, most come from the lower-upper middle-class backgrounds. Age is a variable that was controlled for. All the corpus contributors (except for two speakers in one of the conversations) are 18 years or older. 3.2.2.2 Transcription Before transcription, a set of rules was outlined; these were followed for all the files. The main rule was the representation of the different speakers in each of the files. For all files, male speakers were identified with the number 1, while female speakers were identified with the number 2. If a tape had two male and two female speakers, they were identified as 1a, 1b, 2a, and 2b, with the a and b, depending on which speaker spoke first in the file. Another rule concerned the treatment of names that occurred in the language on the tapes; if the names belonged to contributors who were not well-known in the media (i.e., most of the contributors) they were shortened to either the first, or the first two initials of the name. If the names were those of politicians or any other well-known figures, they were transcribed in full. Several detailed rules for the transcription of Indian words were followed; these rules will be described under the methodology section for the analysis of Indian words. Like the written files, all spoken files had a header at the beginning. The headers for the spoken files were more detailed than were the headers for the written files. A header from a spoken file is provided in Appendix 6. Once the tapes were transcribed, and headers added to the files, the files were saved in the Text-only-with-line-breaks format, as were the files in the written corpus. 3.2.2.3 Naming spoken files For the spoken files, the file names correspond directly with the sub-register to which the file belongs. Following the register name is a number that corresponds to the number of the file within the sub-register. Thus, Conversation9 is the ninth conversation in the sub-register.



Chapter 3.  Corpus design and methodology 

3.2.3 Combining CCIE with ICE-India It is clear from Table 2 in Section 3.1 above that several registers of the CCIE are small. As mentioned earlier, the CCIE and ICE-India were compiled at the same time; after compilation of the CCIE, several sections of ICE-India were added to it for this project to make the smaller registers better represented, and also to make the corpus more well representative of the range and functions of English used in India. The following section outlines the registers of ICE-India that were added to the CCIE. No details are provided about the compilation of ICE-India, as these details are available in Greenbaum, 1996. Registers added to by files from ICE-India: – Spoken News – Files S2B-001 to S2B-020 were added. This added a word count of 40,000 words. – Spoken Academic English – Files S1B-001 to S1B-020 (Class lessons) were added. This added a word count of 40,000 words. – Written Academic English – Files W2A-001 to W2A-010 (Humanities); W2A-011 to W2A-020 (Social Sciences); W2A-021 to W2A-030 (Natural Sciences); W2A-031 to W2A040 (Technology); W1A-001 to W1A-010 (Student essays); and W1A-011 to W1A-020 (Examination scripts) were added. This added a word count of 120,000 words. – Correspondence – Files W1B-001 to W1B-015 (Social Letters) were added to Personal Correspondence. This added a word count of 30,000 words. – Files W1B-016 to W1B-030 (Business Letters) were added to Business Correspondence. This added a word count of 30,000 words.



Register Variation in Indian English

Table 4.  Combined corpus Register

# of files

Word Count

Total Word Count for Register

Written News

171 files from CCIE

447,546

447,546

Spoken News

17 files from CCIE 20 files from ICE

58,074 40,000

98,074

Written Academic English

60 files from ICE

120,000

120,000

Spoken Academic English

7 files from CCIE 20 files from ICE

35,484 40,000

75,484

Conversational English

87 files from CCIE

233,912

233,912

Fiction

63 files from CCIE

191,797

191,797

Written Entertainment

38 files from CCIE

86,378

86,378

Business Correspondence

131 files from CCIE 15 files from ICE

68,558 30,000

98,558

Personal Correspondence

25 files from CCIE 15 files from ICE

24,340 30,000

54,340

Written Sports News

19 files from CCIE

54,823

54,823

Spoken Sports Reportage

2 files from CCIE

5,713

5,713

Travel Writing

6 files from CCIE

81,393

81,393

TOTAL WORD COUNT FOR SPOKEN CORPUS: 413,183 WORDS TOTAL WORD COUNT FOR WRITTEN CORPUS: 1,134,835 WORDS TOTAL WORD COUNT FOR ENTIRE CORPUS: 1,548,018 WORDS

Table 4 above shows the registers of the combined CCIE and ICE-India used for this study as well as the word counts for each register. Figure 5, below, which shows all the registers of the combined corpus; Figures 6 and 7 show the registers of the combined written corpus and spoken corpus respectively. As evident from both Table 4 and Figure 7, the only register that is substantially smaller than the others is Spoken Sports Reportage.



Chapter 3.  Corpus design and methodology  500000

400000

Mean

300000

200000

100000

0 el av r tr W rt o sp Sp rt po rs W rr co rs Pe rr o sc Bu nt re W n io ct Fi ng e nv Co d a ac Sp d ca ra W s w ne Sp s ew rn W

Figure 5.  Combined Corpus with Registers 500000

400000

Mean

300000

200000

100000

0

Wrnews

Fiction Wracad

Buscorr Wrent

Figure 6.  Written registers of Combined Corpus

Wrsport Perscorr

Wrtravel

Register Variation in Indian English 300000

200000

Mean



100000

0

Spnews

Spacad

Conveng

Spsport

Figure 7.  Spoken registers of Combined Corpus

3.2.4 Computer programs used for the initial analysis of both spoken and written files As mentioned earlier, all the files in the corpus, both spoken and written, were first saved in the Text-only-with-line-breaks format to enable further processing. All files had headers when they were saved in this format. The following section focuses on how the files were processed after they were saved in the correct format. 3.2.5 Initial processing of all corpus files This section describes the initial computer programs used in the analyses of the files in the combined corpus.



Chapter 3.  Corpus design and methodology 

Tagging The first procedure entailed tagging all the files. In this process, the files were run through Biber’s tagger1, a computer program which assigns a grammatical function to each word in the corpus. The tagger automatically tags all the words in every file, and then saves a tagged form of the file with the same file name. Some of the analyses were conducted on the untagged files, while most were conducted on the tagged files. Fix-tagging Biber’s tagger is known to have greater than 93% accuracy. Fix-tagging is a process where the tagged files are run through another program, a fix-tagger, which checks the accuracy of a few selected features that the tagger is known to have problems with. In this process, the word with the selected tag appears with its assigned tag, accompanied with other options for the correct tag. If the assigned one is correct, it is accepted; if the assigned one is incorrect, it can be changed during this process. 3.2.6 Analysis of the files: Computer programs for different kinds of analyses This section describes the kinds of computer programs which were used in the analyses in this project. For all analyses, two main kinds of computer programs were used. The first, Monoconc, is a commercially available concordancing program. It is useful when performing simple lexical searches, and was used to generate lists of KWIC (key word in context) concordances for the lexical features that were analyzed. With Monoconc, it is easy to specify and change the length of the context, thus facilitating the use of a larger context to verify something if necessary. Monoconc was run on untagged versions of the files. The second kind of computer program used was a set of programs written using a compiler, Delphi. The computer programs written could be used on both untagged files and tagged files. I wrote two kinds of simple programs for all my analyses, which were modified slightly depending on the particular feature being targeted. The first was a simple program that wrote KWIC concordance lines (with a 40word context) of the feature being analyzed out to an output file. This program focused on the tags in the tagged files. For example, in an analysis of past and present perfect 1. This is a grammatical tagger that was developed and revised by Douglas Biber over the past two decades. Like all grammatical taggers, this program annotates a text by automatically identifying the part of speech of each word in the text. However, while this tagger achieves accuracy levels comparable to other existing taggers, it is far more robust, having different processing options for oral and written texts. The Biber tagger also has more extensive coverage than most other taggers, identifying not only basic parts of speech, but also many other grammatical and syntactic features such as tense and aspect of verbs, passive voice, relative clauses, complement clause types, etc.



Register Variation in Indian English

verb phrases, the program was asked to generate a list of all instances of the past or present perfect (recognized by specific tags) in the corpus. This program could be slightly modified to search for different tags for different analyses. The second program looked for a certain tag and provided counts of the tag, which amounted to a count of the feature being analyzed. For example, in one analysis, this program was used to provide a list of all the prepositional verbs in the entire corpus, and the frequency with which each prepositional verb occurred. Again, this program could be modified slightly to count different features, or multiple features depending on what was necessary for a particular analysis 3.2.7 Kinds of analyses As mentioned earlier in this chapter, two major kinds of analyses were performed, irrespective of whether a lexical or a grammatical feature was being analyzed. 3.2.7.1 Type I analysis: Identifying Indian and non-Indian variants In the first kind of analysis, most of the features examined were mainly identified in previous literature. With these analyses, I began by identifying two distinct kinds of variants of the feature to be examined. The first, I called the British or American English variant, and the second, I called the Indian variant. The aim of this kind of analysis, therefore, was to determine the proportion of Indian variants of the particular feature under investigation in each register. The results for all these analyses are presented in the form of a register analysis in which all (7 written and 4 spoken) registers are included. For all 11 registers, the total number of instances of the feature examined in each register, the total number of Indian variants found, and the percentage of Indian variants are presented. Based on the results of the analyses, conclusions about the frequency of occurrence of an Indian variant in any register of Indian English (both spoken and written) are made. 3.2.7.2 Type II analysis: General descriptions of patterns of occurrences In the second analysis, no Indian and non-Indian variants of the feature were described first. With these analyses, the general patterns of occurrence across registers of the grammatical feature in question are described and contrasted with their patterns of occurrence across registers in British and American English as described by Biber et al. (1999).



Chapter 3.  Corpus design and methodology 

3.2.8 Linguistic features and methodology employed in their initial analysis This section provides a detailed description of the linguistic features, both grammatical and lexical, examined in this study. A rationale for the choice of each feature, as well as descriptions of each feature, are also provided. 3.2.8.1 Features examined in study This study examined a total of 16 features, 3 lexical and 13 grammatical. Outlined below is a description each of these features. There were two reasons for the choice of features selected to be studied in this book; first, most features were chosen if they were mentioned in any previous research on Indian English. The features that haven’t (to my knowledge) been studied before were chosen because they seemed to represent (based on my intuitions) innovations. I was interested in determining whether certain structures I noticed during the transcription of the spoken corpus were merely idiosyncratic uses on the parts of a few speakers/writers of Indian English, or whether they were indeed innovations that “start out inconspicuously, initially being used only by select individuals or small speaker groups” (Schneider, 2004, p. 230). The current study has enabled me to determine just how widespread these innovations are; or whether they are further, the results of the current study will, I hope, fuel future studies in this area. For these features that have not been studied before, then, the current study is a “pilot study probing into whether such a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack may actually be worthwhile” (Schneider, 2004, p. 230). Table 5 below lists all the features examined in this study and shows the computer program employed in their analysis. Type I analysis features include the following: Grammatical features: – Stative verbs in the progressive – Past and present perfect – Articles – Use of the future instead of simple present – Absence of subject-auxiliary inversion in WH-questions – Transitive verbs used intransitively – Initial and non-initial existential there – Invariant tags isn’t it and no Lexical features: – Keep meaning Put – Stay meaning Live

Register Variation in Indian English

Type II analysis features include the following: Grammatical features: – Prepositional verbs and prepositions – Progressive vs. perfect and simple aspect verb phrases – Relative clauses – Modals – Circumstance adverbials also and too Lexical features: – Indian words

Lexical Features

Table 5.  Features examined in study

Grammatical Features



Feature studied

Program used

Keep meaning Put Stay meaning Live Indian words

Delphi Delphi Monoconc

Stative verbs in the progressive Past and present perfect aspects Prepositional verbs and prepositions Article use Use of future instead of simple present Progressive vs. perfect and simple aspects Absence of subj-aux inversion in questions Transitive verbs used intransitively Relative clauses Modals Initial and non-initial existential there Invariant tags isn’t it and no Circumstance Adverbials Also and too

Delphi Delphi Delphi Delphi Delphi Delphi Delphi Monoconc Delphi Delphi Monoconc Delphi Monoconc

3.2.8.2 Rationale for choice of and description of linguistic features This section provides rationales for the choice of the features that were analyzed, and provides a description of each linguistic feature. As mentioned earlier, many of the features studied were chosen because they have been identified by previous research on Indian English as characterizing this variety. These previous studies were described in Chapter 2, and will not be repeated in the following sections. The following section first describes the lexical features, and this description is followed by a description of the grammatical features.



Chapter 3.  Corpus design and methodology 

3.2.8.3 Lexical features In this section, each lexical feature, its variable(s), and a rationale for its choice are described. Where appropriate, the Indian and the non-Indian variants of the feature studied are identified, and examples of each provided. 3.2.8.3.1 Keep used meaning Put This feature was examined because I became aware during data transcription that occasionally, the verb keep was used instead of the verb put (i.e., keep was used with the meaning of put, or where one might have expected the use of the verb put) in certain contexts. This analysis and the next analysis of the verbs live and stay are both, then, examples of what Schneider (2004) calls “methodological exercises, pilot studies probing into whether such a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack may actually be worthwhile” (p. 230). I began this analysis by checking a dictionary for the meanings of the two verbs. Narrowing down the meanings I was interested in, I noted that put is used to explain the act of temporarily placing an object somewhere. An example of such a use could be in response to the question “Where is the book? I put it on the table.” The verb keep, on the other hand, is used to denote a certain degree of permanence: “I keep my shoes in my closet,” meaning that, in my house, my shoes “live” in my closet. In this analysis, I was interested in examining if and when keep was used instead of put for the meaning explained above because I had heard sentences like “I kept it on the table” as responses to the question asked in the previous paragraph. In order to do this, Monoconc was used to list all instances of keep, and I determined where keep was used “correctly,” and where keep was used in place of put, i.e., meaning put. This latter use is what I have labeled Indian use of keep. Examples of the Indian and non-Indian variants of keep, therefore, include the following: – Indian: I just kept the alarm clock on the table. – Indian: I just kept my keys here, but now I can’t find them. – Non-Indian: I keep my shoes in my closet. For this analysis, I began by examining a list of all the instances of the verb keep.  This list was generated as KWIC concordances which I could examine in detail. This first list had a total of 890 instances of the verb. From this list, those instances in which the verb was used with the meaning I was interested in were isolated (for example, in the sentence I keep my canned food on a white shelf outside the kitchen) and all other meanings or uses (to keep in touch, for example) were excluded. This list had 82 instances of keep. With this list, I first counted all “correct” uses of the verb, i.e., when it was used to mean to store something somewhere



Register Variation in Indian English

(keeping shoes in a closet). Next, I isolated all Indian instances of this verb, i.e., where the verb was used in place of the verb put. The steps employed in this analysis, then, are as follow: – Generating KWIC concordances of all instances of keep – Isolating those uses of keep with the meaning I was interested in – Separating the latter list into the non-Indian variant (I keep my shoes in my closet) and the Indian variants (I don’t know where my keys are; I just kept them on the table) – Determining the proportion of Indian versus non-Indian uses of keep with this particular meaning for each register 3.2.8.3.2 Stay used meaning live The aim of this analysis was to determine if constructions such as “I stay in Miami”, as opposed to “I live in Miami” were found in the different registers of Indian English analyzed. I was interested in this analysis because, as with put and keep, I had heard such instances both before I began this project and during the transcription of the spoken corpus. As with the previous analysis, I began this analysis by checking a dictionary for the meanings of the two verbs under investigation. Of all uses of the verb stay, I was interested in the meaning that “often specifically connotes the status of a visitor or a guest” (Webster’s Dictionary). The meaning therefore connotes a certain impermanence. The only exception to this rule that I can think of is uses such as “I’m going to stay there forever.” Such instances were not examined. Live, on the other hand, has a meaning of “to dwell, to reside,” (Webster’s Dictionary), suggesting permanence. Indian and non-Indian examples of stay, therefore, include the following: – Indian: I used to stay in Flagstaff for three years, but now I stay in Miami. – Non-Indian: I live in Miami. The methodology employed in this analysis was similar to that employed in the analysis of keep as described above. I began by generating a list of all the instances of stay used as a verb. This list was generated in the form of KWIC concordances, and had 411 instances in it. From this list, instances of stay as a phrasal or a prepositional verb (such as stay back, which occurred frequently) were excluded. This initial list of 411 instances was reduced to a list of 254 uses of the verb with the meaning I was looking for. I then studied the initial list for “Indian” uses of the verb, of which I found 57. The steps employed in this analysis are as follows: – Generating KWIC concordances of stay – Isolating those instances of stay with the meaning I was interested in



Chapter 3.  Corpus design and methodology 

– Separating the latter list into the non-Indian variant (When I go on vacation, I stay in a hotel (stay denoting impermanence)) and the Indian variant (I have stayed in Miami for two years now (stay denoting permanence)) – Determining the proportion of Indian versus non-Indian uses of stay with this particular meaning for each register A note needs to be added here about the choice to analyze the corpus for these two lexical features. There is much previous research on how certain English words have acquired an Indian flavor. Kachru (1983) and Nihalani et al (2004) are but two examples. Indeed, Nihilani et al identify 1000 items (many lexical) in their lexicon of usage which they claim are “used in a distinctive manner by large numbers of educated Indian speakers of English” (p. 3). Among their 1000 items are the following with example sentences of each item: – Wish: “IVE (Indian Vernacular English) speakers often use this verb where a BS speaker would say ‘greet.’ In BS (British Standard), what is wished must be expressed…” (p. 197) – He wished me when we met this morning. – He’s stopped wishing me. – Shift: This verb is extremely frequent in IVE and is found in numerous contexts…, in all of which BS speakers would probably prefer ‘move.’” (p. 160) – I shall be shifting to my new bungalow soon. – I’m shifting house next week. The 1000 items identified in Nihalani et al. came from the authors’ experiences with the English used in India. My rationale for the present examination of keep and put is similar; indeed, while I only ??? these two items, in Chapter 5, I identify many others which would make interesting subjects of study in future research. As Algeo (1989) explains, this “is a masterly demonstration of how subtle but nevertheless consistent and unavoidably conspicuous the differences are: in terms of lexical choice, mode of expression, choice between structurally equivalent alternatives, and the like, each variety has its own distinct preferences, and speakers of one variety typically rate the expressions used by the other as certainly not wrong but somehow odd and alien, simply not the way they would express things themselves” (quoted in Schneider, 2004, p. 228). I hold that the current study of keep and live (as well as the analyses of several of the grammatical features described below that are not mentioned in previous literature on Indian English) adds to our knowledge of the subtle differences between different national varieties of English. 3.2.8.3.3 Indian words Much previous research (many of these studies were identified in Chapter 2) on Indian English holds that a characteristic feature of this variety of English is the

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Register Variation in Indian English

presence of Indian words in it. However, there is little work on classifying the Indian words in any meaningful way, nor are there analyses of Indian words in different registers, or analyses of the different Indian languages used in the English in India. These facts prompted the current analysis. Since this is an analysis of the Indian words in the English used in India, there are no Indian and non-Indian variants to begin with. This analysis was conducted entirely on untagged texts, as there was no way for the Indian words to be tagged as such unless the tagger was modified. The first part of this analysis entailed identifying the Indian words. With the spoken texts, Indian words were identified during transcription. During transcription, each Indian word was marked with an “@” symbol before it. During transcription, I decided to only transcribe larger chunks of Indian words if they were 10 words or fewer in length. If a chunk of language was greater than 10 words long, the name of the language it occurred in (“[Hindi]”) was transcribed in its place. (It is important to note that any information enclosed within square brackets is avoided by the tagger). Therefore, in this analysis, only chunks of Indian words which are 10 words or less in length are analyzed. Identifying Indian words in the written corpus entailed copy-pasting each text individually into a Microsoft Word document. The sophistication of Microsoft Word allowed me to spot Indian words, as these were identified as spelling mistakes. While I had initially wanted to distinguish between single-item Indian words, hybridized Indian words (where one word is Indian, and the other is English), and Indian words with English morphemes (-ed and s, for example), I noted that there were not as many instances of hybridized Indian words or Indian words with English morphemes to warrant marking them separately. All Indian words, therefore, were treated identically. Next, I went through all underlined words, and if they were true Indian words (as opposed to English words spelled differently from American English words), I inserted an “@” symbol before them. The files were then re-saved in the text-onlywith-line-breaks format so that all the Indian words could be analyzed. While this method was extremely useful in that it allowed the identification of Indian words quickly and effectively, it has a limitation; if there were Indian words that were spelled the same way as an English word, they were not identified as Indian. Before I adopted this method for the identification of Indian words, however, I randomly selected a few texts and read them to see how many Indian words were spelled the same way as other English words. There were a few, but not enough to warrant finding another way for me to identify all Indian words. Within each text (both spoken and written), the next decision was whether or not to identify every instance of every Indian word. There were several texts in which the same word was repeated many times. I decided that if a word was repeated



Chapter 3.  Corpus design and methodology 

several times within the same topic of conversation, it would not be marked every time it occurred. However, if the same word occurred at a different point in the conversation, either by the same speaker or a different speaker, it would be identified again. For example, in conversation, a very common category of Indian words was food. In a certain conversation, the word poori (a type of bread), for example, was used many times. When this word occurred the first time, it was marked. The next several times it occurred, however, either by the same speaker or by different speakers in the same context, it was not marked. A little later in the conversation, however, if the word recurred in a different context, it was marked again. After all Indian words were marked in this way, Monoconc was used to generate lists for each register of all the occurrences of Indian words (identified by the inserted @ symbol). The next step in the analysis entailed dividing all the Indian words into ten lexical categories: – Food (which included both food and anything connected with food, such as words referring to food preparation, food containers, etc.) – Clothing – Music (including other arts like classical dance, etc.) – Religion – People – Discourse Markers – Greetings – Politics – Larger chunks of language (between 2 and 10 words in length) – Other. This last category included any word that couldn’t be put into any of the other categories. While the other categories are self explanatory, a note is necessary about the Discourse Markers. I included in this category several words that had no semantic function within the sentence in which they occurred. Often, these were words that occurred as fillers, or were used by the speaker to continue holding the floor. Also included in this category are words that speakers used to refer to each other informally. These words (which take on many forms in the Indian languages) might roughly translate to hey or fellow in English. Other words that were included in this category were variations of this or that, when these words did not perform the function of an adverbial. With the Larger chunks of discourse, the Entertainment (written) register posed another problem. This register has a huge number of Indian words in film names. I decided that I would not include the names of either films or songs (which were also quite frequent) in any analysis, and these are therefore not included in any counts.

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Register Variation in Indian English

As mentioned above, this analysis focused on those chunks of Indian words which were between 1 and 10 words in length. This is a purely lexical analysis, and not a discourse analysis. At a later stage, it would be interesting to go back to larger chunks of language and do an analysis of where and when there was a switch from one language to another. I noted during the transcription that it was interesting how some speakers juggled three or four languages in the same conversation. I often found, in the same sentence, or in the same short piece of discourse, several languages. Studying these switches would be fascinating. However, this study does not focus on these situations. 3.2.8.4 Grammatical features In this section, each grammatical feature, its variable(s), and a rationale for its choice are described. As with the lexical features, where appropriate, the Indian and the non-Indian variants of the feature studied are identified, and examples of each provided. 3.2.8.4.1 Stative verbs in the progressive This feature was analyzed in this study because in any previous literature on Indian English, the use of stative verbs in the progressive is always the first feature mentioned. For the current analysis, a total of 24 verbs were examined, and include verbs in the following five semantic categories (Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman, 1983, p. 71–72): – Sensory perception – see, hear, feel, taste, smell – Mental perception – know, believe, doubt, understand, remember – Emotion – want, desire, love, hate, like, dislike – Measurement – weigh, cost, measure, equal – Relationship – have, own, contain, belong For this feature, the non-Indian variant was a situation where the verbs studied might occur in the progressive in British or American English, i.e., where the verb is used actively. An Indian variant is a situation where the verb is not used actively, but occurs in the progressive. Examples of the Indian and non-Indian variants include the following: – Indian: I am weighing 90 lbs. – Non-Indian: The butcher is weighing the meat. All the 24 verbs analyzed are those that Biber et al. claim occur in the progressive less than 2% of the time (1999). For this analysis, a Delphi program was used to generate KWIC entries for all progressive occurrences of these verbs if they were preceded (not necessarily immediately preceded) by a form of the verb “to be.” These entries were then studied to determine if they were true instances of



Chapter 3.  Corpus design and methodology 

progressive occurrences of stative verbs (where in British or American English, the progressive form might not occur). Thus, in this later phase, sentences such as I am having a stomach ache or I am knowing all of them well were chosen as stative verbs being used in the progressive, while sentences such as The butcher is weighing the meat were counted as non-Indian variants. The proportion of non-Indian to Indian uses of the stative verbs was obtained for each register. No counts were obtained of the proportion of non-Indian and Indian variants of each stative verb in question; this would be a necessary and interesting future project. 3.2.8.4.2 Patterns of occurrence of the present and past perfect Present and past perfect aspect verb phrases were examined due to the frequency with which they are mentioned in previous literature on Indian English. The entire corpus was examined for occurrences of what I have labeled Indian present and past perfect. Indian present perfect includes instances of the present perfect in situations that took place at a particular time, or to indicate situations that no longer exist (usually marked by an adverbial of time). In both these situations, according to Biber et al., British and American English would be more likely to use the simple past. Examples of Indian present perfect, then, would include sentences such as the following: – He has come here yesterday. – I have been there last year. The Indian past perfect includes instances of the past perfect being used in independent clauses and without accompanying adverbials of time. According to Biber et al., in British and American English, at least 70% of the time, the past perfect occurs in dependent clauses or with accompanying adverbials of time. Examples of what I have termed Indian past perfect, then, would include sentences such as I had gone there or He had found her. In this analysis, a study of a larger context (than just the sentence/clause which had the past perfect in it) would sometimes reveal a time adverbial in the immediately preceding sentence. Such past perfect verb phrases were not marked as Indian; a verb phrase was labeled Indian past perfect only if there was no time adverbial in an independent clause, and there was no time adverbial in the sentence/clause immediately preceding the clause with the verb in the past perfect. Examples of the Indian variant here would include: – I had seen the film. – John had been to America. For this analysis, a program that generated KWIC entries for every instance of the present or past perfect in each register of the corpus was used. Due to the large number of occurrences of the past and present perfect, only every tenth KWIC

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Register Variation in Indian English

entry was analyzed for the written corpus, and every fifth entry was analyzed for the spoken corpus where the total number of past prefect aspect verbs exceeded 400. In spoken registers where there were fewer than 400 instances of the past perfect, all of them were analyzed. For the spoken corpus, all instances of the present perfect were analyzed, since there were many fewer instances of the present perfect than the past perfect. 3.2.8.4.3 Prepositional verbs and preposition use Prepositional verbs and prepositions were examined because of the frequency of their mention in previous literature on Indian English. With reference to the use of prepositions, researchers comment that Indian English contains “errors” of three types: prepositions are deleted where essential, prepositions are inserted where inessential, and “wrong” prepositions are used. I decided that in order to study prepositions, it would be easiest for me to study prepositional verbs and note which prepositions occurred with which verb, and study the differences, if any, between Indian English and British and American English, on the one hand, and between the different registers of Indian English, on the other. This is, therefore, an analysis of the prepositional verbs used in the English used in India (a Type II analysis), and therefore, no Indian and non-Indian variants of this grammatical structure were identified. In order to determine what prepositional verbs occurred in Indian English, a computer program which generated a list of all the prepositional verbs that occurred in the texts being analyzed, and that provided a frequency of each of the verbs was used. For simplicity, only those prepositional verbs that occur in the grammatical pattern NP + Verb + Preposition + NP were analyzed. The computer program for this analysis generated a list of all the prepositional verbs with their accompanying prepositions. From this list the most common (based on frequency of occurrence) prepositional verbs in Indian English were identified and compared with Biber et al.’s findings in British and American English. The current analysis accomplishes what Schneider (2004) describes in his paper on particle verbs in World Englishes: the use of a tagged corpus to “enable more sophisticated syntactic analyses and comparisons” (p. 247). 3.2.8.4.4 Articles An examination of the use of articles in registers of Indian English was interesting for two reasons: frequent mention in previous literature, and my own observations before and during transcription that this could be a source of great difference between registers of Indian English and registers of other varieties of English. While a detailed study of article use would include an analysis of article use and misuse, this study analyzed article use and absence in three linguistic environments:



Chapter 3.  Corpus design and methodology 

– The use/absence of articles before ordinal numbers – The absence of articles where needed in noun phrases – The use/absence of articles in the quantifiers a little, a lot (of), a number of, and a few. The choice of the first of these three contexts was dictated by observations, during transcription, of many instances where articles were left out before ordinal numbers. In this analysis, sentences such as I will come third August were marked as Indian. However, when ordinal numbers occurred after the name of the month, I did not mark the sentence as Indian even if there was no article. Thus, sentences such as Classes start August twentieth were not marked as Indian. This is because constructions such as these are common in other varieties of English, but I have not heard constructions such as the former being used in British or American English. My rationale for choosing the second of these three contexts is that an examination of noun phrases was a simple way to determine if there were missing articles in the corpus. For this analysis, the Indian variant was simply a noun phrase with a missing article. My choice for the third of the three situations was, again, an observation during transcription, that there were many instances in which these quantifiers were used without an article. Thus, sentences such as the following were marked as Indian: – I get lot of presents on my birthday. – I know number of places we can go to get that. – There are few students in my class who don’t speak Kannada. (Context determined whether in this situation, few or a few was needed). – I want little pickle with my rice. The analysis of the use/absence of articles before ordinal numbers entailed generating a list of ordinal numbers in the different registers of the corpus. This was possible since ordinal numbers are marked with a specific tag which the computer program could search for. The ordinal numbers were generated as a list of KWICS that could be studied. Most of the ordinal numbers encountered in this analysis were dates. For the second analysis, i.e., the absence of articles where needed in noun phrases, given the impossibility of examining every noun phrase in the corpus, I first restricted myself to an examination of the spoken corpus. This analysis began with lists of every noun phrase in every register of the spoken corpus. From the list for each register, I chose 150 noun phrases to analyze. This choice was entirely random; one or two noun phrases from every page of the output file were chosen depending on the size of the file, the aim was to get representative noun phrases from as many (if possible, all) of the files as possible. I chose not to have the computer program write out only every 20th or 30th entry (to immediately generate a much smaller list) for one important reason: the files in the spoken corpus (in the



Register Variation in Indian English

CCIE) were very different sizes, ranging from 150 words to 15,000 words in size. Asking the computer program to automatically write-out only every 20th or 30th entry could have meant that it entirely skipped over the noun phrases in several small files, which I wanted to avoid. Each noun phrases was then studied to determine if there were any sentences in which articles were either missing or present when not needed. For the third analysis, as mentioned above, three quantifiers were chosen to be studied for the presence or absence of articles. This analysis began with lists of KWICS of the three quantifiers for each register. Each of the lists generated was then studied, and I marked those sentences which had articles missing in the quantifiers. Those sentences which had missing articles were marked Indian. 3.2.8.4.5 Use of future instead of simple present This is a feature that I was prompted to examine just from my observations during transcription. I noticed that in some registers, speakers quite consistently used the future in places where one might have expected the use of the simple present. One of the common uses of the simple present is to describe habitual actions such as I get to work at 9:00 every morning, or I swim every weekend. In such situations, I found during transcription that the future was used instead. Since this was found during transcription, and not in any previous examination of the written texts, only the spoken section of the corpus was analyzed for this feature. This analysis was restricted to instances of the future being marked by either a will or by the shortened ’ll. For this analysis, Indian variants included sentences like this: – Every weekend I’ll go to Lal Bagh. – I’ll sleep at about 10:00 o’clock every night. For this analysis, a list for each register of all instances of the future marked with either a will or the shortened ‘ll was generated in the form of KWIC concordances with large (40 word) contexts. This list was studied, and isolated from it were those instances where the modal was used to mark habitual present. In many situations, a fairly large context had to be studied before a sentence could be marked as an Indian variant. The result of this analysis was a frequency of use of the future instead of the simple present for each register. 3.2.8.4.6 Use of the progressive instead of simple or perfect aspect verbs The results obtained in a previous analysis (Rogers, 2001) of a section of the corpus for stative verbs in the progressives prompted the current analysis of the frequency of occurrence of the progressive as opposed to a simple tense or the perfect aspect. The previous analysis was of the Fiction section of the corpus. On reading



Chapter 3.  Corpus design and methodology 

some of the short stories (for pleasure), both translated and non-translated, I noticed that the progressive form seemed to occur more frequently than one might have expected. A preliminary analysis of all progressive verb forms – of both stative verbs and others, revealed that progressive verb forms seemed to be used in situations where use of a simple tense or a perfect aspect might be expected. I found such occurrences in several different stories. This preliminary analysis revealed that Schmied’s (1994) question, as to whether it might not be the frequency of progressives on the whole, and not just stative progressives that lead one to believe that Indian English is characterized by stative verbs in the progressives, was valid. Given these previous results, for the current study, I was interested in determining whether progressives occur more frequently than expected, not only in Fiction, but in other registers of Indian English, too. Results of this analysis are presented in the form of a description of the frequencies of progressive aspect verb phrases across registers. The analysis, therefore, did not start with an Indian variant. For this analysis, the proportions of progressive verbs versus verbs in the perfect aspect or simple aspect across registers were compared. The proportions of these different verb phrases in registers of Indian English were compared with their proportions across registers of British or American English, as detailed in Biber et al. (1999) 3.2.8.4.7 Absence of subject-auxiliary inversion in WH-question formation This feature was examined due to its frequent mention in any previous literature on Indian English (although previous literature mentions question formation on the whole, and does not focus specifically on WH-questions). Further, during transcription, several instances of questions formed with an absence of subjectauxiliary inversion in the different spoken registers were noted. Due to the potentially huge number of questions to examine in the entire corpus, this analysis was restricted to an analysis of the spoken corpus only. Indian variants for this feature include constructions such as the following: – Where you are going? – Who you are going with? I began this analysis by generating a list of all the questions in each register of the spoken corpus. This was possible due to the fact that the question mark has a specific tag. All questions were generated as KWIC entries. This list was then studied to isolate only those questions that had a true absence of subject-auxiliary inversion. I noticed that there were many instances of questions that were structurally statements with rising intonation. Since it would have been very difficult to ascertain with any degree of certainty whether these instances were true “Indian”



Register Variation in Indian English

questions (i.e., those that lacked subject-auxiliary inversion), or just statements with rising intonation (which are common in any variety of English), only those questions that had no subject-auxiliary inversion were isolated and examined. This mainly included WH-questions. Given this, I marked all the WH-questions in the corpus and marked those with an absence of subject-auxiliary inversion. At a later stage, it would be interesting to do a more detailed analysis of the statements with rising intonation and determine if this structure is more common in any register of Indian English than it is in any other variety of English. 3.2.8.4.8 Transitive verbs used intransitively The rationale for the examination of transitive verbs for this study was their mention (in particular, the frequent mention of the verb enjoy) in previous literature on Indian English. A total of 31 transitive verbs were analyzed in this study. 30 of these verbs belong to a list of verbs that according to Biber et al. occur at least 300 times or more per million words of any register of British or American English. The last verb on my list is the verb enjoy, which does not appear in Biber’s list of common transitive verbs. However, it was added to the current analysis because it is the verb most commonly mentioned in any previous literature on Indian English. The list of verbs chosen includes verbs in five semantic categories, and includes the following: – Activity verbs – bring, buy, catch, carry, give, hold, obtain, pick, provide, reduce, send, spend, take, use – Communication verbs – claim, describe, offer, suggest – Mental verbs –assume, expect, find, need, want, enjoy – Causative verbs – allow, require – Existence verbs – contain, involve, indicate, include, represent The Indian variants for this feature, therefore, include any sentences where a transitive verb was used intransitively. Sentences with such verbs include the following: – No, no, I don’t want, I have. – We go to Coorg for our holidays and enjoy very much. For each of the verbs, a list of the total occurrences of the verb in all the registers of the corpus was generated. Monoconc was not used for this analysis because there was no way to eliminate instances of the verbs used as nouns. By using my own computer program and running it on tagged texts, I was able to generate lists of the words in question only when they occurred as verbs. The program eliminated instances where the verbs might occur as multi-word verbs since the study of multi-word constructions is beyond the scope of the current analysis.



Chapter 3.  Corpus design and methodology 

3.2.8.4.9 Relative clauses Relative constructions in Indian English were studied because of their mention, albeit infrequent, in previous literature. The aim of this analysis was to determine whether there were any differences between the patterns of occurrence of relative clauses (and therefore, of relative pronouns) between registers of Indian English, and registers of British and American English. This analysis, therefore, did not start with the identification of an Indian variant. Lists of relative clauses, both restrictive and non-restrictive, across the registers (the larger combined registers) of the corpus were first generated. These lists were generated in the form of KWIC concordances that could be studied later. I also generated lists of the different relativizers and their frequencies. From these lists, conclusions were drawn about the most common relativizers in different registers of Indian English. 3.2.8.4.10 Patterns of occurrence of modals There exist a few studies on modals in Indian English; however, I was unable to obtain any of these studies. The current study investigated the distribution of modals and semi modals across registers of Indian English, and contrasted these with their general patterns of occurrence in British and American English, as described by Biber et al. Since this analysis focuses on general distributions and patterns of occurrence of modals, there was no Indian variant to begin with. For this analysis, a computer program generated frequencies of the modals and semi-modals in the different registers of Indian English. As with relative clauses, this followed the type II analysis described above. 3.2.8.4.11 Initial and non-initial existential There This analysis was performed to determine whether existential there was used noninitially, and if so, where this occurred. This analysis was prompted both by some previous literature stating that non-initial existential there is characteristic of Indian English, and also by my observation of some instances of existential there being used non-initially in the spoken corpus. Thus, in this analysis, I was looking for sentences such as Meat is there in response to a question such as What’s for dinner? For this analysis, the non-Indian and Indian variants of existential there are illustrated in the following sentences: – There is a lot of snow on the ground today (initial; non-Indian) – A lot of snow is there on the ground today (non-initial; Indian, the “theme” has no adverbial funtion in this sentence) This analysis began with the generation of a list of all instances of the word there in all registers of the corpus in the form of KWIC concordances. Next, I went through



Register Variation in Indian English

this list and generated two more lists, the first containing instances of existential there in each register, and the second, a list of existential there used non-initially in each register. For my analysis, I determined the number of times Indian existential there (i.e., non-initial existential there) occurred in each register. The steps employed in this analysis are as follows: – Generating KWIC concordance lines for all uses of there – Isolating existential there from this initial list – Separating the second list of existential there into non-initial (Indian) and initial (non-Indian) – Determining the proportion of Indian versus non-Indian existential there for each register 3.2.8.4.12 Invariant tag Isn’t it? and No? Previous research holds that the occurrence of the tag isn’t it? invariantly (i.e., the tag not matching the subject) is characteristic of the English used in India. Thus, one expects to find questions such as You like that one, isn’t it? in Indian English. I began conducting this analysis to determine if isn’t it does occur as an invariant tag, and if so, in what registers. During the transcription phase, however, I came across another related feature that interested me. Instead of finding many instances of isn’t it? in tag questions, I found many instances of the negative marker no? used as a tag. I found many instances of sentences such as That’s very nice, no? and You like chicken, no? Previous research and my observations during the transcription phase, therefore, promoted this analysis of both isn’t it? and no as invariant tags. For the analysis of isn’t it?, the non-Indian variant is any tag question where the tag matches the subject of the sentence. The Indian variant is illustrated in the following sentences: – He’s always on time, isn’t it? – You like that food very much, isn’t it? For the analysis of no there is no non-Indian variant, because in “standard” varieties of British or American English, this structure does not, to my knowledge, exist. While it does exist in regional varieties of American English (such as Chicago English), or other varieties of English such as Hispanic English, these varieties will not be taken into account here. The Indian variant of this feature is illustrated in the following sentences: – You’re going to the party, no? – That’s a nice dress, no? My analysis of isn’t it began with a generated list of all instances of isn’t it? across the corpus. In order not to get instances where the two words occurred at the beginning of questions, a list of all instances where the two words were followed by a



Chapter 3.  Corpus design and methodology 

question mark was generated in the form of KWIC concordances. This list was then studied to ascertain where the tag was used “correctly” as opposed to where it followed the Indian pattern of not agreeing with the subject of the sentence or clause it occurred in. Next, I generated a list of all instances where no was followed by a question mark. This list was also generated in the form of KWIC concordances. I studied this list and eliminated cases where the word occurred as a question in itself (You want some tea? No?). Next, as with isn’t it?, the frequency with which no occurred as a tag was determined. 3.2.8.4.13 Also and Too I chose to conduct this analysis of additive circumstance adverbials because, during the transcription of the spoken corpus, I noticed that the words also and too seemed to be used differently from the way they are used in British and American English. Sentences I identified as sounding “different” include sentences such as the following: – I also want some. Do you also want some? – He also likes mangoes. I took the use of the circumstance adverbials in such sentences as different from their use in American or British English because of their meanings. For example, one would have expected to find either sentence in British or American English if in either case the focus was on the latter part of the sentence. Sentence 1, therefore, would probably mean that I wanted something, in addition to, for example, needing it. The focus, therefore, would be on want. In sentence 2, a speaker of British or American English could expect the focus of the sentence to be on liking mangoes in addition to something else. In both sentences, however, I found that the focus was on the former parts of the sentences, i.e., on I and he. Given this, I was curious to determine why too wasn’t used instead of also. During transcription, while I noticed differences such as those mentioned above, I could not establish any definite patterns. Further, to my knowledge, there is no previous research on the patterns of occurrence of these two words. This analysis, therefore, is an investigation of general patterns of occurrence of the words also and too, and is not influenced by any previous research. No Indian and non-Indian variants are therefore identified. In this analysis, I compare the patterns of occurrence of these two words with what Biber et al. state are their patterns of occurrence in British and American English. This analysis of the circumstance adverbials also and too has three parts. In the first, the proportions of also and too with respect to each other and with respect to their proportions in different registers of British and American English are deter-



Register Variation in Indian English

mined. The reason for this analysis is to determine whether registers of Indian English have a preference for one of the additive circumstance adverbials over the other. The second part of the analysis deals with determining the positions of the two additive circumstance adverbials in sentences, i.e., medial position versus initial or final position. Biber et al. claim that in British and American English, circumstance adverbials show a marked preference for the medial position in a sentence, and with this analysis, I wished to determine if this preference is true for circumstance adverbials in registers of Indian English, too. The third part of the analysis deals with determining the relationship between the position of the circumstance adverbial also in a clause and the part of the clause it focuses on. Biber et al. claim that while prescriptive grammar dictates that the circumstance adverbials be placed immediately before the element in the clause that is semantically in focus, in reality, this is frequently not the case. However, they explain that the position of the circumstance adverbial is important in providing meaning to the sentence. As mentioned at the beginning of this section, it was issues with focus that prompted this analysis of circumstance adverbials. For this third analysis, I restrict myself to just also because the cases I considered “peculiar sounding” during my transcription all had to do with the use of the word also and not with too. For all three analyses, tagged texts were used. I began by generating lists of all occurrences of the words (as adverbials) in each register and their frequencies. In addition to getting frequencies of each adverbial, I also got a KWIC concordance line for every occurrence of each adverbial. This allowed me to proceed to the second and third analyses. Unfortunately, there was no automatic way to generate frequencies of the adverbials in the various positions, and therefore, the second analysis included an examination of each instance and marking it for position. The third part of the analysis, much like the second, entailed a study of each individual occurrence of the adverbial and noting which part of the clause it focused on. 3.3 Conclusion This chapter provided details on the methodology employed in this study. It first described the process of corpus compilation, and then focused on the linguistic features analyzed in the study, and the methodology employed in their analyses. Chapter 4 focuses on the preliminary results obtained from the analysis of all the linguistic features. Chapter 4 outlines the results obtained from the analyses of both grammatical and lexical features in this project. It presents results first for Indian English as a whole, and then separately for spoken and written Indian English.

chapter 4

Lexical and grammatical features in spoken and written Indian English 4.0 Introduction Chapter 4 presents results of all the analyses undertaken in this project, first for Indian English as a whole, and then separately for spoken and written Indian English. Chapter 4 is a foundation for Chapters 5 and 6, where variation in Indian English is explained in terms of the different registers in the corpus. Where appropriate, results from the analyses are compared to those in previous research, both of Indian English and other international varieties of English, such as British and American English. The main source of comparison with British and American English is Biber et al. (1999). Few examples are provided in this chapter to illustrate Indian patterns, because Chapters 5 and 6 provide plenty of examples. As mentioned in Chapter 3, two types of analyses were employed in this study. Some features (following Type I analysis) were analyzed by identifying an Indian variant of the feature and determining how frequently the Indian variant occurred in the spoken and written varieties of Indian English. The second type of analysis (Type II) entailed describing the general patterns of occurrence of the features in question, and comparing these patterns of occurrence to their patterns of occurrence in British and American English. For features analyzed using Type I analysis, the results in this chapter are presented in the form of frequencies (both actual frequencies and percentages) of the Indian variants in the corpus taken as a whole, and then separately in the spoken and written sections of the corpus. For each feature, the number of different files with Indian instances is also provided to show that the use of a particular Indian feature is not stereotypical of one or two speakers; while the number of files in which a particular feature occurs does not necessarily correspond exactly with the number of speakers using the feature, it does indicate how widespread the use of the feature is. All results, then, are discussed in terms of general patterns of occurrence of the features, first in the entire corpus, and then in spoken and written Indian English. A comparison of the results in this chapter with those detailed in Chapters 5 and 6 illustrates the importance of conducting register analyses in any dialect study.



Register Variation in Indian English

4.1 Analysis of lexical features This section presents the results of the analyses of lexical features. Results are presented in terms of findings in the entire corpus first, and then in the spoken and written sections of the corpus taken separately. 4.1.1 Keep meaning Put: Type I analysis This feature, as mentioned in Chapter 3, was analyzed because of the observations during the transcription of the spoken data. Further, as mentioned in Chapter 3, previous research (Nihalani et al, 2004) shows that there are a number of lexical features that are used in a “distinctive manner” by users of Indian English. With the current analysis of keep meaning put and stay meaning live (in Section 4.1.2 below), I hope to illustrate how these two lexical items are indeed used in a distinctive manner by users of Indian English. However, given that these particular features are not specifically mentioned in previous research, there are no previous results to compare the present results with. This section provides the results obtained for the feature keep meaning put, and the results are based on the current analysis alone. As mentioned in Chapter 3, I was interested in determining whether sentences like I kept it on the table, where one would expect to find the use of put instead of kept in other varieties of English. Other examples include the following: – I just kept my shoes outside. – I just kept my keys here, but now I can’t find them. Where such instances were found, they were marked as Indian instances. Table 6 below shows how many total occurrences of the verb keep were studied, and how many were found to occur in the Indian pattern. Example sentences are provided in Chapter 5. As Table 6 indicates, in the whole corpus, a total of 114 instances of the verb keep were examined. Of these, 39 were found to follow the Indian pattern, i.e., be used with the meaning of put. These 39 were found in 25 different files. The 39 Indian instances found account for 34.2% of the total instances of keep found in the corpus (with this particular meaning). An examination of the spoken corpus alone reveals that 15 of the 45 instances, or 33.3% of the instances, of keep occurred



Chapter 4.  Lexical and grammatical features in spoken and written Indian English 

Table 6.  Keep meaning Put in entire corpus Corpus Entire Corpus Spoken Corpus Written Corpus

Total studied

# Indian instances

% Indian instances

# of files with Indian instances

114   45   69

39 15 24

34.2% 33.3% 35 %

25 10 15

where another variety of English might use put. An examination of written Indian English shows that of the 69 instances of keep examined, 24, or 35% (found in 14 different files) followed the Indian pattern. The results from both spoken and written Indian English reveal that the use of keep meaning put occurs frequently both in spoken and written Indian English. A Chi-square reveals that the two populations are not significantly different as far as the occurrence of keep meaning put; a test statistic of 2.365 was obtained at a significance level of 0.05. 4.1.2 Stay meaning Live: Type I analysis As mentioned in Chapter 3, this is another feature that was examined because of observations made during the transcription phase of corpus compilation. Also as mentioned in Chapter 3, the Indian variant of stay is used where one might normally find the verb live. An example of a sentence with an Indian instance of stay includes the following: – I used to stay in Flagstaff for three years, but now I stay in Miami. As indicated in Table 7 below, a total of 255 instances of the verb stay were examined in the entire corpus, to determine if there were any situations where the verb was used with the meaning of the verb live. Of the 255 instances, 60, or 24% of the instances, were found to occur where one might expect live. These 60 instances were found in 28 different files. In the spoken corpus, of the 96 instances studied, 16, or 17% of the instances, from 8 different files, were found to occur with the meaning of live. In the written corpus, 159 instances were studied in total, and of these, 44, or 28% (found in 20 files) were found to occur meaning live. That the written and spoken varieties are different is indicated by a Chi-square; at a significance level of 0.05, a test statistic of 4.029 was obtained. Given that these results show, perhaps surprisingly, that the Indian use of live occurs more frequently in written Indian English than in spoken Indian English, a register analysis is necessary.



Register Variation in Indian English

Table 7.  Stay meaning live in the entire corpus Corpus

Entire corpus Spoken Corpus Written Corpus

Total instances of “live” studied

Total Indian instances

% Indian instances

# of files with Indian instances

255   96 159

60 16 44

24% 17% 28%

28  8 20

The relatively high frequency with which the Indian variants of both keep and stay in written Indian English perhaps indicate that lexical features are not viewed as being particularly marked. While one might expect to find fewer Indian features in written Indian English than in spoken Indian English (given that one might expect the written variety of a new English to more closely follow the external norm of British English), the two analyses discussed so far show otherwise. It is possible, then, that with lexical features, the “sociolinguistic continuum that is likely to emerge between conservative language users who reject linguistic innovation and local adjustment altogether and advanced, possibly lower status users” (Schneider, 2003, p. 248) is lessening. In future studies, it would be interesting to analyze more such lexical features and determine their frequency of occurrence in the more formal written registers of Indian English. Examples of other lexical items that have adopted a different meaning in the Indian context include the words take and meet. The example sentences below were found in different texts in the ICE corpus (both written and spoken), and as indicated by keep and stay analyzed in the current study, warrant further investigation in future studies. – The center will not take any decision which would adversely affect the growth of iron and steel industry in the country. (S2B 006) – So we too presumed that the decision taken by the previous Vice Chancellor is applicable permanently. (W1B 017) – The student of your school Inamdar Rajesh Gulab std. IX at present has taken admission in our school for the academic year 1998 and is attending the school regularly. (W1B 022) – Do not overwork, take plenty of res,t and do not travel unnecessarily. (W1B 010) – Yesterday I managed to meet my friend from the medical college. (W1B 005) – We want to be sure to meet all of you when we come over. (W1B 015)

Chapter 4.  Lexical and grammatical features in spoken and written Indian English 

4.1.3 Indian words: Type II Analysis As mentioned in Chapter 3, previous research (Kachru, 1994; Baumgardner, 1996; Dubey, 1991) claims that the presence of Indian words in Indian English is common. Figure 8 below depicts the distribution of Indian words (normalized to 1,000,000) in general in the spoken and written sections of the corpus. As we can see from the figure, Indian words do feature commonly in Indian English, in both the spoken and written varieties, although, as is clear from Figure 8, they are far more common in the spoken corpus. A discussion of the differences between the distribution of, and types of Indian words across registers is discussed in the next chapter. While this chapter has presented findings in Indian English taken either as a whole, or taken as separate spoken and written varieties, Chapters 5 will present findings of the register analyses conducted for each lexical feature studied. 2800 2600 2400 Mean



2200 2000 1800 1600

Spoken

Written

Figure 8.  Indian words in Spoken and Written Indian English (Normalized to 1,000,000)

4.2 Grammatical features The following section presents the results of the analyses of grammatical features. As with the lexical features, results are presented in terms of findings in the entire corpus first, and then in the written and spoken sections of the corpus taken separately.

 Register Variation in Indian English

4.2.1. Stative verbs in the progressive: Type I Analysis As mentioned in Chapter 2, many researchers have claimed that stative verbs frequently occur in the progressive in Indian English. Such researchers include Bakshi (1991), Lukmani (1992), Jacob (1998), and Shekar and Hedge (1996), to mention just a few. Further, as mentioned in Chapter 3, this analysis entailed distinguishing between situations where a verb was used in the progressive normally (i.e., when it occurred actively), and those in which a verb was used in the progressive when it had a stative meaning. Also as mentioned in Chapter 3, the verbs studied in this analysis are those that Biber et al. claim occur in the progressive less than 2% of the time. As indicated in Chapter 3, examples of sentences where the same verb is used actively and where it is used statively (the Indian variant) include the following: – Indian variant: I am weighing 90lb. – Non-Indian variant: The butcher is weighing the meat. Table 8 below indicates that 1265 instances of the 24 verbs in question were examined. Out of these, 93, or 7.6% were found to be true instances of stative verbs in the progressive. These Indian instances were found in 54 different files. In the spoken corpus alone, of the 358 verbs examined, 57, or 16% were in the progressive; they came from 28 different files. In the written corpus, of the 1267 instances, 36 (in 26 different files), or 2.8%, were Indian stative progressives. This analysis reveals that if one took the corpus as a whole, the conclusion to be drawn is that stative verbs do occur in the progressive in Indian English, both spoken and written, more frequently than they do in British or American English. This claim as a whole, however, needs to be modified in light of the fact that this analysis revealed that of the 24 verbs examined, only 9 of them occurred as stative progressives. These nine include have, hear, understand, see, find, think, know, feel, and hear. What is also interesting is that across the corpus, the most frequent stative verb to occur in the progressive was the verb have. Out of the 93 stative progressives, 50 of them were having. Chapter 6 shows the distribution of stative haves across registers. With Indian English on the whole, therefore, another conclusion, and one more accurate, is that certain stative verbs do occur in the progressive, and further, the stative verb to have occurs in the progressive more frequently than does any other stative verb. A more detailed account of the nine stative verbs that occur in the progressive is discussed in Chapter 6. Table 8 also shows that there is a significant difference between the spoken corpus and the written corpus with regard to occurrences of stative progressives.



Chapter 4.  Lexical and grammatical features in spoken and written Indian English 

Table 8.  Stative progressives Corpus

Entire corpus Spoken Corpus Written Corpus

Total instances of Stative verbs examined

Total Indian instances

% Indian instances

# of files with Indian instances

1265   358 1267

93 57 36

7.6% 16% 2.8%

54 28 26

While in the written corpus, only 2.8% of the verbs examined occurred as progressives, in the spoken corpus, this figure was 16%. A chi square revealed that at a significance level of 0.05, the two populations are different (Test statistic = 88.51). 4.2.2 Past and present perfect: Type I Analysis This section describes the findings for the analyses of present and past perfect verb phrases in Indian English. Past perfect verb phrases are discussed first, and this is followed by a discussion of present perfect verb phrases. 4.2.2.1 Past Perfect Previous research (Verma, 1980; Shekar and Hedge, 1996) claims that use of the past perfect instead of the simple past in independent clauses without accompanying time adverbials is characteristic of Indian English. As mentioned in Chapter 3, according to Biber et al., in British and American English, the past perfect occurs in independent clauses without accompanying adverbials of time less than 30% of the time (i.e., the past perfect is used in dependent clauses with accompanying time adverbials at least 70% of the time.) As mentioned in Chapter 3, examples of the Indian variants of the past perfect include the following: – I had been there. Table 9.  Past perfect in entire corpus Corpus Entire Corpus Spoken Corpus Written Corpus

Total studied

# Indian instances

% Indian instances

# of files with Indian instances

983 210 773

46 19 27

4.6% 9.0% 3.5%

39 13 25



Register Variation in Indian English

Table 9 above shows the results of this analysis of past perfect verb phrases. As indicated in Table 9, in the whole corpus, 983 instances of the past perfect were examined. Of these, 46 were found to follow the Indian pattern, i.e., they occurred in independent clauses without accompanying time adverbials. These 46 instances account for 4.6% of the total instances studied, and occurred in 39 different files. In the written corpus, 773 instances were studied, of which 27, in 25 different files, followed the Indian pattern. These 25 instances account for 3.5% of the instances studied. In the spoken corpus, 210 instances were studied, and 19, found in 13 files, were found to occur in the Indian variant. These 16 instances account for 9% of the total. This analysis shows that the Indian pattern of occurrence of the past perfect occurs more frequently in spoken Indian English than in written Indian English. A Chi- square shows that at a significance level of 0.05, the two populations are significantly different with respect to the occurrence of Indian past perfect verb phrases (Test statistic = 11.423). However, what should be concluded from this analysis is that contrary to what Verma (1980) claimed, the use of the past perfect instead of the simple past in independent clauses without accompanying time adverbials is not particularly common in Indian English, either spoken or written. With respect to patterns of occurrence of the past perfect, therefore, Indian English is not substantially different from British or American English. 4.2.2.2 Present Perfect Previous research (for example, Verma, 1980) claims that with respect to the use of the present perfect, Indian English is different from other varieties of English such as American or British because in Indian English, the present perfect tends to occur instead of the simple past in sentences where it is clear that the action took place in the past (as indicated by an adverb or adverbial). Examples of the Indian present perfect, therefore, as indicated in Chapter 3 would include the following: – She has come here yesterday. Table 10.  Present Perfect in entire corpus Corpus Entire Corpus Spoken Corpus Written Corpus

Total studied

# Indian instances

% Indian instances

# of files with Indian instances

4908 1177 3731

77 44 33

1.6% 3.4% 0.9%

44 29 15



Chapter 4.  Lexical and grammatical features in spoken and written Indian English 

In this analysis, as Table 10 above indicates, 4908 instances of the present perfect were studied. Of these, 77 (occurring in 44 different files) followed the Indian pattern of occurrence, and account for approximately 1.6% of the total occurrences studied. In the written corpus, 3731 instances were studied, of which 33 (in 15 files), or 0.9%, occurred in the Indian pattern described above. In the spoken corpus, a total of 1177 instances were studied, of which 44 (in 29 different files), or 3.4%, occurred as the Indian variant. While it can be concluded that the Indian present perfect in general occurs significantly more frequently in spoken Indian English than it does in written Indian English (at a significance level of 0.05), a Chi-square test statistic of 47.188 was obtained. This analysis does not show, however, that Indian English is not substantially different from British or American English with respect to the patterns of occurrence of the present perfect. Once again, this is contrary to Verma’s (1980) claims. 4.2.3 Prepositional verbs and prepositions: Type II Analysis Biber et al. state that prepositional verbs are relatively common in all registers of British and American English. They state, however, that even in British and American English, there are marked differences in the common prepositional verbs across registers. The current study did not aim to determine differences in preposition use and prepositional verbs across registers of Indian English; such an analysis is beyond the scope of this project. The results for the analysis of prepositional verbs and prepositions, therefore, are discussed entirely in this chapter, and not in Chapter 6. The following discussion focuses on a comparison of the prepositional verbs that are common in registers of American and British English on the one hand, and Indian English, on the other. It also focuses on verbs that commonly occur as prepositional verbs in the different international varieties of English, as well as the prepositions that commonly occur in prepositional verbs. As mentioned in Chapter 3, the computer program used for this analysis provided lists of all the prepositional verbs in the corpus, and the frequency of each prepositional verb. From this list, two other lists were generated: one of the verbs that occur as prepositional verbs, and the other, the prepositions which commonly occur in prepositional verbs. 4.2.3.1 Productivity of particular verbs and prepositions Table 11 below shows the verbs which occur as prepositional verbs, the number of times each verb occurred as a prepositional verb, and the prepositions each verb interacted with.



Register Variation in Indian English

Table 11.  Prepositional verbs in corpus: Verbs Verb Look Come Go Talk Think Get Ask Deal Lead Fall Know Live Wait Listen Speak Care Believe Call Happen Worry Result Break Add Write Make Run Enter Stand Depend Turn Refer Contribute Meet Pay Provide Speak Settle Embark

# 416 354 265 213 157 99 94 79 73 68 63 59 54 52 46 46 43 42 41 35 28 27 25 25 24 22 22 21 21 20 19 19 18 18 17 16 15 15

Prepositions they occur with at, into, to, after into, under, from, for, across, between, with for, against, about, over, with, through to, about of, about into, at, over, with for, after with to on, for, into about with, for for to to for in on, for to about in into, with to to for into, to, at into for on to to to with for for of on, for on



Chapter 4.  Lexical and grammatical features in spoken and written Indian English 

Verb Burst Account Serve Occur Take Glance Play Get See Feel Walk Tie Head Abide Dispose Dwell Cut Wait Set Settle Reckon Plan Keep Jump Smile Hold Stem Stare Rise Follow Fill Eat Bump Watch Tamper Reason Pick Part Expand

# 15 15 13 12 11 11 25 11 10 10 8 8 8 8 7 6 6 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2

Prepositions they occur with into for as in, to after, for, against at at, on, with, for into to for into with for by of on across on against, about for, on with for, on to, with at at with from at above from with into into for with with on with on



Register Variation in Indian English

Verb

#

Prepositions they occur with

End Allow Count Answer Hear Cry Consist Wade Differ Stumble Smile Pour Poke Leap Join Hit Frown Drink Draw Dawn Cope Bargain

2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

with for on for of for of through from on on over at at with on upon to on on with for

We see from this list that the seven most common verbs occurring as prepositional verbs in the Indian corpus include look, come, go, talk, think, get, and ask. Biber et al. show for British and American English that the most common verbs forming prepositional verbs are get, look, work, go, know, hear, and use. We note that while the lists have the verbs look, get, and go in common, the other four verbs are different. Further, Biber et al. state that the verbs get, look, and go combine with 5, 5, and 3 different prepositions respectively. In the Indian corpus, as indicated in Table 11 above, get was found to form 4 different prepositional verbs, look formed 3, while go formed 5. Table 12 below shows all the prepositions occurring as prepositional verbs in the Indian corpus. The table also gives the frequency of each preposition as a prepositional verb, and the verbs with which each preposition interacts in this manner.



Chapter 4.  Lexical and grammatical features in spoken and written Indian English 

Table 12.  Prepositions that occur in prepositional verbs in Indian Corpus Preposition

#

For

644

To

338

At Into

337 280

With

214

From About Of On

164 160 136 99

In After Through Across Under Against Like Over On As By Between Above Upon Off

85 65 35 30 29 25 23 22 21 13 8 3 3 1 1

Verbs they occur with provide, settle, make, go, plan, allow, head, ask, come, account, care, feel, fall, stand, live, call, cry, bargain, answer, look, wait, pay, play look, see, drink, keep, run, go, turn, refer, write, listen, add, occur, lead, contribute, happen, belong look, get, play, jump, poke, leap, stare, glance, smile get, look, come, enter, run, bump, fall, walk, break, eat, burst deal, meet, tie, live, reckon, go, part, fill, reason, tamper, end, keep, come, follow, cope, hold, join, play come, stem, follow, differ go, set, think, worry, know dispose, speak, think, hear, consist embark, call, fall, plan, hit, dwell, wait, expand, dawn, count, play, pick, smile, settle, stumble believe, result, occur take, look, ask go, wade come, cut come go, set look go, get, pour depend serve abide come rise frown live

According to Biber et al., the prepositions that occur most commonly in prepositional verbs in British and American English include the following: – to (21) – with (14) – for (16) – in (13) – on (12)



Register Variation in Indian English

– – – – –

into (7) about (6) of (6) at (6) as (5)

A comparison of this list with the list in Table 12 above reveals interesting differences between British and American English on the one hand, and Indian English, on the other. In the Indian corpus, the ten most common prepositions and the number of prepositional verbs they formed include the following: – for (23) – to (16) – at (9) – into (11) – with (18) – from (4) – about (5) – of (5) – on (16) – in (3) .

These two lists have the same prepositions except that British and American English has as, while Indian English has from. It is interesting that as occurs relatively infrequently in registers of Indian English. 4.2.3.2 Prepositional verbs in British and American English versus Indian English Biber et al. also provide lists by semantic domain, of all prepositional verbs that occur at least 40 times per million words in at least one register (p. 416). This list has 45 verbs following the verb + NP + preposition + NP pattern that I studied in the Indian corpus. Table 13 below shows these verbs and tells which ones also occurred at least 40 times per million words in at least one register of the Indian corpus. The verbs that the different varieties of English share are bold. Table 13 shows that there is considerable variation in the prepositional verbs commonly found in British and American English on the one hand, and Indian English on the other.



Chapter 4.  Lexical and grammatical features in spoken and written Indian English 

Table 13.  Comparing common prepositions in British and American English and Indian English Common prepositional verbs in British and American English (45)

account for, add to, allow for, ask for, believe in, belong to, call for, come from, consist of, contribute to, deal with, depend on, differ from, get into, glance at, go for, go through, happen to, hear of, know about, lead to, listen to, look at, look for, look like, occur in, occur to, pay for, play for, play with, refer to, result in, serve as, smile at, speak to, stare at, talk about, talk to, think about, think of, turn to, wait for, worry about

Common prepositional verbs in Indian English (65)

Account for, ask for, believe in, belong to, break into, break up with, break with, bump into, burst into, call for, call on, care for, come across, come from, come for, come into, come under, come upon, count on, deal with, dispose of, embark on, enter into, fall into, fall on, feel for, follow with, follow with, get at, get into, get over, go about, go against, go for, happen to, hold with, jump at, know about, lead to, listen to, live with, look after, look at, look into, look to, make for, meet with, plan for, plan on, play on, provide for, rise above, run into, see to, settle for, speak to, stand for, take against, talk about, talk to, think about, think of, tie with, wait for, wait on

4.2.3.3 Most common prepositional verbs The ten most common prepositional verbs in the Indian corpus include the following: – go for – 192 (common in all registers) – come from – 165 (particularly common in Conversational English and Fiction) – ask for – 84 – deal with – 79 – come into – 69 – get into – 61 – care for – 46 – come for – 44 – live with – 43 Below is a list of points that summarize the analysis of prepositions and prepositional verbs in Indian English: – There are definite differences between British and American English on the one hand and Indian English on the other, with respect to prepositional verbs. – The verbs that commonly form prepositional verbs in the different international varieties are different. – The prepositions that commonly form prepositional verbs are the same, except for one preposition in each variety. – The common prepositional verbs in each variety are different.

 Register Variation in Indian English

The results of the current analyses of prepositions and prepositional verbs support findings from previous research which state that speakers of Indian English commonly “misuse” prepositions (Hosali, 1991; Bakshi, 1991). 4.2.4 Article use: Type I Analysis As outlined in Chapter 3, the analysis of article use in Indian English took the form of three separate analyses. These three analyses include the following: – Articles before ordinal numbers – They are leaving here on sixth August. – Articles in noun phrases – We are going to party tonight. (party is used as a noun, not a verb) – Articles before certain quantifiers: – lot of (They use lot of masala in that dish.) – few (There are few places to visit when you are there. (context shows that a few is needed here, not few.) – number of ( There are number of places to eat in Bangalore.) – little (I’ll have little pickle. Context shows that a little and not little is needed in this sentence.) In this section, results from each analysis are first detailed. This is followed by a summary of all the results. 4.2.4.1 Articles before ordinal numbers As indicated in Table 14 below, 2083 ordinal numbers in the entire corpus which needed articles preceding them were studied. Of these, 242 (which appeared in 77 different files), or 11.6%, did not have articles before them. In the spoken corpus, I examined a total of 734 ordinal numbers needing articles, and of these, 188, or 25.6%, did not have articles before them. These 188 instances occurred in 49 different files. In the written corpus, out of the 1349 ordinal numbers studied, 54, or 4% did not have articles before them. These 54 examples came from 28 different files. This analysis shows that taken as a whole, the absence of articles before ordinal numbers in Indian English is relatively infrequent. However, there is a considerable difference between spoken Indian English and written Indian English. At a significance level of 0.05, a Chi-square test statistic of 216.19 was obtained.



Chapter 4.  Lexical and grammatical features in spoken and written Indian English 

Table 14.  Articles before ordinal numbers Corpus Entire corpus Spoken Corpus Written Corpus

Total instances studied

Total Indian instances

# Indian instances

# of files with Indian instances

2083   734 1349

242 188   54

11.6% 25.6% 4.0%

77 49 28

4.2.4.2 Articles before noun phrases (spoken corpus only) As mentioned in Chapter 3, this analysis was only conducted on the spoken corpus. For this analysis, as indicated in Table 15 below, 1950 noun phrases were studied, and of these, 86, or 4.4% had missing articles. This shows that missing articles in noun phrases are not as common in spoken Indian English as previous researchers (Agnihotri and Khanna, 1984; Shekar and Hegde, 1996; Lukmani, 1992) would have one believe. Table 15.  Articles before noun phrases Corpus Spoken Corpus

Total instances studied

Total Indian instances

% Indian instances

# of files with Indian instances

1950

86

4.4%

47

4.2.4.3 Articles before lot of For this analysis, as is indicated in Table 16 below, a total of 390 instances of the quantifier a lot of were examined for the absence of the article. Of these, 70, or 17.9%, had missing articles. These quantifiers with missing articles occurred in 35 different files. In the spoken corpus, a total of 162 instances of the quantifier were examined, out of which 58, or 35.8%, had missing articles. These instances came from 25 different files. In the written corpus, of the 228 quantifiers studied, 12 instances had missing articles. These 12 instances came from 10 different files. This analysis shows the same pattern as the analysis of articles before ordinal numbers did; that if Indian English is taken as a whole, the absence of an article before the phrase a lot of is not as frequent as it is in spoken Indian English. Further, comparing spoken and written Indian English shows that while missing articles before lot of in the spoken corpus are fairly common, the construction is fairly rare in the written corpus. A Chi-square shows that at a significance level of 0.05, the two populations are considerably different (Test statistic = 59.977).

 Register Variation in Indian English

Table 16.  Articles before lot of Corpus Entire corpus Spoken Corpus Written Corpus

Total instances studied

Total Indian instances

% Indian instances

# of files with Indian instances

390 162 228

70 58 12

17.9% 35.8% 5.3%

35 25 10

4.2.4.4 Articles before little As shown in Table 17, in the entire corpus, a total of 493 instances of the quantifier a little were examined for the presence or absence of the article. Of these, 39 were found not to have an article. These 39 instances were found in 27 different files. In the spoken corpus alone, a total of 117 instances were analyzed, of which 37 or 31.6%, had missing articles, and were found in 25 different files. In the written corpus, of the 376 instances analyzed, only 2 (0.5%) had a missing article. This reveals once again, that missing articles are significantly more common in spoken Indian English than in written Indian English. As with the previous analyses discussed so far, a Chi-square shows that the two populations are significantly different at a significance level of 0.05 (Chi-square = 118.412). Table 17.  Articles before little Corpus Entire corpus Spoken Corpus Written Corpus

Total instances studied

Total Indian instances

% Indian instances

# of files with Indian instances

493 117 376

39 37  2

7.9% 31.6% 0.5%

27 25  2

4.2.4.5 Articles before few As shown in Table 18 below, a total of 859 instances of the quantifier a few were examined in the entire corpus. Of these, 50 had missing articles, which corresponds to 5.8%. These quantifiers with missing articles were found in 28 different files. On examining the spoken and written corpus separately, Table 18 shows that for the spoken corpus, 164 instances of the quantifier were studied, of which 6 or 3.6% had no article. In the written corpus, 695 instances were examined, of which 44 or 6.3% had no article. From this analysis, it is clear that an absence of articles before few is not very common in either spoken or written Indian English; further, the two populations are not significantly different at a level of 0.05 (Chi-square = 1.728). The interesting finding, that the absence of the article is more common in written Indian English, is explained in the register analysis presented in Chapter 6.



Chapter 4.  Lexical and grammatical features in spoken and written Indian English 

Table 18.  Articles before few Corpus Entire corpus Spoken Corpus Written Corpus

Total instances studied

Total Indian instances

% Indian instances

# of files with Indian instances

859 164 695

50  6 44

5.8% 3.6% 6.3%

28  5 23

4.2.4.6 Articles before number of As shown in Table 19, a total of 421 instances of the quantifier a number of were studied in the corpus. Of these, 61 instances in 24 different files (which account for 14.4%) lacked an article. In the spoken corpus alone, 70 instances of a number of were examined, of which 10 (in 5 different files) lacked an article. This corresponds to 14.3% of the total instances examined. In the written corpus, a total of 351 instances of a number of were examined, of which 51 (in 19 files), or 14.5% lacked an article. Once again, the similarity between spoken and written Indian English is explained in Chapter 6 with the register analysis. Table 19.  Articles before number of Corpus Entire corpus Spoken Corpus Written Corpus

Total instances studied

Total Indian instances

% Indian instances

# of files with Indian instances

421   70 351

61 10 51

14.4% 14.3% 14.5%

24  5 19

4.2.4.7 Summary of article analysis Table 20 below provides a summary of the six separate analyses conducted for article use in Indian English. As shown in the table, in the entire corpus, a total of 6227 linguistic environments needing articles were analyzed, of which 546 lacked articles. This corresponds to a total of 8.8% of the total instances analyzed. With the spoken corpus alone, a total of 3417 situations needing articles were examined, of which 390, or 11.4%, did not have the necessary articles. In the written corpus, a total of 2810 instances were analyzed for article use, of which 156, or 5.5%, lacked the necessary articles. This shows that with article use in general, spoken and written Indian English are significantly different (Chi-square test statistic = 66.235). From this analysis, one can conclude that a lack of articles is not as common in Indian English, either spoken or written, as previous literature would have us believe (Agnihotri and Khanna, 1984; Shekar and Hegde, 1996; Lukmani, 1992).

 Register Variation in Indian English

Table 20.  Total articles examined Corpus Entire corpus Spoken Corpus Written Corpus

Total instances studied

Total Indian instances

% Indian instances

# of files with Indian instances

6227 3417 2810

546 390 156

  8.8% 11.4%   5.5%

179 129   50

However, from the results of the current study, it is clear that more speakers of Indian English, both spoken and written, don’t use articles than speakers of British and American English. While the current study has focused only on missing articles, an interesting future study could focus on misused articles or the use of articles where they are not needed. Chapter 6 presents the results of a register analysis of article usage in the spoken and written registers of the corpus. 4.2.5 Future instead of simple present: Type I Analysis There is no previous research (to my knowledge) that mentions the use of the future (marked with the modal will or its abbreviated ‘ll ) instead of the simple present in Indian English. The conclusions in this section, therefore, are based entirely on the findings in the current study, and not in comparison to any previous research. As mentioned in the Chapter 3, the analysis of this feature was conducted only on the spoken corpus. An Indian use of the future is where the future was used in sentences where one would expect the verb to be in the simple present. As mentioned in Chapter 3, sentences such as these included verbs which described habitual actions. Such sentences include the following: – Every weekend I’ll go to Lal Bagh. – I’ll sleep at about 10.00 o’clock every night. As indicated in Table 21 below, in the entire spoken corpus, a total of 2027 instances of the future (marked with will or‘ll) were examined. Of these, 253 were used in sentences where the verb described a habitual action, and therefore, where one would expect the use of the simple present. These 253 instances account for 12.5% of the total instances examined. One can conclude, therefore, that the use of the future instead of the simple present to mark habitual actions is definitely more common in Indian English than in British or American English, where one might not find this use.



Chapter 4.  Lexical and grammatical features in spoken and written Indian English 

Table 21.  Use of the future instead of the simple present Corpus Spoken corpus

Total instances studied

Total Indian instances

% Indian instances

# of files with Indian instances

2027

253

12.5%

30

4.2.6 Progressives of non stative verbs: Type II Analysis As mentioned earlier, little previous research mentions the frequency of progressive verb phrases on the whole in Indian English, with Schmied (1994) and Sridhar (1992) noting the possibility that progressive verb phrases might occur in Indian English more frequently than they do in other varieties of English. Research by Biber et al. on other varieties of English shows that, in general, progressives in different spoken and written registers are slightly less common than are verb phrases in the perfect aspect. In this section, I compare findings from the current analysis with these findings of Biber et al.’s about British and American English. This section outlines findings across the whole corpus, and then across the spoken and written sections of the corpus.

Mean

10000

9000

Progressive Perfects

8000 Entire

Spoken

Written

Corpus

Figure 9.  Progressive and Perfect aspect verb phrases in Indian corpus

 Register Variation in Indian English

Figure 9 shows the frequency of progressive and perfect aspect verb phrases in the Indian corpus. Interestingly, as Figure 9 reveals, all across the corpus, the progressive aspect occurs more frequently than does the perfect aspect, which is different from British and American English. This result is examined in more detail in Chapter 6, where the differences between the frequencies of progressive and perfect aspect verb phrases across spoken registers and written sections of the Indian corpus are discussed. 4.2.7 Absence of subject-auxiliary inversion in WH-questions: Type I Analysis Previous research, such as that by Verma (1980) and Hosali, (1991) holds that the absence of subject-auxiliary inversion in questions is characteristic of Indian English. As mentioned in Chapter 3, the present analysis was restricted to an investigation of just the spoken corpus. Further, to restrict the scope of the analysis, after studying all the questions, I examined only WH-questions without subject-auxiliary inversion (excluding, therefore, statements with rising intonation). As shown in Table 22 below, 880 WH-questions were studied in the spoken corpus. Of the 880, there were 72 questions which showed an absence of subjectauxiliary inversion. The 72 Indian instances occurred in 54 different files. These 72 instances or 8.18% of all the WH-questions studied show that the absence of subject-auxiliary inversion is definitely more frequent in spoken Indian English than it is in British or American English. Table 22.  Absence of subject-auxiliary inversion Corpus

Spoken corpus

Total WHquestions studied

Total WHquestions without subj-aux inv.

% Indian instances

# of files with Indian instances

880

72

8.18%

54

4.2.8 Transitive verbs used intransitively: Type I Analysis Table 23 below shows the total number of transitive verbs examined in the entire corpus, and the number of instances of transitive verbs used intransitively. Of the 31 transitive verbs studied (detailed in Chapter 3), only 14 occurred intransitively. A break up of the intransitive use of transitive verbs across registers is provided in Chapter 6.



Chapter 4.  Lexical and grammatical features in spoken and written Indian English 

Table 23.  Transitive verbs used intransitively Transitive Verb Bring Buy Catch Carry Give Hold Obtain Pick Provide Reduce Send Spend Take Use Claim Describe Offer Suggest Assume Expect Find Need Want Enjoy Allow Require Contain Involve Indicate Include Represent

Total in corpus

Total Indian uses in corpus

# of files with Indian uses

  769   320   159   244 2313   807   101   299   680   276   662   301 3301 1096   284   138   356   312    81   458   508   913 1718   261   308   305   194   290   163   690   134

 3  8  0  2 20  0  0  0  0  3  5  2 22  4  0  0  2  0  0  0  3  3  4 20  0  0  0  0  0  0  0

 2  8  0  2 13  0  0  0  0  2  5  2 10  3  0  0  2  0  0  0  3  2  3 13  0  0  0  0  0  0  0

Total transitive verbs examined in corpus

TOTAL: 18,441

TOTAL INDIAN: 102 % INDIAN: 0.55%

Total transitive verbs examined in spoken corpus

TOTAL: 4704

TOTAL INDIAN: 91 % INDIAN: 1.9%

Total transitive verbs examined in written corpus

TOTAL: 13,737

TOTAL INDIAN: 12 % INDIAN: 0.08%

 Register Variation in Indian English

As indicated by Table 23 above, it is clear that transitive verbs occur intransitively very infrequently in Indian English, both spoken and written. In the entire corpus, only 0.55% of all the transitive verbs examined occurred intransitively. In the spoken corpus alone, 1.9% occurred intransitively, while in the written corpus alone, a very small 0.08% occurred intransitively. 4.2.9 Relative constructions: Type II Analysis For this study, a very basic analysis of relative clauses was performed. In this chapter, some of the general findings of this analysis are outlined and contrasted with the general findings in British and American English as outlined in Biber et al. 4.2.9.1 Common relativizers Biber et al.  state that in British and American English we find eight relativizers: which, who, whom, whose, that, where, when, and why. They also talk about the relativizer being omitted in many relative clauses, forming what they call the zero relativizer; due to the unmarked nature of the zero relativizer, it was not studied here. In Indian English, while all eight relativizers were found, only three of them, which, who, and that, occurred commonly. Where, whose, and whom occurred much less frequently, and when and why were extremely rare, rarer than they are in British and American English. 4.2.9.1.1 Who versus which and that As mentioned above, in registers of Indian English, the most common relativizers are who and which, with that occurring less frequently. As with British and American English, who occurs exclusively with human heads. No instances of this relativizer occurring with a non-human head were found. Also similar to British and American English, which occurs almost exclusively with non-human heads. I did occasionally find which used with a human head, but these examples came from just a few users, which leads me to believe that this use is idiosyncratic. Some examples include the following: – I think our scientists, which are noted scientists, will take the challenge. (Spoken Academic Language) – Now we are given to understand that the consultant which was being appointed, they suggested that within one year…. (Spoken News) In contrast to which, Biber et al. state that that does occur with human heads quite frequently, particularly in Conversation. In registers of Indian English, however, no instances at all of that occurring with human heads were found. In Conversational English, that occurred a total of 112 times, in all instances, not with a human head.



Chapter 4.  Lexical and grammatical features in spoken and written Indian English 

4.2.9.1.2 Which versus that Biber et al. state that a more important difference between which and that than their occurrence with human or non-human heads is that “which commonly occurs with non-restrictive relative clauses – 25 to 35 percent of the time depending on the register” (p. 615). It is interesting that which occurs in non-restrictive relative clauses much less frequently in registers of Indian English – less than 5 percent of the time. In fact, in general, non-restrictive relative clauses were found to be rare in registers of Indian English. 4.2.9.2 Frequency of relative clauses Another difference between relative clauses in Indian English on the one hand, and British and American English on the other, is their frequency. Based on the frequency of relativizers, it is clear that relative clauses are far more common in British and American English than they are in Indian English. This will become clearer in the discussion of register differences in the next chapter. In a future study, it will be interesting to ascertain why this difference exists. 4.2.9.3 Non-standard relativizers Biber et al. also state that there are variant relativizers in non-standard dialects. As examples, they mention as and what. As mentioned in Chapter 2, Mesthrie and Dunn (1990), in their study of South African Indian English, also mention such non-standard relativizers as which one. This study, however, did not allow for an analysis of non-standard relativizers. Finding the non-standard relativizers (and from personal observation, I know that relativizers such as which one also exist in registers of Indian English) is a logical and interesting future study. 4.2.9.4 Summary of Relative Clause Analysis To summarize, a preliminary analysis of relative constructions in registers of Indian English revealed the following: – Relative constructions are rarer in registers of Indian English than they are in British or American English. – In registers of Indian English, who, which, and that occur most frequently. Where, whose, whom, why, and when occur much less frequently than they do in British or American English. – Where is particularly rare in registers of Indian English compared to registers of American English. – In Indian English, who is found exclusively with human heads, and which and less frequently, that, with non-human heads. – In British and American English, that frequently occurs with human heads, particularly in Conversation. This is not the case with Indian English.

 Register Variation in Indian English

– In British and American English, which frequently occurs in non-restrictive relative clauses, while that occurs in restrictive relative clauses. In Indian English, non-restrictive relative clauses are not common, and which occurs in non-restrictive relative clauses less than 5% of the time. 4.2.10 Modals: Type II Analysis The analysis of modals in Indian English focuses just on the distribution and frequencies of modals and semi-modals, and does not include any discussion of their meaning. This section discusses the distribution of modals and semi-modals in the Indian corpus. As discussed in Chapter 3, the distribution of the nine central modals, can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would, and must was studied. In addition to the central modals, the distribution of the following semi-modals was also studied: able to, going to, about to, have to, have got to, ought to, supposed to, used to, allowed to, had better, would rather, would prefer, and would like. The distribution of these modals and semi modals in the Indian corpus are shown in Figures 12 and 13 below. In addition to discussing the distribution of these modals and semi-modals in the Indian corpus, some observations are made about any differences between their distribution in the Indian corpus and their distribution in British and American English. Chapter 6 presents differences in the distribution of the modals and semi-modals in different registers. 4000

Mean

3000

2000

1000

0

Must

May

Can

Figure 10.  Modals in Indian Corpus

Could

Will Would Shall Should Might

Chapter 4.  Lexical and grammatical features in spoken and written Indian English  1200

1000

800 Mean



600

400

200

0 e lik ld r ou fe W dpre l r ou he W drat l ou r W ette b ad o H dt we lo Al o t ed to Us sed o pp Su tto h ug o O ott eg av H o et av H tto ou Ab to ng oi G o let Ab

Figure 11.  Semi-modals in Indian Corpus

4.2.10.1 Observations about the distribution of modals and semi-modals in Indian English. – Modals occur much more frequently than do semi-modals. This is true of British and American English, too. – In Indian English, will is by far the most frequent, and shall, the least frequent of the modals. This is also true of British and American English. – After will, would is the next most frequent modal, and this is followed by can. This is similar to British and American English. 4.2.11 Initial and non-initial Existential There: Type I Analysis Previous research on Indian English (for example, Verma, 1980) claims that the use of non-initial existential there is a common feature of Indian English. As indicated in Chapter 3, previous research provides sentences such as Meat is there, (with the there providing no adverbial function) to support this claim. This section compares the findings from the current analysis with the claims made by previous research.

 Register Variation in Indian English

Table 24.  Non-Initial Existential There Corpus

Entire corpus Spoken Corpus Written Corpus

Total instances of Existential There

Total Indian instances

% Indian instances

# of files with Indian instances

3582 936 2646

213 173   40

  5.9% 18.5%   1.5%

86 53 33

As is indicated in Table 24 above, in the entire corpus, 3582 instances of existential there were analyzed to determine how many occurred in non-initial positions. Of these, 213, or 5.9%, occurred non-initially. Further, these non-initial uses occurred in 86 different files. In the spoken corpus, a total of 936 instances were studied, of which 173, or approximately 18.5%, occurred non-initially; these occurred in 53 files. In the written corpus, a total of 2646 instances were studied, of which 1.5% occurred non-initially; these 40 uses occurred in 33 different files. From this initial analysis, it is clear that existential there occurring non-initially occurs considerably more frequently in spoken Indian English than in written Indian English. A Chi-square shows that at a significance level of 0.05, the two populations are substantially different (Test statistic = 301.182). 4.2.12 Invariant tag isn’t it? and No?: Type I Analysis This section presents results of an analysis of both isn’t it and no used as invariant tags in questions. 4.2.12.1 Isn’t it As mentioned in Chapter 3, previous research (for example, Shekar and Hegde, 1996; Hosali, 1991) states the use of isn’t it as an invariant tag in Indian English. The first part of this analysis presents the results of an analysis of all the occurrences of isn’t it across the corpus. Table 25.  Isn’t it as invariant tag Corpus Entire corpus Spoken corpus Written corpus

Total isn’t it studied

Indian isn’t it

% Indian instances

# of files with Indian instances

35 21 14

25 18  7

67.5% 85.7% 50%

14  7  7



Chapter 4.  Lexical and grammatical features in spoken and written Indian English 

As Table 25 above shows, the entire corpus had a total of 37 instances of isn’t it as a tag. Of these, 25, or 67.5%, occurred in an Indian pattern, i.e., where the tag did not match the subject of the sentence. This shows that if Indian English were taken as a whole, isn’t it does frequently occur as an invariant tag. In the spoken corpus, a total of 21 instances of isn’t it were examined, of which 18, or 85.7%, did not match the subject of the question. In the written corpus, of the 14 instances examined, 7, or 50% did not match the subject of the question. This shows that this feature does occur frequently in Indian English, both spoken and written, but that it occurs significantly more frequently in spoken Indian English (Chi-square test statistic at 0.05 significance level = 5.25). It would be interesting to determine if these results would be replicated in a larger corpus. 4.2.12.2 No As mentioned in Chapter 3, this feature was studied because several instances of no being used as an invariant “tag” were found in different registers, particularly the spoken ones (noticed during the transcription process). With reference to this feature in Indian English, Lange (2007) mentions that “na or no is a very common discourse particle roughly equivalent to a question tag” (p. 94), but points out that it has not been described in detail. The results presented in this section, therefore, are not compared to previous research. A complication in this analysis is that no is not usually used as a tag in “standard” British or American English, and is not marked by a specific tag. Given this, I could not determine how many Indian instances (i.e., no used as a tag) there were out of a total number of “normal” instances (i.e., no used in any other context). My results in this section, therefore, are simply in the form of numbers of instances of this feature in each register. In Chapter 6, conclusions about whether this is frequent in a particular register are made simply based on the number of occurrences in that particular register. As indicated in Table 26 below, there were a total of 243 total instances of no being used as a “tag” in the entire corpus. These 243 uses occurred in 44 different files. Of these, 233 occurred in the spoken corpus (in 37 different files), and 10 in the written corpus (in 7 different files). These frequencies suggest that this feature occurs fairly frequently in spoken Indian English but not in written Indian English. Table 26.  No as invariant tag Corpus Entire Corpus Spoken Corpus Written Corpus

# No as invariant tag

# of files with Indian instances

243 233   10

44 37  7

 Register Variation in Indian English

4.2.13 Circumstance Adverbials Also and Too: Type II Analysis This section first presents results on the general differences between the patterns of occurrence of also and too in Indian English (both spoken and written) on one hand, and British and American English, on the other. Chapter 6 will discuss in detail the differences between the different registers of Indian English. Following the results on general distributions of circumstance adverbials relative to each other, results on the position-preferences of the adverbials in sentences/clauses are presented. Finally, results on the relationship between the position of the adverbial also in a sentence and the part of the sentence/clause in focus are presented. 4.2.13.1 Results on general distribution Figure 14 below presents the frequencies of also and too (in thousands, normalized to a million words) in the entire Indian corpus, and then in the spoken and written components separately. As is obvious from the figure, in Indian English, either studied as a whole, or studied as spoken and written varieties, the circumstance adverbial also occurs much more frequently than does the circumstance adverbial too. In both the spoken and written sections of the corpus, also occurs about 2500 times per million words, while too only occurs fewer than 500 times per million words in the written corpus, and only about 150 times per million words in the spoken corpus. 3000

Mean

2000

1000

Also 0

Too Entire

Spoken

Written

Corpus

Figure 12.  Also and too in entire, spoken, and written corpora (normalized to 1,000,000 words)



Chapter 4.  Lexical and grammatical features in spoken and written Indian English 

4.2.13.2 Results on position Biber et al.  show that in British and American English, additive and restrictive adverbials show a “marked preference” for the medial position. As mentioned in Chapter 3, therefore, I determined the proportion of the additive adverbials also and too in the medial position versus in the initial or final positions. As Table 27 shows, in the entire corpus, also does show a marked preference for the medial position, with 82.3% of all the instances occurring in this position. There were instances, however, of also both in final and initial positions (10.8% and 6.8% respectively). This shows that if taken as a whole, Indian English is not different from either British or American English, in showing also showing preference for the medial positions in clauses. If we take spoken and written Indian English separately, however, we do notice differences. As Table 27 indicates, in the spoken corpus, also occurs in the medial position only about 67.5% of the times, and occurs in the final position 28% of the times. It also occurs in the initial position 4.3% of the times. We see, therefore, that while also in spoken Indian English does favor the medial position, it also occurs in the final position quite frequently. Too shows more variation in its position preferences than does also. As indicated in Table 28, in both the corpus taken as a whole and separated into its spoken and written components, too occurs both in the medial and in the final positions. Especially interesting is the fact that in the spoken corpus, it occurs in the final position considerably more frequently than it does in the medial position (56.6% versus 43.4%) Table 27.  Also in entire corpus Corpus Entire corpus Spoken corpus Written corpus

Total also studied 3814 1091 2723

Also in medialAlso in final posi-Also in initial posipositon (# and %) tion (# and %) tion (# and %) 3140 = 82.3%   737 = 67.5% 2403 = 88.2%

411 = 10.8% 307 = 28  % 104 =   3.8%

261 = 6.8%   47 = 4.3% 214 = 7.9%

Table 28.  Too in entire corpus Corpus Entire corpus Spoken corpus Written corpus

Total Too Too in medial posi- Too in final position Too in initial studied ton (# and %) (# and %) position (# and %) 655   53 602

363 = 55.4%   23 = 43.4% 340 = 56.5%

291 = 44.4%   30 = 56.6% 261 = 43.5%

1 = 0.15% 0 1 = 0.16%

 Register Variation in Indian English

4.2.13.3 Results on position of also and focus of sentence Table 29 reveals that there are significant differences between the spoken and written sections of the corpus with regard to the relationship between the position of also and the element in focus in the sentence (at a 0.05 significance level, a Chisquare test statistic of 769.741 was obtained). Biber et al.  explain that although prescriptive grammar says that also should immediately precede the element that is semantically in focus, this is frequently not the case. Based on Table 29 above, it is clear that Biber et al.’s claim that “frequently,” also does not immediately precede the focused element holds true for the corpus taken as a whole (26.24% of the instances of also did not immediately precede the focused element), and for the written corpus alone (12.2% of the total occurrences of also did not immediately precede the focused element). However, on examining the results obtained from the analysis of also in the spoken corpus, we see that 61.4% of the total instances of also did not precede the focused element. Rather than claiming that also frequently does not precede the focused element, in spoken Indian English, we see that more often than not, also does not immediately precede the focused element in the sentence or clause. Examples of sentences with this pattern of occurrence of also from the spoken corpus include the following: – We in India also fought for our freedom, but not with guns and terror. (Focus is on we, not on fought.) – But our khanna is too good. People come only for our food. The rates also are reasonable. (Focus is on rates.) – Sound also is digitized before transmitting. (Focus is on sound.) – Your father is also a scientist? (Focus is on your father.) – So you must be looking forward to this Silver Jubilee lunch also. (Focus of sentence very unclear) Table 29.  Also and focus Corpus Entire corpus Spoken Corpus Written Corpus

Total instances of Also 3814 1091 2723

# of Also not preced- % of Also not preceding focused element ing focused element 1001   670   442

26.24% 61.4  % 12.2  %



Chapter 4.  Lexical and grammatical features in spoken and written Indian English 

What makes this analysis interesting is that in many sentences, because the circumstance adverbial does not immediately precede the element that is semantically in focus, the meaning of the sentence is unclear. Indeed, as indicated by Lange (2007), “Both the context and position of a focus particle determine its contribution to the meaning of a sentence” (p. 98). The lack of clarity that the position of a focus particle can result in will become clearer from the many more examples provided in Chapter 6. 4.3 Conclusion This chapter has presented results on all the analyses in terms of distribution of Indian features across spoken and written Indian English. The results presented in this chapter are a foundation to the register analyses of lexical and grammatical features presented in Chapters 5 and 6. This chapter has revealed several interesting trends. The lexical analyses showed that there might not be as great a difference between spoken and written varieties of Indian English as one might have expected as far as the distribution of Indian features goes; both the analyses of keep and stay revealed the relatively high frequency of these Indian features in the written Indian corpus. One might surmise from this finding that lexical features are not as marked as grammatical features, and therefore, have spread easily to written Indian English. This idea is strengthened by the grammatical analyses discussed in this chapter. All the grammatical analyses revealed that there are substantial differences between spoken and written Indian English, with many more Indian features occurring in spoken Indian English than written Indian English. With the grammatical features, therefore, one might conclude that the innovations that originated in the more informal spoken varieties have not spread to the more formal written varieties as quickly as have lexical innovations. Chapters 5 and 6, which discuss register differences, build on these initial hypotheses.

chapter 5

Register variation Lexical features

5.0 Introduction This chapter discusses the results of the lexical analyses in terms of differences between the different registers of Indian English. As described in Chapter 3, two kinds of analyses were performed depending on the kind of feature studied. With Type I analyses, distinct Indian and non-Indian variants of the feature studied were first identified. For these features, the present chapter presents results in terms of the frequency (both in actual counts and percentages) with which an Indian variant occurred in a particular register. For each feature analyzed in this manner, results are summarized in a table that provides counts of the non-Indian variant of the feature, counts of the Indian variant of the feature, and the percentage of the Indian variant in each register. Each table also provides example sentences from each register (with the particular sub-register identified if applicable) with the Indian pattern of the particular feature in question. In all the tables, the examples from each register were taken from as many different texts as possible, to ensure that all the Indian instances did not come from one particular speaker/ writer. If all the Indian instances did, indeed, come from a single text, this is noted. In this case, even if the Indian variant of the linguistic feature occurs fairly frequently, I conclude that it is probably idiosyncratic to a particular speaker/writer. Preceding each table is a discussion of the findings. For Type II analyses, results in this chapter are presented in terms of descriptions of the general patterns of occurrence of the feature across four major registers (Conversational English, Fiction, Written News, and Written Academic Language). The discussion of these features is restricted to these four major registers in order to facilitate comparison with the same registers in British and American English as described in Biber et al. (1999).

 Register Variation in Indian English

5.1 Keep meaning Put: Type I analysis The results presented in Chapter 4 revealed that the use of keep meaning put (i.e., in sentences like I always keep my shoes under my bed) is common in both spoken and written Indian English. This chapter presents the results of a register analysis that determined if this Indian use of keep (where it has the same meaning of put in sentences such as I just put my keys on the table) occurred more frequently in certain registers than in others. Table 30 below shows the percentage of Indian occurrences of keep in each register of the corpus. 10 instances of the verb were studied in Conversational English, and all the instances were Indian. Table 30 below provides example sentences from the various sub-registers within the register. In Spoken Academic English, of the 14 instances studied, 3, or 21%, occurred in the Indian pattern. In Spoken News, 2 instances of the 21 studied occurred in the Indian pattern. This register analysis reveals that this feature occurs fairly frequently in spoken Indian English, with the frequency of occurrence increasing with the informality of the register. Example sentences include the following: – Just keep it there, I’ll see it. (Conversational English; Service Encounters16) – No, see, you can keep easily on the gas stove. (Conversational English; Service Encounters4) In both these sentences, it is clear that keep is used meaning put, and therefore, one would expect to find put in the sentences. In the first sentence, a store keeper at a store is showing a customer something. The customer, who is not ready to look at it yet, tells the store keeper to temporarily put it “there.” The speaker, however, uses keep instead of put. In the second sentence, a store keeper at another store demonstrates how easily the utensil he is trying to sell can be put on the stove (it is a pressure cooker, which can be placed on a stove top quite easily), but he uses keep instead of put. The register analysis of the written registers showed that the use of Indian keep was frequent in Fiction, (91.6%) and Travel writing (60%), and less frequent in Personal Correspondence (10.5%) and Written Academic English (10.5%). In Written News, 3 of the 5 instances studied occurred in the Indian pattern; however, of the 3, two came from the same file, suggesting that the use is idiosyncratic on the part of the user. In Fiction, what is interesting is that most of the Indian instances came from written representations of dialog, and not the narrative sections. Indeed, most of the Indian features found in Fiction came from dialog (i.e., conversational English) and not the narrative sections.

3

0

 5

Written News

0

 6

 0

Spoken Sports Reportage

2

2

21

Spoken News

3

10

# of “Indian” instances of keep

19

14

Spoken Academic English

Written Academic English Business Correspondence

10

# of instances of keep

Conversational English

Register

Table 30.  Keep meaning put

Spoken

Written

0

10.5%

60%

0

9.5%

21%

100%

% Indian keep

– Percy Spencer unintentionally kept a chocolate bar next to a radar vacuum. (DHf7) – He kept popcorn kernels before the radar horn. (DHf7) – ….keep some amount of water along with it. (W1A-014)

– I’m going to keep this rice on the table as it is. (Conversation2) – … shelf in the kitchen, you know, I kept my masalas there yesterday. (Conversation8) – I kept the fork, I put it on the salad. (Conversation2) – Just keep it there, I’ll see it. (Service Encounters16) – No, see, you can keep easily on the gas stove. (Service Encounters4) – I remember this and I keep it here. (Oral Interview23) – I’ve deliberately avoided keeping the chairs here like that. (Lecture4) – These valves are very strong and made up of muscular tissues which open into the of course of ventricular side and (to keep it there keep the flap). (SW1B-003) – We should not keep our hand outside a window. (News9) – …the Soviet Union would keep its troops in East Germany… (S2b-015)

Examples

Chapter 5.  Register variation 

Written

Written Sports News Written Travel Writing

Personal Correspondence Written Entertainment News Fiction

Register

Table 30.  continued

 6

10

11

12

 0

 0

 0

 0

 2

# of “Indian” instances of keep

19

# of instances of keep

60

0

91.6

0

10.5%

% Indian keep Keep the alarm on the table. Keep it for 5:30 in the morning. (Email15) Keep all your queries ready on paper. (Email20)

– – – –

Keep it in a refrigerator, it will stay for two or three days. (Ret2) You keep the pickle in a dry place and it will stay for a while. (REt1) It is served on a tava kept in the center of the table. (REt1) … soaked in warm water and kept on top of the warm tandoor. (REt1)

– Dear wife, if I keep this paper aside now, will I have to …? (IFMasque) – I move the dog head from my shoulders and keep it in my basket. (IFMasque) – By then, my wife has kept my dress ready on the bed. (IFMasque) – The rascal must have kept the deed in a secret place. (IFTransfer) – Sushma screamed, but Sunil immediately kept his hand over her mouth. (EFMigrant) – A steaming cup of tea kept on a teapoy by the armchair awaited his return. (EFSoldier)

– –

Examples

 Register Variation in Indian English



Chapter 5.  Register variation 

The relatively high frequency with which this feature occurs in the written registers supports the idea introduced in Chapter 4: that lexical innovations have spread to written Indian English from spoken Indian English. This analysis suggests that the English used in India is certainly not one homogeneous variety; rather, it is a group of different varieties, with some being more similar to traditional “native” varieties like British and American English. What this analysis suggests, therefore, is that the English used in India seems to have gone beyond Schneider’s Nativization Phase, and entered the Endonormative Phase. 5.2 Stay meaning Live In Chapter 4, I concluded that the use of stay with the meaning of live in Indian English occurred both in spoken or written contracts; in fact, it was more frequent in written Indian English. Table 31 below shows definite differences between different registers. In the spoken corpus, the Indian pattern was most frequent in Conversational English, where 20 of the 78 instances studied occurred in the Indian pattern. – I stay in that RNA extension. (Conversational English; Oral Interview24) – My aunt still stays at New Jersey. (Conversational English; Oral Interview15) – Are Kajol and you planning to stay in a house of your own, away from the family? (FInt6) In all three sentences, it is clear that the speakers are talking about people who live (i.e., there is permanence) in certain places. However, all three speakers use stay instead of live. The other spoken register where the Indian pattern occurred was Spoken Academic English, where 2 of the 25 instances studied occurred in this pattern. Spoken News and Spoken Sports Reportage had no Indian instances of stay. One could conclude that the absence of the feature is due to the absence of the verb in general in these two registers. This analysis shows that this particular element of linguistic novelty seems to originate in conversational English from where it possibly spreads. The spread to Spoken Academic English is interesting given the greater formality of this register. As mentioned in Chapter 3, both Spoken and Written Academic English had the youngest contributors to the corpus, with most being undergraduate university students. It is possible, therefore, that the age of the users of English contributes as much to the presence of Indian features as does register. The spread of several features to Spoken (and Written) Academic English is a point I make following many of the analyses in this project.

Written

Spoken

25

 5  0

16

Spoken News Spoken Sports Reportage

Written News

72

# of instances of Stay

Spoken Academic English

Conversational English

Register

Table 31.  Stay versus Live

 3

 0  0

 2

20

# of “Indian” instances of Stay

19%

0 0

8%

28%

% Indian stay

– We have been staying at Nairobi from 1987. (STEd2) – A decade later when he returned, his son had given the first floor on rent and was himself staying on the ground floor. (STf1)

– An old woman who is staying alone takes what is called a b and b boarder. (Lecture3) – There is the system of students being accommodated in the houses of old people who are staying alone. (Lecture3)

– We used to stay in a joint family. (Oral interview12) – If you stay in Andhra side and all, like you can’t do any these types of offices. (Oral Interview11) – I stay in that RNA extension. (Oral Interview24) – My aunt still stays at New Jersey. (Oral Interview15) – Are Kajol and you planning to [stay] in a house of your own, away from the family? (FInt6) – All the other contestants stay in Madras, I stay here. (RInt13)

Examples

 Register Variation in Indian English

Written

Written Sports News Travel Writing

Personal Correspondence Written Entertainment News Fiction

Written Academic English Business Correspondence

Register

 2

14

13

77

 0

 1

 4

 1

 1

16

36

18

2

# of “Indian” instances of Stay

4

# of instances of Stay

14.3

0

17

25

5.5%

44%

50%

% Indian stay

…so they do not want to stay at home. (W1A-001)

– Sarala Ben, one of the disciples of Gandhiji, stayed here all along her life. (ITGt2)

– Since we stay outside of Mumbai, we are never informed of the meetings. (FDearAb32) – A very active person, I stay at New Bombay, which hinders me from… (FDearAb39) – My husband and I, along with his four married brothers and their families, stay in a small house. (FDearAb40) – My sister-in-law’s son stays with us as his parents died in an accident. (FDearAb60) – A 16-year old girl, I had been staying in a hostel till I completed my schooling. (FDearAb37) – I love my country, and since I stay here, I appreciate our country very much. (W1b-011) – Take Sushmita Sen and Vikram Bhat (also married) for instance – they stayed together, ate together, laughed together… (DCEnt1) – I have no one here to call my own. Where shall I stay? How shall I manage my food and clothing? (IFShadow) – She was staying respectably with her in-laws. (EFDaughter) – He couldn’t bear the thought of us staying alone. (EFpaying)

–

Examples

Chapter 5.  Register variation 

 Register Variation in Indian English

The register analysis of the written registers showed that the Indian pattern occurred in many written registers. Table 31 shows the presence of the feature in all the written registers except for Written Sports; the lack of the feature in Written Sports is due to the fact that the verb stay in general does not occur in the register. The presence of the Indian pattern in all the other written registers, including the more formal ones like Written News, could indicate, as mentioned earlier, that this feature is less marked (as Indian) than are the other linguistic features studied, and therefore more commonly used even in written registers. 5.3 Indian words As indicated in Chapter 4, Indian words are common in both the written and spoken varieties of English in India, but occur considerably more frequently in spoken Indian English than in written Indian English taken as a whole. This chapter, however, focuses on the differences in Indian word use across registers. For this purpose, as mentioned in the Chapter 3, the Indian words found in all registers were divided into ten different semantic categories. These include Food, Clothing, Music, Religion, People, Discourse Items, Greetings, Politics, Larger Chunks of Language, and Other. The last category, Other, included all words that couldn’t be put in any of the other categories. In each register, however, proportionally few words went into this Other category. For this reason, no counts are provided for words that occurred in this category. Figure 13 below shows the distribution of Indian words among the different registers of the corpus (in thousands, normalized to a million). Following Figure 13 is Table 32, which shows the distribution of the different semantic categories of Indian words in the different registers. Both Figure 13 and Table 32 show the significant differences in frequency and types of Indian words across different registers, thereby, once again, suggesting the importance of a register analysis. It is also clear from the numbers provided in Table 32 that one can predict the semantic categories of words in different registers; a large proportion of words belonging to the People category, in Personal Correspondence, for example, is not surprising. These results show that rather than merely stating that Indian words across Indian English contribute to its overall Indianness (Kachru, 1983), one needs to determine and describe where and what kind of Indianness needs to be expressed in the different registers. As Verma (1980) pointed out, Indian English is a vehicle for Indian culture, and this study of Indian words shows clearly where English lacks in its ability to convey aspects of the culture without Indian words. Following Table 32 is a detailed discussion of the variation in Indian words within each register as well as across registers. The discussion includes a brief mention of the language(s)



Chapter 5.  Register variation  8000

Mean

6000

4000

2000

0

Conveng Spnews Wracad Wrent Perscorr Spacad Wrnews Fiction Buscorr Travel

Figure 13.  Distribution of Indian words across spoken and written registers (Normalized to 1,000,000) 5000

4000

Mean

3000

2000

1000

0

Conveng

Spacad

Spnews

Figure 14.  Distribution of Indian words across spoken registers (Normalized to 1,000,000)

Spsports

 Register Variation in Indian English

the Indian words within each register are in. For each register, a figure of the number of Indian words in each category is provided. For each register, a table providing example sentences from the register under discussion is provided in Appendix 7 (Tables of Indian Words). 8000

Mean

6000

4000

2000

0

Wrnews

Fiction Wracad

Buscorr Wrent

Perscorr

Figure 15.  Distribution of Indian words across written registers (Normalized to 1,000,000)

Wrtravel Wrsports

Written News Written Academic English Fiction Written Entertainment News Business Correspondence Personal Correspondence Travel Writing

Conversational English(Sp) Spoken Academic English Spoken News

   0

292 151

   0

  18

319

   67

  261   232

   30

  147

  626

  31

   10

  22

   0

   53

  188

184

Clothing

1411

Food

   25

   55

    0

  214 2211

  267

   29

   82

   79

   94

Music (Arts)

639

239

183

563 174

292

165

133

768

222

Religion

Table 32.  Frequency of Indian Words in Registers of Indian English (Normalized to 1,000,000)

  172

497 

  223

1105   289

   92

   92

   82

  159

  522

People

   0

   0

   0

104   46

   0

   2

  41

119

581

Discourse Markers

 0

37

10

21  0

 0

 0

 0

27

13

Greetings

   0

  18

  91

  78   12

   8

308

367

  13

162

Politics

  25

  55

  20

  36 255

142

  45

  51

159

492

Larger chunks

Chapter 5.  Register variation 

 Register Variation in Indian English

5.3.1 Discussion of Indian words in Conversational English As will be fairly evident to any Indian person, and indeed, any non-Indian who has encountered life in India or even knows an Indian, food is central to the Indian lifestyle. In fact, I have often heard people (both Indians and non-Indians alike) joking about the (possibly slightly politically incorrect) fact that an Indian starts wondering what to eat or cook for the next meal before he/she finishes the current meal. The preponderance of Indian words belonging to the Food category in most of the registers is proof of this perhaps politically incorrect perception. This is particularly true of Conversational English, where Food forms by far the largest category of Indian words. What is interesting about this category of words in this register is that it occurs in different languages. The examples provided in Table 1 in Appendix 7 come from Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu. In the corpus, there are also many examples from Kannada and Malayalam, to mention just two more languages. What is also interesting is that at times, the choice of language was determined by the particular word mentioned, and not necessarily the first language of the speakers. This fact is illustrated in the following sentence: – You had artikailu? We also had artikailu. (Telugu, Conversation 6 in Conversational English) The word artikailu in this sentence is a Telugu word for eggplant. The speakers in this part of the conversation, however, spoke Tamil more frequently than they did Telugu. They were just used to using this particular word in Telugu, possibly because they were more familiar with the word for eggplant in Telugu than they were in Tamil. A possible reason for this might be the context in which the speakers normally encountered this word. If they encountered it at the vegetable market, where the vendor spoke Telugu, they would be more likely to use it in Telugu than in their native Tamil. What this points out is that at least in South India, there is an interesting mixture of the different Dravidian languages used. Other categories which show large presences in Conversational English include Discourse Markers, People, and Larger Chunks of Language. Discourse Markers, such as different forms of yes and no (when not performing their normal discourse functions), and terms used to refer to people extremely casually (such as hey in English), were found in many texts, and like the words in the Food category, also occurred in different languages. Some discourse markers, like the word yaar (no direct translation is possible for this word, but it can be very loosely translated to fellow) were words in Hindi, and were used irrespective of the language background of the speaker. To illustrate, the sentence “Why, yaar?” was spoken by a native speaker of Kannada. The use of the Hindi word instead of a Kannada word was probably because the speaker was fluent in Hindi, which does function as a



Chapter 5.  Register variation 

common language in India. It also suggests that words like yaar have gained common parlance in the language across the country. Other examples of Discourse Markers, as indicated in Table 1, Appendix 7 include rey and ba, both with no exact translations possible. Rey can be translated into fellow, too, and is in Telugu. Ba is a word that is used in many languages, and can only be “translated” as a slightly frustrated or irritated clicking of the tongue. Indian words in the People category were very common, too. In this register, people often were relatives, and, as indicated by the examples in Table 1, the words occurred in whatever language was first for the speaker. The words wallah, however, is a Hindi word, and is used by speakers all over India, irrespective of their first language. Larger Chunks of Language were also very common in this register, and as mentioned in Chapter 3, it would be interesting to do a study on code-switching in Conversational English, and to study the relationship between the different languages used in a single utterance. As the example sentences in Table 1 in Appendix 7 indicate, there were many sentences in which a few words were in English, then the speaker switched to another language, and then a couple of words later, switched back to English. An example of this is in the following sentence: – Five varake irreke, six le, they bifurcate. This sentence translates to “They are together till five, and at six, they bifurcate. What was even more fascinating was switching between three languages in the same utterance. This happened often when the participants in the conversation all spoke more than two languages. An example of a sentence where this happens is the following: – I asked her choru venama? She said what’s that? Vekkum ille. You only know what artikai is. This sentence is from a conversation occurring between people who speak Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, and English equally well. The sentence translates to I asked her, “Do you want rice?” She said what’s that? No shame! You only know what eggplant is. In this one utterance, the same speaker goes between English, Tamil, and Telugu with ease, and her choice of what language to use depends on the particular word in the utterance. Other semantic categories in this register which had examples in them include Clothing, Greetings, Politics, and Music. Once again, these words come from different languages. An exception is Music, where the majority of the words are in Sanskrit. This is likely due to the fact that most of the words in Music are related to Classical Indian music, which has its roots in Sanskrit.

 Register Variation in Indian English

The Other category shows a high frequency of use of Hindi words even when the speaker does not speak Hindi as a first language. Examples of sentences with Hindi words include the following: – This is all just tamasha. (This is all just fun/chaos) – He will rule the thing with a danda. (He will rule with a stick/iron hand) – I will just as easily say dacoity than burglary. (as the sentence indicates, this word translates to burglary) – If they can take the issue, then pucca. (perfect) – He is working in a corporation. Doing delivery. Tabal delivery. (letter) The examples of the Larger Chunks of Language in this register also show multiple switches from one language to another within the same utterance. An example is the following sentence: – So many people have asked me yeh kaise hua? Yeh toh accident hai. Certain things happen. (So many people have asked me how this happened. This is an accident. Certain things happen.) 1600 1400 1200

Mean

1000 800 600 400 200 0

Food

Music Clothing

Religion

People Greeting Larger Discmark Politics

Figure 16.  Indian words in Conversational English (Normalized to 1,000,000 words)



Chapter 5.  Register variation 

Most previous research on Indian words in Indian English focuses almost exclusively on content words and not function words. The current analysis, however, showed that often, function words (commonly relativizers) occurred in an Indian language. An example of a sentence with such a use (the Indian word belongs to the Discourse Markers category) is the following: – I had decided ki I don’t deserve to be a lawyer. (I had decided that I don’t want to be a lawyer). 5.3.2 Discussion of Indian words in Spoken Academic Language Indian words are relatively uncommon in Spoken Academic English, except, as indicated in Figure 17 (and Table 2 in Appendix 7), for words belonging to Religion. The reason for this is clear when one recognizes that given that religion has always played a fairly major role in Indian life, the study of history, politics, or even English literature in India often focuses on India’s religious past. 1000

800

Mean

600

400

200

0

Food

Music Clothing

Religion

People Greeting Larger Discmark Politics

Figure 17.  Counts of Indian word categories in Spoken Academic Language

 Register Variation in Indian English

Other categories which have some examples (far fewer than Religion, however) in them include People, Greetings, and Larger Chunks of Discourse. What is interesting about the examples from these three categories is that while there are many examples from the various first languages of the participants, there are an equal number of examples from Hindi. Further, the Hindi examples come from speakers whose first language is not Hindi. The following sentence with a greeting in it is a perfect example: – Namaste. Welcome to Yoga Time. This sentence was spoken by a native speaker of Tamil, who teaches Yoga on a Malayalam channel on television. Throughout the yoga instructions, he does not use any Hindi. It is interesting, then, that he chooses to begin the program with a greeting in Hindi, when it would have been just as easy to use the Malayalam or Tamil equivalent, Namaskaram. 5.3.3 Discussion of Indian words in Spoken News As is to be expected, the largest category of Indian words in News was Politics. With News, it was difficult to obtain accurate information on the first languages of the speakers; however, it is interesting to note that many Indian words found in this register (as example sentences in Table 3 in Appendix 7 illustrate) were in Hindi. Examples of words in the Politics category, and also in Hindi, include the following: – He has called for a twelve-hour state wide bundh today. (protest) – The issue of police firing and lathi charge also was discussed. (attack with sticks) The words bundh and lathi charge are Hindi words that have become common in the English used in India. These are words that previous research on Indian English frequently mentions. The relatively high frequency of words belonging to the Religion category once again emphasizes the importance religion plays in India. It is not uncommon for a religious issue to be the subject of everyday news. An example sentence with Indian words belonging to the Religion category includes the following: – …praying and performing so many poojas, all night prayers, special namaazes in all temples… (ceremonies).



Chapter 5.  Register variation  400

Mean

300

200

100

0

Food

Music Clothing

Religion

People Greeting Larger Discmark Politics

Figure 18.  Counts of Indian word categories in Spoken News

5.3.4 Discussion of Indian words in Written News As Figure 19 below shows, Indian words in this register frequently belong to the Food, Religion, and Politics categories. The presence of political words is not surprising; many words in this category are both topic and register specific. Words in Politics include some of the following, and are all in Hindi. – In 1993, one third panchayat seats were reserved for… (political organization) – There were sharp protests back home against the japha diplomacy. – They continue to fight alongside the army jawans (soldiers). The other categories with several words in them are Food and Religion, Food had a presence because there were several articles that focused on various agricultural products, several of which have (as far as I know) no English equivalents. The fact that (Religion featured as prominently as it did) reiterates the point made above, that Religion plays a fairly major role in life in India.

 Register Variation in Indian English 400

Mean

300

200

100

0

Food

Music Clothing

Religion

People Greeting Larger Discmark Politics

Figure 19.  Counts of Indian word categories in Written News

The most interesting thing that this analysis of Indian words in this register showed was that most Indian words are also somehow separated from the rest of the discourse. This separation occurs in one of two ways, either by enclosing the word(s) within inverted commas, or by providing translations of the words. An example is the following sentence with a number of Indian words, all of which are translated: – Take for example his definition of Dharma. According to him, Dharma has 10 Lakshanas (attributes) — dhriti, kshama, dama, asteya, shaucha, indriyanigraha, dhi, vidya, satya, and akrodha — that is courage, compassion, self-possession, non- covetousness, cleanliness, control of the senses, intellect learning, truth, and evenness of temper. This separation possibly shows that with written registers, particular formal written registers like News, Indian words are still marked – they have not become part of the language as many have in spoken Indian English. Further, when Indian words do occur in Written News, they are often words spoken by someone. A sentence which illustrates this fact is the following:



Chapter 5.  Register variation 

– Andaru America allullanu korukuntaru. Akkada settle ayinavallake pellicheddam anukuntaru. (Telugu, Written News; Dcreg1) This sentence is reported as having been said by a certain politician, and is followed by a translation (Everyone thinks they can go to America. They think that after they settle there, they can call them). Table 4 in Appendix 7 provides examples of sentences with the different semantic categories of Indian words in them. 5.3.5 Discussion of Indian words in Written Academic English As indicated in Figure 20 below and the examples in Table 5 in Appendix 7, Indian words feature quite commonly in Written Academic English. As with many of the other registers discussed earlier, Religion feature most prominently. Many of the written texts from the Humanities section of ICE-India focus on India’s religious past; the presence of these words, then, can be interpreted to be topic-specific, rather than register-specific. It is also not unusual that Music featured as prominently as it did; many texts focused on music and dance – again, central to Indian culture. 400

Mean

300

200

100

0

Food

Music Clothing

Religion

People Greeting Larger Discmark Politics

Figure 20.  Counts of Indian word categories in Written Academic English

 Register Variation in Indian English

An absence of words in Greetings, Clothing, and Discourse Markers indicates their obvious irrelevance to this register. 5.3.6 Discussion of Indian words in Business Correspondence This register has Indian words belonging to all semantic categories except Clothing and Discourse Markers. Given that many texts in this register came from the Dear Abby sub-register, where people wrote in asking for advice on issues central to their lives, and given the importance of both food and religion in India, the presence of words in these categories is not surprising. Food had examples in it because one of the types of letters in this register where letters talking about one’s diet. All three food words (samosas, chaat, and poori) there were in Hindi. However, as mentioned before, these are words that are now commonly used in many other Indian languages, too. It was also not surprising to find words in Religion because several of the letters dealt with astrology and numerology, which were grouped under the Religion Category. Nor surprisingly, given the roots of these disciplines, these words all occurred in Sanskrit. 300

Mean

200

100

0

Food

Music Clothing

People Greeting Larger Religion Discmark Politics

Figure 21.  Counts of Indian word categories in Business Correspondence



Chapter 5.  Register variation 

There were several words in the Other Category. These were all in Hindi, and include the following: – You should never have started this natak in the first place. (show) – We want to demolish this chawl and construct a house. (hut) As with Indian words in Written News, many of the Indian words in this register occurred in the text within inverted commas. Once again, this showed that the writers did not regard them as part of the “normal” language, but saw them as marked, and therefore, somehow needing to be separated from the rest of the language. The large number of Indian words belonging to the People, Politics and Religion categories is also not surprising; many texts in this register came from the sub-register of Letters to the Editor. Considering that the public expresses opinions about current events, and given that political issues or religious issues are common in Indian news, this finding is not surprising. People is explained when one looks at the sorts of words that occur in this category. These include the following: – Dr. Singh is not a saffron-robed sadhu. (saint) Here, as with many other uses of Indian words in English, the use of the word saint would not have the same connotation as the word sadhu. For this reason, the writer probably uses the Hindi word instead of the English one. Example sentences are provided in Table 6 in Appendix 7. 5.3.7 Discussion of Indian words in Personal Correspondence As Table 7 in Appendix 7 indicates, Indian words are relatively common in Personal Correspondence. Further, as Figure 22 below indicates, all the semantic categories had Indian words in them except for Discourse Markers. What is interesting about this register is that it resembles spoken registers like Conversation and Service Encounters with its preponderance of words belonging to Food, and to a smaller extent, People. The frequent presence of words belonging to the People category is due to the fact that the addressees in many of the letters were Indian words. Examples include the following: – Everything’s going on well in Seema attai’s family. (Tamil, Email26) – How are perimma and periappa? (Tamil, Email26) As with the other registers, both spoken and written, Food is common. As in other registers, if food was mentioned, Indian words were used rather than English ones, to refer to Indian food items.

 Register Variation in Indian English 600

500

Mean

400

300

200

100

0

Food

Music Clothing

Religion

People Greeting Larger Discmark Politics

Figure 22.  Counts of Indian word categories in Personal Correspondence

Religion was also present as a category in this register because the names of Indian festivals have been put into this category, and a common Indian festival, Divali, was mentioned. Other words in this category include the following in the following sentences: – For my mother’s varshashraddha I am coming. (Sanskrit, W1B-002) – …and spend some quiet time at the samadhi of Shri Aurobindo. (Sanskrit, W1B-004) As with the spoken registers, the language that the Indian words were in depended on the first language of the speaker, except for the words in Food, which were mainly in Hindi, but were words that had been adopted into other languages in India. Words such as these include dhokla (which is originally in Gujrati), and pav bhaji (which is in Hindi). Both these are types of North Indian food, but have been adopted into other parts of India.



Chapter 5.  Register variation 

5.3.8 Discussion of Indian words in Written Entertainment News The distribution of Indian words across different categories in Written Entertainment News is shown in Figure 23 below (and Table 8 in Appendix 7). This register has its largest category of words in Music. This is explained when one considers the nature of the texts in this register. Most of the texts talked about issues related to the Indian film industry. Since music plays a huge role in the film industry, the preponderance of Indian words in this register is not surprising. The Indian language mainly used in this category was Sanskrit, (again, because of the influence this language still has on Indian music) followed by Hindi. The other categories which have similar numbers of Indian words in them include Food, Clothing, Religion, People, and Larger Chunks of Language. Interestingly, unlike Editorials, where we saw mainly Hindi, we do see some other languages here. There are several examples of Kannada from Kannada newspapers like the Deccan Herald. However, this is not consistent, as several sentences in Table 8 in Appendix 7 indicate. Two example sentences for Larger Chunks of Language both come from the Deccan Herald. While one is in Kannada, the other is in Hindi. 3000

Mean

2000

1000

0

Food

Music Clothing

Religion

People Greetings Larger Discmark Politics

Figure 23.  Counts of Indian word categories in Written Entertainment News

 Register Variation in Indian English

The same is true of the words in People. All the words in Food are in Hindi, and most of the examples for this category come from Filmfare, a Mumbai-based film magazine. What is perhaps surprising about this register is the relative lack of Discourse Markers. Given the relative informality of the language in this register, I expected it to more closely resemble a spoken register like Conversational English in this regard. The interesting class of words in this register is Other. On examining this category, two things become obvious. The first is the same fact mentioned with the other registers: Hindi is a popular language to use. In fact, in this register, more than 90% of the words in this category, regardless of their source, were in Hindi. The second fact, however, is the more interesting. In this register, in a lot of contexts, speakers seemed to make a stylistic choice to use Hindi instead of English. Examples of sentences with Hindi words used in this manner include the following: – He succeeds in patoing Rohit’s girlfriend (stealing) – At a tehzeeb-bhari soiree, Sudha and Suri took us to the residence of pucca Hyderabadites (perfect) – For more masti and mazaa, on to Kamal Hasaan. (literally, these two words mean spice. Used here, they refer to gossip about a certain film star). – That’s surely worth a dekho. (a look). In all these sentences, there are simple and obvious English words for the words in Hindi. Reading these sentences in this context, however, it becomes clear that the writer uses these words for effect. This is particularly clear with the last sentence, where the word dekho in Hindi is the verb to see. In the sentence, however, it is used in place of the English noun look. As mentioned earlier, what makes this more interesting is the fact that all the words are in Hindi, even if the writer is not a Hindi speaker. When I first noticed these words, I wondered if it would even be possible to use a word in another language in place of Hindi. Based on my knowledge, I don’t think this would be possible. Hindi seems to be used in certain situations, to make the English used sound “cooler,” if I may use a colloquialism. This finding definitely supports Indian English moving away from mere Nativization, and moving toward Schneider’s (2003) Endonormative Stabilization, which is marked by “the gradual adoption and acceptance of an indigenous linguistic norm, supported by a new, locally rooted linguistic self confidence…” (p. 249). Written Entertainment News is different from other registers in one other way. Many of the Indian words used in this register are very register specific, and would not have an equivalent translation in English. The film industry in India follows certain protocols on completion of films. All the people involved in the making of a movie go through a certain procedure (often with religious components) before



Chapter 5.  Register variation 

the movie is first shown. Certain words, therefore, are very specific to such ceremonies. Words such as these include the following: – The mahurat of the film will be early next month. (opening ceremony) – It starts with the nariyal breaking ceremony. (coconut) Unlike the other written registers discussed thus far, Written Entertainment News also does not provide translations for the words, or separate them in any way from the rest of the discourse. They simply form a part of the discourse suggesting that they are far less marked than they are in the other written registers. 5.3.9 Discussion of Indian words in Fiction Fiction was most interesting in terms of the language of the Indian words. More than any other register, I noticed that the language used depended on the first language of the author, and often, on where in India the author set the story. Therefore, there are examples of words in all the Dravidian languages, as well as many in Hindi or Urdu. It is interesting, however, that no other north Indian languages seem to be used often. I did not, for example, find Gujarati or Rajastani even though there were texts by authors with Gujarati and Rajastani as their first languages. 1200

1000

Mean

800

600

400

200

0

Food

Music Clothing

Religion

People Greeting Larger Discmark Politics

Figure 24.  Counts of Indian word categories in Fiction

 Register Variation in Indian English

This register had most of its Indian words in the People category. In most of the situations which required the mention of a relative, the person was referred to in an Indian language. Thus, “grandfather” was either tatha (Tamil) or nana (Hindi), depending on the language being used. In many of the stories, it seemed that people were referred to in Indian languages often to give the language used in the story more authenticity. One only has to think of the way they refer to relatives in everyday conversation. While there are many Indians I know who speak primarily English everyday, relatives are invariably referred to in the Indian languages. Other semantic categories which follow People, although distantly, include Food, Clothing, Music, and Religion; once again, as with People, the language used depended on the first language of the author of the story. Categories which had few examples in them included Discourse Markers and Larger Chunks of Language. What was also interesting about this register, however, is that despite the fact that they had more languages in them, there were many instances where the author used Hindi even though the situation might not have called for it. In the story, “If a Name”, for example, the family is a Telugu speaking one, and there are many Telugu examples, as Table 9 in Appendix 7 shows. However, there are several words that are in Hindi, where Telugu equivalents could have been used instead. An example is the following sentence: – Even if they met in some marriages or kumkum ceremonies, they chatted away their time talking about new muggulu or new dishes, but no letters. The word kumkum (vermilion powder used on the forehead) is a Hindi word used instead of its Telugu equivalent. What is interesting about this sentence is that it also has a Telugu word, muggulu (flower) in it. 5.3.10 Discussion of Indian words in Written Travel News Figure 25 below, and Table 10 in Appendix 7, show the distribution of Indian words in this register. As is obvious, this register has a very large number of Food words. Given that a large part of this register comprises articles from a restaurant guide, this is hardly surprising. What is interesting about this register is that almost all the words (except the few that originated in South India and are now used all over the country) are in Hindi. Examples include words in the following sentences: – First I will tell you abut the rooti. It is made from rice flour, like a dosa. (Originally Dravidian languages; now all languages, Ret1) – It has ginger, garlic, and Kashmiri mirch, bhunaoed in a frying pan. (Hindi, Ret1)



Chapter 5.  Register variation  7000 6000 5000

Mean

4000 3000 2000 1000 0 Food Music People Greeting Larger Clothing Religion Discmark Politics

Figure 25.  Counts of Indian word categories in Written Travel News

– Latpata is two drumsticks, latpatoed (wrapped) in a paste made of… (Hindi, Ret1) – The kinds served here are curried or tandoored. (Hindi, Ret1) – It is marinated overnight and charcoal-grilled or tavaed overnight. (Hindi, Ret2) Other categories which have a few examples in them, also in Hindi, include Religion, Clothing, and People. Once again, given the nature of a travel article, this is to be expected. What is really interesting about this register, and one illustrated in sentences 2, 3, 4, and 5 above, is that it is the only register which has what Kachru termed “blends.” This is the only register which has Indian words with English morphemes. As mentioned in the Chapter 3, I initially wanted to do a separate analysis on this feature. However, as I discovered how few instances of these words there were in the corpus, I decided to group all Indian words together. The most common of these blends is Indian words with the English -ed morpheme. As shown in the sentences above, examples of such words include tandoored and tavaed, from

 Register Variation in Indian English

tandoor and tava, respectively. An even more interesting word occurs in the following sentence: – They are barbecued on coal, till half done, then de-seekhed and cooked in an onion and tomato gravy. (Hindi, Ret2) The word de-seekhed, which comes from the Indian word seekh, means a way of cooking a kebab. The writer has creatively used two English morphemes, the past tense -ed and the negative de-. It is indeed interesting that such blends are not more common in other registers of Indian English. 5.3.11 Discussion of Indian words across registers The previous section discussed the differences between Indian words across registers of Indian English. From the discussion there, it is clear that some conclusions can be reached. In this section, these conclusions are summarized. – It is clear that it is simply not possible to examine Indian words as a whole in Indian English; there are too many variations. – On the whole, spoken registers have a far greater number of Indian words than do the written registers. – In the spoken registers, Indian words occur as part of the discourse, i.e., they occur naturally in the stream of conversation. In most situations, then, the Indian words occur as a part of the English; they are clearly borrowed from another language, but have become a part of Indian English. – In the spoken registers, Larger Chunks of discourse are extremely common, and often speakers switch from one language to another in the same utterance. – In written registers, Indian words are more often separated from the rest of the discourse, often occurring within inverted commas. Further, translations of the Indian words are often provided. In written registers, then, Indian words appear as clearly borrowed (as indicated by their presence within inverted commas, within parentheses, etc.) for some reason. In written registers, Indian words remain more marked than they do in spoken registers. – In written registers, Larger Chunks of discourse are uncommon, except when someone’s words/speech is being reported. In this case, too, a translation is provided. – Many registers have register-specific Indian words. Examples of these include Entertainment (written), which has a lot of Indian words related to the film industry, and Regional News, which has a lot of political Indian words with no exact translations in English.



Chapter 5.  Register variation 

– Other registers, while not just characterized by register-specific Indian words, are characterized by large numbers of particular categories of Indian words, depending on the topic of discussion. This is particularly true of spoken registers. – Food is a common Indian word category across registers. – Very often, Indian words are used when there is no equivalent word in English. In situations like this, it becomes much more convenient to use the Indian word than the English word. This is particularly true of Religion, Music, and Food. – In Entertainment (written), it seems to be fashionable to use Indian words to make the overall language more colorful. This feature is register specific. – There are few examples of blends. The English morphemes –ed and –ing are found to occur with Indian words, but are not common. The only two registers where blends such as these were found are Travel and conversational English. – Perhaps most interesting of all findings, Hindi seems to be the language most commonly used, often irrespective of the first language of the speaker. Indeed, many of the Indian words which have no equivalents in English, and which have come to be commonly used in English, are in Hindi. These words have therefore become adopted into other Indian languages as well. This is truer of Hindi than of any other Indian language. 5.4 Conclusion This chapter has presented results of the register analyses of all the lexical features examined in this study. Chapter 6 will provide a detailed account of register variation with respect to grammatical features. It will provide results in terms of differences between registers for each grammatical feature studied.

chapter 6

Register variation Grammatical features

6.0 Introduction This chapter discusses the results of the grammatical analyses conducted for this project in terms of differences between the different registers of Indian English. As before, results are presented according to the kind of analysis performed. For Type I analyses, results are presented in tables with frequencies of the non-Indian variant, frequencies of the Indian variants, and percentages of the Indian variants across all the registers of the Indian corpus. For all these features, conclusions about the frequency of occurrence of the Indian variant in specific registers are made. The tables also provide examples from every register, and where appropriate, the specific sub-register, of sentences containing the Indian variant of the feature examined. As much as possible, the examples are obtained from as many different texts as possible. If all examples of the Indian variant came from a single text, or a single speaker/writer, this fact is noted in the discussion of the results. For the Type II analyses, results here are presented in terms of general patterns of occurrence across the 11 registers of Indian English represented in the corpus. Where appropriate, patterns in the registers of the Indian corpus are compared with those obtained by Biber et al (1999) for British and American English. 6.1 Stative verbs in the progressive: Type I analysis It was concluded in Chapter 4 that in general, progressive forms of stative verbs did occur more commonly in Indian English than in British or American English. Further, it was also concluded that they were more frequent in Spoken Indian English (where 16% of the instances studied were stative progressives) than in Written Indian English (where 2.8% of the instances studied were stative progressives). Table 33 below presents the results of a register analysis of the occurrence of stative verbs in the progressive across the 11 registers of the corpus; example sentences come from the different sub-registers within the registers. The first thing one notices from the results presented in Table 33 is that in general, the spoken

 Register Variation in Indian English

registers, except for Sports Reportage, do have a higher proportion of stative progressives than do the written registers. The lack of stative progressives in Sports Reportage can, however, not be commented on, given the paucity of data in this register. Conversational English had 8.4% of the verbs occurring as stative progressives; Spoken Academic English had 21.6% of the verbs studied occurring as stative progressives; and Spoken News had 15.6% of the verbs occurring in the progressive. In all three registers, instances of stative progressives came from different files, suggesting that the uses are not idiosyncratic to particular speakers. In the written registers, except for Written Academic English, stative progressives are rare, with frequencies ranging from 0 to 7.9% (except for Written Academic English). The two written registers with relatively high frequencies of stative progressives are Personal Correspondence and Travel Writing, with 7.3% and 7.9%, respectively. This suggests that Indian features occur in the more informal written registers. Written Academic English was surprising in having 17 of the 51 verbs examined (33.3%) occur as stative progressives. Further, as shown in Table 60, the instances came from different files. As indicated in Chapter 3, all texts in Written Academic English were from ICE-India; the written academic English in ICE-India contains both printed materials (textbooks) and non-printed materials (student writing, for example). While one might assume that all the stative progressives came from non-printed materials, this was not found to be true. Table 33 provides example sentences from both printed and non-printed materials. Nonprinted writing (student writing), however, did have significantly more instances. As mentioned in Chapter 4, the analysis of stative verbs revealed that of the 22 stative verbs studied, only 9 occurred in the progressive. These nine include have, hear, understand, see, find, think, know, feel, and hear. Further, as Table 33 also shows, in all registers with stative progressives, the verb have occurs in the progressive more frequently than does any other verb studied. A conclusion that could therefore be reached from this analysis is that in registers of Indian English, the verb have occurs as a stative progressive more frequently than it does in registers of British or American English. The fact that the spoken registers in general had a higher frequency of the Indian feature under study is not surprising. What is, however, is the relatively high frequency of Indian stative verbs in Written Academic English, a register that is certainly considered more formal than the spoken registers, and also more formal than other written registers like Business Correspondence. The results of this analysis suggest that Indian English is at least in Schneider’s Stage 4 Endonormative Stabilization, and perhaps entering Stage 5 Differentiation. This analysis reveals the presence of this feature not just in the informal spoken registers like Conversational English, where one would expect the emergence of innovations during Schneider’s Nativization phase. The relatively high proportion of stative progres-



Chapter 6.  Register variation 

sives in Spoken Academic English and even Spoken News possibly suggests that this “local norm, distinct from the norms of the original colonizers, shall be accepted as adequate also in formal usage” (Schneider 2003, p. 250). The results of the current analysis allow me to suggest that the English in India is entering the Differentiation phase because of the relative infrequency of the feature in the more formal written registers. The difference between the spoken and written registers suggests the emergence of not a single variety of Indian English, but a cluster of varieties that differ linguistically based on a number of non linguistic variables; this is in keeping with Schneider’s description of the Differentiation phase: “…new varieties of the formerly new variety emerge as carriers of new group identities within the overall community” (p. 253). The high frequency of stative progressives in Academic English, both spoken and written, warrants further comment. Given the presumed formality of academic registers, it would be natural to expect a lower frequency of an Indian feature in these registers than in others. However, this analysis of stative progressives revealed that 21.6% of the verbs studied occurred as stative progressives in Spoken Academic English, and 33.3% of those studied in Written Academic English occurred as stative progressives. This suggests that register might not be the only non linguistic variable dictating the presence or absence of an Indian feature. As mentioned in Chapter 3, the individuals who contributed to these registers (spoken and written Academic English) of the corpus are younger than are the other corpus contributors. One could surmise, therefore, that this population of students is part of an “increasing proportion of indigenous people who grow up speaking some form of English as their mother tongue…” (Schneider, 2003, p. 243). This section of the population, then, are those whose English possibly didn’t go through the Exonormative Stabilizataion phase because the language in India had already gone through the Nativization phase when they grew up speaking it. If the language in India had already acquired an Indian identity, it is possible that this population did not have an external norm to aspire to. This is an idea that future studies on Indian English, particularly longitudinal studies, should investigate.

Spoken

Conversational English

Register

272

Total # of verbs studied

Table 33.  Stative verbs in the Progressive

Total: 23 having – 14 seeing – 3 thinking – 4 understanding – 2

# of instances of Stative Progressives 8.4%

% Indian occurrences – Both of them are having exams. (Conversation2) – I believe he was having the rank of professor in Bihar. (Conversation6) – The time seeing, and getting ready and coming to the bus stop. (Oral Interview) – So many problems the poor are having, but we don’t have any problem. (Oral Interview10) – They are thinking like that only. (Oral Interview13) – I mean till seventh standard I was having Hindi as second language. (Oral Interview2) – Yes, village sceneries we are having. (Service Encounters10) – So you are still having the loose motions. (Service Encounters2) – Giddiness are you having? (Service Encounters2) – That doesn’t mean I’m having a scene with him. (FInt6) – That was the strategy we were having in our mind. (RInt13) – Arre, you are not understanding. (RInt13)

Examples

 Register Variation in Indian English

Spoken

Spoken Academic English

Register

134

Total # of verbs studied Total: 29 having – 21 hearing – 1 understanding – 2 seeing – 2 finding – 1 feeling – 2

# of instances of Stative Progressives 21.6%

% Indian occurrences – I am saying we are having inverse noise filter. (Lecture3) – For a longer channel, I am hearing, I want to convey a message to somebody who is far off. (Lecture3) – My scooter is understanding the tree. (Lecture3) – … and I saw present, I am seeing present day the motive of scientist only to publish paper. (Office Hours1) – The major part of world population is not finding two times food in a day. (Office Hours1) – … and the main problem is science, I am understanding that the thinking of human is not nature. (Office Hours1) – What testing should be applied will be having a definite structure. (Miscellaneous2) – … in what terms it actually means is, see, we’ll be having so many faults in us. (Miscellaneous2) – They are having in their skin, having the larger quantity of melanin. (S1b-001) – …point of this was that the people were not having their own government. (S1b-014) – …man today is an old man who is having a marriageable age daughter. (S1b-018)

Examples

Chapter 6.  Register variation 

Written

Spoken

501

Written News

  51

   3

Spoken Sports Reportage

Written Academic English

  77

Total # of verbs studied

Spoken News

Register

Table 33.  continued

Total: 17 having – 11 knowing – 3 seeing – 3

Total: 2 having – 2

0

Total: 12 having – 2 feeling – 3 knowing – 1 seeing – 6

# of instances of Stative Progressives

33.3%

0.39%

0%

15.6%

% Indian occurrences

– What we are seeing today is the same river that was seen before. (W2A-008) – The employees or workers will not be knowing why business is carried out… (W1A-002) – The adult is having clubbed antenna. (W1A-019) – So the plants are having capacity to load the salts in phloem… (W1A-014)

– … you will not enjoy the benefit of tax deduction in respect of the said loan because you are already having one residential property in your name. (TIbus4) – It was also having parleys on how to reduce nuclear dangers till its objective was realized. (DCreg3)

– Most of them are having schemes which run from say overnight liquidity, providing overnight liquidity to the gild funds. (News7) – India and the United States are having good bilateral relations. (S2b-004) – We will be knowing how much the structure is getting… (S2b-006).

Examples

 Register Variation in Indian English

Written

  41

  58   43

Written Sports News Travel Writing

Total: 2 having – 1 understanding - 1

117

Personal Correspondence

0

109

Written Entertainment News Business Correspondence

0 Total: 3 having – 2 knowing – 1

Total: 3 having – 2 knowing – 1

Total: 6 hearing – 2 thinking – 1 having – 2 knowing – 1

316

Fiction

# of instances of Stative Progressives

Total # of verbs studied

Register

0% 7.9%

7.3%

1.7%

0%

1.8%

% Indian occurrences

– Few selected international carriers are also having their flights to the city. (ITGt2) – They all seemed to be knowing one another and the restaurant staff very well. (REt1)

– Three, those who are not understanding the above facts and are continuing to show… (DHmail7) – He is sincere, hard-working, and having polite behavior with teachers. (W1b-020) – If you are having any training programs which covers these topics, then let me know the dates for these. (Email20) – …friend Dr. Shantibhai Somaiya who is having a sugar factory in Kartanaka… (W1b-009)

– Are you hearing me, you daughter of delirium? (IFHarambe) – Are you hearing me, dearie? (IFHarambe) – I am thinking one generation has passed away. (IFShadow) – Sharanpal was already having two offsprings, a daughter and a healthy son. (IFSkeleton) – … tell me where Kavita has gone. You must be knowing. (EFDecision)

Examples

Chapter 6.  Register variation 

 Register Variation in Indian English

6.2 Past and present perfect In this section, results on Indian patterns of occurrence of the past and present perfect verb phrases across registers of Indian English are presented. First, the results of the analysis on the past perfect are presented. This is followed by a discussion of the analysis of present perfect verb phrases. As described in Chapter 3, the Indian past perfect occurs in independent clauses without accompanying adverbials of time, and the Indian present perfect occurs in sentences where the action was clearly completed in the past (as indicated by an adverbial), and where, therefore, we would expect to find the past tense. Examples of the Indian past and present include the following: – I had been there. – He has come to see me yesterday. 6.2.1 Past perfect Chapter 4 suggested that Indian past perfect verb phrases do not occur frequently in either spoken or written Indian English, although they are more frequent in spoken Indian English. Table 34 below shows the results of a register analysis of patterns of occurrence of Indian past perfect verb phrases with example sentences from the different registers (and sub-registers) in the corpus. In all the sentences with Indian past perfect verb phrases, the sentences or clauses preceding the sentences or clauses with the verb phrase in question were studied to determine if adverbials occurred in them. A verb phrase was identified as “Indian” only if there were no time adverbials in either the sentence with the past perfect verb phrase or the preceding sentences. As Table 34 indicates, Conversational English has by far the highest proportion of Indian past perfect verb phrases; of the 56 verb phrases studied, 12 showed the Indian pattern, i.e., they occurred in independent clauses without accompanying adverbials of time. Conversational English is followed by Spoken News, which had 3% of the verb past perfect verb phrases showing the Indian pattern. This is followed by Spoken Academic English, with 1.4% Indian past perfect verb phrases. Example sentences from Conversational English include the following: – Some journalist had written that article. (Entertainment1) – But you had taken a PhD in food and agriculture in Ethiopia. (Entertainment1) – I had planned a lot of shopping in the fourth block. (Service Encounters3) – That lady had bought both of them. (Service Encounters4) In all four examples, the past perfect is used in independent clauses with no accompanying adverbials of time in either the sentences themselves or any preceding sentences.



Chapter 6.  Register variation 

In general, the written registers had fewer examples of Indian past perfect verb phrases, with the highest frequency occurring in Business Correspondence (6.25%). This register is followed by Written Entertainment News (5.9%), Fiction (4.8%), Personal Correspondence (3.9%), Written News (2.2%), Travel Writing (2.7%), and Written Sports News (1.02%). However, in Written Entertainment, Written Sports News, and Travel Writing, there is only one example of Indian past perfect, suggesting that this is idiosyncratic on the part of the writer, and is not representative of the register. Both Business Correspondence and Personal Correspondence had 4 instances each; further, in both registers, the four examples came from different files. As mentioned earlier, the Business Correspondence section of the ICE corpus contains unpublished letters, many of which resemble personal correspondence. The presence of some Indian past perfect verb phrases shows that in written registers, Indian features tend to occur in the more informal registers. 6.2.2 Present perfect As with the past perfect, it is clear from Chapter 4 that in general, the Indian pattern of occurrence of the present perfect (in sentences where the action was clearly completed in the past, and where one would expect the use of the simple past tense) is not frequent in either spoken or written Indian English. As with the past perfect, an initial analysis showed that the Indian pattern of occurrence is more frequent in spoken Indian English than in written Indian English. Table 35 below shows the results of a register analysis of present perfect verb phrases across the 11 different registers in the corpus. Similar to the analysis of past perfect verb phrases, this analysis of present perfect verb phrases reveals that the Indian present perfect is more common in Conversational English than in any other register, either spoken or written. Of the 501 present perfect verb phrases studied in Conversational English, 28 (5.6%) occurred in sentences where the action was clearly completed in the past (as evidenced by the presence of an adverb or adverbial of time). The other spoken registers have fewer examples: Spoken Academic English has 3.6%, Spoken news 1.9%, and no examples in Spoken Sports Reportage. All the written registers have fewer examples, with the most occurring in Written Entertainment News (3 examples, accounting for 3.84% of the verb phrases studied). Personal Correspondence has the next highest proportion, with 1.4% of the present perfect verb phrases occurring in the Indian pattern. Once again, this analysis suggests that Indian grammatical patterns seem to occur most frequently in Conversational English, and in the more informal written registers.

Spoken

220

  66

   2

Spoken News

Spoken Sports Reportage

  56

Total Past Perfect analyzed

Spoken Academic English

Conversational English

Register

Table 34.  Past Perfect

 0

 2

 3

12

# of “Indian” instances

0%

3.0%

1.4%

21.4%

% Indian instances

– The minister had remained in critical condition with circulatory instability… (News12) – Our people had laid down their lives in Kargil. (News4)

– I mean let us face it. He had started his life. (Miscellaneous2) – He had gone out into the world. (Miscellaneous2)

– Somebody had forwarded this. (Conversation9) – They had booked me through Jet Airways. (Conversation4) – I had requested them for a window seat. (Conversation4) – She had gone to Madras. (Conversation6) – M and B had gone. (Conversation6) – Some journalist had written that article. (Entertainment1) – But you had taken a PhD in food and agriculture in Ethiopia. (Entertainment1) – I had planned a lot of shopping in the fourth block. (Service Encounters3) – That lady had bought both of them. (Service Encounters4)

Examples

 Register Variation in Indian English

Written

250

  17

Written Entertainment News

  57

Written Academic English

Fiction

184

Total Past Perfect analyzed

Written News

Register

 1

12

 0

 4

# of “Indian” instances

5.9%

4.8%

0%

2.2%

% Indian instances

– The large Wembley stadium in London had sold out weeks in advance. (Fent13)

– The badam trees had dropped yellow leaves and acquired new green leaves. (IFBracelet) – She had lost the opportunity of making more money. (IFPankajam) – The bitch had lost its trust in the goodness of human beings. (IFPankajam) – But he had never shown any excitement. (EFDouble) – Vikram had said it all. (EFHealing)

– The board of Wockhardt had approved the demerger scheme. (TIBus2) – The Asian Institute of Transport had held 10 lakh units. (ETBus7) – Gandhiji had set an admirable and effective example through spinning, Khadi and the organization of ashrams… (Hed4) – We had installed the Flat Plate Collector in a private hospital. (STReg3)

Examples

Chapter 6.  Register variation 

Written

  64

101

  98

  36

Personal Correspondence

Written Sports News

Travel Writing

Total Past Perfect analyzed

Business Correspondence

Register

Table 34.  continued

 1

 1

 4

 4

# of “Indian” instances

2.7%

1.02%

3.9%

6.25%

% Indian instances

“We had batted well,” he said. (DHSp3)

Thanks. I had mailed earlier. (Email17) I had been to your place with Devi. (Email25) As a result, he had got a bonus. (W1B-001) He had been out of station. (W1B-002)

– The King of Nepal had built this temple on Lalita Ghat in Nepali style. (ITGt1)

–

– – – –

– She had taken the people of Bellary for granted. (DHMail18) – I think the Vice-Chancellor had given a decision about the application. (W1B-017) – The above mentioned student had registered his name in Maharashtra. (W1B-022)

Examples

 Register Variation in Indian English

Spoken

Conversational English

Register

Table 35.  Present Perfect

  501

Total Present Perfect analyzed 28

# of “Indian” instances 5.6%

% Indian instances – You can get the hint that what answer that person has given is wrong. (Conversation9) – So today morning she has sent a mail, Subha’s mother. (Conversation2) – He has organized it in a big hotel. (from the context, it is clear that the event took place several years ago) (Conversation6) – And I have obtained some training when I was in England, personal training… (Entertainment3) – I have paid tax for the first year 48, 49 when I came here as a refugee, I have started my life in that camp, in that year I have paid taxes. (Entertainment1) – He has parked wrongly. He has parked straight before I came. (Service Encounters6) – At some marriage you have eaten, no? (Service Encounters1) – Few months back I’ve been to Baroda. (Oral Interview7) – I’ve stayed over there for few days, and it’s so mechanical. (Oral Interview1) – For some reason he has kicked up a row and now we are seized of the matter. (RInt4)

Examples

Chapter 6.  Register variation 

Spoken

   30

1119

Spoken News

Spoken Sports Reportage

  112

Total Present Perfect analyzed

Spoken Academic English

Register

Table 35.  continued

 0

22

 4

# of “Indian” instances

0

1.9%

3.6%

% Indian instances

– High court has delivered a verdict last month. (News11) – At that time, they have boycotted law and order duty. (News11) – The city of Calcutta has celebrated its three hundred and eleventh birthday yesterday. (News12) – R. R. Gopal, who left for the jungles last Wednesday, has met Veerappan last Saturday. (News2) – Abdul Majid Dhar, on Tuesday, in the recent interview he gave, has complimented the Indian intelligence… (Politics5) – Recently the honorable prime minister of Nepal has visited our country. (Politics4) – Sir, as I have mentioned earlier, no doubt is there. (Politics4)

– He immediately rushed and then he has given me, I just put it on the table. (Lecture5) – In one of the recent All India Radio programs I couldn’t attend, I have given one slogan to all the teachers. (Lecture5) – That is OK, whatever Shashi has said. (Lecture2)

Examples

 Register Variation in Indian English

Written

605

584

124

  78

Written Academic English

Fiction

Written Entertainment News

Total Present Perfect analyzed

Written News

Register

 3

 1

 7

 4

# of “Indian” instances

3.84%

0.8%

1.2%

0.66%

% Indian instances

She has given me this letter for you. (EFDecision)

– Hamsalekha has scored two excellent lilting tunes in Hrudaya. (DHEnt4) – Twinkle has looked extremely good in the film, but the discerning eye can notice a subtle lack of chemistry… (FEnt12)

–

– The middle age has witnessed the tremendous progress of science… (W1A-002) – In the 15th century, the progress of science has been phenomenal. (W1A-002) – The recent example is of France which has tested their nuclear bombs in Pacific. (W1A-002)

– The engineering arm of the Thapar group has recently entered into an agreement with Piaggio Spa of Italy. (TIBus2) – Recently she has done her airlines course and would like to do some modeling in the future. (STEd2) – But I’m sure that judges have seen the potential in me before selecting me. (Fef7) – For instance, Sundar, who has secured 76 percent last year in one of the science subjects…. (Dhreg1)

Examples

Chapter 6.  Register variation 

Written

292

291

Travel Writing

498

Personal Correspondence

Written Sports Reportage

609

Total Present Perfect analyzed

Business Correspondence

Register

Table 35.  continued

 3

 0

 7

 4

# of “Indian” instances

1.03%

0

1.4%

0.66%

% Indian instances

– Adhi Shankaracharya, one of the greatest gurus of India, has established his ashram here. (ITGt1)

– Mummy and daddy have gone to Tirupati with Bajja auntie this morning. (Email15) – I came to know that they have sent the petition on Friday. (Email20) – He has found someone else a week after we broke up. (Email10) – I have finished my doctorate on 4th of November. (W1B011)

– Pakistani intrusion has taken place due to the Union Government’s lapse. (DHmail15) – In July 1996 we have started both B.J.C. and M.J.C. classes… (W1B-017) – It seems he has received your earlier letter a couple of days ago. (W1B-010)

Examples

 Register Variation in Indian English



Chapter 6.  Register variation 

6.3 Articles In Chapter 4, I concluded that missing articles were not as common in Indian English as previous research (Agnihotri and Khanna, 1984; Shekar and Hegde, 1996; Lukmani, 1992) would have us believe, either when taken as a whole, or when separated into spoken and written varieties. These aforementioned results, however, are altered substantially if article use is examined in individual registers. This section first discusses register variation with respect to article usage in each of the six situations in which article use was examined. This section concludes with a summary of article use across registers in general. 6.3.1 Article use before ordinal numbers An initial glance at Table 36 below indicates that there are marked differences between spoken and written registers. As with the other tables we have seen so far, the example sentences are taken from the different sub-registers in each of the registers. An analysis of the spoken registers of the corpus once again shows a clear pattern: Conversational English has the largest frequency of missing articles; of the 341 ordinal numbers studied in Conversational English, 126, or 36.9% had missing articles. Spoken Academic English is next, with 15.6% of the ordinal numbers studied missing articles before them. This is followed by Spoken News, with 38 of 275 instances studied missing the articles. Spoken Sports Reportage had only one missing article. As with the analyses of the other features studied so far, this analysis also shows that the more informal the register, the greater the frequency of the Indian feature in question. The relatively high proportion of missing articles in Spoken Academic English reiterates the point made in Section 6.1 above. An examination of written registers reveals that missing articles before ordinal numbers are not very common in any written registers. As was seen in the analysis of present and past perfect verb phrases, the current analysis of written registers shows that the highest proportion of missing articles is in Written Academic English (13.5%), Business Correspondence (9.3%), and Personal Correspondence (10.8%). It is interesting to note that all instances of missing articles in Written Academic English come from unpublished student papers and not any of the published material. This analysis of written registers, therefore, again shows that besides the unpublished student material, it is the more informal written registers that have Indian features.

Spoken

Conversational English

Register

341

126

Total ordinal Ordinal numbers numbers with missing needing articles articles 36.9%

% Indian

Table 36.  Articles before Ordinal numbers – both spoken and written corpus

– Even though first year of their wedding I had the funny feeling that they were behaving like strangers. (Conversation9) – Seventeenth will be Thursday. Tuesday is fifteenth. (Conversation9) – Fourth of September is a holiday. (Conversation2) – I left Bangalore at six o’clock. Sixth evening. (Conversation4) – Fifth morning we’ll come back. (Conversation6) – So elder sister is working in high school as eighth and ninth teacher. (OralInterview1) – I’m doing ICII. Presently doing second stage. I’ve written first stage exam. (OralInterview13) – I mean till seventh standard I was having Hindi as second language. (Oral Interview2) – And next, from Saturday till thirteenth of this month, I’m supposed to be there for contact program. (Oral Interview25) – So we will distribute it to the guests at about twelve, twelve thirty. That’s twentieth August. (Service Encounters2) – First time I sent five thousand and the draft got lost. (Service Encounters3) – I think this time maybe eighteenth afternoon, perhaps we will leave. (Service Encounters5) – Eighteenth night is your flight. (Service Encounters5) – China sees itself as second superpower in the world. (RInt3)

Examples

 Register Variation in Indian English

Spoken

Spoken Academic English

Register

160

  25

Total ordinal Ordinal numbers numbers with missing needing articles articles 15.6%

% Indian

– No, second I don’t want to say because it’s Gandhi Jayanthi. (Lecture5) – So first of October or before fifteenth of October, like thirteenth of October… (Lecture5) – You come to tenth standard and the parents send him from one tuition center to the other tuition center… (Lecture2) – And second one is, everyone requires an upper hand in their learning curve. (Miscellaneous2) – Right. Second thing is, second thing is I’m telling as it’s an equalizer. (Miscellaneous2) – Second thing is to accept challenge. (Office Hours1) – Sir first thing he said was that he was a very poor man. (S1B017) – Then second factor that favored the industrial revolution is… (S1B-008)

Examples

Chapter 6.  Register variation 

Spoken

Spoken Sports Reportage

Spoken News

Register

Table 36.  continued

  22

275

   1

38

Total ordinal Ordinal numbers numbers with missing needing articles articles

4.5

13.8%

% Indian

– Stay put, Doordarshan is your channel. First nine frames to be played in the session, it’s up to Sanjeev Tandon to take up seedings. (Sports1)

– He expired at four forty a.m. on twenty third August. (News12) – Gopal said he intends to hold third round of talks with Veerapan. (News11) – Delhi police chief said his group had come to Delhi on fifth August. (News1) – We invest… overnight money market where money comes back to us second day. (News7) – I refer to account, a foreign member of the house on twenty third August… (Politics3) – Mr. Gawalkar was also member of sixth and seventh Lok Sabha. (Politics3) – In India, first multi-purpose project was the construction. (Politics4)

Examples

 Register Variation in Indian English

Written

148

148

116

Fiction

Written Entertainment News

454

   0

   4

20

   7

Total ordinal Ordinal numbers numbers with missing needing articles articles

Written Academic English

Written News

Register

0

2.7

13.5

1.5%

% Indian

– I heard that first time I got it into two. (IFStain) – Toward the end of third year, the parent company embarked on an ambitious worldwide expansion plan. (EFDevi)

– The approach to eighth plan envisages to base labor relations to workers’ participation and concern for productivity. (W2A-017)

– The Rs. 200 crore project will introduce 600 designs and patterns in worsted fabrics range during first year of operations… (DHBus2) – ---recording a growth of 10.1% over last year and first half gross turnover was up 7.4%… (HBus6) – The withdrawal already made out of fourth year balance should alone be relevant. (HBus8) – The meeting, first of its kind, is understood to have deliberated…. (HTreg2)

Examples

Chapter 6.  Register variation 

Written

  37

231

  57

Written Sports News

Travel Writing

  97

   7

   1

   4

   9

Total ordinal Ordinal numbers numbers with missing needing articles articles

Personal Correspondence

Business Correspondence

Register

Table 36.  continued

1.22

0.43

10.8%

9.3%

% Indian

– Ellora is an impressive cluster of 34 caves which belong to the artists of fifth to eighth century. (ITGt1) – The present capital of Karnataka, Bangalore was founded by the local chieftain Kempe Gowda in sixteenth century. (ITGt2) – Immediately after the junction, leave first lane on the left, leave second lane, enter the third. (REt1)

– They attacked a few times earning their first penalty corner in the dying minutes of first half. (TIsp1)

– The assignment in Hyderabad will complete in May first week. (Email18) – I am scheduled to leave for UK, for an assignment of six months w.e.f. May 2000 first week. (Email20) – Unfortunately out MA Part I exams have been postponed and rescheduled for first week of July. (W1B-005)

– Saint Thomas and Kanai Thomman came to India in first and fourth centuries. (Hmail6) – Madam, are you aware that the MJC is introduced first time in the university from this year? (W1B-017) – The publishers have informed us that they have mailed the issue on in first week of June which is not yet received here. (W1B-027)

Examples

 Register Variation in Indian English



Chapter 6.  Register variation 

This results of this analysis of articles before ordinal numbers are similar to those obtained in the analysis of stative verbs discussed in Section 6.1 above. Once again, these results suggest that in addition to Indian features occurring in more informal registers (with innovation definitely beginning in Conversational English), the presence of relatively high proportions of the Indian feature (missing articles, in this analysis) in both spoken and written Academic English suggest that register is possibly not the only factor that accounts for the presence of Indian variables. Once again, this analysis supports the possibility that the English in India is entering Schneider’s Differentiation phase. 6.3.2 Articles before noun phrases As explained in Chapter 3, 600 noun phrases from each spoken register (except Spoken Sports Reportage) were examined for this analysis. Due to the small size of the sports register, only 150 noun phrases were examined in this register. As Table 37 below reveals, an absence of articles before noun phrases is not very common in any spoken register, although there is some variation between registers. Interestingly, the register with the highest number of missing articles was Spoken Academic English. Of the 600 noun phrases studied, 53, or 8.8%, had missing articles. This is followed by Conversational English, where there were missing articles in 3.5% of the noun phrases studied. Spoken News had only 12 noun phrases (2% of those studied) with missing articles, and there were no missing articles in Spoken Sports Reportage. The results of the current analysis once again shows that Academic English, in this case, spoken, has had relatively high proportions of Indian features in it, despite its assumed formality. Therefore, one could once again surmise that mere formalness, and the notion of appropriateness that goes along with formalness, is not the sole indicator of Indianness. What this again suggests is that the Indianness, as represented by the features studied in this project, is indeed spreading, with the changes being incorporated into the language of younger users of the language. As mentioned earlier, a future longitudinal study could verify this claim. 6.3.3 Articles before quantifiers Table 38, below, shows the results of the register analysis for the use of articles in the quantifiers a lot of, a few, a little, and a number of. As is clear from Table 38, in general, the spoken registers have many more instances of the missing article than do the written registers. As with the other analyses we have seen so far, Conversational English has the highest proportion, with 22% (87 individual instances) of the quantifiers studied with missing articles. This is followed by Spoken Academic English with 13.8%, Sports Reportage with 10% (only one instance, though), and Spoken News with 5.5%.

Spoken

Spoken Academic English

Conversational English

Register

600

600

Total # of noun phrases studied

53

21

Total noun phrases with missing determiners

Table 37.  Articles before noun phrases – spoken corpus only –

8.8%

3.5%

% Indian

– Again, in structural versus situational approach also, and structural versus situational approach and grammar translation method… (Lecture5) – Just small amount of pain, and definitely you have the gain. (Miscellaneous2) – I want only doctorate degree. (Office Hours1) – So I think output is minimum. (Office Hours1)

– Traveler’s Check should be for forty four forty five. (Conversation9) – But for examination, we had only one school final examination. (Conversation1) – I’m trying to do good job. (Oral Interview1) – So there also we have sea shore. (OralInterview2) – Computer course, I should need to do computer course. (Oral Interview8) – Only general check up, not heart check up. (Service encounters15) – Old Aurobindo school was started in a house in third block. (Service encounters2) – This is sandwich bottom? (Service encounters4)

Examples

 Register Variation in Indian English

Spoken

Sports (Spoken)

Spoken News

Register

Table 37.  continued

150

600

Total # of noun phrases studied

 0

12

Total noun phrases with missing determiners 2%

% Indian

– A central pollution control report for entire country has been set up. (Politics2) – Therefore, when it was state university, from eighty nine to ninety seven, no admission, nothing of the kind. (Politics3) – But government has done nothing to updating and maintaining these projects. (Politics4) – …whatever may have been the delay that may have caused sense of isolation… (S2B-002)

Examples

Chapter 6.  Register variation 

Spoken

Spoken Academic English

Conversational English

Register

137

395

Total Quantifiers Studied

19

87

Total without the article

13.8%

22.0%

% Indian

Table 38.  Articles before quantifiers in spoken and written registers

– They spend lot of research and all those things. (Lecture2) – I mean government is giving lot of importance, support, and funding… (Miscellaneous2) – …in cell there are lot of inter-cellular spaces in between them… (S1B-015) – Sir he is little bit innocent. (S1B-017) – …screw all the nuts, we unscrew only few… (S1B-017) – Take number of examples and number of best facts. (Office Hours1)

– Immediately Americans will give lot of specifications according to their needs. (Conversation2) – Little bit of whiskey, lot of Pepsi. (Conversation9) – No, but I have lot of er, lot of my friends in the south. (Entertainment1) – I’ll play lot of it when I got leave. (Oralinterviews 10) – Lot of Zakir Hussein. (Service Encounters20) – Sriram is going to be little taller than Kritika. (Conversation7) – Yes, but isn’t it little too bright? (Service Encounters11) – From that, he drops few drops of oil in four places. (Conversation5) – Few months back, I’ve been to Baroda (Oral Interview 7) – In my friend’s environment I did number of jokes and all. (Oral Interview 13) – He is a respectable man with lot of good intentions. (RInt6) – Do you think winning maximum number of seats should be your priority? (RInt13)

Examples

 Register Variation in Indian English

Spoken

Written

127

  10

499

150

317

Spoken Sports Reportage

Written News

Written Academic English

Fiction

Total Quantifiers Studied

Spoken News

Register

 2

43

18

 1

 7

Total without the article

0.6%

28.6%

3.6%

10%

5.5%

% Indian

Lot of luck, and in fact, a good red pot. (Sports1)

– I scratched in the other hole and found lot of badami fruits inside. (IFBracelet)

– …accessible in big organizations because of number of workers who work there. (W1A-016) – Among the different component traits, number of grains should maximum inbreeding… (W2A-023) – There are few more women’s dairy cooperatives. (W1A-008) – …was kind to Pip though Mrs. Gargery was little tough. (W1A-018) – Although lot of important features have been introduced… (W2A-019)

– …Himachal Pradesh, apart from taking up few wind power projects. (HBus8) – Last few years have seen indiscriminate effects. (ETBus5) – Number of factors have to be considered while thinking about this. (TIBus4) – Adequate number of followers have not been given representation. (Hreg11)

–

– You know it has lot of layers. (News10) – So it could be little volatile, but in long term… (News7) – If sufficient number of migrants are prepared to return… (S2B-015)

Examples

Chapter 6.  Register variation 

Written

146

Travel Writing

  78

Personal Correspondence

  68

126

Business Correspondence

Written Sports News

138

Total Quantifiers Studied

Written Entertainment News

Register

Table 38.  continued

21

 0

18

 0

 2

Total without the article

14.4%

0

23.1%

0

0.6%

% Indian

– It’s a fiery red chutney (red chilies, little garlic, amchur powder… (Ret1) – A city which till few years ago was the most densely populated city in India… (ITGt1)

–

– It’s really great to open the mailbox and find lot of old pals in the inbox. (Email21) – It was a decent function and there was lot of animated discussion. (Email25) – Tell me if you can shift by few days. (Email17) – …it was a great success, and along with number of other groups, it created… (W1B-013) – After I have finished my studies, I will stay few more years here. (W1B-011) – I have lot of friends in Germany, Belgium, Holland… (W1B011)

–

– There is lot of scope for rectifying your mistakes. (DHEnt4) – This includes Thodudaya Kathinan, as well as few others beginning with the word Thodu. (HEnt2)

– They were laughing with Hameed Sahib and few other committed admirers to the cinema. (IFProfess)

Examples

 Register Variation in Indian English



Chapter 6.  Register variation 

Also interesting are the written registers of Written Academic English and Personal Correspondence with 28.6% and 23.1% of the quantifiers with missing articles; further, Travel Writing had 14.4% of the quantifiers with missing articles. It was stated with previous analyses that Personal Correspondence might have a higher proportion of Indian features because of its more informal nature. In this register, this hypothesis is strengthened by the 21 missing articles (14.4%) in the Travel Writing register – a register that tends to be more interactive-sounding just by its nature. The results obtained for Spoken and Written Academic English once again support the claims made in the preceding sections. 6.3.4 Summary of article analysis This section summarizes the findings from all six types of analyses for articles described above. Table 39 below shows the total number of situations examined for article use across registers, the number of situations with missing articles, and the percentage of missing articles in each register. As shown in Table 39 below, in the spoken registers, missing articles are most frequent in Conversational English, where 17.5% of the linguistic environments which called for articles that were studied had missing articles. This is followed by Spoken Academic English, where 10.8% of the environments had missing articles. In Spoken News, 5.7% had missing articles, while there were only 2 or 1.1%

Total # situations examined for article usage

# situations with missing articles

% of situations with missing articles

Spoken

Conversational English Spoken Academic English Spoken News Spoken Sports Reportage

1336   897 1002   182

234   97   57    2

17.5% 10.8% 5.7% 1.1%

Written

Table 39.  Article use in general Register

Written News Written Academic English Fiction Written Entertainment News Business Correspondence Personal Correspondence Written Sports News Travel Writing

  953   298   148   254   223   115   231   203

  25   63    6    2    9   22    1   28

2.6% 21.1% 4.1% 0.78% 4.0% 19.1% 0.4% 13.8%

 Register Variation in Indian English

missing articles in Spoken Sports Reportage. With the spoken registers, this analysis once again suggests that registers which are characterized by unscripted speech have a higher proportion of Indian features. The analysis of the written registers shows a clear pattern that is similar to that obtained from the analysis of the spoken registers: that the more informal and unscripted the register, the higher the proportion of Indian features. With both spoken and written Academic English combined, the results of the analyses of article usage clearly indicate that future research should focus on younger users of Indian English to determine whether the innovations introduced initially in the more informal spoken registers are indeed spreading easily by younger users of the language to the more formal spoken and written registers. 6.4 Use of the future instead of the simple present (for habitual present) The results presented in Chapter 4 of an analysis of the entire spoken corpus suggest that the use of the future (marked by the modal will) instead of the simple present is more frequent in Indian English than it is in British or American English, where one might not find this particular use of this structure. A register analysis reveals that while far from being a characteristic of spoken Indian English, this feature is frequent in a certain spoken register – Conversational English. Table 40 below shows that in Conversational English, 21.5% of the will studied occurred in verb phrases indicating habitual future. Example sentences from different sub-registers include the following: – Everyday at morning I’ll get up at six thirty, and I’ll drop my sister to bus stop. – First he’ll leave us to the bus stop and the children to the school. – So I’ll get the data, and I’ll write, er, like I’ll tabulate the data and find out particular question. In all these sentences, it is clear that the speakers are discussing habitual actions that are performed every day. In each of the situations, the speakers use the future (marked by the use of will) instead of the simple present. The fact that this feature occurs very infrequently (1.8%) in Spoken Academic English, and not at all Spoken News and Spoken Sports, suggests that it might be a feature that is now being adopted into informal spoken registers. The absence of this feature in Spoken Academic English, however, could also be due to the fact that few habitual actions were discussed in the register – thereby not necessitating the use of the feature. A longitudinal study would reveal whether this change is adopted into other spoken registers and later, perhaps, into written registers in the future.

Spoken

  281

  573

   20

Spoken News

Sports (Spoken)

1153

Total future examined

Spoken Academic English

Conversational English

Register

Table 40.  Future for simple present

   0

   0

   5

248

Total Future instead of present

0%

0%

1.8%

21.5%

% Indian

– For example, the Chinese speakers have, for example, what is called lallation. Yes, pronunciation problems, so like Bengalis will substitute sh for s. (Lecture5) – Ancillary bud is the thing which will give rise to leaves… (S1b-015) – These types of tissues will perform certain functions. (S1b015)

– On the weekends, I’ll go spend the night in Vasvi’s house. (Conversation9) – Everyday I’ll wake up early only. (Conversation9) – Everyday at morning I’ll get up at six thirty, and I’ll drop my sister to bus stop. (Oral Interview1) – First he’ll leave us to the bus stop and the children to the school. (Oral Interview21) – So I’ll get the data, and I’ll write, er, like I’ll tabulate the data and find out particular question. (Oral Interview24) – They’ll be actually cursing. It’ll be not coming from the heart. (Service Encounters 20)

Examples

Chapter 6.  Register variation 

 Register Variation in Indian English

6.5 Progressive vs. perfect and simple tenses The results in Chapter 4 revealed that in general, in both spoken and written Indian English, the progressive aspect occurs more frequently than does the perfect aspect. This is different from the patterns of occurrence progressive and perfect aspect verb phrases in British and American English. In the following section, differences in the frequencies of the progressive and perfect aspects in the different spoken and written registers of the corpus are discussed. Figures 26 and 27 below show the frequencies of the progressive versus the perfect aspect in the written registers and the spoken registers respectively. A glance at Figure 26 (written registers) reveals that similar to British and American English, perfect aspect verb phrases are more common in Business Correspondence, Personal Correspondence, Written Academic English and Written News. In Fiction, Written Entertainment, Sports, and Travel Writing, however, progressive aspect verb phrases are considerably more frequent.

16000 14000

Mean

12000 10000 8000 6000 4000 2000

Progress Buscorr Perscorr Wrent Wrsports Fiction Wracad Wrmews Wrtravel Register

Figure 26.  Progressives vs. perfect in written registers (frequency in 1000s, normalized to 1,000,000)

Perfects



Chapter 6.  Register variation  18000 16000 14000

Mean

12000 10000 8000 6000 4000 2000

Progress Perfect Conveng

Spacad

Spnews

Spsports

Register

Figure 27.  Progressive vs. perfect in spoken registers (frequency in 1000s, normalized to 1,000,000)

An examination of Figure 27 (spoken registers) reveals that the progressive occurs much more frequently in all registers except Spoken News. Further, the difference between the frequencies of the progressive and perfect aspects is significant. The following points can be concluded at this stage: – In many registers of written Indian English, the progressive aspect is more common than is the perfect aspect. This is different from British or American English. – In most registers of spoken Indian English, the progressive aspect is more common than is the perfect aspect. This is different from British or American English. Examples of sentences from both spoken and written registers (with information about the specific sub-register included in parentheses) with progressive aspect verbs rather than another aspect (whether perfect or simple aspect verb phrases might “normally” be used is not being investigated here) include the following: – And that apron and all they must be putting, no? (Conversational English; Conversation3)

 Register Variation in Indian English

– He is going to first standard now. (Conversational English; Conversation3) – We keep meeting very often. We meet every Saturday because all of them are working, all of us are working. (Conversational English; Oral Interview12) – First daughter is studying in sixth standard, second daughter is studying in second standard. (Conversational English; Oral Interview22) – So you know you just learn Hindi in Hindi class, but the rest of the time you were learning in English. (Conversational English; Oral Interview2) – No what me might be meaning is that in television channel, if there is no voice from other side, you feel like the channel is broken. (Spoken Academic English; Lecture3) – And I saw, present I am seeing present day the motive of scientist only to publish paper. (Spoken Academic English; Office Hours1) – I say, “Dear wife, if I keep this paper aside now, will I have the opportunity of even glancing at it? Don’t you know that this chariot called our family is moving on smoothly only because I am sweating all the time with the hard work?” (Fiction, The Masquerade) – I remove the cow head, place it securely in the secret basket, and hang the horse head on my head. I take the pocket mirror and look at my image. The horse head is sitting tenderly, delicately, and elegantly on my shoulders. (Fiction, The Masquerade) – How lonely I was, except the company of the laughter; it was tumbling like huge rocks from the Sethani’s apartment and hitting my brain. (Fiction; The Profession) – Holding my head in my hand, I was sitting on my bed for a long time. My mind was bubbling with laughter, but there was no smile on my face. (Fiction; The Profession) – Those four were sitting with their eyes glued to the television screen. (Fiction; The News) What is interesting about the use of the progressive in these sentences is that in most cases, the progressive aspect seems to be used instead of the simple aspect. At a later date, therefore, it would be interesting to do an analysis of exactly when and where the progressive aspect is used in registers of Indian English, and what meaning(s) it conveys. 6.6 Absence of subject-auxiliary inversion in WH-question formation The results of the WH-question formation analysis in Chapter 4 showed that 8.18% of the WH-questions examined had an absence of subject-auxiliary inversion.

Spoken

163

   1

Sports (Spoken)

105

Spoken Academic English

Spoken News

339

Total WHquestions studied

Conversational English

Register

 0

 6

20

99

# of questions without subj-aux inversion

0

3.7%

19.04%

29.2%

Why people call wife better half? (Conversation 9) How many things you have made? (Conversation2) What Sunil sent? (Conversation 2) Where you are going? (Oral Interview1) Why she wants to stay there? (Oral Interview1) How much this is? (Service Encounters9) What madam wants? (Service Encounters6) What you would like to see, madam? (Service Encounters6)

– Where they will come? Where they will stay? (Politics3) – How the money can be utilized by the state government? (Politics4) – How the department is going to provide the funds? (Politics4) – How it can be adequate? (Politics1)

– How a student of medicine or engineering can be expected to learn… (Lecture5) – Now what kind of curriculum we can think of for them? (Lecture5) – How a group leader, a union leader is communicating with the people and he… (Lecture2) – So why these people are after that? (Miscellaneous2) – Why everybody is going for that seminar and getting something? (Miscellaneous2) – Why the certification is required? (Miscellaneous2) – What you need to provide molecule to nature? (Office Hours1)

– – – – – – – –

% Indian Examples Wh-questions

Table 41.  Absence of Subject-auxiliary inversion WH-question formation

Chapter 6.  Register variation 

 Register Variation in Indian English

Table 41 above shows the results of an analysis of WH-questions across the spoken registers in the corpus. The register analysis reveals that as with the analyses of other features, Conversational English has the highest proportion of WH-questions with an absence of subject-auxiliary inversion. Of the 339 WH-questions studied, 99, or 29.2%, had no subject-auxiliary inversion. This register is followed by Spoken Academic English. In this register, 105 questions were studied, of which 20 or 19.04% had no subject-auxiliary inversion. Spoken News had only 3.7% of its WH-questions with no subject-auxiliary inversion, while Sports Reportage had none. This analysis reveals that once again, it is the more informal spoken registers, and those with unscripted language, that have a higher frequency of Indian features. 6.6.1 Yes-No questions occurring as statements with rising intonation As mentioned in Chapter 3, an initial examination of all the questions in the spoken corpus revealed a number of yes-no questions occurring as statements with rising intonation. Below are several examples of such questions from various sub-registers. – I diluted it too much? (Conversational English; Conversation9) – Now your stomach is alright? (Conversational English; Conversation2) – You have cut this coriander for something? (Conversational English; Conversation2) – He destroys that Leila and creates another one? (Conversational English; Entertainment3) – But you’re dead set on a movie career? (Conversational English; Entertainment3) – That’s noise or a comfort sound? (Spoken Academic English; Lecture3) – You have come across that before? (Spoken Academic English; Lecture3) – So you conclude your talk by saying that? (Spoken Academic English; Oral Presentations1) – They are looking for village? (Spoken Academic English; Oral Presentations2) – This is wastage of money or not? (Spoken Academic English; Office Hours1) – So you would like to do something to make India self-sufficient in food? (Spoken Academic English; Office Hours1) – What do you think? Nature is supreme or man is supreme? (Spoken Academic English; Office Hours1) – That is a family story? (Conversational English; Oral Interviews10) – It’s summer now? (Conversational English; Oral Interviews15) – You are agreeing with me? (Spoken News; Politics5)



Chapter 6.  Register variation 

– – – –

You have extended your protective cover to him? (Spoken News; Politics5) You want like this? (Conversational English; Service Encounters10) You are open tomorrow? (Conversational English; Service Encounters11) I’ll do my shopping and come back? (Conversational English; Service Encounters7)

Questions like these were particularly common in Conversational English, while also being fairly common in Spoken Academic English. Given the frequency of occurrence of questions such as these, it would be interesting, at a later stage, to determine whether this structure (yes-no questions in the form of statements with rising intonation) is more common in any registers of Indian English than in any registers of any other varieties of English. Once again, the relatively high frequency of this construction in Spoken Academic English points to Indian features being increasingly used by younger users of the language. 6.7 Transitive verbs used intransitively As mentioned in Chapter 3, 31 transitive verbs were examined for this analysis. Further, as mentioned in Chapter 4, of the 31 transitive verbs examined, only 14 occurred intransitively in one register or another. These include bring (3 instances), buy (8 instances), carry (2 instances), give (20 instances), reduce (3 instances), send (5 instances), spend (2 instances), take (22 instances), use (4 instances), offer (2 instances), find (3 instances), need (3 instances), want (4 instances), and enjoy (20 instances). Table 42 below gives example sentences of the intransitive occurrences. Table 42 below shows that of the 12 registers in the corpus, 8 have instances of transitive verbs used intransitively. Further, of these 8 registers, Conversational English has the largest number of the intransitive pattern, with 82 transitive verbs occurring intransitively. This register is followed by Spoken Academic English with 9 instances, and Written Academic English, with 4 uses. Further, all four of these instances (in written Academic English?) were found in non-printed student writing, which is similar to the results obtained in previous analyses discussed so far in this chapter. Spoken News has two instances, while Fiction, Personal Correspondence, and Business Correspondence have one instance each. This instance in each of these registers could be attributed to idiosyncratic usage on the part of one speaker or writer. The presence of several instances of transitive verbs occurring intransitively in Conversational English and Spoken Academic English, however, indicates that this feature, as with other features discussed so far, occurs in unscripted, unplanned spoken language and occurs in the language used by younger speakers.

Total examined in corpus

  320

  769

  261

  248

Verb

Buy

Bring

Enjoy

Find

  27

Written News

  95

Spoken Academic English

  12

Written Academic English   29

  21

Conversational English

Conversational English

  19

Fiction

  44

  12

Business Correspondence

Conversational English

  57

Total

Conversational English

Register

# Indian in different registers

 1

 2

 4

15

 1

 3

 1

 1

 8

Indian

Table 42.  Transitive verbs used intransitively across all registers

She was all alone. So she had to find. (Conversation2) No, no, I don’t find difficult. (Oral Interview21)

…fairs that are to be publicly played and enjoy. (W1A-011) …if they return to home they can enjoy with them. (W1A-004)

My children enjoyed there. (Oral Interview21) And now also I, we enjoy with our cousins. (Oral Interview7) It was a good job. I used to enjoy. (Oral Interview24)

Yesterday we went to the forest and enjoyed a lot. (IFMasque)

Bring water. Mummy, bring. (Conversation7) Yes, bring, madam, bring. (Service Encounters13)

If you are an APL family, why would you buy from PDS? (IEEd1)

– But where do you find twenty three and half degrees? Do you find here? (S1B-002)

– –

– –

– – –

–

– –

–

– … has indicated their inability to buy, but Dr. Lavakare has advised me to… (W1b025)

– The day before yesterday you only bought. (Conversation9) – Wait and look around and then go buy, rather than rushing. (Oral Interview15) – Whenever we think that we are feeling to buy, then go ahead and buy. (Oral Interview15) – Yes you have to buy. (Service Encounters8) – And I ended up buying. (Service Encounters4)

Examples

 Register Variation in Indian English

Total examined in corpus

  301

  662

  356

2313

1096

Verb

Spend

Send

Offer

Give

Use

  71

Personal Correspondence

   6   63

Spoken Academic English

288

Conversational English

Conversational English

  20

  12

Spoken Academic English

Conversational English

  59

   8

Conversational English

Conversational English

  23

Written News

# Indian in different registers

 2

 2

20

 2

 1

 1

 3

 1

 1 And this way we spend. (Oral Interview21)

–

– –

– – – – –

– –

–

Now we use in traditional terminology… (S1b-009)

But he is using, for 90 kilos. (Service Encounters6) He is using for something else. (Service Encounters6)

She said OK, and I gave you, you ate. (Conversation7) I don’t think he gave me. (Conversation8) Even for software engineers we just gave. (Oral Interviews12) I fixed, I gave. (Service Encounters11) I gave you, no? Or she gave you? (Service Encounters4)

Yes, because they can offer. (Oral Interview12) He offered me! (RInt11)

I am sending here list of candidates. Please send me. (W1B-009)

– If parents don’t send, you go to this tuition, you go to that tuition… (Lecture2)

– No, somebody sent, somebody was forwarding. (Conversation9) – I myself phoned him and told him, send. (Conversation6) – I keep on simply sitting in office. They don’t send outside and all that. (Oral Interview13)

–

– Take up their demands from fat cat ready to spend, and then… (DCEd1)

Examples

Chapter 6.  Register variation 

1718

3301

Take

Want

  244

Carry

913

  276

Reduce

Need

Total examined in corpus

Verb

Table 42.  continued

Conversational English

254

13

Spoken Academic English

313

Conversational English

7

120

Spoken News

Conversational English

  30

Spoken Academic English

   9

  11

Spoken Academic Language

Spoken Academic English

   4

Conversational English

# Indian in different registers

 4

 1

 2

19

 2

 1

 1

 2

 1 To reduce, you can’t eliminate noise. (Lecture3)

I would have reduced a little bit there. (Conversation6)

Our party has not taken and will not take unless and until… (News12)

…and in crores we need, isn’t it? (S1B-008)

Actually do you think I need? I don’t need. (Service Encounters3)

– No, no, I don’t want, I have. (Service Encounters11) – No, union, union from the Indian union, they don’t want. (Conversation6)

–

–

– Now I can’t do. Next year I should take. (Oral Interview3) – Whoever is free, whoever can take, so they call us and ask us whether we can take. (Oral Interview19) – I ask them to come home when I am taking (Conversation4). – Seven forty five? Then I will take. (Service Encounters3) – Because only very few people will take. (Conversation2) – Chinni, are you taking? Nothing is there. (Conversation2) – And he doesn’t take. So they pushed him back to the back of the line. (Conversation7)

–

– Yes, just like that we are interested in, so we take, I hope, I expect… (Lecture3)

– However you carry. Even if you carry in fibers, optical fibers, noise is there. (Lecture5)

–

–

Examples

 Register Variation in Indian English



Chapter 6.  Register variation 

Table 42a.  Frequency of Transitive Verbs Occurring Intransitively Across Registers of Indian English Register

Conversational English Sp Academic English Sp News Sp Sports Reportage Wr News Wr Academic English Fiction Wr Entertainment News Business Correspondence Personal Correspondence Wr Sports Travel Writing

Total transitive verbs studied

Total transitive verbs used intransitively

% transitive verbs used intransitively

2227 1148 1103    46 6029 1527 2343   826

80 10  2  0  2  5  1  0

3.6% 0.87% 0.18% 0 0.03% 0.3% 0.04% 0

  529

 1

0.19%

  369

 1

0.27%

  870 1244

 0  0

0 0

6.8 Relative clauses The analysis of relative clauses in registers of Indian English entailed a study of the different relativizers (excluding the null relativizer) used in different registers. While it would have been interesting to study non-standard relativizers, this was beyond the scope of the present study. As Biber et al. explain, the choice of relativizer is determined by a number of factors, not the least of which is register. An examination of Figures 28 through 31 below illustrates the difference between relativizers in the four major registers of Indian English: Conversational English, Fiction, Written News, and Written Academic Language. Only these four registers were chosen to facilitate comparison with the corresponding four registers of British and American English as described in Biber et al. Following each figure is an explanation of how the distribution of relativizers in the register differs from their distribution in the corresponding register of British and American English.

 Register Variation in Indian English

Mean

2000

1000

Bram 0

Ind That

When Where Which Who Whom Whose Why Relpro

Figure 28.  Relativizers in British and American (Bram) Conversation vs. Indian (Ind) Conversation (in thousands, normalized to 1,000,000)

The relativizers in British and American Conversation, in order of decreasing frequency, include that, who, which, and where, with whom, whose, when, and why occurring very few times each. From Figure 28 above, we see that the first difference between Indian Conversation and British and American conversation is that in Indian Conversation, who is by far the most common relativizer, with that and which occurring almost as many times as each other. It is also interesting that that occurs considerably less frequently in Indian conversation than it does in British and American conversation, while which occurs more frequently than it does in British and American conversation. This is interesting given that which is more commonly associated with more formal registers like academic writing. Where occurs in British and American English about 300 times per million words, while in Indian Conversation, it occurs fewer than 100 times per million words.



Chapter 6.  Register variation 

5000

4000

Mean

3000

2000

1000 Bram 0

Ind That

When Where Which Who Whom Whose Why Relpro

Figure 29.  Relativizers in British and American Fiction vs. Indian Fiction (in thousands, normalized to 1,000,000 words)

Figure 29 above shows the frequency of the different relativizers in Indian Fiction on the one hand and British and American fiction on the other. As we can see from the figure, the first thing one notices is that all relativizers occur much more frequently in British and American fiction; this suggests, as was mentioned in Chapter 4, that relative clauses in general occur in Indian fiction far less frequently than they do in British and American fiction. In Indian fiction, who is again the most common relativizer, occurring about 1600 times per million words. This is closely followed by that, and then slightly more distantly by which. As with Conversation, why and when occur negligibly, while whose, whom, and where all occur fewer than 200 times each. Once again, the biggest difference between Indian Fiction and British and American Fiction is the frequency of the relativizer that. In British and American Fiction, Biber et al. show that that occurs more than 4000 times per million words, while in Indian Fiction, it only occurs about 1550 times. Further, in British and American Fiction, that is the most common relativizer, while in Indian Fiction, who is.

 Register Variation in Indian English

Another striking difference between Indian Fiction and British and American Fiction is the difference in frequencies of the relativizer where. In British and American Fiction, where occurs about 750 times per million words, while in Indian Fiction, it only occurs slightly over 100 times per million words. 5000

4000

Mean

3000

2000

1000 Bram 0

Ind That

When Where Which Who Whom Whose Why Relpro

Figure 30.  : Relativizers in British and American Written News versus Indian Written News (in thousands, normalized to 1,000,000)

Figure 30 above shows the distribution of relativizers in Written News. According to Biber et al, the relativizers in British and American News (in decreasing frequency) include who, which, that, where, whose, whom, when, and why. Once again, we note the difference in the most frequent relativizer. While it is which in Indian News, it is who in British and American News. Another big difference is their frequency; in British and American News, the three most frequent relativizers, who, which, and that, occur approximately 4400, 4000, and 2200 times per million words. From Figure 30 above we see that these relativizers in Indian News occur approximately 2200, 2600, and 1900 times respectively. As stated in Chapter 4, this shows that relative clauses on the whole are less common in registers of Indian English than they are in registers of British and American English.



Chapter 6.  Register variation 

The low frequency of the relativizer where is again a difference here. In British and American News, this relativizer occurs about 750 times per million words, while in Indian News, it only occurs about 100 or less per million words. As with the other registers discussed, the remaining four relativizers also occur much less frequently in Indian News than they do in British and American News. 6000

5000

Mean

4000

3000

2000

1000

0

Bram Ind That

When Where Which Who Whom Whose Why Relpro

Figure 31.  Relativizers in British and American Written Academic English versus Indian Written Academic English (in thousands, normalized to 1,000,000)

As indicated in figure 31 above, the relativizers in Indian Academic Writing show the greatest similarity to those in British and American Academic Writing as far as their frequencies relative to each other. In all varieties of English, which is the most frequent, followed by that, and then by who. As with the other registers, however, they all occur far less frequently in the Indian register than they do in the corresponding British and American register. Where continues to be different in this register, not occurring at all in Indian English, while occurring about 500 times per million words in British and American academic writing. Another difference is the complete absence of whom, why, and when in Indian academic writing.

 Register Variation in Indian English

Discussion of Relativizer distribution across different registers From the above discussion of the four registers in each of the international varieties of English, we note that perhaps the biggest difference, apart from frequency of relativizers in British and American English as opposed to Indian English, is the use of the relativizer where in British and American English, and the extremely infrequent use of this relativizer in Indian registers. Biber et al. show that in British and American English, where is common, particularly in Written News, Fiction, and Written Academic English. Given this, I wondered why it was so infrequent in the Indian registers. On studying the lists of relative clauses generated for this analysis, I noticed that often, where where might be used, something else like in which or on which occurred instead. A few examples from Fiction include the following: – The table, which had been cleared immediately, now served as a bed on which John McCaskill laid out. – He nodded and stood a moment watching her go down the path to the van in which all their things had been placed after lunch. – You should have gone to the place in which you found him. This analysis has shown that there are substantial differences between the distribution of relative clauses in registers of British and American English on the one hand, and Indian English on the other. A logical follow-up to this preliminary analysis would be determining why relative clauses seem so much less frequent in registers of Indian English, and the impact of their absence on the structure of the overall discourse. 6.9 Modals This section outlines some differences in the distribution of modals and semimodals across different registers of Indian English. Following this is a discussion of the distribution of different semantic categories of modals in registers of British and American English on the one hand, and registers of Indian English on the other (these figures are shown in Table 43). Figures 32 and 33 below show the distributions of modals and semi-modals across the spoken and written registers of the Indian corpus. What is immediately apparent from the figures is that in both spoken and written Indian English, modals are far more common than are semi-modals. With reference to the distribution of modals and semi-modals across registers of British and American English, Biber et. al show that semi-modals occur most frequently in Conversation. They explain this as not being “surprising to find linguistic novelty establishing itself in conversation first and then spreading to the written registers” (p. 487). They go on to explain that



Chapter 6.  Register variation 

academic writing has the fewest semi-modals given that it is the most conservative of all the registers represented in the Longman Corpus. The distribution of semimodals in the Indian registers is similar in that the highest number occurs in Conversational English, where there were approximately 4600 semi-modals per million words. This is followed by Spoken Academic English and Personal Correspondence. The high proportion of semi-modals in Spoken Academic English supports previous analyses discussed so far, despite the fact that one could assume that academic English be on the more conservative end of the spectrum. The current analysis reiterates the point made with several other analyses discussed so far: that novelty (in this case) or Indian features (in the case of other analyses discussed so far) occur more frequently in more unscripted languages. This finding from Spoken Academic English also strengthens the claim made earlier that register alone might not determine the presence or absence of Indian features.

Mean

20000

10000

Modals 0

Semimod Conv

SpAcad

SpNews

SpSport

Register

Figure 32.  Modals and Semi modals in Indian spoken registers

 Register Variation in Indian English

Mean

20000

10000

Modals 0

Semimod BusCorr PersCorr WrEnt WrSport Fiction WrAcad WrNews WrTrav Register

Figure 33.  Modals and semi modals in Indian written registers

Table 43 shows the distribution of permission/possibility/ability modals, obligation/necessity modals, volition/prediction modals, and the past time modal used to across registers of British and American English on the one hand, and registers of Indian English on the other. Because of the comparison with British and American English (as described in Biber et al), only four Indian registers have been represented in the table. Following is a list of points summarizing the findings presented in the table: – The conversation registers from the different national varieties are the most different, with most modals occurring significantly more frequently in British and American conversation. – Across all registers, the obligation/necessity semi-modals had better, have got to, and ought to occur very infrequently in Indian English. – In the different national varieties, Fiction and Written News are not dissimilar in the distribution of the different kinds of modals and semi-modals. – As with British and American English, across registers, the three modals can, will, and would are common; however, in general, they are less frequent in registers of Indian English than they are in registers of British and American English.

Past Time

Volition/ Prediction

  600

2200

Be going to

Used to

  400

  100

Ought to

4200

  200

Be supposed to

Shall

  800

Have got to

Would

  800

Had better

5600

1800

Have to

Will

1000

Should

  800

Might

  800

  200

May

Must

2000

Could

Obligation/ Necessity

4400

Can

Permission/ Possibility/ Ability

BrAm Conv

Modal

Type of Modal

  750

1000

  100

2700

4500

   10

  150

   10

    5

  500

1300

  650

  300

  450

  750

3200

Indian Conv

  200

  400

  400

3800

2600

  100

  100

  100

  100

  800

1000

1000

  400

  600

2800

1600

  750

  400

  380

4000

2200

    0

   20

   10

    5

1150

1000

  750

  350

  400

2500

1400

  100

  200

  100

2400

4200

  100

  100

  100

  100

  800

1000

  400

  400

  600

1400

1200

  130

  150

  100

3000

3400

   30

   50

    0

    5

  800

1100

  400

  250

  900

  950

1500

  100

  100

  200

1400

2200

  100

  100

  100

  100

  400

1200

1200

  600

2800

  800

3000

  200

   50

  200

1600

1300

    0

  100

   10

    0

  700

1500

600

  150

1900

  800

2300

BrAm Fiction Indian Fiction BrAm Written Indian Written BrAm Written Indian Written News News Acad English Acad English

Table 43.  Distribution of modal verbs across registers of British and American English versus Indian English

Chapter 6.  Register variation 

 Register Variation in Indian English

– As in registers of British and American English, the obligation/necessity modals occur less frequently than do the other categories of modals. One could surmise that Biber et. al’s explanation of this rarity reflecting a tendency to avoid face, threatening acts in British and American English is also true of Indian English. 6.10 Initial and Non-Initial Existential “There” It was suggested in Chapter 4 that the non-initial existential there occurred more frequently in spoken Indian English than it did in written Indian English. The following section compares the frequencies of existential there occurring non-initially across the 11 registers in the corpus. Table 44 below shows the total number of existential there analyzed for each register, and the percentage of these that occurred non-initially in each register. Example sentences come from the various sub-registers within the registers. Table 44 below shows that there substantial differences between registers as far as the occurrence of existential there non-initially. The first thing that is obvious is that all the spoken registers (with the exception of Spoken Sports) have a higher proportion of occurrences of this feature than do the written registers. Conversational English and Spoken Academic English, both registers with unscripted language, have the largest proportion of non-initial existential there, with 16.1% and 18.5% respectively. Example sentences from these two registers include the following: – Umrao Jaan is there, no? (Conversational English; Service encounters20) – This is also there, Madam. (Conversational English; Service encounters6) – Okay now various other factors are also there. (S1B-010) – Two types of production function are there. (S1B-020) In the first of these sentences, a customer ascertains that a store keeper at a record store has a certain record (Umrao Jaan) in stock. The there in the sentence serves no adverbial purpose whatsoever. Rather, the question might be interpreted as “You have Umrao Jaan, don’t you?” In the second sentence, a store keeper shows that he also has “this” to a customer. Once again, there serves no adverbial purpose, but is an instance of an existential there being used non-initially. The other sentences come from Spoken Academic English, and in both cases, the there serves no adverbial function whatsoever. The results of this register analysis support the results outlined in Chapter 4 – that spoken registers of Indian English have a higher proportion of non-initial existential there than do the written registers. Of the written registers, Personal

Spoken

Conversational English

Register

600

# of instances of existential there

Table 44.  Non-initial Existential there

97

# of “Indian” instances 16.1%

– There are six basic levels, but sub-levels are there. (Conv. 1) – One more thing, this dhal is there. (Conv. 2) – Chicken is there. (Conv. 2) – I can drive. Steering control is there. (Conv. 4) – They give food also. Food is there. (Conv. 6) – At the end, all four Lailas are there on the stage. (Entertainment3) – If time is there, then I can read something. (Oral Interview3) – In my family, five members are there. (Oral Interview10) – … but not decoration, only sale might be there. (Oral Interview15) – … so the credential is there, you see, and then the validity is there. (Oral Interview20) – Everywhere only one attendant is there. (Service encounters15) – Heart foundation is there. (Service encounters15) – Umrao Jaan is there, no? (Service encounters20) – This is also there, Madam. (Service encounters6) – This is a … this … these, these clichés are there. (RInt11) – Urban projects were there. (RInt12) – Problems are there with every party. (RInt13)

% Indian Examples existential there

Chapter 6.  Register variation 

Spoken

Spoken Academic Language

Register

Table 44.  continued

281

# of instances of existential there 52

# of “Indian” instances 18.5%

– Standard should be there. (Lecture2) – You should just again consider the common usage. If it is there. (Lecture2) – However you carry. Even if you carry in fibers, noise is there. (Lecture3) – I am saying given that basic competence is there. (Lecture3) – So I mean, a common English word is there, lid. (Lecture5) – His rector … found it very convenient to ask him to teach statistics, to teach any other subject that would be there. (Miscellaneous1) – Because factors like luck will always be there. (Miscellaneous2) – No harassment will be there, no ups and downs will be there. (Miscellaneous2) – Two types of production function are there. (S1B-020) – Some eight points are there. (S1B-008) – Okay now various other factors are also there. (S1B-010)

% Indian Examples existential there

 Register Variation in Indian English

Spoken

Sports (Spoken)

Spoken News

Register

5

351

# of instances of existential there

0

29

# of “Indian” instances

0

8.3%

– … level of expectation will always be there or they won’t be there. (News10) – … perceptual disorders are there. (News11) – You can get your redemption within twenty four hours and excellent portfolio disclosures are there. (News11) – twenty-seven asset management companies are there. (News7) – Will the honorable minister ensure that these areas are especially catered, so that these artificial shortages are not there. (Politics1) – All their own lecturer is there. No reader, no professor is there. (Politics3) – I have mentioned earlier, no doubt is there. (Politics4) – But three common symbols that were there on these coins… (S2B-022) – But whenever an opportunity is there, she would spontaneously… (S2B-037)

% Indian Examples existential there

Chapter 6.  Register variation 

Written

328

135

Written Entertainment

857

# of instances of existential there

Written Academic English

Written News

Register

Table 44.  continued

3

8

6

# of “Indian” instances

2.2

2.4%

0.7%

– The effective rate works out to be about two percent since funds have to be there. (DHBus7) – The temptation to add fuel to fire would always be there. (ETBus7) – “An easy money policy might not adversely impact money supply growth too in the current year as huge liquidity inflows like the RIBs are not going to be there” said an economist. (ETBus7) – Signs were there that a peaceful future might not be so easy to achieve. (DHEd2) – The Forward Bloc, one of the constituents of the ruling Left Front in West Bengal, has held discussions with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) led by the Maharashtra strongman Sharad Pawar for entering into an alliance to fight the polls, both assembly and Lok Sabha, in some states where the LF is not there. (DHReg17) – Electricity will be there to work the machine, etc. (W1A016) – …obviously some restrictions must be there on press. (W1A004) – The sounds are there in nature… (W2A-010) – Inflation is there which means heavy overrun… (W2A-011) – But the gloss of a Subash Ghai film is there. (FEnt12) – He was sure to be there in every shot, in every scene, from start to finish. (FEnt18)

% Indian Examples existential there

 Register Variation in Indian English

Written

193

89

377

78 288

Personal Correspondence

Fiction

Written Sports News Travel Writing

# of instances of existential there

Business Correspondence

Register

1 5

6

5

1

# of “Indian” instances

1.3 1.7

1.6

5.6%

0.5%

– The Congress ought to be reminded that but for the folly of Jawaharlal Nehru, who took the Kashmir issue to the United Nations, the problem would not be there today. (DHmail6) – I am sending my résumé in attachments, if any chance is there, please contact me. (Email19) – In case of an interview, no matter how intelligent and experienced you are, psychological errors like non-objectivity are bound to be there. (Email19) – My college Annual Prize Distribution is there tomorrow. (W1B-002) – All these issues would be there only four or five days. (IFBracelet) – A bottle glimmering with light-colored liquid is there on the table. (IFMasque) – Tedious responsibilities are there. (IFMasque) – A burning cigarette was there in his hand. (IFMediator) – But the gnawing fear was there. (EFHomecom) – As Binny summed up, “The talent is there.” (DHSp2) – A live band and a dance floor are also there. (HTt1) – OTDC owned guesthouses are also there. (ITGt1) – J and K TDC have tourist bungalow and private accommodations are also there. (ITGt2) – Chinese equivalents of all these dishes are there. (Ret2)

% Indian Examples existential there

Chapter 6.  Register variation 

 Register Variation in Indian English

Correspondence has the highest proportion of non-initial existential there, with 5.6% of them occurring non-initially. This is interesting if one placed the different registers on a scale of formality. Of all the written registers, Personal Correspondence is the most informal, and therefore, resembles the informal spoken registers in its grammatical characteristics. The other written registers have 0.7% (Written News), 2.4% (Written Academic English), 2.2% (Written Entertainment), 0.5% (Business Correspondence), 1.6% (Fiction), 1.3% (Written Sports News), and 1.7% (Travel Writing). The lack of significant variation among the written registers suggests that this feature might be idiosyncratic of certain writers, rather than characterizing any particular register. This analysis of written registers shows that contrary to previous research findings (for example, Verma, 1980), non-initial existential there is not common in written Indian English. 6.11 Invariant tag isn’t it Chapter 4 concluded that isn’t it used as an invariant tag is common in both spoken and written Indian English. The analysis of no showed that it occurred as a “wrong” tag 243 times in the entire corpus, with 233 of these instances occurring in the spoken corpus. This section of this chapter presents findings on the distribution of isn’t it and no being used as invariant tags in all the registers of the Indian corpus. 6.11.1 Isn’t it An examination of Table 45 below reveals that the only registers that have any instances of isn’t it used as a “wrong” tag in a tag question are Conversational English and Spoken Academic English. In Conversational English, there were a total of 5 instances of the tag isn’t it, of which 4 did not agree with the subject of the sentence they occurred in. In Spoken Academic English, of the 18 total present, 17 were “wrong.” This analysis once again confirms the conclusions of the other analyses described so far: first, that Indian features tend to occur in unscripted spoken language, and secondly, that the spread of Indian features to more traditionally formal registers like Academic English suggests that the English used in India might be entering a Schneider’s Differentiation phase. Of the written registers, only Written Entertainment News had any instances of the tag isn’t it. In this register, the tag occurred twice, and both times, it was misused.



Chapter 6.  Register variation 

6.11.2 No Table 46 below also shows how many instances of no were found in tag questions in each register. The analysis of no was similar to the analysis of isn’t it in that the only occurrences of no as a tag in the spoken registers occurred in Conversational Language and Spoken Academic English. Conversational English had 220 instances, while Spoken Academic English had 14. With the written registers, the only occurrences were in Fiction (6) and Personal Correspondence, (3). What is interesting is that the examples from Fiction all occurred in dialog and not the narrative sections. This could suggest that the authors were better trying to represent spoken Indian English.

Spoken

18

 1

 0

Spoken News

Spoken Sports Reportage

 5

# of instances of Isn’t it

Spoken Academic English

Conversational English

Register

Table 45.  Invariant tag isn’t it

 0

 0

17

 4

# of “Indian” instances

94.4

80%

% Indian instances

– …has passed through several stages, isn’t it? ((S1B-008) – …that man is going to play a part, isn’t it? (S1B-018) – There are several methods of preparation of hydrogen, isn’t it? (S1B-016)

– Everyone needs time for some bonding and re-discovering, isn’t it? (FEnt17) – Whatever the reason and whoever suggested it, “a break in time always saves the whine, isn’t it?” (FEnt18) – You’re doing a couple of films with Karishma Kapoor, isn’t it? (FInt6) – That, too, has been a miserable failure, isn’t it? (RInt12) – The BJP-Sena was defeated very badly, isn’t it? (RInt13)

Examples of “Indian” instances

 Register Variation in Indian English

Written News Written Academic English Entertainment (Written) Fiction Business Correspondence Social Correspondence Written Sports News Travel Writing

Register

Conversational English

Register

 2  0  0  0  0  0

 2

 8  0

 0

 0  0

– – – – – –

100

% Indian instances

–

Examples of “Indian” instances

We were just talking about that, no? (Conversation1) But you can’t hear any music, no? (Conversation7) That’s quite big, so something else we can take in that, no? (Conversation2) You put it in the fridge, no? (Conversation2) You haven’t met my mother, no? (Conversation6) That’s a family story, no? (Oral Interview10)

# of “Indian” Examples instances of No?

 0  0

# of “Indian” instances

 0  0

# of instances of Isn’t it

Table 46.  No as invariant tag

Written

Spoken

Chapter 6.  Register variation 

Spoken

Written

220

14 0 0 6 0 0 3

0 0

Spoken Academic English Written News Written Academic English Fiction

Written Entertainment News Business Correspondence Personal Correspondence

Written Sports News Travel Writing

Nice, no? (Email13) Not bad, no? (Email21 So sad, no? (Email21)

You were going around with Ajay Mehta, no? (EFAdlib) You will wait, no? (EFLalita)

– –

– – –

So we have to adjust, no? (Oral Interview21) …then naturally the man power is reduced, no? (Oral Interview24) It’s all a missionary only, no? (Oral Interview 24) I mean improvement is there, no? (Oral Interview5) You ate outside, no? (Service Encounters1) Saturday, you told, no? (Service Encounters11) Buttons, you didn’t show me, no? (Service Encounters11) That looks nice, no? (Service Encounters14) It comes oxidized, no? (Service Encounters16) They wanted to change the name of Ahmedabad, no? (RInt11) They used to prepare, no? (S1B-008)

– – – – – – – – – – –

# of “Indian” Examples instances of No?

Conversational English

Register

 Register Variation in Indian English



Chapter 6.  Register variation 

6.12 Also and Too This section presents results on three kinds of analyses of the circumstance adverbials also and too. The first analysis focuses on the distribution of also and too relative to each other across registers. The second analysis focuses on the distribution of the adverbials in three sentence positions (initial, medial, and final ) across the different registers of the corpus; Tables 47 and 48 below present results on these distributions. The third analysis focuses only on the circumstance adverbial also, and focuses on the relationship between the position in which sentence adverbial occurs and the part of the clause in focus. 6.12.1 General distribution results These results are first discussed in terms of a comparison of frequencies of the two circumstance adverbials also and too in registers of British and American English on the one hand, and in registers of Indian English on the other hand. Only four registers are taken into account in this analysis – Conversational English, Fiction, Written News, and Written Academic English, to facilitate comparison with British and American English as described in Biber et. al. 4000

Mean

3000

2000

1000 Britalso 0

Indalso Conveng

Fiction

Wracad

Wrnews

Register

Figure 34.  Indian vs. American and British: Also

Conveng = Conversational English; Wracad = Written Academic English; Wrnews = Written News

 Register Variation in Indian English

Biber et al. show that in British and American English, also occurs 200 times per million words in Conversation, 400 times per million words in Fiction, 1200 times per million words in Written News, and 1400 times per million words in Written Academic language. Figure 34 shows the frequencies of also in the four major registers of British and American English, and the same four registers of Indian English. It is clear from the figure that in all registers, Indian English differs from British and American English in that also occurs substantially more frequently in the Indian registers than it does in the corresponding British and American registers. Biber et al. also show that in British and American English, too occurs 600 times per million words in Conversation, 400 times per million words in Fiction, 200 times per million words in News, and less than 100 times per million words in Academic Language. Figure 35 below shows the frequencies of too across the four major registers in British and American English on the one hand and Indian English on the other. It is clear from Figure 35 that with respect to too, there are differences between British and American English and Indian English. In Conversational English and Written Academic language, too occurs less frequently in Indian English than in British and American English. In Fiction and Written News, however, too occurs considerably more frequently in Indian English than in British and American English. Particularly with respect to Indian Conversational English, this result is interesting in how different it is from British and American English. For British and American English, Biber et al. show that “also is more common in expository registers, too in conversation and fiction” (p. 795). While this is true of Indian Fiction, it is certainly not true of Conversational English, where also is far more common. It is important to remember, here, as was pointed out in the previous chapter, that in Indian English on the whole, and Fiction in particular, also is more common than too. These differences become more obvious from Figures 36 and 37 below, which show the frequencies of also and too with respect to each other in the different registers of British and American English. As can be seen from the figures, in British and American English, the use of one of the circumstance adverbials over the other is based on register, while in Indian English, in all registers, also is used more commonly than too.



Chapter 6.  Register variation  1000

800

Mean

600

400

200 Brittoo 0

Indtoo Conveng

Fiction

Wracad

Wrnews

Register

Figure 35.  Indian vs. American and British: Too

Conveng = Conversational English; Wracad = Written Academic English; Wrnews = Written News

1600 1400 1200

Mean

1000 800 600 400 200 0

Britalso Brittoo Conveng

Fiction

Wracad

Wrnews

Register

Figure 36.  American and British also and too

Conveng = Conversational English; Wracad = Written Academic English; Wrnews = Written News

 Register Variation in Indian English 4000

Mean

3000

2000

1000 Indalso 0

Indtoo Conveng

Fiction

Wracad

Wrnews

Register

Figure 37.  Indian also and too

Conveng = Conversational English; Wracad = Written Academic English; Wrnews = Written News

The following points summarize the results discussed so far: – In all Indian registers, also occurs more frequently than too. – In British and American registers, the choice of also or too depends on the register; in Written Academic English and Written News, also occurs more frequently; in Conversational English, too occurs more frequently, while in Fiction, they occur with about the same frequency. – In Indian English in general, also occurs much more frequently than it does in British and American English (based on a comparison of different registers).1 6.12.2 Positions of also and too This section presents the results of the analysis of the position of also and too (medial/initial/final) across registers.

1. Out of curiosity, I determined the frequency of use of the restrictive circumstance adverbial only in Indian registers versus American and British registers. As with also, I determined that only also occurred much more frequently in Indian registers than it did in British or American registers.



Chapter 6.  Register variation 

6.12.2.1 Also Table 47 below shows that there are considerable differences between the different registers of Indian English with respect to the positions of the circumstance adverbial also. What is immediately clear with both written registers and spoken registers is that the more informal and unscripted the language in the register, the greater is the tendency for the circumstance adverbial not to be in medial position (the favored position, as described in Biber et al.). Thus Conversational English and Spoken Academic English have high proportions of the circumstance adverbial occurring in final and initial position. Example sentences from various subregisters include the following: – That’s the feeling I got also. (Conversation9) – The owner took him soup and bread, but he’s not eating also. (Conversation2) – …it may be possible by emails also. (Miscellaneous3) – So you must be looking forward to this Silver Jubilee lunch also. (Miscellaneous1) – So many times we did night work also. (Oral Interview10) – It’s a good environment, good friends, and good environment also. (Oral Interview13) – We have one like this also. (Service Encounters9) – They’ve got TV and phone also. (Service Encounters15) Among the written registers, this pattern is most apparent in Personal Correspondence and Business Correspondence. Examples of sentences with initial also from these two registers include the following: – Also please inform them that V.P. is no longer at TekEdge. (Email13) – Also I would like to know if you have received my previous mail. (Email15) – Also I wanted to do my engineering, but am forced to do a BA. (FdearAb11) – Also my molars are very deformed and one is totally embedded in the gum. (FdearAb19) 6.12.2.2 Too As Table 48 below indicates, overall across registers, too shows less preference for medial position than does also. With the spoken registers, medial position also ranges from occurring 70% of the time in Spoken News to 0% in Spoken Academic English. Frequently the position of the circumstance adverbial contributes to possible ambiguity in the meaning of the sentence as is illustrated by the following sentences: 1. Your glass, I think, needs to be shifted. I think so, too. (Conversation9) 2. I would like to speak to him, too. (Conversation8)

 Register Variation in Indian English

3. Communication is expressing yourself and your basic ideas and thoughts, and making sure that the other party gets that, too. (Lecture2) 4. A lot is gained when you can get happiness too. (Oral Presentations2) 5. Now we go to the jubilarian and our priest too. (Oral Presentations1) 6. Because she gave something to me, too. (Service Encounters4) As indicated above, the meaning of the sentence can be unclear here, as is particularly well-illustrated by sentences 2 and 5 above. With the written registers, too, there is considerable variation, with Written Academic English, Written News, and Written Sports preferring the medial position over the other positions. One also notes that with Business Correspondence, Personal Correspondence, and Travel Writing, the final position is favored over the medial. Example sentences illustrating this pattern include the following: – Though there is no pain, I have been feeling a lump there, too. (FdearAb15) – Recently some of your dreams have crashed, too. (FdearAb20) – Keep it coming from your end. Not just short cryptic emails, but some information too. (Email3) – Do you write too? (Email5) As was the case with also not in medial position, the position of too in the sentence contributes greatly to the meaning, and often, the meaning of the sentence is not clear to non-Indians because of the position of the adverb. The first four sentences above illustrate this. In sentence 1, it is unclear whether the writer has been feeling the lump there as opposed to anywhere else, or whether he/she has been feeling the lump in addition to seeing it. In other words, it is unclear whether the focus is on there or on feeling. In sentence 4, “Do you write too?” it is unclear whether the focus is on you (as opposed to your brother) or on write (i.e., do you write and sing, or do you do both?) 6.12.3 Also and focus Biber et al also explain with respect to circumstance adverbials that prescriptive rules state that the circumstance adverbial should be placed immediately before the element in focus, but that this is “frequently not the case” (p. 806). It was concluded in Chapter 4 that with regard to also immediately preceding the focused element, in the corpus as a whole, and in the written corpus, Biber et al.’s claims about British and American English hold true for Indian English. In other words, in the entire corpus, and in the written section of the corpus alone, also sometimes does not immediately precede the focused element. In the spoken corpus, however,



Chapter 6.  Register variation 

we concluded that more often than not, also does not immediately precede the focused element. This section outlines results on the relationship between the position of also and the element in the sentence or clause that is semantically in focus. Biber et al. explain about circumstance adverbials that “unlike many other adverbials, these cannot be moved without affecting their meaning in the clause. The position of the adverbial is important in determining what element of the clause is the focus of the addition or restriction” (p. 781). We saw from many of the examples in the previous section that this is true – that the position of the adverbial frequently contributed to a lack of clarity in the meaning of the sentence. Table 49 below presents the results of the present analysis of the frequency with which also does occur immediately before the element in focus, and the frequency with which it does not. We see from Table 49 below that Conversational English is the most different from both the other registers in Indian English and from British and American English with 77.9% of the alsos not preceding the focused element in the sentence or clause. Further, an examination of the example sentences reveals that the position of the circumstance adverbial does make the meaning of the clause unclear. These examples illustrate this: – No I don’t like. After marriage also I want to be like this only. (Oral Interveiws) – And my brother-in-law also is lecturer. (Oral Interview 22) In the first sentence, based on the position of the also, the focus of the sentence should be I. The sentence could mean that I want to be like this, in the same way that you want to be like this. However, the actual focus of the sentence is marriage. The speaker means that he is a certain way now, and after he marries, he would like to continue to be the same way. In the second sentence, it is unclear whether the speaker means that her brother-in-law is a lecturer in addition to something else or whether her brother-in-law, in addition to someone else, is a lecturer. Spoken Academic English had a number of examples of also not following the focused element, as is indicated by the following example: – Sound also is digitized before transmitting. (Lecture 3) The sentence is a clear example of the lack of clarity that the position of the circumstance adverbial can contribute to the sentence. The focus of the sentence, based on the position of also, should be digitized. In other words, the sentence should mean that more than one thing happens to the sound before it is transmitted – it is digitized and something else. However, the actual focus of the sentence is sound. In other words, the speaker means that two things are digitized before they are transmitted: sound, and something else.

Written

Spoken

173 370

351 159 129 143 95 90

251

424

6

1044

400

184 143

200

137

96

358

Sports (Spoken)

Written News

Written Academic English Fiction Written Entertainment News Business Correspondence Personal Correspondence Sports (Written)

Travel

308

1002

4

316

# of medial also

569

Total also

Conversational English Spoken Academic English Spoken News

Register

Table 47.  Also: Distribution

86%

93.7%

69.3%

71.5%

86.4% 90.2%

87.8%

95.9%

66.7%

87.3%

68.9%

55.3%

% of medial also

34

4

31

54

5 14

24

31

0

8

15

41

# of initial also

9.5%

4.2%

22.6%

27%

2.7% 9.8%

6%

2.9%

0

1.9%

6.0%

7.2%

% of initial also

16

2

11

3

20 0

25

11

2

46

63

212

4.5%

2.1%

8.0%

1.5%

10.9% 0

6.3%

1.1%

33.3%

10.8%

25.1%

37.3%

# of final also % of final also

 Register Variation in Indian English

   0

  11

  12   78

180

  17

150

Written News

Written Academic English Fiction

Written Entertainment News Business Correspondence Personal Correspondence Sports (Written) Travel

119

   2

Spoken Sports Reportage

  60   14   12   23    3

  77

  34

  37

  33   30

   1

  20

  14

  27

69.7% 10%

32.4%

41.2%

77.9%

52%

70.6%

66.1%

50%

70%

0

41.5%

0 0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

# of medial too % of medial too # of initial too

  65

Total too

Spoken News

Conversational English Spoken Academic English

Register

Table 48.  Too: Distribution

Spoken

Written

0 0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

1.5%

% of initial too

10 27

25

20

17

72

 5

61

 1

 6

11

37

# of final too

30.3% 90%

67.6%

58.8%

22.1%

48%

29.4%

33.9%

50%

30%

100%

57%

% of final too

Chapter 6.  Register variation 

Spoken

Conversational English

Register

Table 49.  Also: Focus

  569

# of Also

443

# of Also not preceding focused element 77.9%

– I told Nandu also, I don’t believe this house is mine. (Conversation9) – He makes chaat also. (Conversation2) – I think mummy sent me chutney powder also. (Conversation4) – No I don’t like. After marriage also I want to be like this only. (Oral Interviews11) – And my brother in law also is lecturer. (Oral Interview22) – Actually now studying B. Com also nobody is encouraging. (Oral Interview13) – But here also she’s working in a government school. (Oral Interview23) – Even my uncle also, he was in the middle. (Service Encounters6) – We can wash that in washing machine also. (Service Encounters9) – I have not been eating anything outside also. (Service Encounters2) – In Orissa also the BJP has problems with the Biju Janata Dal. (Rint13) – I represented my people, Ramdoss represented his people, some Muslims represented their group, and some Christians were also there. (Rint14) – And confrontation also is inevitable. (Rint14)

% of Also not Examples preceding focused element

 Register Variation in Indian English

Spoken

Spoken Academic English

Register

  251

# of Also

  64

# of Also not preceding focused element 25.5%

– Sound also is digitized before transmitting. (Lecture3) – You know in the transmitter circuit also you can have problems. (Lecture3) – As with the onset of reproductive activity, namely puberty, here also with the cessation, a woman experiences tremendous change. (Lecture4) – So I feel there could be more than this point also, but I concentrate on this point. (Miscellaneous3) – If you can realize your full potential and conduct also, you get the highest sense of [unclear words] (Miscellaneous2) – I’ve seen this in my previous companies also. (Miscellaneous2) – Your father is also a scientist? (Office Hours1) – Even that also can be called as industry. (S1B-008) – …rules of society also is there. (SiB-017)

% of Also not Examples preceding focused element

Chapter 6.  Register variation 

Spoken

Spoken Sports Reportage

Spoken News

Register

Table 49.  continued

   6

  424

# of Also

   3

  88

# of Also not preceding focused element

50%

20.8%

– This audio cassette also seems to be in Kannada. (News11) – Mostly they are socially withdrawn, they are indifferent from others, they live in their own imaginary life, they are not taking care of their own personal hygiene sometimes also. (News11) – I mean even growth funds also have the same amount of transparency. (News11) – Were the Indian intelligence agencies involved in bringing Abdul Majid Dhar across from Pakistan so that his ceasefire also could have been made on Indian soil? (Politics5) – The reply which has been given is the next year, next session also, I will put the same question, same reply will come. (Politics3) – So I think there should be some efforts from the ministry also. (Politics3) – Banks and financial institutions will also remain closed today. (S2B-020) – The Southern Railway has also cancelled all trains leaving Madras… (S2B-020) – I think that makes all the difference, so the encouragement also, from whatever level you have… (Sports1) – Ronny Ronny, because of his erratic potting, was a little erratic also. (Sports1)

% of Also not Examples preceding focused element

 Register Variation in Indian English

Written

Written News

Register

1046

# of Also

  54

# of Also not preceding focused element 5.2%

– As and when the laws of the country allow for depository instructions to be accepted electronically, we will offer that facility also. (DHBus3) – Other officials from the ministry and Central Electricity Authority (CEA) also attended the meeting. (DHBus3) – Data communication links were also not available then. (DHBus6) – Russia also has been playing this role for a long time. (Hed2) – The only Indians with empire-building proclivities also are eying this oil for their great refinery… (DCEd3) – CAD/CAM accelerates the entire process, reducing its errors also. (DHf1) – Geckos, frogs, and lizards all reside in their cavities and wasp and stingless bees also live there. (DHf1) – The External Affairs minister, who was doing double duty by taking on Defense also was equally forthright. (Hf1) – Mr. Byre Gowda said that letters were being sent to them also. (Dhreg16) – Power has been delegated to the lower command also. (Dhreg17)

% of Also not Examples preceding focused element

Chapter 6.  Register variation 

Written

  184

  143

Written Entertainment News

  400

# of Also

Fiction

Written Academic English

Register

Table 49.  continued

   4

  79

145

# of Also not preceding focused element

2.79%

42.93%

36.3%

– And because of caste system her status also became very low. (W1A-011) – Now also she is not given the superior position. (W1A-011) – Population also goes on increasing… (W1A-001) – These measures also had helped in augmenting savings. (W2A-014) – But music has another dimension also, where a situation from life is not… (W2A-010) – Yes, she also went with them. (IFBatti) – When she understood the joke, she also started laughing. (IFBracelet) – But a mistake can be rectified also! (Daughter) – Kuch kuch hota hai is also one of my favorite films. (DHEnt5) – I had the privilege of working with Meena Kumari in many films. She also hailed from my hometown. (DHEnt14)

% of Also not Examples preceding focused element

 Register Variation in Indian English

Written

Personal Correspondence

Business Correspondence

Register

  137

  200

# of Also

  35

  50

# of Also not preceding focused element

25.5%

25%

– Non-slippery cement tiles are also available in various colors. (FdearAb17) – Some of his friends also seem to be misleading him. (FdearAb22) – The same analogy holds good especially for Indian administration also. (DHMail18) – They did this because they knew that Jinnah was dying and they knew also that if he died before independence… (Hmail6) – We in India also fought for our freedom, but not with guns and terror. (Hmail7) – Your packings, packagings have won award also. (W1B-016) – Now also when enquired, same answer is given. (W1B-022) – Also we had it in our records that Rajinder Singh was supposed to arrive this weekend also. (Email16) – I got your mail id from Yassar who is my colleague at Infosys. He also has applied to your consultancy. (Email19) – By the way, Sindhu is also working in Biocon, but I haven’t met her for the past few days. (Email21) – My wife also is required to go to Pune, Kolhapur, etc. (W1B002) – This is the attitude also toward those who are going to retire. (W1B-007)

% of Also not Examples preceding focused element

Chapter 6.  Register variation 

Written

Travel Writing

Written Sports News

Register

Table 49.  continued

  358

   96

# of Also

  42

   4

# of Also not preceding focused element

11.73%

4.16%

– The PCB interim chief said the Pakistani team will also participate in the tri-series in Australia. (DHSp1) – Railways controlled the match in the second half also. (DHSp1) The rates also are reasonable. (REt2) – The chicken farcha is also Rs.46. (Ret2) – And you may order the bread also with them, as also later with the rest of your meal. (Ret2) – OTDC-owned guesthouses also are there. (ITGt1)

% of Also not Examples preceding focused element

 Register Variation in Indian English



Chapter 6.  Register variation 

With the written registers, Fiction and Written Academic English had the highest proportion of also not preceding the focused element. These two registers are followed by the two correspondence registers. Example sentences from all these registers, sentences where, once again, the meaning is obscured by the position of the adverbial, include the following: – But a mistake can be rectified also. (Fiction; Daughter) – And because of caste system, her status also became very low. (Written Academic English; W1A-011) – Some of his friends also seem to be misleading him. (Business Correspondence; FDearAb22) – By the way, Sindhu is also working in Biocon, but I haven’t met her for the past few days. (Personal Correspondence; Email21) 6.13 Conclusion This chapter has provided a detailed account of register variation with respect to grammatical features. It provides results in terms of differences between registers for each grammatical feature studied. The results presented in this chapter show some clear patterns which are outlined below: – Any innovations begin in Conversational English; this register had the highest proportions of all the Indian features studied. – Indian features tend to be frequent in the more unscripted registers, both spoken and written. This explains the relatively high proportion of Indian features in Personal Correspondence and also to some extent, in Business Correspondence. – Indian features also tend to be relatively frequent in the more informal written registers; this explains the proportion of Indian features in registers like Entertainment News and Travel News. Both these registers tended to be more “chatty,” and therefore had higher proportions of Indian features than did the other formal written registers like News. – Both Written and Spoken Academic English had high proportions of many of the Indian features studied. This suggests that register might not be the only non linguistic variable predicting the presence or absence of Indian features. Rather, it is possible that younger users of Indian English, those who didn’t necessarily grow up with the same external norm (British English) that older speakers did, are responsible for the spread of Indianisms (to use a term of Kachru’s) to the more formal written registers. This suggests that the English in India is definitely beyond the Nativization phase that much previous

 Register Variation in Indian English

research has described, and has entered the Endonormative phase, and even possibly, the Differentiation phase. – Indian features tend to be less frequent in the more formal written registers like Written News, Written Sports News, and Fiction. Chapter 7 will discuss the results obtained in Chapters 5 and 6, and draw some conclusions about variation in Indian English. It will also draw attention to limitations of the current study, and make recommendations for future studies.

chapter 7

Conclusion 7.0 Introduction This chapter discusses the conclusions that can be drawn about Indian English from the analyses conducted in this study. Chapter 4 discussed the differences between the spoken and written varieties of Indian English, while Chapters 5 and 6 detailed the differences between the different spoken and written registers of Indian English represented in the corpus. The present chapter begins with a summary of the results obtained from the Type 1 analyses; this is followed by a summary of the results obtained from the Type 2 analyses. The discussion that follows these summaries begins to answer the question of what Indian English is, and discusses the importance of a register analysis for any large scale study of dialect. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the limitations of the study, and discusses directions for further and future research in the area. 7.1 Summary of Type 1 analyses The features for which Indian and non Indian variants were identified include the following: – Keep versus put – Stay versus live – Initial and non-initial Existential there – Tags isn’t it and no – Stative verbs in the progressive – Patterns of occurrence of present and past perfect – Articles – Use of future instead of simple present – Absence of subject auxiliary inversion in WH questions – Transitive verbs used intransitively Table 50 below, which differentiates the spoken corpus from the written corpus shows that except for the analyses of the two lexical features (keep vs. put and live vs. stay) the spoken corpus has considerably higher frequencies of the Indian

 Register Variation in Indian English

variants of the features studied. This suggests that linguistic innovation originates, as one might expect, in the spoken varieties of Indian English. Table 51 below, which presents a summary of the results for the individual registers, confirms the results presented in Table 50; in other words, spoken registers do indeed have a higher proportion of Indian variants than do the written registers. Within the spoken registers, Conversational English has the highest proportion of Indian variants. For several features, though, Spoken Academic English has higher frequencies of Indian variants than even Conversational English. The fact that Conversational English has high frequencies of Indian variants is not unexpected; innovations starts with informal, unscripted language, and this language is largely Conversational. The relatively high proportion of Indian variants in Spoken Academic English might be surprising; given the supposed formality of the register, one might have expected fewer Indian variants. However, as explained in Chapters 5 and 6, these results could be accounted for by two facts. Firstly, Spoken Academic English is also largely unscripted, a fact that could contribute to its Indianness. Secondly, this is a register (along with Written Academic English) that has the youngest contributors. The results of this study suggest that register is not the only variable accounting for Indianness; it seems that the younger the user of Indian English, the greater the frequency of Indian features. This result is interesting, as it suggests that innovations in Indian English begin in informal, unscripted conversational language; this is where the identity of Indian English starts. These innovations not only spread to more formal registers, but also are spread by young speakers, who use them even in more formal registers. This “adoption and acceptance of an indigenous linguistic norm, supported by a new locally rooted self confidence” (Schneider, 2003, p. 249) indicates that the English in India has at least entered the Endonormataive Stabilzation phase. A look at the summary of the results obtained from the analyses of the written registers supports both these ideas. In the written registers, too, the more informal the register, the greater the proportion of Indian variants. Thus the higher proportions of Indian variants tended to occur in Personal Correspondence and Business Correspondence (as indicated in Chapter 3, most of the texts in this register were more personal in nature), followed by Travel Writing. This once again suggests the not surprising result that the less formal the register, the greater the proportion of Indian variants. An examination of Table 51 for frequency of Indian variants in Written Academic English supports the hypothesis described above with regard to Spoken Academic English. Written Academic English, too, had relatively high proportions of Indian variants, with most examples coming from the unpublished material. Again, this finding suggests that innovations are not only moving from informal to more formal registers, but that younger users of the language are using Indian features even in formal registers.



Chapter 7.  Conclusion 

7.2 Summary of Type II analyses The features which were studied for their general patterns of occurrence in registers of Indian English (i.e., those that followed Type II analyses) include the following: – General patterns of occurrence of also and too – Indian words – Prepositional verbs – Occurrence of progressive aspect instead of simple and perfect aspects – Relative clauses – Modals and semi-modals For the circumstance adverbials (Indian words, prepositional verbs, relative clauses, and modals) the analyses reveal definite differences across the registers. Differences across registers include both frequencies of use, and different prepositions, relativizers, modals, and Indian words used depending on register. The differences between the registers found in these analyses are similar to the differences Biber et. al outline for registers of British and American English, and indicate that the English in India is similar to other varieties of English in not being homogeneous; rather, it differs based on use.

Present Perfect Past Perfect Stative Verbs Live vs. Stay Keep vs. Put

43.5% 12.2%

61.4% 32.5%

11.8% 50%

85.7% 18.5%

1.5% 0.08%

  1.9% 8.18% 12.5% 11.4%

5.5% 6.6%

21.6% 4.4% 25.6%

4.0% 0.9%

Missing Articles before Ordinal #s

3.4%

Table 50.  General conclusions about Type 1 analyses

Missing Articles in Noun phrases

3.5%

Missing Articles before Quant.

9.0%

Total Missing Articles

16%

Future vs. Present

2.8%

Subj. Aux. Inversion

28%

Trans. Verbs

17%

Ex. There

35%

Isn’t it?

33.3%

Also not in medial position

Wr

Also not before focus

Sp

Too not in medial position

56.6%

 Register Variation in Indian English

Mode

Keep vs. Put

0

10.5%

Bus. Corr.

Pers. Corr.

Wr. Tr.

Wr. Sports

Fiction

60%

0

91.6%

0

10.5%

Wr. Acad

Wr. Ent News

60%

Wr. Wr. News Reg.

0

Stay vs. Live

Sp. Sports

14.3%

0

17%

25%

5.5%

44%

50%

19%

0

Stative Verbs

0

7.9%

0

1.8%

0

7.3%

1.7%

33.3%

0.39%

0

15.6%

21.6%

Past Perfect

8%

1.2%

0.66%

0

1.9%

3.6%

2.7%

1.02%

4.8%

5.9%

3.9%

0.43%

2.7%

0

10.8%

9.3%

13.5%

1.5%

4.5%

13.8%

15.6%

1.03% 1.22%

0

0.8%

3.84%

1.4%

6.25% 0.66%

0

2.2%

0

3.0%

1.4%

Present Prefect

21%

Missing Articles before Ordinal #s

9.5%

Missing Articles in Noun Phrases

Sp. News 0

2%

8.8%

Missing Articles before Quant.

Sp. Acad

Total Missing Articles 2.6%

1.1%

5.7%

4.0%

0.4%

4.1%

0.78%

14.4% 13.8%

0

0.6%

0.6%

23.1% 19.1%

0

28.6% 21.1%

3.6%

10%

5.5%

13.8% 10.8%

3.6%

16.1%

80%

0

0 0

3.7%

0.3%

0

0.18%

1.7%

1.3%

1.6%

2.2%

5.6%

0.5%

2.4%

0.7%

0

8.3%

0

0

100%

0

0

0

0

0

0

5.2%

50%

33.9%

50%

30%

25%

58.8%

14%

6.3%

11.7%

90%

4.16% 30.3%

48%

2.79% 22.1% 13.6% 42.9%

9.8%

30.7% 25.5% 67.6%

28.5%

12.2% 36.3% 29.4%

4.1%

33.3%

12.7% 20.8%

100%

44.7% 77.9% 58.5%

1.8% 19.04% 0.87% 18.5% 94.4% 31.1% 25.5%

22.0% 17.5% 21.5% 29.2%

Future vs. Present

3.5%

Subj. Aux. Inversion

36.9%

Trans. Verbs

5.6%

Ex. There

21.4%

Isn’t it?

8.4%

Also not in medial position

28%

Also not before focus

100%

Too not in Medial position

Sp. Conv. Eng Reg.

Table 51.  Conclusions about Individual Registers for Type 1 analyses

Chapter 7.  Conclusion 

 Register Variation in Indian English

7.3 Conclusions to be drawn from Type I and Type II analyses The two kinds of analyses conducted in this study reveal without a doubt that Indian English is not homogeneous, but rather, represents a range of varieties. This range of varieties is influenced both by register and age of the Indian speaker. This range of varieties shows that the English in India has not only undergone Nativization, but has definitely entered Schneider’s Endonormative Stabilization Phase, and possibly entered the last phase, Differentiation. The continuum could be represented as follows in Figure 38 below, which shows that the English used in India is more Indian the less formal it is, and the more it is used by younger speakers who grow up using an Indian variety of English. The more formal registers more closely resemble the traditional “native” varieties, while the less formal registers, and the English used by younger speakers, have undergone (and are continuing to undergo) differing degrees of Nativization and Endonormative Stabilization. Conversational English

Travel guides, informal magazine writing

Spoken and Written Academic English

Fiction

Personal and Business Correspondence

Written News

Spoken News

Figure 38.  Continuum of Indian English

7.4 Co-occurrence of Indian variants A examination of the numerous example sentences provided in Chapters 4, 5, and 6 as well as the general results presented in Table 51 below also reveals that in certain registers, several Indian features co-occur. A sample of sentences from Conversational English, for example, shows that where one finds a stative verb in the progressive, one also finds an invariant tag (no?). An example is the following sentence: – All those things they must be having, no? (Conversation8)



Chapter 7.  Conclusion 

An example sentence, also from Conversational English, with non-initial existential there co-occurring with tag no is the following: – Spoons and all are there on the table, no? An example sentence from Spoken Academic English with the co-occurrence of a missing article and a stative verb in the progressive includes the following: – and I saw present, I am seeing present day the motive of scientist only to publish paper. These observations point to the fact that a next step in investigating the English used in India is a multi-dimensional analysis which determines just what linguistic features co-occur in what register. These observations also show that in order to truly study variation in an international variety of English, merely isolating lists of features that supposedly occur in the variety is hardly sufficient. 7.5 What, then, is Indian English? The discussion thus far brings me to the question posed at the beginning of this project: What is Indian English, and how has this study helped answer this question? This study has shown that a definition of Indian English is as elusive as a definition of any other variety of English such as British or American English. There are simply too many variables to neatly define the English used in India as a single variety. What I can do in this section, however, is provide a list of facts that emerged from this study. Where necessary, I will make connections with ideas that previous research on Indian English mentions. – Based on the analyses of all the linguistic features in this study, it is clear that the English used in India is definitely distinct from other varieties like British or American English. – The English used in India is far from homogeneous; rather, it represents a cluster of varieties. This study has revealed that Kachru’s (1992) claims about the concept of homogeneity being applicable to the Indian situation are not true. – The most basic distinction in Indian English is between the spoken and written varieties, with spoken Indian English showing significantly higher frequencies of Indian variants than written Indian English. – Spoken Indian English tends to have more easily recognizable Indianisms, to use Kachru’s (1992) term. Such structures include stative verbs in the progressive and missing articles. – Written Indian English, however, is more subtly different from varieties like British and American English. Thus, while stative verbs in the progressive, or an absence of subject-auxiliary inversion in WH-questions, may not be

 Register Variation in Indian English

common in written Indian English, the analyses of circumstance adverbials, prepositions, and relative clauses reveal differences between written Indian registers and the corresponding written registers of British and American English. – The differences between different varieties of Indian English, however, do not stem purely from the mode of transmission of the language, i.e., whether it is spoken or written. Various other situational variables come to play; this project shows that there are great differences among spoken registers, and among written registers. – This study has also shown that younger users of English in India use more Indianisms even in traditionally more formal spoken and written registers. – This project has provided a preliminary description of the patterns of occurrence of different linguistic features, and how they occur across registers of Indian English. As mentioned above, though, a next logical and necessary step would be to investigate how these features co-occur, and contribute to the overall Indianness of Indian English. As shown in this project, Indian English, then, is more complicated than just a list of isolated features. 7.6 Revisiting Kachru’s Concentric Circles Based on this study, one perhaps needs to revisit Kachru’s Concentric Circles. Given that the English in India is not homogeneous, one can, perhaps, posit a set of concentric circles for the Indian context. Figure 32 below shows India’s possible concentric circles.



Chapter 7.  Conclusion 

Inner Core: Educated Older Speakers; English more closely resembles traditional “native” varieties

Outer Circle: In transition; Indian features present in more informal conversational registers Expanding Circle: Younger speakers; Indian features found in multiple registers including more traditionally formal registers

Figure 39.  India’s New Concentric Circles

7.7 Limitations of the study The first limitation of the study is the size of the corpus, and the size of the spoken corpus in particular. Some of the registers of the spoken corpus are small, because of which some results could not be generalized to the register on the whole. An example is Spoken Sports Reporting. A larger spoken corpus, and if possible, registers of comparable sizes, would be useful in future analyses. Another limitation of the study is that while it represents a survey of the variation in Indian English, one could study several of the features in greater detail. As mentioned in Chapter 6, for example, the study of relative constructions with the current methodology did not allow for a study of non-standard relativizers. A

 Register Variation in Indian English

more focused study would have allowed this. Another example is the study of the frequent occurrence of progressives instead of other tenses. A more focused study would allow for a detailed investigation of situations where progressives do occur instead of other tenses, and the discourse function they perform, if any. Another limitation of the study is that demographic variables, which undoubtedly are a major source of variation, were not used in any analyses. As mentioned in Chapter 3, certain variables were kept constant as far as possible in corpus compilation. These include age of the contributors (almost all contributors were above the age of 18), and educational level (as far as could be controlled, the contributors had at least a high school education). This study has shown, however, that age is an important factor in determining the Indianness of the English used in India. It would be interesting to study the relationship between other non-linguistic variables and the Indianness of the English spoken and written in India. As mentioned in Chapter 3, where possible, demographic information was collected on contributors, including native language, medium of instruction in school, etc. While this study did not use any of these variables to determine whether they contributed to differences between registers in any way, a future study could. 7.8 Directions for future research Despite its limitations, this study provides the first detailed description of variation in Indian English. This description, however, is far from complete. The corpus can be used for the analysis of more features such as complementation patterns, passive constructions, stance markers, etc. Future research could serve to expand the current study toward a comprehensive description of variation and change in Indian English. As mentioned above, future research on Indian English could also take some of the preliminary results obtained in this study and study some features in more detail as well as study the influence of age and other demographic variables on the English used in India.

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 Register Variation in Indian English Leitner, G. 1994. Begin and start in British, American, and Indian English. Hermes 13: 99–132. Linn, M. 1998. Handbook of Dialects and Language Variation. San Diego CA: Academic Press. Lukmani, Y. 1992. Indian English: The written record. Language and Civilization: A Concerted Profusion of Essays and Studies in Honor of Otto Hietsch, Vol. 2, C. Blank et al. (eds), 155– 165. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Mazzon, G. 1993. English in Malta. English World Wide 14: 171–208. McArthur, T. 1998. Guides to tomorrow’s English. English Today 14: 21–26. Mehrotra. R. R. 1998. Indian English: Texts and Interpretation [Varieties of English around the World T7]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Merkestein, A. 1998. Deculturizing Englishes: The Botswana context. World Englishes 17: 171– 85. Mesthrie, R. 2005. Assessing representations of South African Indian English in writing: An application of variation theory. Language Variation and Change 17(3): 303–326. Mesthrie, R., Swann, J., Deumert, A., & Leap, W. 2000. Introducing Sociolinguistics. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Mesthrie, R. 1993. South African Indian English. English Today 34: 12–16. Mesthrie, R. & Dunne, T. 1990. Syntactic variation in language shift: The relative clause in South African Indian English. Language Variation and Change 2: 31–56. Mukherjee, J. & Hoffman, S. 2006. Describing verb-complementational profiles of New Englishes: A pilot study of Indian English. English World Wide 27: 147–173. Nelson, G. 2004. Negation of lexical have in conversational English. World Englishes 23(2): 299– 308 Newbrook, M. 1997. Malaysian English: Status, norms, some grammatical and lexical features. In Englishes around the World, Vol. 2: Caribbean, Africa, Asia, Australasia. Studies in Honor of Manfred Gorlach [Varieties of English around the World G19], E.W. Schneider (ed.), 229–256. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Nihalani,  P.,  Tongue, R.K., &  Hosali, P.  2004.  Indian  and  British English:  A  handbook  of  Usage and Pronunciation. Delhi: OUP. Olavarria de Ersson, E. & Shaw, P.  2003. Verb complementation patterns in Indian standard English. English World Wide 24: 137–161. Oostdijk, N. 1991. Corpus Linguistics and the Automatic Analysis of English. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Patil, B.N. 1986. If-conditionals in Indian English. M.Phil. dissertation, Shivaji University, Kolhapur. Peters, P. 1998. The survival of the subjunctive: Evidence of its use in Australia and elsewhere. English World Wide 19: 87–103. Platt, J., Weber, H., & Ho, M.L. 1984. The New Englishes. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Quirk, R. 1988. Language varieties and standard language. JALT Journal 11: 14–25. Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & Svartvik, J. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman. Ramtirthakar, S. 1987. A Study of Some and Any in Indian English. M.Phil. dissertation, Shivaji University, Kolhapur. Rogers, C. 2001. Syntactic features of Indian English. In Using Corpora to Explore Language Variation [Studies in Corpus Linguistics 9], R. Reppen, S. Fitzmaurice, & D. Biber, (eds). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Sahgal, A. & Agnihorti, R.K. 1985. Syntax – the common bond. Acceptability of syntactic deviance in Indian English. English World Wide 6: 117–129.



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appendix 1

Methodologies employed in the study of language varieties

* Discrete items – usually phonological or lexical * Decided before data is collected * Only focuses on dependent (linguistic) variable

Dialect Geography/ Regional Dialectology: This methodology describes language variation in terms of geographical areas. The major goal of this methodology is to produce visual representations of regional differences in dialect. It therefore examines individual linguistic constructions. It maps dialect regions and boundaries.

*Questionnaires: a) either direct or indirect b) formal or informal c) naming questions or completing questions *Questionnaires either mailed to informants, or sent through a trained fieldworker

Nature of variable(s)

Major methodology & Instruments Goal * Responses to questionnaire. All data pertain exactly to the variable being examined. * Focus on regional variation – informants coming from different regions. Doesn’t consider either social variation among speakers or textual/stylistic variation.

Nature of data collected * Wenker’s survey of dialects in Germany (1876) * Gillieron’s survey of dialects in France (1880s) * Linguistic Atlas of New England (1939) * A Word Geography of the Eastern United States (1949) * Linguistic Atlas of the Middle and South Atlantic States (1980)

Examples of studies * Provides dialect maps which at a glance tell how language varies in different geographic regions. * From the dialect maps, one can make inferences about the direction of language change * Looks at phonological, lexical, and syntactic features

Strengths of methodology * Relies heavily on informant’s ability to answer questions * Results in only one style of informant’s speech – formal and careful – not representative speech * Excludes social dimension of language; not interested in social variation, just interested in obtaining some information on most conservative variety spoken in the region * Focuses mostly on one population – NORMS – not representative speakers

Drawbacks of methodology

 Register Variation in Indian English

Major methodology & Instruments Goal

Nature of variable(s)

Nature of data collected

Examples of studies

Strengths of methodology * Makes claims on the whole dialect based on the small sample surveyed. * The results are dialect maps, which mark major dialect areas. They make it seem that the areas are uniform and then do not take into account the heterogeneous nature of language even within a dialect region * Regards linguistic variation as free variation * Data analysis is performed entirely by hand, which makes it more susceptible to human error * Often insufficient data which cannot be used for other studies; data collected is specific to the study

Drawbacks of methodology

Appendix 1.  Methodologies employed in the study of language varieties 

This methodology examines relationships between language and social features. It examines individual linguistic constructions. Research goal is to find relationships between social factors and the patterns of variation of a linguistic variable.

* Focuses on both dependent (linguistic) and independent (social) variables * Dependent variable chosen before data is collected

Social dialectology

*Questionnaires, interviews, observations

Nature of variable(s)

Major methodology & Instruments Goal * Tape recorded, and sometimes transcribed * Data collected depended on the variable being studied – was not always “natural”, which led to other problems * Had a range of social variation but only restricted ranges of textual variation

Nature of data collected * Labov’s study of social stratification of NYC (1969) * Trudgill’s study of /in/ vs. /in/ (1974) * Labov’s Martha Vineyard study (1972)

Examples of studies * Provides a good sense of context in which language took place – the data represents more than just voices on tape, or written material, for which information about authors is not well known * Shows that linguistic variation is not free – that it was constrained by social factors * Good starting point. Studies point to trends * The methodology begins to take into account stylistic differences * Looks at phonological, lexical, and syntactic features

Strengths of methodology * Examines language variation usually with respect to only one set of social factors – only one dimension of variation * Social factor examined is style – formal vs. informal styles. This distinction is very useful, but was only used for interviews – the spoken medium. Methodology didn’t take into account written medium * When questionnaires are used, relies on informant’s ability to answer questions (* Representativeness of sample – how representative is a sample that takes into account [usually] variance on one non-linguistic dimension (formalinformal)

Drawbacks of methodology

 Register Variation in Indian English

Variables often not decided before data is collected. A corpus is not built based on the nature of the variable,

Corpus Linguistics

* Corpus of language – different registers

Nature of variable(s)

Major methodology & Instruments Goal

Examples of studies

* Spoken data * Range of spoken recorded, transcribed, and written varieties stored in machine– Biber, 1989 readable form

Nature of data collected

* Corpus linguistics takes great pains to determine, before the data is collected, just what needs to be collected in order to achieve as close to a “representative” sample as possible

Strengths of methodology

* Very specialized methodology which requires a lot of computer knowledge, great deal of knowledge of modern technology

* Data analysis performed by hand, which makes it more susceptible to human error * It is impossible for interview material to be considered “natural speech” – Observer’s paradox * There is often insufficient data, which cannot be used for other studies; data collected is specific to the study

Drawbacks of methodology

Appendix 1.  Methodologies employed in the study of language varieties 

* Used for a number of purposes in language study including the study of language variation * Based on the premise that language variation is characterized more thoroughly by the study of linguistic co-occurrence patterns * Research goal is the linguistic analysis of texts and text types, and the styles of register, rather than individual linguistic constructions. This goal therefore can provide a detailed picture of variation within the variety

Major methodology & Instruments Goal

Nature of variable(s) * Importance of collecting “natural” discourse * Attempt to represent as many different types of text as possible

Nature of data collected * British and American varieties – Biber 1987 * Detailed description of varieties of British English –Nijmegen Corpus of British English – Oostdijk, 1991

Examples of studies * It acknowledges that multiple parameters of variation (sociolinguistic variables) operate in every discourse domain, and therefore an adequate description of language variation would need to take into account these multiple parameters – hence the multidimensional approach * Corpus linguistics is a branch of computational linguistics – it utilizes automatic analyses performed by computers, and is therefore less susceptible to human error * No dearth of data

Strengths of methodology * Not looking at the people – just looking at the numbers. It’s easy to get bogged down by the numbers and frequencies * Representativeness of sample not always easy to achieve * Corpus linguistics doesn’t pay much attention to social and regional dialects – these factors are usually just glossed over * At present, corpus linguistic studies cannot focus on phonological differences.; they can study only syntactic and lexical variations

Drawbacks of methodology

 Register Variation in Indian English

appendix 2

Review of variety studies

Illustrative/Impressionistic studies

Type of Investigation

To survey the way tags are used Tag questions with different in British English and to contrast meanings this with the way they are used in American English. Contrastive To focus on certain syntactic forms and show that these forms contribute to GE being distinctive. To show that the occurrence of these forms differs qualitatively and quantitatively from other English varieties. Not contrastive To contrast use of ‘already’ in SE Already – two aspectual with its use in British English. To properties – Perfectivity and show that SE uses it in a way that Inchoativity British Eng doesn’t. The source of this use in SE is the Chinese particle ‘le.’ Constrastive

British English Algeo, 1988

Guernsey English Barbe, 1995

Singapore English Zhiming, 1995

Uninflected 3rd person singular Destinational ‘at’ after ‘Go’ Avoidance of subject-verb inversion Pronominal apposition Invariant tag – is it?

Stative verbs in the progressive Past and present perfect Borrowed words

To provide a list of features that are characteristic of the English spoken in India. Not contrastive

Indian English Verma, 1980

Linguistic features examined

Purpose of study

National variety studied/Author

Illustrative sentences of unknown origin No data mentioned Register differences not investigated

Illustrative sentences of unknown origin No data mentioned

“British” occurrences – various sources. Was not a corpus constructed for the purpose of the study – Examples for illustrations

Illustrative sentences of unknown origin. No data mentioned. Register differences not investigated,

Methodology employed/Data collected

 Register Variation in Indian English

Type of Investigation

Illustrative/Impressionistic studies

Empirical/ Data-based studies.

To study the syntactic features Perfective vs. imperfective (specifically tense/aspect) of a “relatively under-studied” variety, Tobagonian Creole To examine the evolution of SAIE, and to provide some features that characterize this variety. Mentions similarities and differences between SAIE and IE on the one hand, and “standard” English on the other. Not a contrastive study To investigate the history and present situation of English in Mauritius. To illustrate characteristic features of the English in Mauritius – “To show how English is spoken in M today.”

Tobagonian English Youssef, 1995

South African Indian Eng Mesthrie, 1993

Mauritius English Setin, 1997

No specific features. “Good, correct, school” English is contrasted with “bad” English

Plurals of non-count nouns Reduplication Rhetorical questions Verb-final syntactic influences Vocabulary

Tense/mood/aspect Relativization strategies

To call attention to GPE – to illustrate that it is a structurally expanded variety. Brief discussion on communicative functions of GPE, Not a contrastive study

Ghanaian Pidgin English Huber, 1995

Linguistic features examined

Purpose of study

National variety studied/Author

3 specimens of recorded (and transcribed) English from “average students.” The first two speakers finished high school, the third speaker has not.

Illustrative examples used, unknown sources No mention of data Register differences not investigated

“Data recently collected from the island” – nature of the data is not specified

Illustrative examples used from unknown sources. Author says the study is “impressionistic”, Register differences not investigated

Methodology employed/Data collected

Appendix 2.  Review of variety studies 

Empirical Data-based studies.

Type of Investigation

Purpose of study To show that NPE has characteristic features, even though there is wide variation within it. To stress the need for the standardization of this variety in order for it be regarded as a “normal” language and be “taken seriously.” To provide a description of the non-native Englishes in Southern Africa and give examples of linguistic features that “underpin the owning of English in this part of the world.” To describe syntactic variation in WAE. To show that many of the syntactic variations in WAE have been found in other non-native varieties as well.

To show how the marking of relations such as tense, mood, and aspect differ significantly from the marking systems found in other “standard” English systems

National variety studied/Author

Nigerian Pidgin English Agheyisi, 1988

Southern African English Chisanga & Kamwangamalu, 1997

West African English Bamiro, 1995

Irish English Kallen, 1989

Methodology employed/Data collected

Local newspapers Conversations of unknown origin

Tense, mood, and aspect markers Corpus of utterances collected in Dublin from a wide range of speakers, unscripted media speech, newspaper texts, and grammaticality judgment questionnaires

Subjectless sentences West African literature including Deletion of ‘ly’ in manner works byArmah, Achebe, Okara, adjuncts Ekwensi, Aluko, Alkali, & Omotoso Omission of function words Reduplication Invariant tag – isn’t it? Progressive form of mental verbs Double subjects

Lexical transfer Hybridization of African words with English morphemes Semantic extension Yes-no questions Invariant tag – is it?

Verb-noun indeterminancy, Excerpts from Lagos newspaper Verb-adjective-adverb indetermi- Illustrative sentences from nancy unknown sources Spelling Scarcity of adjectives

Linguistic features examined

 Register Variation in Indian English

Empirical Data-based studies.

Type of Investigation

Purpose of study To highlight some characteristics of the position, role, and features of English in Malta. To confirm the existence and ascertain the features of Maltese English. To examine the use of the verb ‘have’ in New Zealand English

National variety studied/Author

Malta English Mazzon, 1993

New Zealand English Bauer, 1989

The verb ‘have’ – variability with patterns of negative, interrogatives, past counterfactual clauses, and variability in the use of the perfect or preterite with certain adverbials.

Distribution of the definite article Omission of subject personal pronouns Omission of copula in present tense Absence of subject-aux inversion

Linguistic features examined

103 questionnaires – respondents were students, speakers of NZE, and were aged 25 or under. Comparative – compared to questionnaire results from British and American students. Not a register study

Questionnaires and a sample of published material – newspapers and magazine articles, bulletins, etc. and recorded TV and radio programs Contrastive

Methodology employed/Data collected

Appendix 2.  Review of variety studies 

appendix 3

List of Indian Fiction

Author

K. S. Duggal

Ram Sarup Anakhi

Gurbachan Bhullar

M. T. Vasudevan Nair

Anand

Krishna Baldev Vaid

Sriramana

R. S. Sudarshanam

Madhuranthakam Narendra

Uma Maheshwara Rao

P. Satyavathi

Ashapurna Devi

Amar Mitra

Asfar Ahmed

S. Muknopadhyaya

Amiya B. Mazumdar

Ismat Chughtai

Ram Lall

Joginder Paul

Jilani Bano

Surinder Prakash

Name of story

Empty Handed

The Skeleton

I’m no Gaznavi

Sukritam

Junk

Text

The Golden Bracelet

Pankajam’s Dream

The Masquerade

Mother

What is my Name?

No Devotion, No Salvation

The Transfer of Land

Sin

The Musician

Stain

The Profession

Sunlight on the Staircase

Harambe

Strange Faces

Shadowlines

4512

2566

1570

5331

4336

5090

6426

3680

4229

2500

1758

2355

5050

5280

5888

2171

5027

3714

3023

2162

1854

# of words

Urdu

Urdu

Urdu

Urdu

Urdu

Bengali

Bengali

Bengali

Bengali

Bengali

Telugu

Telugu

Telugu

Telugu

Telugu

Hindi

Malayalam

Malayalam

Punjabi

Punjabi

Punjabi

Original language

M. Asaduddin

M. Asaduddin

K. K. Khullar

M. Asaduddin

Abul Farooque

Asim Kumar Mukherjee

Bhaswati Chakravarty

Bhaswati Chakravarty

Dipendru Chakrabarti

Bhaskar Roy Barman

V. Vijayalakshmi

C. L. L. Jayaprada

Author

Author

Syamala Kallury

Author

K. M. Sherrif

V. Ravindran

Rana Nayar

Author

Author

Translation by

Writer, translator, teacher

Writer, translator, teacher

Novelist, short story writer

Writer, translator, teacher

Urdu short story writer

Translator, teaches at R. K. College

English critic, translator

English critic, translator

Novelist & essayist

Poet, writer, translator

Translator

Translator, teaches at Andhra University

Short story writer

Novelist & short story writer

Translator

Hindi novelist

Translator, teaches at Narmada College

Translator

Translator, teaches at Punjabi University.

Punjabi fiction writer

Fiction writer in Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, English

Info on author/translator

 Register Variation in Indian English

Author

Ali Imam Naqvi

Salam Bin Razak

Sughra Mehdi

Ali Imam Naqvi

Poornachandra Tejaswi

Vivek Shanbhag

Shantinath Desai

Name of story

Vultures

The News

Portrait

The Domestics of Teen Batti

The Golden Dream

Bail Saheba

The Mediators

6894

2834

2878

958

2216

1691

# of words

Kannada

Kannada

Kannada

Urdu

Urdu

Urdu

Urdu

Original language

Author

Manu Chakravarty

Bageshri

M. Asaduddin

Author

Author

M. Asaduddin

Translation by

Not available

Not available

Not available

Writer, translator, teacher

Novelist & short story writer

Short story writer

Writer, translator, teacher

Info on author/translator

Appendix 3.  List of Indian Fiction 

appendix 4

Tape insert

Date recorded: _______________________ Place recorded: _______________________ Number of people present: __________________ Relationship between people: ________________ Private Audience  Yes

Public

No

If audience, approx. size of audience: _______ Domain (home, business, school, etc.): ________ Topic: ___________________ Distance (TV or radio) Direct (face to face) Spontaneous

Prepared

Formal

Neutral

Dialogue

Monologue

Any other important information:

Informal

appendix 5

Corpus contributor questionnaire BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON CORPUS CONTRIBUTORS 1. Which part of India were you born in? (Please specify city and state) ________________________________________ 2. Name other parts of India you have lived in, and specify for how long you lived there. ________________________________________ 3. What languages do you speak? ________________________________________ 4. What language(s) do you mostly speak at home? ______________________________________ 5. If you answered “English” to Question 4, what is your native language(s)? ________________________________________ 6. Gender M

F

7. Age __________ 8. What was the medium of instruction in: a. Primary school ______________ b. High school ________________ c. College ___________________ 9. What is the highest educational qualification you have obtained? ____________________________________________________ 10. What is your current occupation? _______________________________

appendix 6

Header for spoken file













In many of the files, the “Comments” part of the header has information on the quality of the taping, whether it was clear or had disturbance, whether there were any interruptions, etc. The information in the Comments section could prove useful in any future studies.

appendix 7

Tables of Indian words in registers of Indian English

7066

1903

  515

Clothing

Music (Arts)

– You get two parathas a plate, no, alu paratha, if you have… (Hindi, Conversation2) – You take the avial in that. (Tamil, Conversation1) – You had artikailu? We also had artikailu! (Telugu, Conversation7) – She makes pullao very much nice. (all languages, Oral Interview10) – I like making biriyani and sambaar. (all languages, Oral Interview21) – I want to know what samosa with ragda is. (all languages, Service Encounters17) – They will give us some sort of prasadam. Puliodara and sakarapongal. (Tamil, Service Encounters2) – I can use it for big quantity making, avial, and all that, no? (Tamil, Service Encounters4) – In the magazine is tomorrow’s bhel puri packet. (Hindi, RInt13) – If you know how to wear a lungi in the traditional way… (all languages, Conversation8) – She couldn’t leave me to take my chappals (all languages, Oral Interview11) – You’ll stitch the salwaar if I bought the material? (all languages, Service Encounters11) – You want an angara over there? (Hindi, Service Encounters11) – He came into view, clad in a cream silk kurta and pajamas, and orange, white, and green angavastra wrapped around his waist. (Hindi, RInt12) – I’m learning Varnam and Keerthanam at the same time. (Sanskrit, Conversation7) – The last time I went there, she was in maunavratam. (Sanskrit, Conversation7) – I went for Bharatnatyam. (all languages, Oral Interview8) – Do you have any more film-based ghazals? (Hindi, Service Encounters20) – I spoke to the hell-raiser-turned-Odissi-icon recently. (All languages, RInt9)

# (normed to Examples 1million)

Food

Category of Indian Word

Table 1.  Indian words in Conversational English

 Register Variation in Indian English

1682

2695

People

– Weird things about vedas and puranas. (Sanskrit, Conversation7) – …and the other half, he put that rudraksham and went to Shabarimalai! (Tamil, Conversation8) – Between the Tirupati trip and the pooja, I’ll call him. (All languages, Conversation8) – Then I’ll go for namaz something is there, no? (Hindi, Oral Interview3) – Well divali, eating sweets, bursting crackers. (all languages, Oral Interview15) – Devasthana is close to my house. (Kannada, Service Encounters2) – After Khomoshi, I kept hearing shlokas in my head. (Sanskrit, FInt7) – He was wheeled into the jam-packed pandal. (Hindi, RInt12) – Hindus say her gotra changes. (Sanskrit, RInt14) – You say mashi, but actually it is maushi. (Kannada and Marathi, Conversation5) – Akka, tell me what that means. (Kannada, Conversation7) – There are a couple of literature wallas, and they will be doing the same thing. (Hindi, Conversation8) – If Vajpai ji doesn’t solve this problem… (Hindi, Entertainment1) – She’s Madhu mama’s daughter. You know her. (all languages, Service Encounters3) – She’s my didi, my inspiration, my blessing. (Hindi, FInt7) – Soniaji is their bahu. (Hindi, RInt13) – It all came back to my guruji saying… (Hindi, RInt9)

# (normed to Examples 1million)

Religion (including Yoga)

Category of Indian Word

Appendix 7.  Tables of Indian words in registers of Indian English 

3997

   98

  438

Greetings

Politics

– It’s very easy, rey! (Telugu, Conversation7) – Vice dean, naa, it amounts to something like vice rector. (Hindi, Conversation8) – He is going to say per person. Howda!? (Kannada, Conversation8) – Why yaar? (Hindi, Conversation9) – I don’t know, ba! I’m not in touch. (All languages, Conversation2) – I had decided ki I don’t deserve to be a lawyer. (Hindi, Entertainment1) – Analyst manne like er I get a data, questionnaire, and I do… (Hindi, Oral Interview25) – Achha, I married in nineteen eighty eight. (Hindi, Oral Interview27) – Hahn, yolk is attached. (Hindi, Service Encounters11) – You can’t eat much. You can’t imagine, yaar, most of the stuff he makes with ghee. (Hindi, Service Encounters17) – Achha every time they find it difficult. (Hindi, Service Encounters20) – I think it was slightly bigger, alla? (Kannada, Service Encounters4) – Hahn, I know that. (Hindi, RInt3) – Namaskara. How are you? (Kannada, Conversation8) – Namaskaram. How are you? (Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Service Encounters2) – He holds a durbar there. (Hindi, Conversation6) – He was a tehsildar, a pretty respectable individual. (Hindi, Oral Interview23) – It’s written as Karnataka viduchakti mandali. (Kannada, Oral Interview23) – This pro poor, Dalit, for the upliftment of the Dalits… (All languages, RInt11) – Even raising the videshi issue is foolishness. (Hindi, RInt13) – But it won’t be the BJP’s swadeshi versus videshi campaign. (Hindi, RInt13)

# (normed to Examples 1million)

Discourse markers

Category of Indian Word

Table 1.  continued

 Register Variation in Indian English

Other

Larger chunks of language

Category of Indian Word

3461

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Methodology ille, enna panninderkel? (Tamil, Conversation1) Idu, idu mix madu. (Kannada, Conversation5) We’ll be there, arr guntle ko. (Telugu, Conversation7) Five varake irreke, six le, they bifurcate. (Tamil, Conversation8) I hope I get it, agar paise humare paas hai. (Hindi, Entertainment1) Hogbut nange ondu balcony ticket black alli togondu ba. (Kannada, Oral Interview14) Congress means somewhat piji piji, jadga, galata. (Kannada, Oral Interview5) See artist, artist, uske ghar me banathe. (Hindi, Service Encounters10) Enu togondidiya? Enu illa, bari majige. (Kannada, Service Encounters2) Saab, baby ne mosambi juice bheja hai. (Hindi, FInt5) Shaheed hona hai to, kisi acche kaam ke liye ho. (Hindi, FInt6) Rai Singh, chai lao. (Hindi., RInt11) Roja, where is kuppai to put all this? (Tamil, Conversation2) They still sell goli soda. (Dravidian languages, Conversation2) He will rule the thing with a danda. (Hindi, Conversation6) This is all just tamasha. (Hindi, Conversation6) We went to dhaba and we eat and we drink. (Hindi, Oral Interview4) I will just as easily say dacoity than burglary. (Hindi, Oral Interview23) But this congress means somewhat piji piji. (Kannada, Oral Interview5) Your sarin sautu is gone. (Kannada, Service Encounters4) See the bindis, that’s a mold. (Hindi, Service Encounters17) The engineer seems to take the tamasha very much in stride. (Hindi, RInt11)

# (normed to Examples 1million)

Appendix 7.  Tables of Indian words in registers of Indian English 

    0     6 2898

  573

    9

  102    64

  361

Clothing Music (Arts) Religion (including Yoga)

People

Discourse markers

Greetings Politics

Larger chunks of language

Other

    4

Otherwise it will be like sambaar daba. (Dravidian languages, S1B-008) Feed me with coconut payasam. (Telugu, Tamil, S1B-018)

– You probably might say shahnai. (Hindi, S1B-009) – Practice after you have resumed yogabhyas. (Sanskrit, Lecture4) – Inhale for basic trikuasana, exhale to the final position. (Sanskrit, Lecture4) – …weapon for freedom was ahimsa (Sanskrit, S1B-011) – You know director sa’ab. (Hindi, Lecture3) – You can ask a boy what is yout tande’s name in Malayalam. (Hindi, Lecture3) – It is not the land of the rishis anymore. (Hindi, Miscellaneous3) – Which was established by Shri Krishna? (Sanskrit, S1B-005) – Accha, was he encouraging us, was he interested… (Hindi, S1B-005) – Hahn, under the supervision of … (Hindi, S1B-005) – It is this uh atmospheric ke changes in the atmosphere… (Hindi, S1B-009) – Accha one who doesn’t pay the… (Hindi, S1B-017) – Namaste. Welcome to Yoga Time. (Hindi, Lecture5) – It comes to the district, it comes to the village panchayat, it’s a very long cycle. (Hindi, Miscellaneous3) – Not director sa’ab kab aaye ga? (Hindi, Lecture3) – After every two three words, they say teri ma, teri ma? (Tamil, Lecture3) – If there is a sentence sanaiche mangal sur hote… (S1B-009) – It has more than three lakh population. (All languages, Miscellaneous3) – It is from pahad, pahadi is many times pronounced as… (Hindi, S1B-005)

– –

# (normed to 1 Examples million)

Food

Category of Indian Word

Table 2.  Indian words in Spoken Academic Language

 Register Variation in Indian English

 3

 0

 1

 4

 0  0  0

17

Food

Clothing Music (Arts)

Religion (including Yoga)

People

Discourse markers Greetings Politics

Larger chunks of language

Other

#

Category of Indian Word These include tur, gram, pea, bean, etc. (Hindi, W1A-019) …in the preparation of papad, pickles, and jams. (Hindi, W1A-008)

– – Press gives important current events of world, country, Taluka, district, etc. (All languages, W1A004) – Sometimes the above form may be followed by another conversational opener as follows: aur sunaaiye, kyaa haal hai? `Please tell me, what is the news’\. (Hindi, W2A-003) – …the shopkeeper may ask dehhiye sab, yeh calegaa… (Hindi, W2A-003) – …embroidery, knitting, durri making, preparation,…. (Hindi, W1A-008)

– Nada is the basic material of music and varna is that of literature and both are inseparable in a way. (Sanskrit, W2A-010) – Natyasastra speaks of loka-vrtta, as the object of depiction and it has been said to be comprised of karman and bhava that could be roughly translated as action and mental state or the ` outer’ and ` inner’ of life. (Sanskrit, W2A-010) – So Britishers passed the law of abolition of sati – Arya Samajists & Brahmo Samajists protested against and did well achieve the status of women. (Sanskrit, W1A-011) – They have almost forgotten our great ahimsa king Mahatma Gandhiji. (Sanskrit, W1A-003) – Inborn ability sakti, proficiency nipunata that is attained through observation of loka or life and study of treatise of authority sastra and practice abhyasa … (Sasnkrit, W2A-010) – Shri Shahu Chhatrapati, as a grandfather… (Hindi, W2A-006) – When her highness the Ranisaheb of Dewas gave birth to a son at Kolha… (Hindi, W2A-006)

– –

Examples

Table 3.  Indian words in Written Academic English

Appendix 7.  Tables of Indian words in registers of Indian English 

   8   76

129

  88

   0 247

89 

Music (Arts) Religion (including Yoga)

People

Discourse markers

Greetings Politics

Larger chunks of language

Other

   1   25

– The government has called for a twelve hour state-wide bundh today. (all languages, News4) – Ahmed was speaking at a jihadi Kashmir conference today. (Hindi, News2) – The elections to the Lok Sabha and some state assignments… (Hindi, S2B-001) – Because they seem to be more kabab me haddi business. (Hindi, News5) – Mr Vajpai said this during the Ishwaramate celebrations of the Satya Sai Bal Vikas in New Delhi yesterday Ye kaisa lok tantra hai (Hindi, S2B-001) – The satyagraha was launched by Narmada bachao activists. (Hindi, News6) – Carrying of arms, lathis, or any other material… (Hindi, S2B-020) – The Uttar Pradesh government has clarified that except for Captain Satish Sharma or Legislators or former members of Parliament figure among the persons challaned in the prosecution case… (Hindi, S2B-005)

– …small forest produces like tendu leaves and sal seeds… (Hindi, S2B-009) – Jamid Akhtar, his face covered with a burka, was produced in the court. (Hindi, News2) – … in the state to impart training in chikan embroidery to women… (Hindi, S2B-002) – The noted violinist of the Delhi gharana text mutilated… (Hindi, S2B-005) – … praying and performing so many poojas, all night prayers, special namaazes in all temples… (all languages, Hindi, News5) – …addressing he meeting of village pradhans in Kanpur… (Hindi, S2B-001) – The unpredictable sanyasin sent her resignation today. (Hindi, News2) – The nation is profoundly shocked at this terrible tragedy, Shri Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination… (Sanskrit, S2B-020) – Nai, I’m not talking about Dandi per se. (Hindi, News7) – Achha, other thing, Akilesh, what is the profile of Dandi? (Hindi, News7)

# (normed to 1 Examples million)

Food Clothing

Category of Indian Word

Table 4.  Indian words in Spoken News

 Register Variation in Indian English

  840

  107

    0

  539

  663

    1     0

Clothing

Music (Arts)

Religion (including Yoga)

People

Discourse markers Greetings

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

…formulation based on karela, (bitter gourd), brinjal and jamun. (Hindi, Hbus1) Jowar, bajra, ragi, and maize at Rs. 415 against… (Hindi, ETBus4) …situation created by the failure of the tur crop. (Hindi, DHEd2) Try their delicate dosas once, and you will be hooked for life. (Dravidian languages, DHf4) Eat some roasted saunf and make yourself some ginger tea. (Hindi, Fef6) It is a put-your-feet-up-and-eat-idly-sambaar-holiday. (Dravidian languages, Fef8) …who might have distributed some sweets of prasad laced with poison. (Hindi, Dhreg17) She is surprisingly well-clad in a lehenga. (Hindi, FEEd2) …particularly when she wears a saree. (All languages, DCf1) Banani Mitra gave a good start with her bhajans. (Hindi, STf2) Bidyut Khan presented on sarod the raga Desh. (Hindi, STf2) The Muslims offered namaz in the Babri mosque. (Hindi, DCBus1) …all had given way to the smile of a sadhu. (Hindi, DHEd1) …a packet of sindoor from the Kanchi temple. (Hindi, FEEd2) …that 500 sants would lead the Ayodhya yatra on January 21… (Hindi, HEd5) …believed to be the top of a trident (trishula). (Kannada, DHf6) Terracotta figures and diyas from West Bengal, which have… (Hindi, Hf1) …as the exclusive custodian of the gurudwaras, since these belong to… (Hindi/Punjabi, Dcreg3) The principal reality today is that Mian Saheb is praying for your victory. (Hindi, HEd3) For a moment, I thought it was abbu standing at that border. (Urdu, Sf2) She had never met her mamu jaan. (Urdu, Sf3)

# (normed to 1 Examples million)

Food

Category of Indian Word

Table 5.  Indian words in Written News

Appendix 7.  Tables of Indian words in registers of Indian English 

  166

Larger chunks of language

Other

1140

– …institutions such as the south-based nidhis have no clues as to when… (Hindi, HEd3) – The underlying principle of the panchayati raj is the use of local knowledge… (Hindi, HEd8) – The districts are spread all over eight taluks. (Hindi, DHf1) – In 1993, one-third of the panchayat seats were reserved for… (Hindi, Fef4) – …83 superintendents of police and a mandal revenue officer. (All languages, Dcreg10) – Rs. 600 crore were released by the panchayati raj department. (Hindi, Dhreg10) – The police resorted to mild lathi-charge when activists…. (Hindi, Dhreg18) – Chalo, hamare desh ke dhoop se tho yeh bearish achha hai. (Hindi, DHf8) – Hum se to, yeh parindey achhee hein. (Hindi, Sf2) – Andaru America allullanu korukuntaru. Akkada settle ayinavallake pellicheddam anukuntaru. (Telugu, Dcreg1) – Har party ki alag alag vichar dhara hai. (Hindi, Dcreg3) – Congress hatao, desh bachao. (Hindi, Dhreg13) – …financiers who were averse to providing badla finance to go into this area. (Hindi, Dhbus4) – The MSP for various kharif crops including… (Hindi, ETBus4) – The sarkari doctor gave them some medicine. (Hindi, DHf8) – …in the clutches of thugs, thieves, and goondas. (All languages, Dhreg20)

# (normed to 1 Examples million)

Politics

Category of Indian Word

Table 5.  continued

 Register Variation in Indian English

#

3 0 0 5

0

0 0 0

0

Category of Indian Word

Food Clothing Music (Arts) Religion (including Yoga)

People

Discourse markers Greetings Politics

Larger chunks of language Other

I’m also fat and love samosas. (All languages, FdearAb44)

– – –

– – –

Use a multani-miti pack twice a week. (Hindi, FearAb3) You should never have started this natak in the first place. (Hindi, FdearAb60) It studies the cost and price of bidi tobacco. (Hindi, W1B-021)

The father of a deceased jawan has termed this bungling… (Hindi, Dhmail2) …it becomes a Tuglaq durbar. (Hindi, Dhmail7) At present, I am the president of the Parishad… (Hindi, W1B-019)

– Contact a Reiki or a pranaic healing center. (Sanskrit, FdearAb30) – This could lead to problems since she is a manglik. (Sanskrit, FdeaAb20) – The slacking of security for the Amarnath yatra for the sake of maintaining… (Sanskrit, TIMail25) – There are those who think like him, but for them, shuddhi,(purification), paravartan, (turning back or reconversion). (Sanskrit, Timail6) – It was projected as a contest between a bahoo and a beti.(Sanskrit, Hmail5) – Dr. Singh is not a saffron-robed sadhu. (Sanskrit, Hmail8) – …appointment of reference in case of Srimati Kulkarni… (Sanskrit, W1B-030) – …will not be without yourself and Dutt Saheb. (Hindi, W1B-018)

–

Examples

Table 6.  Indian words in Business Correspondence

Appendix 7.  Tables of Indian words in registers of Indian English 

#

3

0 0 1

4

0 0 0 0

Category of Indian Word

Food

Clothing Music (Arts) Religion (including Yoga)

People

Discourse markers Greetings Politics Larger chunks of language Other Please convey my namaskars to … (Hindi, W1B-009)

As he put it, “Mi keval paduka”… (Marathi, W1B-001) There is some talk of a Bandh. (Hindi, W1B-012) …sponsored by a sports meet in kabadi. (Hindi, W1B-013)

– – –

Today I made dhokla and pav bhaji (Gujrati and Hindi, Email5) …where I packed idli, chutney, and sambaar from. (Dravidian languages, W1B-014) However, I feel he misses chappatis and bhaji. (Hindi, W1B-014) …felicitated with a present of a silk saree and a blouse piece. (All languages, W1B-004) …recital of classical vocal music on raga Todi. (Sanskrit, W1B-013) We have just finished our diwali holidays. (All languages, Email26) For my mother’s varshashraddha I am coming. (Sanskrit, W1B-002) …and spend some quiet time at the samadhi of Shri Aurobindo. (Sanskrit, W1B-004) Everything’s going on well in Seema attai’s family. (Tamil, Email26) How are perimma and periappa? (Tamil, Email26) …in anticipation of Shri Rama’s return. (Sanskrit, W1B-001)

–

– – – – – – – – – – –

Examples

Table 7.  Indian words in Personal Correspondence

 Register Variation in Indian English

  20

  13

191

  15   25

   4    0    1   22

Food

Clothing

Music (Arts)

Religion (including Yoga) People

Discourse markers Greetings Politics Larger chunks of language

Other

#

Category of Indian Word She does not make sabudhana wadas. (Hindi, FEnt10) Three were having chai in a glass with bun-maska. (Hindi, FEnt13) She demands nimboo achar right away to announce her pregnancy. (Hindi, FEnt4) Dressed in an orange-colored salwaar kameez, … (Hindi, DHEnt4) Pick out a handloom kurta to beat the sun-n-sweat. (Hindi, FEnt7) The song and dance in the antakshari, the nok-jhok between the lead pair… (Hindi, FEnt14) The use of his voice reminded old rasikas of the days of drama music. (Sanskrit, HEnt1) Dorai (mridangam) and Harishankar (kanjira) were willing partners in the … (Sanskrit, Hent1) The passages of neraval and swaras had pretty sequences. (Sanskrit, Hent2) …for the mangalsutra or those shiny katoris of sindoor… (Hindi, FEnt4) He is to take up his new role of being a mane aliya. (Kannada, DHEnt4) Mr. Navani (respectfully known as Lal saab in the film world)… (Hindi, FEnt13) All the desis out there in Amrika, get ready! (Hindi, FEnt18) Awards, naah? For starters, we had to get…. (Hindi, FEnt7)

There is no sincerity, no involvement, yella shoki agbittide. (Kannada, DHEnt2) Kya biddu, itna bada star ka beta hain, magar dialog aisa bolta hain! (Hindi, DHEnt3) I believe that nazar lag jaati hai. (Hindi, FEnt11) The Maharaja would be sitting in the upparige. (Kannada, DHEnt2)

– – – – – – – – – – – – – –

– – – –

Examples

Table 8.  Indian words in Written Entertainment News

Appendix 7.  Tables of Indian words in registers of Indian English 

#

33

26

34 27

90

11

 1

Category of Indian Word

Food

Clothing

Music (Arts) Religion (including Yoga)

People

Discourse markers

Greetings

Table 9.  Indian words in Fiction

– As soon as they put down their thalees, I look at my watch. (all languages, IFGhaznavi) – The aroma of the paratha and the kabab was overpowering. (all languages, IFJunk) – My wife places the tiffen plate before me and cajoles. (all languages, IFMasque) – …people helped her change into the mundu-veshti. (Malayalam, EFDream) – Aunt Kanakani tucked her pallu around her waist. (Hindi, IFMother) – Please recite that ghazal of yours which is so dear to me. (Hindi, IFSunlight) – Had she not been invited to the sinni by her masima… (Hindi, EFDevotion) – …in the kitchen where I’ll be putting the pongal pot on to boil. (Dravidian languageas, EFHealing) – You could see the dense cluster of trees of the doonganvadi, the Parsi cemetery. (Hindi, IFVultures) – Just this once, the rekha drawn for me was by none other than my sister. (Hindi, IFGhaznavi) – Leave the daubing cloth and the muggu basket there itself. (Telugu, IFName) – …promising to get the mali to clean up the pool. (Hindi, EFTomorrow) – She is the bahu of the house. (Hindi, EFDream) – Amma was very kind and considerate. (Dravidian languages, EFDream) – It was the fault of that woman who phoned up, memsaheb! (Hindi, EFDecision) – What about tatha, and patti, and mama, and mami? (Tamil, EFFamily) – The kabadiwalas saw they were extending the… (Hindi, IFJunk) – I felt that Radha akka was even worse than my wife. (All Dravidian languages, IFMediator) – Where’s the pinati? (Malayalam, IFSukritam) – I have got used to calling you only as yemoi. (Telugu, IFName) – Come on, yaar, walk fast. (Hindi, IFVultures) – He brought the palms together to say a namaskar. (Hindi, IFMasque)

Examples

 Register Variation in Indian English

 0

 7

Politics

Larger chunks of language Other Other

– A fellow gram sevak felt sorry for him. (Hindi, IFSkeleton) – Likewise, her zamindary also did not attract… (Hindi, IFStain) – – He’s a pucca boss’s spoon. (Hindi, EFLalita) – Mother says eat, kha, father says write, lekh. (Hindi, IFStain) – Malek struck a match and lit a bidi. (Hindi, IFSin)

Examples

#

510

  26

   2   52

Category of Indian Word

Food

Clothing

Music (Arts) Religion (including Yoga)

– First I will tell you abut the rooti. It is made from rice flour, like a dosa. (all languages, Ret1) – It has ginger, garlic, and Kashmiri mirch, bhunaoed in a frying pan. (Hindi, Ret1) – Latpata is two drumsticks, latpatoed (wrapped) in a paste made of… (Hindi, Ret1) – The kinds served here are curried or tandoored. (Hindi, Ret1) – It is marinated overnight and charcoal-grilled or tavaed overnight. (Hindi, Ret2) – They are barbecued on coal, till half done, then de-seekhed and cooked in an onion and tomato gravy. (Hindi, Ret2) – …limited range of designer-label kurtas. (Hindi, Fet1) – From Mysore silks to bandhnis and dhakais. (Hindi, Fet1) – Two musicians play tabla and sitar, lunch and dinner. (REt1) – There is one with a semi-permanent marriage pandal. (Hindi, Ret1) – In the dargah itself, as you must have noticed, is… (Hindi, Ret1) – It is opposite the Dadar fire brigade and the gurdwara.(Punjabi, Ret1)

Examples

Table 10.  Indian words in Written Travel News

#

Category of Indian Word

Appendix 7.  Tables of Indian words in registers of Indian English 

#

  14

   0    0    0    2

Category of Indian Word

People

Discourse markers Greetings Politics Larger chunks of language Other

Table 10.  continued

–

If they do not have mutton, they say aaj khana nahi khaya. (Hindi, Ret1)

– Here, you are greeted by a Hare Krishna, served by a sadhu, and profits will go to ISKCON. (all languages, Ret1) – Park the car, and the baharwallas will come to you, ready to sell you things. (Hindi, Ret1) – Next to it is a hakim who sells achars. (Hindi, Ret1)

Examples

 Register Variation in Indian English

Author index A Agnihotri, R.K. & Khanna, A.L. (1984)  8, 35, 101, 103, 165 Ahulu, S. (1995)  35 Algeo. J. (1989)  30, 71 Algeo, J. (1988)  250 Atkinson, D. (1991)  20 Atkinson, D. & Biber, D. (1994)  20 B Bailey, R. (1991)  10 Bailey, G., Wickle, T. & Tillery, J. (1998)  19 Bamiro, E.O. (1995)  252 Bansal, R.K. (1976)  8 Bakshi, R.K. (1991)  33, 35, 90, 100 Banjo, A. (1997)  25 Barbe, P. (1995)  250 Barbieri, F. (2007)  28 Bauer, L. (1989)  21, 253 Baumgardner, R. (1996)  32, 89 Bhatt, R. (2000)  9 Biber, D, Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999)  4, 40, 66, 74–76, 79– 81, 83–85, 90, 91, 93, 96–98, 105, 108, 109, 115, 116, 119, 149, 189, 191, 192, 194, 196, 198, 209, 210, 213–215, 229 Biber, D. (1995)  13, 19, 20 Biber, D. (1994)  21 Biber, D. (1993)  20–22 Biber, D. (1990)  20, 22 Biber, D. (1988)  4, 20, 26 Biber, D. & Finegan, E. (1991)  20, 21 Biber, D. & Finegan, E. (1989)  20 Burchfield, R. (ed.) (1994)  10 C Carver, C.M. (1998)  16

Celce-Murcia, M. & LarsenFreeman, D. (1983)  74 Chambers, J.K. (1998a)  16–18 Chambers, J.K. & Trudgill, P. (1998)  13–16, 20, 29 Chisanga, T. & Kamwangamalu, N.M. (1997)  252 Coelho, G. (1997)  36 Collins, P. (2007)  28 Craig, D.R. (1997)  24 Crystal, D. (2003)  1, 2 Crystal, D.(1995)  24, 29 D D’ Souza, J. (1997)  2, 3, 10 Dubey, V. (1991)  10, 32, 89 E Estling, M. (1999)  27 F Ferguson, C. (1985)  19, 20 G Gauchat, L. (1905)  16 Gisborne, N. (2000)  27 Graddol, D., Leith, D., & Swann, J. (1996)  2, 29–31 Greenbaum, S. (ed.). (1996)  5, 7, 25, 39, 61 Greenbaum, S. & Nelson, G. (1996)  5 H Henry, A. (1995)  24 Hosali, P. (1992)  24 Hosali, P. (1991)  8, 9, 32, 33, 35–37, 100, 106, 112 Huber, M. (1995)  251 J Janda, R.D. (1985)  20 Jacob, George. (1998)  9, 33, 35–37, 90 Jenkins, J. (2003)  4, 7

K Kachru, B.B. (1994)  10, 32, 36, 89 Kachru, B.B. (1992)  2, 233 Kachru, B.B. (1988)  2 Kachru, B.B. (1983)  33, 71, 126 Kachru, B.B. (1976)  7, 9, 33, 35, 36 Kachru, B.B. (1969)  32 Kallen, J.L. (1989)  252 Kallen, J.L. (1997)  24 Kandiah, T. (1991)  10 Khubchandani, L. & Hosali, P. (1999)  3 Kretzschmar, W., Schneider, E. & Johnson, E. (1989)  22 L Labov W., Ash S. & Boberg C. (2006)  15 Labov, W. (1998)  15, 16 Labov, W. (1972)  246 Labov, W. (1969)  246 Labov, W. (1963)  17 Lange, C. (2007)  8, 28, 31, 37, 113, 117 Leitner, G. (1991)  26, 31 Leitner, G. (1994)  10 Linn, M. (1998)  14–16 Lukmani, Y. (1992)  8, 33, 35, 90, 101, 103, 165 M Mazzon, G. (1993)  253 McArthur, T. (1998)  4 Mehrotra, R. R. (1998)  8 Merkestein, A. (1998)  20 Mesthrie, R. (2005)  33, 34 Mesthrie, R., Swann, J., Deumert, A. & Leap, W. (2000)  15–18 Mesthrie, R. (1993)  33, 251 * Mesthrie, R. & Dunne, T. (1990)  31, 37, 109

 Register Variation in Indian English Mukherjee, J. & Hoffman, S. (2006)  8, 38 N Nelson, G. (2004)  8, 25 Newbrook, M. (1997)  24 Nihalani, P., Tongue, R.K. & Hosali, P. (2004)  8, 71, 86 O Olavarria de Ersson, E. & Shaw, P. (2003)  38 Oostdijk, N. (1991)  18, 19, 21, 22, 29, 248 P Patil, B.N. (1986)  31 Peters, P. (1998)  21, 26 Platt, J., Weber, H. & Ho, M.L. (1984)  1 Q Quirk, R. (1988)  10 Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. & Svartvik, J. (1985)  25 R Ramtirthakar, S. (1987)  31 Rogers (2003)  37, 78

S Sahgal, A. & Agnihorti, R.K. (1985)  8 Sand, A. (2004)  8, 27, 35, 38 Schmeid, J. (1996)  24 Schmied, J. (1994)  4, 10, 21, 24–26, 31, 33, 79, 105 Schmied, J. (1991)  31 Schneider, E. (2004)  8, 31, 32, 38, 67, 69, 71, 76 Schneider, E. (2003)  1, 3, 7, 32, 88, 142, 151, 228 Setin, P. (1997)  251 Sharma, D. (2005a)  28, 31, 38 Sharma, D. (2005b)  31 Shastri, S.V. (1996)  31 Shastri, S.V. (1986)  31 Shekar, C. & Hegde, M.N. (1993)  8, 33–37, 90, 91, 101, 103, 112, 165 Shingate, S.T. (1986)  8, 31 Skandera, P. (1999)  27, 30 Singh, R., D’souza, J., Mohanan, K. P. & Prabhu, N.S. (1998)  4 Sridhar, S.N. (1992)  9, 10, 34, 36, 37, 105 Starks, D. Christie, J. & Thompson, L. (2007)  25

Svartvik, J. (1991)  22 T Tannen, D. (1982)  20 Tognini-Bonelli, E. (2001)  6, 7 Trudgill, P. (1974)  15, 17, 246 Trudgill, P. & Hannah, J. (1982)  24 V Valentine, T. (1997)  9 Verma, S.K. (1980)  8, 24, 30, 33, 34, 36, 91–93, 106, 111, 126, 204 W Walker, J. (2007)  28 Watermeyer, S. (1996)  24 Wolfram, W. (1998)  18, 23 Woods, H. (1993)  25 Y Youssef, V. (1995)  251 Z Zhiming, B. (1995)  250

Topic index B Babu English  9 Butler English  9 C Code switching  53, 56, 131 Concentric Circles  2, 234, 235 Continuum of Indian English  232 Corpus of Contemporary Indian English (CCIE)  5–7, 11, 39–45, 61–62, 78 Corpus contributors  6, 41, 46, 54, 58–60, 123, 151, 228, 236 D Dialect maps/atlas  15 Dravidian languages  37, 57, 131  E English as a global language  1, 128 F Fix tagging/Fix tagger  41, 65 G Grammatical features  10–13, 15, 31–32, 65, 67–68, 70, 74, 84–85, 89, 117, 225 Articles Articles in noun phrases  77–78, 100–101, 171–172  Articles in quantifiers  77– 78, 100–102, 171, 174, 177 Articles preceding ordinal numbers  77, 100–101, 165–166, 171 Circumstance adverbials  68, 83–84, 114, 209–210, 212–215, 229, 234 Also  37–38, 68, 83–84, 114–117, 209–218, 229 Too  68, 83, 114–115, 209–217, 229 

  Only  212 Positions of circumstance adverbials  84, 115, 209, 213, 214 Focus  37–38, 114–117, 209, 214–215, 218, 225 Existential there  67–68, 81, 111–112, 198–199, 204, 227 Future  67–68, 78, 104–105, 178–179, 227 Invariant tags Isn’t it?  32, 36, 67–68, 83, 112–113, 206   No?  113, 207, 232 Modals  68, 81, 110–111, 195–198, 229 Past and present perfect aspect  31, 66–68 70, 75–76, 78,–79, 91, 105–106, 156, 180, 227 Past perfect  34, 75–76, 91–92, 156, 158, 165 Present perfect  34, 75, 92, 157, 161 Prepositional verbs  35, 67–68, 76, 93–94, 96–100, 229 Question formation WH questions  32, 36, 62, 68, 79–80, 106, 182–184, 227, 231 Yes/No question  184 Relative clauses  32, 37, 65, 68, 81, 108–110, 191–192, 194, 228, 234  Relativizers  81, 108–109, 133, 190–194, 229, 235 Semi modals  81, 110–111, 194–196, 229 Stative verbs in the progressive  31, 33, 67–68, 74–75, 79, 90–91, 105, 149–152, 171, 227, 232–233 

Subject auxiliary inversion  32, 36, 62, 68, 79–80, 106, 182–184, 227, 231 Transitive verbs  32, 37, 67–68, 80, 106–108, 185–186, 189, 227 I International Corpus of English (ICE)  5–8, 11, 30, 35, 39–41, 61, 88, 137, 150, 157 K Kitchen English  9 Kolhapur Corpus  8, 31, 33, 34, 41 KWIC concordances  40, 65, 69–70, 74–75, 77–79, 81–84 L Lexical Features  67–69, 86, 119 Indian words  31–33, 40, 60, 68, 71–74, 89, 114, 126–147, 265 Keep meaning Put  67, 69–71, 86–88, 117, 120–121, 227 Stay meaning Live  67–71, 86–88, 117, 123–124, 227 M Monoconc  40, 65, 68, 73, 80 Multidimensional approach  20 N Naming files  40, 57, 60 Native/non native Englishes  2–13, 31–34, 123, 232–236 New Englishes/New varieties of English  1–8, 23–38, 89, 151 R Recording  40, 53, 55, 59 Regional Dialectology  14–17 Registers of Spoken Corpus Spoken News  42–43, 53, 61, 63

 Register Variation in Indian English Spoken Academic English  42–43, 53, 61, 63, 120, 123, 133, 151, 157, 165, 171, 177–178, 182, 184–185, 188, 195, 199, 204–205, 213, 215, 225, 228, 232–233 Conversational English  25, 42–43, 47, 55–56, 62, 99, 108, 119–120, 123, 130–131, 133, 142, 147, 150, 156–157, 165, 171, 177–178, 185, 188, 204–205, 209–210, 213, 215, 225, 228, 232–233, 235   Spoken Sports  42–43, 56, 62, 123, 127, 157, 165, 171, 177–179, 181, 189, 199, 235 Registers of Written Corpus  48, 52 Written News  41, 43, 48, 52, 62, 119, 120, 126, 127, 135, 136, 139, 157, 177, 180, 189, 192, 194, 196, 208–214, 226, 232 Fiction  5, 25, 42–52, 58–59, 62, 78–79, 119, 121, 127–128, 143, 157, 177, 180, 182, 185, 189, 191–196, 204–205, 209–212, 225, 227, 232, 255 Written Entertainment  42, 43, 46, 50, 52, 62, 73, 141–143, 146–147, 157, 177, 181, 189, 204 Business Correspondence  42–43, 50, 52, 61, 138, 150, 157, 165, 177, 180, 185, 189, 204, 213–214, 225, 228, 232 Personal Correspondence  42–43, 51–52, 61–62, 120, 126, 139–140, 150, 157, 165, 177, 180, 184, 189, 195, 198–199, 204, 213–214, 225, 229, 232 Written Sports  42–43, 51–52, 62, 126, 128, 157, 177, 180, 189, 204, 214, 226 Written Travel News  42–43, 47, 51–52, 62, 120, 128, 144–145, 147, 150, 157, 177, 180, 189, 204, 214, 225, 228 Representativeness  7, 21, 45

S Semantic categories of Indian words Food  33, 73, 126, 130, 132–147 Clothing  73, 126, 131–145  People  73, 116, 126, 131–145 Religion  73, 131–145 Politics  73, 131–145 Discourse Markers  73, 131–145 Greetings  73, 131–145 Politics  73, 131–145 Larger Chunks of Language  73, 131–145 Other  73, 131–145 Music  73, 131–145 Schneider’s Model for Understanding New Englishes Foundation  3, 38 Exonormative Stabilization  3, 38, 11 Nativization  3, 7, 8, 38, 142, 150, 151, 225, 232 Endonormative Stabilization  3 Differentiation  3, 5, 150, 151, 171, 204, 226, 232 Social Dialectology/Sociolinguistic studies of dialect  14– 18 Spoken Indian Corpus  45, 52 Standard English  3, 6, 11, 13, 29, 30, 31, 82 Sub registers of Spoken Indian Corpus Spoken News  42–44, 53, 61–62, 64, 120, 123, 127, 134–135, 150–151, 156–157, 165, 171, 177–178, 181, 185, 189, 194, 213, 232 Spoken Political Discussions  41, 53 Office Hours  42, 53–54 Oral Presentations  42, 53–54  Lectures  42, 55, 59  Conversation  42, 55, 57, 59, 61, 73, 109, 139, 145, 146 Oral Interviews  42, 55 Service Encounters  42, 55, 57, 59–60, 139

Interviews  42, 47, 52–53, 55–58 Spoken Entertainment News  42, 55–56 Sub registers of Written Indian Corpus Editorials  41, 48–49, 52, 58, 141 Features  48–49, 52, 58 Business News  41, 48–48, 52–53, 58 Regional News  41, 46, 48–49, 52, 58, 146 Indian Fiction  42, 45, 49–50, 59, 255 English Fiction  42, 45, 49–50, 59, 255 Letters–the Editor  42, 50, 52, 58, 139 Dear Abby Letters  42, 45, 50, 52, 57–59, 139 Emails  42, 51–52, 59 T Tagging/Tagger  5–6, 33, 35, 40, 65–66 Transcription  40, 60, 67, 69–70, 72, 74, 76–79, 82–84, 86–87, 113 V Varieties of English Australian English  7, 21, 25 Hong Kong English  27 Kenyan English  28, 30 Quebec English  28 Nigerian English  4, 11, 25 New Zealand English  21, 25 Niuean English  25 Canadian English  25 Irish English  24 Malaysian English  25 Pakistani English  32 South African Indian English  33, 34, 37 W World English/ world language  1, 3, 76 Written Indian corpus  45

In the series Studies in Corpus Linguistics (SCL) the following titles have been published thus far or are scheduled for publication: 38 Murphy, Bróna: Corpus and Sociolinguistics. Investigating age and gender in female talk. Expected February 2010 37 Balasubramanian, Chandrika: Register Variation in Indian English. 2009. xviii, 284 pp. 36 Quaglio, Paulo: Television Dialogue. The sitcom Friends vs. natural conversation. 2009. xiii, 165 pp. 35 Römer, Ute and Rainer Schulze (eds.): Exploring the Lexis–Grammar Interface. 2009. vi, 321 pp. 34 Friginal, Eric: The Language of Outsourced Call Centers. A corpus-based study of cross-cultural interaction. 2009. xxii, 319 pp. 33 Aijmer, Karin (ed.): Corpora and Language Teaching. 2009. viii, 232 pp. 32 Cheng, Winnie, Chris Greaves and Martin Warren: A Corpus-driven Study of Discourse Intonation. The Hong Kong Corpus of Spoken English (Prosodic). 2008. xi, 325 pp. (incl. CD-Rom). 31 Ädel, Annelie and Randi Reppen (eds.): Corpora and Discourse. The challenges of different settings. 2008. vi, 295 pp. 30 Adolphs, Svenja: Corpus and Context. Investigating pragmatic functions in spoken discourse. 2008. xi, 151 pp. 29 Flowerdew, Lynne: Corpus-based Analyses of the Problem–Solution Pattern. A phraseological approach. 2008. xi, 179 pp. 28 Biber, Douglas, Ulla Connor and Thomas A. Upton: Discourse on the Move. Using corpus analysis to describe discourse structure. 2007. xii, 290 pp. 27 Schneider, Stefan: Reduced Parenthetical Clauses as Mitigators. A corpus study of spoken French, Italian and Spanish. 2007. xiv, 237 pp. 26 Johansson, Stig: Seeing through Multilingual Corpora. On the use of corpora in contrastive studies. 2007. xxii, 355 pp. 25 Sinclair, John McH. and Anna Mauranen: Linear Unit Grammar. Integrating speech and writing. 2006. xxii, 185 pp. 24 Ädel, Annelie: Metadiscourse in L1 and L2 English. 2006. x, 243 pp. 23 Biber, Douglas: University Language. A corpus-based study of spoken and written registers. 2006. viii, 261 pp. 22 Scott, Mike and Christopher Tribble: Textual Patterns. Key words and corpus analysis in language education. 2006. x, 203 pp. 21 Gavioli, Laura: Exploring Corpora for ESP Learning. 2005. xi, 176 pp. 20 Mahlberg, Michaela: English General Nouns. A corpus theoretical approach. 2005. x, 206 pp. 19 Tognini-Bonelli, Elena and Gabriella Del Lungo Camiciotti (eds.): Strategies in Academic Discourse. 2005. xii, 212 pp. 18 Römer, Ute: Progressives, Patterns, Pedagogy. A corpus-driven approach to English progressive forms, functions, contexts and didactics. 2005. xiv + 328 pp. 17 Aston, Guy, Silvia Bernardini and Dominic Stewart (eds.): Corpora and Language Learners. 2004. vi, 312 pp. 16 Connor, Ulla and Thomas A. Upton (eds.): Discourse in the Professions. Perspectives from corpus linguistics. 2004. vi, 334 pp. 15 Cresti, Emanuela and Massimo Moneglia (eds.): C-ORAL-ROM. Integrated Reference Corpora for Spoken Romance Languages. 2005. xviii, 304 pp. (incl. DVD). 14 Nesselhauf, Nadja: Collocations in a Learner Corpus. 2005. xii, 332 pp. 13 Lindquist, Hans and Christian Mair (eds.): Corpus Approaches to Grammaticalization in English. 2004. xiv, 265 pp. 12 Sinclair, John McH. (ed.): How to Use Corpora in Language Teaching. 2004. viii, 308 pp. 11 Barnbrook, Geoff: Defining Language. A local grammar of definition sentences. 2002. xvi, 281 pp. 10 Aijmer, Karin: English Discourse Particles. Evidence from a corpus. 2002. xvi, 299 pp. 9 Reppen, Randi, Susan M. Fitzmaurice and Douglas Biber (eds.): Using Corpora to Explore Linguistic Variation. 2002. xii, 275 pp. 8 Stenström, Anna-Brita, Gisle Andersen and Ingrid Kristine Hasund: Trends in Teenage Talk. Corpus compilation, analysis and findings. 2002. xii, 229 pp.

7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Altenberg, Bengt and Sylviane Granger (eds.): Lexis in Contrast. Corpus-based approaches. 2002. x, 339 pp. Tognini-Bonelli, Elena: Corpus Linguistics at Work. 2001. xii, 224 pp. Ghadessy, Mohsen, Alex Henry and Robert L. Roseberry (eds.): Small Corpus Studies and ELT. Theory and practice. 2001. xxiv, 420 pp. Hunston, Susan and Gill Francis: Pattern Grammar. A corpus-driven approach to the lexical grammar of English. 2000. xiv, 288 pp. Botley, Simon Philip and Tony McEnery (eds.): Corpus-based and Computational Approaches to Discourse Anaphora. 2000. vi, 258 pp. Partington, Alan: Patterns and Meanings. Using corpora for English language research and teaching. 1998. x, 158 pp. Pearson, Jennifer: Terms in Context. 1998. xii, 246 pp.