The English language, although a second language, plays a prominent role in Nigeria. As the official language in the media, governmental administration, education, law courts, commerce, entertainment and politics, it has assumed a hegemonic position over indigenous Nigerian languages (Oladipupo, 2021). In view of its long years of interaction with these languages, the absence of native models, and

Owing to the extensive spread of English around the globe, English words have penetrated the lexicon of many languages. Modern Greek has been no exception as various English loanwords are used daily by its native speakers. The present paper discusses the use of English loanwords on the Greek web and more specifically in three online women's magazines. The focus, however, is not on all types of borrowings

Colloquial Singapore English (CSE, commonly known as Singlish) is a linguistic variety used in Singapore, a Southeast Asian nation home to three major ethnic groups: the Chinese (74.35% of the citizen and permanent resident population), the Malays (13.43%), and the Indians (9%) (Singapore Department of Statistics, 2019). It is one of the best known post-colonial varieties of English and has been documented

It is often observed that in modern English no political movement has created an internet jargon with the speed and range of the alt-right. Recently, however, we are seeing a specifically misogynist strand of this jargon shoot up, coming from the growing online anti-feminist network known as the Manosphere, and specifically its popularly best known outpost of ‘incels’. The neologisms being produced

The linguistic landscape of any country reveals a lot about the linguistic identity of its citizens, especially if it is a bottom-up linguistic landscape. In Algeria, which is a multi-cultural and multi-lingual context, the linguistic landscape witnessed a remarkable shift in linguistic preferences that is represented in bottom-up signs. This shift is characterized by the addition of a new linguistic

Bilingual code ambiguation (CA), also known as language play or punning, has been discussed for bilingual creativity as it requires English users to manipulate two languages in a single utterance (Moody & Matsumoto, 2003). Since Moody and Matsumoto (2003) suggested English–Japanese CA in the lyrics of Japanese popular (J-pop) music, some studies have paid attention to diverse aspects of bilingual creativity

Cities are the natural homes for linguistic and cultural diversity. Valletta, Malta's capital city and the smallest city in the European Union, is no different. When its foundation stone was laid in 1566 by Grandmaster Jean Parisot de Vallette, it was given the formal title of Humillima Civitas Valettae, but ‘there is little that is humble about the appearance of Valletta, that city “built by gentlemen

Economic globalization and the concomitant prominence of English as a global language (EGL) have had a considerable impact on educational policies and practices worldwide. The widespread belief in the economic benefits that individuals and societies can attain from greater English proficiency has created a global trend of early English language teaching (ELT) (Copland, Garton & Burns, 2014; Enever

The verb to like has fallen repeatedly under the gaze of scholars. One aspect which has stimulated vigorous discussion is its original use in impersonal constructions and its later change of argument structure along with the disappearance of impersonals from English. Nonetheless, evidence from current informal English shows that like is now used in constructions which bear a close resemblance to the

While the year 2020 will undoubtedly be remembered for the sudden and unexpected worldwide expansion of COVID–19, which has threatened humans globally, the year 2021 is being marked by news related to the fight, vaccination and immunization against the coronavirus. However, in both years some, comparatively secondary, developments took place which were also relevant at other areas of interest. This

Blends have long been a source of new lexical elements in English word formation. Classic examples of such elements include -burger in words like soyburger or oysterburger, -furter in words like turkeyfurter or chickenfurter and -scape in cloudscape or manscape. Among more recent examples are -zilla (bridezilla, momzilla), -cation (staycation, mancation) or -splain(ing) (mansplaining, whitesplaining)

Nigerian English (NigE) is a second language (L2) variety of English that has been domesticated, acculturated and indigenised within the Nigerian socio-cultural and linguistic contexts (Adegbija, 2004). Based on Schneider's (2007) Dynamic Model of the Development of New Englishes, scholars have shown that NigE is currently at the late stage of nativisation (stage 3) and is on the verge of entering

In Issue 135 (Volume 34, Number 3, September 2018) of English Today there was an article by Blasius Achiri-Taboh entitled ‘English spelling: Adding /ʃən/ (or /ʒən/) to base-words and changing from -tion to -sion.’ The author's stated aim was to provide help for deciding the forms of these words and whether -tion or -sion was the correct ending. All the words he cited were ones that can be traced back

The dominance of North American (U.S. and Canadian) English is widely prevalent in Korean English language teaching (ELT). Students show more positive attitudes towards American English than any other English variety (Jung, 2005; Yook & Lindemann, 2013), and teachers impart and reinforce American English norms (Ahn, 2017; Ahn, 2011). Administrators and employers consider American English as the sole

‘Lesser-known varieties of English’ (Schreier, 2009; Schreier et al., 2010) have received increasing attention in the last decade. In particular, Englishes on islands with historical and political ties to the United Kingdom or the United States have been described, such as the varieties in Bermuda (Eberle, 2021), Samoa (Biewer, 2020), and Tristan da Cunha (Schreier, 2009). However, Madeira has hitherto

In Fiji, Ghana, Jamaica, and the Maldives, the tourism sector is an important source of economic wealth. For example, in the Maldives tourism accounts for around a quarter of total GDP and is a main source of employment (Meierkord, 2018: 5). Similarly, the role of tourism as one of Jamaica's main industries has been stated in Deuber (2014: 29), and Hundt, Zipp and Huber (2015: 691) also mention that

The field of linguistic landscape (LL) is concerned with monolingual and bi/-multilingual patterns and practices enacted on ‘public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government buildings’ (Landry & Bourhis, 1997: 25). Since the publication of Landry and Bourhis’ (1997) research study, much more attention has been paid towards LL

The popularity of English in early foreign language teaching is a global phenomenon. Parents and policymakers in Europe are eager to expose young children to a foreign language, which is usually English (De Houwer, 2015). Likewise, in Japan, English is the de facto foreign language subject in schools (Sakamoto, 2012). The introduction of English education in lower elementary grades and the use of English

Terms of endearment enjoy great popularity in all languages to express feelings such as affection and tenderness. The present paper concentrates on the use of these types of words in English. The Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary (henceforth the HTOED) serves as a valuable tool to identify the plethora of terms of endearment which became established in English over the centuries

In an article published a little over a decade ago (Betteridge, 2009), the journalist Ian Betteridge offered some scathing comments about a piece published a few days earlier in TechCrunch by Erick Schonfeld (Schonfeld, 2009). Amongst other things, Betteridge suggested that the headline concerned (‘Did Last.fm Just Hand Over User Listening Data to the RIAA?’) was ‘a great demonstration of my maxim

In January 2021, Singapore's national performing arts center ‘Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay’, known especially for the high-quality acoustics of its concert hall, ran a special program called ‘All Things New’, featuring concerts and other art performances. It was advertised on location (see Figure 1), by a leaflet (Figure 2), and in a one-minute video (https://www.esplanade.com/festivals-and-ser

English is used as a lingua franca in most parts of the world (Ozaki, 2011). However, problems and issues related to learning English are country specific (Nagamine, 2011), because most of the difficulties in foreign language learning arise from L1 interference (Flege, 1995). Since this study focuses on acoustic analysis of a phonological feature of Pakistan English (PakE), we outline the historical

To understand the role of a global language in different societies, one needs to distinguish between imperial or colonial and post-imperial or post-colonial societies. As a rule, imperial societies strongly resist any kind of linguistic globalization which they consider to be an imminent threat to their language and culture. Post-imperial societies, such as Azerbaijan, tend to have a more open attitude

In 2015, England saw the introduction of a new GCSE English Language, as part of changes to the National Curriculum (NC). At the time, concerns about and protests against the proposed new GCSE English Literature were widely reported (Kennedy, 2014; Tickle, 2013), while the proposed new GCSE English Language attracted less popular attention and criticism. However, GCSE Results Day on the 22nd of August

Naming is a linguistic universal. Every known human society distinguishes and individuates its members by their names. In the context of Africa and beyond, names are not just ordinary labels for the identification of their bearers; they mirror the culture, tradition and worldview of the people. Essien (1986: 5) argues that ‘naming is not an arbitrary affair, it is at once a mental, an emotional, a

Given today's general bias towards euphemisms (cf. Arif, 2015), the topic of this paper may seem embarrassing and ill-chosen. However, it makes sense to find out to what extent the spoken language of dialects in former centuries correlated with one of the dark sides of everyday reality. In Britain up to the second half of the 19th century, traditional dialect was the common linguistic medium of the

The two African English-lexifier Creole languages Krio (Sierra Leone) and Pichi (Equatorial Guinea) are closely related. A close look at specific aspects of their grammar, however, shows divergence due to differing contact ecologies since their split in the 19th century. Krio has been spoken alongside its lexifier (the main lexicon-providing language) and superstrate (the socially dominant colonial

Nigerian English (NigE) is a second language (L2) variety of English which has been domesticated, acculturated, and indigenised (Taiwo, 2009: 7; Jowitt, 2019: 26), due to its co-existence with about five hundred indigenous Nigerian languages (see Eberhard, Simons & Fennig, 2019). It is the language of education, governance, law, the media, and formal financial transactions in Nigeria. Based on Schneider's

One of the problems of English spelling is the dual representation of the so-called ‘eyes’-words, rendered in discourse as -ise and -ize, both with high-frequency verbs such as modernise/modernize and rare coinages, as in burglarise/burglarize, etc. Eyes-words have historically evolved from two different language systems as two different forms with the same meaning, which have eventually come to coincide

for newcomers to understand when theoretical jar-

This paper examines the contribution of Horae Subsecivae to Joseph Wright's (1855–1930) English Dialect Dictionary (1896–1905) (EDD). Horae Subsecivae (‘spare hours’) is an obscure manuscript glossary that was possibly compiled by Robert Wight of Wotton-under-Edge in c.1777–78, and is now preserved amongst Wright's papers at the Bodleian Library as Bodl. MS Eng. lang. d. 66. Even though it has received

English, in the course of its progressive evolution and global spread, has had contacts with different languages (Hogg & Denison, 2006) which have led to the emergence of native and non-native varieties spoken in different countries of the world. This, in part, has resulted in variable pronunciations of English lexical items, such as anti- pronounced as /ænti/ or /æntaɪ/ at the segmental level and

This paper focuses on the use of preverbal so in present-day English. While its use as an intensifier (meaning ‘so much’ or ‘very much’) has been attested already in Early Modern English (OED online, s.v. so, adv. and conj., sense 15), it has only recently acquired emphatic meaning (‘truly’ or ‘definitely’, see OED online, s.v. so, adv. and conj., 2005 Draft Additions). Compare: (1)I do so love weddings

Specialised English: New Directions in ESP and EAP Research and Practice, edited by Ken Hyland and Lilian Wong, presents state-of-the-art studies on specific, purposeful uses of English across diverse settings. Using a range of theoretical approaches, the volume illustrates how specific contexts shape the forms and meanings of specialized texts and how this knowledge can be applied to pedagogical practice

The concepts of autonomy, identity, and agency in foreign language (FL) education have been subject to a growing body of research during the past decade. In contrast to most of these studies, in which the major focus is on autonomy in language learning, this volume critically juxtaposes the three concepts and their interrelations, doing so in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts. In the introduction

Research onWorld Englishes (WE) covers a wide range of subdisciplines in linguistics, from traditional English studies through corpus linguistics, dialectology and features-based approaches, the sociology of language, pidgin and creole studies, applied linguistics, critical linguistics, and English as an international language (EIL), to English as a lingua franca (ELF) (Bolton, 2018). One of the major

A brief stroll about the cityscape of South Korea (henceforth ‘Korea’) testifies to Curtin's (2014) presumptive cosmopolitanism, whereby locals are expected to possess a high degree of competence in linguistically accommodating newcomers or world travellers by using English or other international languages in the linguistic landscape. One can easily spot English monolingual, Korean–English bilingual

Tom McArthur, Honorary Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIoL), was a world-renowned linguist who knew no less than eight languages – Scots, English, French, German, Italian, Persian/Farsi, Sanskrit, Russian, and Cantonese Later he was Director of Studies for the Extra Mural English Language Courses at University of Edinburgh, and subsequently Associate Professor of English at Universite

A student hovers over red-underlined text, clicks a button, and watches her errant writing replaced. The red line disappears. She continues typing, pausing to address the flagged words and phrases. When she stops typing, what appears before her is spotless – its errors coded out of existence by a modern grammar checker. Her teacher may never become aware of the artificial intelligence that has augmented

Morocco is a multilingual country where the official languages, as indicated in the constitution of 2011, are standard Arabic and Tamazight, while French is the nation's second language, pervading sectors of business, administration, diplomacy and higher education. English and Spanish are used as foreign languages in many contexts for different purposes and tasks (Ennaji, 2009). Unlike French and Spanish

In an interesting paper, Fong (2020) raises objections to my approach to English modals (and modality in general) which he views as too general and not fully compliant with the postulates of Construction Grammar. In this response paper, I intend to explain in some depth the benefits of my approach, as well as the reasons why Construction Grammar, in particular Cognitive Construction Grammar (Goldberg

Across the world, in many places in which English is not widely spoken, English text often appears on posters, storefronts, billboards, street signs, warning signs, menus, and many other forms of publicly visible written texts. English is often featured alongside one or more additional languages. These signs are typically seen as unremarkable by passersby looking to buy goods, for information regarding

Grammarians and teachers would admit that modality is one of the most difficult areas to deal with in English grammar, and it is particularly difficult for learners of English to master this area of grammar. Modality can be achieved by different means (see, for example, Huddleston & Pullum, 2002; Lyons, 1977; Quirk et al., 1985). The following examples illustrate modality by the use of words of various

Although English is one of the two official languages in Cameroon, it is seldom used out of official circles where indigenous languages, French, and Pidgin English reign supreme (Jikong & Koenig, 1983). This has made the language a matter of concern for teachers, learners, and researchers. An aspect of the language which has so far been little investigated, but which is significant to English proficiency

With the increasing accessibility of online corpora and the advancement of corpus tools, the use of corpus tools and methods is becoming increasingly common in the field of World Englishes (WE). Large online English corpora such as the Global Web-based Corpus of English (GloWbE) handily provide useful tools and resources for ‘a wide range of studies on lexical, phraseological, morphological, syntactic

Sociolinguistic research has established that glottal realisations of the voiceless alveolar stop /t/ have become increasingly common in accents of British English. The phenomenon, known as T-glottalling, encompasses the production of word-final and word-medial /t/ using glottal articulations, including creaky voice, pre-glottalisation [ʔt] and glottal replacement [ʔ] (Straw & Patrick, 2007), so that

The area of East Anglia in which its traditional dialects are spoken has shrunk significantly over the past few decades and seen a marked decline in the use of traditional features. These include lack of -s marking on third-person singular forms (Kingston, 2000; Potter, 2018), as well as the long-standing distinction between those words descended from Middle English /ɔ:/ and /ɔu/, as in ‘moan’ vs ‘mown’

Situated at the extreme south west periphery of the British Isles, Cornwall's territorial isolation bred cultural isolation which has been construed and reconstrued over time, giving Cornwall a distinctive cultural flavour. Initially borne out by facts of geography, Cornwall, or ‘Kernow’, experiences a dynamic yet enduring peripheral existence (see Payton, 1992). This article explores how Anglo-Cornish

Dialects in the South East of England are very often perceived as one homogenous mass, without much regional variation. Rosewarne introduced the notion of Estuary English and defined it as ‘variety of modified regional speech [ . . . ] a mixture of non-regional and local south-eastern English pronunciation and intonation’ (Rosewarne, 1984). However, studies such as Przedlacka (2001) and Torgersen &

Final consonant cluster simplification, or what variationists have traditionally labelled (t, d)-deletion, remains one of the most well studied variables in the analysis of English (e.g. Labov, 2001: 13). In this body of work, (t, d)-deletion refers to the process whereby /t/ or /d/ can be omitted in word final Ct or Cd coda clusters (e.g. last, mind). However, despite the attention paid to this feature

The Forest of Dean (henceforth Forest) is one of the lesser known English Royal Forests. The area is considered locally to be a special place with a distinctive dialect. The Forest lies at the intersection of three regions: South East Wales, West Country, also known as the South West, and the West Midlands. The Forest is situated between two rivers: the River Severn to the East separates it from the

East Anglian English was the first British variety of English to be subject to dialectological scrutiny using sociolinguistic techniques (Trudgill, 1974, and his subsequent work) and since then has been subject to only sporadic investigation (e.g. Britain, 1991, 2014a, 2014b, 2015; Kingston, 2000; Straw, 2006; Amos, 2011; Potter, 2012, 2018; Butcher, 2015). Recent research has suggested that, in those

This study investigated whether and how pre-adolescent girls style-shift in Multicultural London English (MLE), a variety of English that is relatively new and potentially still changing. We looked at the extent to which five 11-year-old girls in a homework club in East London, where MLE is spoken, changed their pronunciations in different speech contexts. The results showed that the girls did indeed

Early sociolinguistic studies in England were mainly conducted in the geographical South of the country, e.g. Trudgill in Norwich (1974), Cheshire in Reading (1982), Britain in the Fens (1997), and Kerswill and Williams in Milton Keynes (2000). However, around the turn of the millennium, interests shifted more and more towards investigating varieties in the North. The biennual Northern English workshop