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A corpus-based study on the “ungrammatical” aren't I Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2024-09-18 Mingyou Xiang, Xiao Jiang
Concerning the “ungrammatical” interrogative form aren't I, many scholars have made their points. However, these scholars’ arguments are based on their personal observations and few studies have examined this phenomenon against large corpora. This study aimed at investigating the widespread usage of “ungrammatical” contraction form aren't I in question tags from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives
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English signage shaping Tokyo's mosaic cityscape Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2024-09-12 Satoshi Nambu
Through the analysis of English in the linguistic landscape (LL) of Tokyo, this article demonstrates the diverse functions of English on signage and argues that the use of English in different areas of Tokyo mirrors the distinct socioeconomic characteristics of each area, aiming to highlight how English contributes to shaping the multifaceted Tokyo's cityscape. This study specifically contrasts the
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English-medium education and the perpetuation of girls’ disadvantage Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2024-09-12 Anna Kristina Hultgren, Anu Upadhaya, Lauren O'Hagan, Peter Wingrove, Amina Adamu, Mari Greenfield, Lorena Lombardozzi, Pramod K. Sah, Ismaila A. Tsiga, Aishat Umar, Freda Wolfenden
In our community, girls do not need this [English-medium education]. Interview with male teacher Nepal is classified as a low-middle income country (World Bank, 2023), and like other such countries, it is under international pressure to attain gender equality targets in order to receive international aid. However, Nepal is also permeated by widespread perceptions that girls are subordinate to boys
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Production of English vowel duration by multilingual speakers of Namibian English Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2024-09-12 Katja Haapanen, Antti Saloranta, Kimmo U. Peltola, Henna Tamminen, Lannie Uwu-khaeb, Maija S. Peltola
The aim of this study was to examine spoken Namibian English by investigating how multilingual Namibian speakers produce vowel durations in pre-lenis and pre-fortis positions, and how those vowel durations compare to British English vowel durations in the same words. In British English and most other English varieties, vowel duration is affected by the voicing of the following consonant, so that vowels
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Stylistic functions of anglicisms in German radio Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-13 Sarah Josefine Schaefer
Although English has no official status in countries of the expanding circle such as Germany (Kachru, 1985), English words and phrases, which are also referred to as anglicisms, can often be found in German mass media texts (Czech Rogoyska & Zboch, 2016; Fiedler, 2022; Glahn, 2002; Knospe, 2014; Onysko, 2004, 2007). In this context, previous research has paid much attention to the stylistic functions
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A machine that still doesn't quite understand us Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2024-01-11 Carrie A. Ankerstein
In a short, accessible book Linguistics: Why it Matters, Geoffrey Pullum, a leader in the field, offered an overview of what the study of linguistics is for the lay reader. In the penultimate chapter, titled ‘Machines that understand us’, Pullum (2018) set out to show what it would mean for computers to be able to use language like a human. He argued it would have to go beyond simple spoken or written
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POV: me, an empath, sensing the linguistic urge . . . to study the forms and functions of text-memes Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2024-01-04 Jacqueline Hirsh Greene, Hans–Jörg Schmid
A catapult into the world of social media, the title of our paper may be incoherent to some readers. What on earth does POV: me, an empath, sensing the linguistic urge ( . . . ) mean, and when and why would speakers say it? The title contains a jumble of three so-called text-memes – (1) POV, (2) me, an empath, VERB-ing X, and (3) the X urge to Y – all of which will be encountered in this paper. What
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Azerbaijani Higher Education to implement mass English Medium Instruction (EMI) Policies Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2023-12-11 Tamilla Mammadova
In the last decade, Azerbaijani universities’ upward implementation of English-medium instruction (EMI) policy has spread among most of the country's universities, public and private. Students are no longer enthusiastic about getting an education in their native language, neither they see Russian as a medium of instruction that used to be a vehicle for a brighter future. Research suggests that the
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Translanguaging in a transplanted ground Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2023-11-29 Yiyang Li, Tao Peng
The proliferation of English as an international language has had significant ramifications for the teaching and learning of languages in various educational contexts (Yu & Liu, 2022). Within the realm of higher education, the adoption of English-medium instruction (EMI) has been a particularly contentious issue, with debates raging over its potential benefits and drawbacks (Bolton et al., 2022; Bolton
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Associative plural marking in English varieties Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2023-11-08 Maryann Overstreet, George Yule
We normally think of ‘plural’ in English in terms of reference to more than one, as in the use of the word dogs to refer to more than one dog. This is described as the ‘ordinary’ or ‘additive’ plural, which has referential homogeneity in the sense that every member of the group referenced by dogs is a dog. In contrast, there is another type of plural which is used for human groups and has referential
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Envisaging the other Korea in English textbooks Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2023-11-07 Sun–Hee Kim, Hikyoung Lee
Textbooks have long been considered resources for empowering nationalism within historical, social and political contexts. In particular, nations which have experienced socio-political turmoil place emphasis on promoting learners’ national identity through a national curriculum and designated textbooks (So, Kim & Lee, 2012). These textbooks serve as a pedagogical tool that plays a pivotal role in how
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Seeking employment as an Irish English-language teacher in South Korea Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2023-11-07 Michael Chesnut, Trevor Schmitt
‘Hello Katie, I am sorry to inform you that my client does not hire Irish people due to the alcoholism [sic] nature of your kind.’ (Fox News, November 10, 2014) The above message, sent to an Irish woman applying to teach English in South Korea in 2014 and shared widely in the media (Fox News, November 10, 2014; McCauley, 2014; Taylor, 2014) demonstrates that issues of nationality can shape the hiring
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English's expanding linguistic foothold in K-pop lyrics Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2023-10-11 Ian Schneider
Korean popular music (K-pop) has expanded its cultural reach among Western audiences over the past 20 years (Lie, 2015), and groups like BTS and BLACKPINK have achieved unprecedented global success recently (McIntyre, 2022). As K-pop evolves into a global cultural export, scholars have paid more attention to the code-mixing of English within its lyrics (Yeo, 2018; Ahn, 2021).
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Recent metaphors of Brexit in the British press Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2023-09-19 Julia Landmann, Yannick Ganz
In the referendum of 23 June 2016, the UK's decision to leave the EU in the course of a Brexit was very close, with 51.9% (Leave) versus 48.1% (Remain). A year after the final withdrawal from the European Union, disillusionment seems to have spread in Great Britain. The focus of previous linguistic studies is mostly on the language used during the Leave and Remain campaigns. Charteris–Black (2019)
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Exploring wordplay and humour in English usage within Japanese texts Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2023-09-18 Takako Kawabata
English has been extensively integrated into various commercial contexts in Japan, infiltrating brand names, clothing, products, packaging (Dougill, 2008), shop signs (Backhaus, 2006; Inoue, 2005; MacGregor, 2003a), advertising copy (Seargeant, 2011; Takashi, 1990a, 1990b), television commercials (MacGregor, 2003b; Stanlaw, 1992), television programs (Jinnouchi, 2007), and Japanese popular music (Moody
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Animal proverbs Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2023-09-11 Julia Landmann, Yannick Ganz
Proverbs exist in a plethora of languages to express worldly wisdom, frequently in a metaphorical way. A number of proverbs are documented in more than one language since speakers adopt them from cultures they have been in contact with. The focus of the present study is on animal proverbs in English which have a foreign equivalent in another language, such as French, Latin, Greek, Japanese or Arabic
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English in Timor–Leste Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2023-09-07 John Macalister, Melky Costa Akoyt
When Timor–Leste became the first new nation of the 21st century in 2002, one of the many decisions that needed to be made concerned language. Timor–Leste is a country of around one million people, with at least 16 indigenous languages and three foreign languages contributing to its multilingual character. For reasons related to its 400-year colonial history and the resistance to Indonesian occupation
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Technology-enhanced approximation to Standard English stress shift: The case of educated Yoruba (Nigerian) teenagers Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2023-08-31 Abisola Aiyeola
International intelligibility among World Englishes is indisputably pertinent. Second language contexts, such as Nigeria, often adopt the Received Pronunciation (RP) to achieve intelligibility and serve as the pedagogical and descriptive basis of the language (Carr & Honeybone, 2007). However, studies on spoken Nigerian English (NE) have established that RP is unattainable by Nigerians, English language
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Which English to teach?: A target variety as perceived by Korean EFL teachers Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2023-08-31 Hohsung Choe, Seongyong Lee
The question of which English to teach has been an issue since the late-20th-century advent of the world Englishes (WE) paradigm. In the early 1990s, Quirk and Kachru conducted one of the most significant debates about this controversial issue in applied linguistics. Quirk (1990) argued that only standard native varieties that have no grammar deviations and adhere to mainstream vocabulary usage should
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When the definite article is used for possessive determiners in Kenyan English: Evidence of both systematic and free variation for the same user Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2023-08-30 Alfred Buregeya
The literature on the use of articles in L2 varieties of English reports both the overuse and the underuse of the definite article. An excellent synoptic discussion of such apparently contradictory results is Sand (2004). Because L2 English varieties have developed in a sociolinguistic environment where they were in contact with indigenous languages, Sand (2004: 284–287) reviews what research findings
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English in the Slovak glocalized urban space: A study of the English language and the processes of glocalization in the linguistic landscape of Bratislava Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2023-05-23 Olha Bohuslavska, Elena Ciprianová
Over the last few decades English has become an integral part of urban signage while taking different forms and performing a variety of functions. Numerous studies of linguistic landscapes, such as Gorter (2006), Huebner (2006), Cenoz and Gorter (2009), Lanza and Woldemariam (2009), Bolton (2012), and Tupas and Rubdy (2015) have demonstrated that the investigation of linguistic landscapes in multilingual
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South Korean higher education English-medium instruction (EMI) policy: From ‘resentment’ to ‘remedy' Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2023-02-23 Dylan G. Williams
In the past two decades, South Korean universities’ ‘top-down’ implementation of English-medium instruction (EMI) policy has been critiqued for inadequately addressing the linguistic challenges students and instructors face (Kim, 2017). Research suggests that rapid implementation of such policy is primarily motivated by the pursuit of internationalisation, where global ranking takes precedence over
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Translingual journey of English words and methodological suggestions: Crepe, pancake or jianbing (煎饼) Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2022-12-20 Jieun Kiaer, Niamh Calway, Hyejeong Ahn
The English language freely borrows words from many languages; this is a process which has been well documented by several studies, particularly in the field of contact linguistics. However, an investigation into the massive influence that the widespread, popular, and global use of the Internet has had on the development of language calls for consistent and frequent empirical enquiry. The rapid growth
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Mining terms in the history of English: A lexical analysis of vocabulary related to boring, drilling and extraction, to ventilation, pipelines and hauling Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2022-12-07 Julia Landmann, Andreas Landmann
Mining is a broad and complex field. The search for and exploitation of minerals is unceasing in many countries worldwide. Before its collapse towards the close of the 20th century, coal mining in the United Kingdom, for instance, which dates back to Roman antiquity, occurred in various regions of the country, such as Northumberland and Durham, North and South Wales, Yorkshire, Kent, and the East and
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Coronavirus rhyming slang: Some jottings on the words spawned by the pandemic Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2022-12-05 Antonio Lillo
Most people are remarkably calm. I was in my local last night and the mood was, “if I get it, I get it”. The most heated thing said about covid19 was whether to call it the Miley or the Billy Ray! (Twitter user from Manchester, March 14, 2020)
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‘BTS, PSY, BLACKPINK’: The English naming of South Korean music entertainers – its prevalence and motives Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2022-11-21 Hyeon-Seok Kang
Personal names are an important part of people's social identity, and they function socially as labels that both identify and distinguish an individual from others (Watzlawik et al., 2012). Cheang (2008) suggests that personal names can be a vehicle of self-presentation/self-promotion (cf. Goffman, 1980), not just a passive label, if the names are selected by the name bearers themselves. Although self-naming
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English in Cyprus Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2022-11-14 Constantina Fotiou
Cyprus is an island in the Mediterranean Sea where English has the status of the most popular and important foreign language (Tsiplakou, 2009; Fotiou, 2015) and the majority of its inhabitants are literate in English. While a former British colony, it is generally absent from discussions of places where English has had some special relevance due to historical, political, social and economic reasons
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Language as an interpersonal marker in English dissertation acknowledgments: Variations across genres and academic disciplines Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2022-11-11 Mian Jia, Yi An
Expressing gratitude and patronage in the form of dedication or acknowledgment can be traced back to the 16th century (Görlach, 2004). In the present time, writing an acknowledgment section has become a common practice in scholarly works, such as books, dissertations, theses, and journal articles. Research on acknowledgments as a text type, however, is relatively new. In his pioneering work, Hyland
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The future of British English in the European Union: What standard will the EU adopt in the post-Brexit era? Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2022-09-19 Marko Modiano
In the three years and seven months between the referendum on 23 June 2016 and 31 January 2020, when the UK officially left the European Union, there was much speculation over what status English would have in the EU after the withdrawal of the UK. It is now apparent that English has continued to flourish. This is supported by statistics for Member States which chart the extent to which English is
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Educated Nollywood artistes’ accent as a Normative Standard of English pronunciation in Nigeria: Analysis of the phonemic realisation of educated Nollywood artistes Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2022-07-28 Rotimi Oladipupo, Elizabeth Akinfenwa
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
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English loanword use in Greek online women's magazines: The construction of the female identity Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2022-07-11 Zoi Tatsioka
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
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Is it in Colloquial Singapore English: What variation can tell us about its conventions and development Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2022-06-07 Wilkinson Daniel Wong Gonzales, Mie Hiramoto, Jakob R. E. Leimgruber, Jun Jie Lim
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
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Race and the language of incels: Figurative neologisms in an emerging English cryptolect Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2022-06-01 Ksenija Bogetić
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
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The booming wave of English in the linguistic landscape in Algeria: Timeline of the presence of English language in Algerian bottom-up signs Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2022-05-10 Baya Maraf, Ulker Vanci Osam
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
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Typology of English–Korean code ambiguation: Bilingual creativity in the Korean context Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2022-03-28 Seongyong Lee
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
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English in Valletta's Linguistic Landscape: a case of instrumental rationality?: Signage in Valletta is overwhelmingly in English, while signs in Maltese are only visible when government measures are enforced Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2022-03-11 Lydia Sciriha, Mario Vassallo
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
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Discourse of ‘early ELT for local development’: Assumptions and ideologies in Japan's rural education policies Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2022-02-28 Saran Shiroza
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
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Peeking into the socio-historical background and current use of ‘me (no) likey’: Historical and online texts in focus Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2022-02-28 Paula Rodríguez–Abruñeiras
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
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From Kisstory to Megxile: Tabloids as lexical trendsetters Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2022-02-21 Isabel Balteiro
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
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Introducing the Historical Corpus of English in Nigeria (HiCE–Nig): A database for investigating diachronic linguistic changes in Nigerian English Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2022-02-18 Foluke Olayinka Unuabonah, Adebola Adebileje, Rotimi Olanrele Oladipupo, Bernard Fyanka, Mba Odim, Oluwateniola Kupolati
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
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Meanings of -nomics in English: From Nixonomics to coronanomics: How -nomics has extended its original meaning to additional senses Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2022-02-18 Gordana Lalić–Krstin, Nadežda Silaški, Tatjana Đurović
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)
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English spelling: where do -tion and -sion come from? Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2021-11-09 Michael Bulley
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
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Experiences of non-North American teachers of English in American English-dominant Korean ELT: How the context of English teaching affects teachers' lives and work Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2021-10-20 Hohsung Choe, Seongyong Lee
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
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English in Madeira: History and features of a lesser-known variety in the Atlantic: Exploring English as the dominant language of tourism in a former quasi-colony Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2021-08-31 Sven Leuckert, Theresa Neumaier, Asya Yurchenko
‘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
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#Stayhome: Language in tourism advertisements on Instagram: English dominates in online tourism ads from multilingual societies, but local languages are used to create local authentic effect Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2021-08-23 Guyanne Wilson, Esther Zappe, Jonas Silbermann–Schön, Kai Guilliaume, Rebecca Altwicker, Mariana Tapari, Marina Wolf, Mercedes Benitez Torrejon, Mushtariy Mamadaliyeva, Anna Lucia Busskamp Castro
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
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Linguistic landscaping in medical settings: English as a de facto language in Jordanian medical spaces Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2021-08-11 Omar I. S. Alomoush
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
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English parenting for Japanese parents: A critical review of advice in self-help books for raising bilingual children in Japan Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2021-08-03 Janice Nakamura
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
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Terms of endearment in English: Affection and tenderness in the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary Online Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2021-07-29 Julia Landmann
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
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Should we regard question-based media headlines as clickbait?: A discussion of Betteridge's Law and related issues Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2021-07-28 Brian Poole
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
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All Things New in Singapore: On creativity, complexity, and usage associations in Englishes: What a simple phrase can teach us on linguistic creativity and on how language works Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2021-07-19 Edgar W. Schneider
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
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The emergence of a new phonological feature in Pakistan English: Focusing on allophonic split in VOT of coronal stops in PakE Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2021-07-15 Nasir A. Syed, Shah Bibi
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
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English in Azerbaijan: Developments and Perspectives: English language education policy and practice in Azerbaijan from the early 1990s to the present day Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2021-07-15 Azad Mammadov, Arzu Mammadova
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
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The politics of GCSE English Language: Popular language ideology's influence on England's National Curriculum English Language qualification Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2021-06-29 Babette Verhoeven
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
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The Englishisation of personal names in Nigeria: What Englishisation of Efik and Ibibio personal names suggests about English in Nigeria Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2021-05-10 Eyo O. Mensah
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
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‘Dirt’ in dialect: Linguistic ubiquity of pollution in EDD Online Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2021-04-27 Manfred Markus
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
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Two types of language contact involving English Creoles: Why Krio (Sierra Leone) has evolved more towards English than its relative Pichi (Equatorial Guinea) towards Spanish Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2021-04-12 Kofi Yakpo
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
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‘Mehn! This wins the award’: The discourse-pragmatic functions of mehn in Nigerian English Engl. Today (IF 1.2) Pub Date : 2021-04-05 Foluke Olayinka Unuabonah
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