MDA and world Englishes

WorldEnglishes,Vol.28,No.4,pp.421–450,2009.0883-2919MultidimensionalanalysisandthestudyofworldEnglishesRICHARDXIAO∗ABSTRACT:Themultidimensionalanalysis(MDA)approachwasoriginallydevelopedbyBibertocomparewrittenandspokenregistersinEnglish,butithassincebeenappliedextensivelyinsynchronicanddiachronicanalysisofregistersinEnglishaswellasnon-Westernlanguages.WhiletheWordSmith-stylekeywordanalysisrepresentsaquickandsimplemeansofevaluatingagenreagainsttheMDAdimensions,thekeywordapproachneverthelessprovidesalesscomprehensivecontrastofgenresandmaynotworkformorefine-grainedtypesofgenreanalysis.However,Biber’sMDAmodelhassofarbeenconfinedlargelytogrammaticalcategories,thoughBiberandothershavestartedtoincorporatesemanticcategoriesofsomewordclassesinthemodel.Inthispaper,wewillseektoenhancetheMDAframeworkwithsemanticcomponentsandalsointroducethisenhancedMDAmodel,forthefirsttime,intheresearchofworldEnglishesbyexploringvariationacrosstwelveregistersandfivevarietiesofEnglishintheInternationalCorpusofEnglish(ICE),whichareannotatedwithgrammaticalandsemanticcategories.INTRODUCTIONWorldEnglishesreferto‘localizedformsofEnglish’usedaroundtheworld(Bolton2005:69).Theyhaveattractedgreatscholarlyinterestoverthepastthreedecades.Forexample,inadditiontodozensofauthoredandeditedbooksinthisarea(e.g.Bauer2002;Crystal2003;Jenkins2003;Kirkpatrick2002,2007;Hickey2004;Trudgill2004;Kachru,KachruandNelson2006;Deterding2007;Schneider2007;Fishman2008;KachruandSmith2008;MesthrieandBhatt2008),anumberofspecialissuesofthisjournalhavebeendevotedtovarietiesofEnglishusedinHongKong(19/3),SouthAfrica(21/1),China(21/2),SouthAmerica(22/2),thePhilippines(23/1),andRussia(24/4).WorldEnglisheshavebeenapproachedbroadlyfromsocio-culturalaswellaslinguisticperspectives.Theformerapproachhasfocusedontheelaborationoftheoriesandmodelsofdevelopment,spread,classificationandinteractionofnewEnglishes(e.g.Kachru1992,2008;Yano2001;Berns2005;Schneider2007;KachruandSmith2009;Michieka2009;Seidlhofer2009),whilethelatterislargelyconcernedwithlinguisticdescriptionsofworldEnglishesbyexploringlinguisticfeaturesinselectedEnglishvarietiesatvariouslevelsincludingphoneticsandphonology,morphology,syntaxanddiscourse.Forexample,Gisborne(2000)studiesrelativeclausesinHongKongEnglish;Kasanga(2006)discussesrequestsinaSouthAfricanvarietyofEnglish;vanRooy(2006)describestheextensionoftheprogressiveaspectinBlackSouthAfricanEnglish;Ulrike(2007)examinestheinfluenceoffirstlanguageonfinalconsonantclustersinEnglishinSingaporeandNigeria;BaoandHong(2006)exploreregistervariationinSingaporeEnglish;Lim(2007)providesacomprehensiveaccountofdiscourseparticlesincolloquialSingaporeEnglish;MukherjeeandHoffmann(2006)describeverb-complementconstructionsinIndianEnglishwhileHoffmannandMukherjee(2007)compareditransitiveverbsinIndianEnglishandBritishEnglish.Inaddition,thereareanumberofstudiesthatcompare∗EdgeHillUniversity,Ormskirk,Lancashire,L394QP,UnitedKingdom.E-mail:[e-mail]2009TheAuthor(s).JournalcompilationC2009BlackwellPublishingLtd.,9600GarsingtonRoad,OxfordOX42DQ,UKand350MainStreet,Malden,MA02148,USA.422RichardXiaopatternsoflanguageuseinarangeofEnglishvarieties.Forexample,Kachru(2003)comparesexpressionsofdefinitereferenceinEnglishasusedinIndia,Nigeria,SingaporeandtheUSA;Sand(2004)investigatesthearticleuseincontactvarieties;Nelson(2006)isconcernedwiththe‘commoncore’oflexisinsixvarietiesofEnglish;Mair(2007)exploresthecollocationalandculturalprofilesofvarietiesofEnglisharoundtheworld;Collins(2009)exploresthedistributionpatternsofasetofmodalsandquasi-modalsinninevarietiesofEnglish;andfinally,Kirkpatrick(2007)presentsabook-lengthaccountofsocio-culturalandhistoricalbackgroundsofworldEnglishesaswellastheirlinguisticfeatures.Previouslinguistically-orientedstudiesofworldEnglishes,suchasthosecitedabove,havetypicallybeenconcernedwithafewopportunelyselectedlinguisticfeaturessep-arately.Thepresentstudywilltakeadifferentapproach,namelythemultidimensionalanalysis(MDA)approachwhichlooksatalargenumberoflinguisticfeaturesinalargeamountoftextsimultaneously.TheMDAapproachtoregisteranalysiswasoriginallydevelopedtocomparewrittenandspokenregistersinEnglish(Biber1988).Ithassincebeenusedextensivelyinawiderangeofresearchareasoflanguagevariationincluding,forexample(seeXiaoandMcEnery2005:63):•synchronicanalysesofspecificregistersandgenresandauthorstyles;•diachronicstudiesdescribingtheevolutionofregisters;•registerstudiesofnon-Westernlanguagesandcontrastiveanalyses;•researchofuniversityEnglishandmaterialsdevelopment;and•moveanalysisandstudyofdiscoursestructure.Inaddition,MDAhasalsobeenappliedinaddressingcorpusdesignissuesandthedefinitionalissuesofregister/genresandtexttypes.Morerecently,Biber,Conrad,Reppen,ByrdandHelt(2002)discusstheimplicationsofMDAforteachingmaterialsdevelopment.Twoeditedvolumespublishedrecently(ConradandBiber2001;Reppen,FitzmauriceandBiber2002)demonstratethegrowinginterestinMDA.WhiletheWordSmith-stylekeywordanalysis(Scott1996,2004,2008)representsaquickandsimplemeansofevaluatingagenreagainsttheMDAdimens