- The Oxford Handbook of World Englishes
- List of Contributors
- Introduction: World Englishes and Linguistic Theory
- The Spread of English
- Models of English in the World
- World Englishes and Phonological Theory
- World Englishes and Syntactic and Semantic Theory
- World Englishes and Corpora
- World Englishes and the Study of Typology and Universals
- World Englishes and Cognitive Linguistics
- World Englishes, Second Language Acquisition, and Language Contact
- World Englishes and Creoles
- World Englishes, Code-Switching, and Convergence
- World Englishes and Sociolinguistic Theory
- World Englishes and Dialectology
- World Englishes, Pragmatics, and Discourse
- World Englishes and Language Ideologies
- English, Language Dominance, and Ecolinguistic Diversity Maintenance
- The Atlantic Archipelago of the British Isles
- English in North America
- The Caribbean
- Australian and New Zealand Englishes
- South Asia
- Southeast Asia
- East African English
- English in West Africa
- English in South Africa
- Isolated Varieties
- English as a Lingua Franca in the Expanding Circle
- On the Intonation of Tonal Varieties of English
- Emergence of the Unmarked in Indian Englishes with Different Substrates
- The Systemic Nature of Substratum Transfer
- Convergent Developments between “Old” and “New” Englishes
- Retention and Innovation in Settler Englishes
- Embedded Inversion as an Angloversal: Evidence from Inner, Outer, and Expanding Circle Englishes
- Canonical Tag Questions in Asian Englishes: Forms, Functions, and Frequencies in Hong Kong English, Indian English, and Singapore English
- Are Constructions Dialect-Proof?: The Challenge of English Variational Data for Construction Grammar Research
- Second-Order Language Contact: English as an Academic Lingua Franca
- Language Index
- Name Index
- Subject Index
Abstract and Keywords
The relationship between phonological theory and World Englishes is generally characterized by a mutual lack of interest. This chapter argues for a greater engagement of both fields with each other, looking at constraint-based theories of phonology, especially Optimality Theory (OT), as a case in point. Contact varieties of English provide strong evidence for synchronically active constraints, as it is substrate or L1 constraints that are regularly transferred to the contact variety, not rules. Additionally, contact varieties that have properties that are in some way ‘in between’ the substrate and superstrate systems provide evidence for constraint hierarchies or implicational relationships between constraints, illustrated here primarily with examples from syllable structure. Conversely, for a scholar working on the description of World Englishes, OT can offer an explanation of where the patterns found in a contact variety come from, namely from the transfer of substrate constraint rankings (and subsequent gradual constraint demotion).
Keywords: Optimality Theory, constraints, phonology, syllable, language contact, transfer
Christian Uffmann’s main research interest is in phonological theory, with a special interest in how it interfaces with sociolinguistic issues, especially language contact. He has published a number of articles on loanword adaptation and creole phonology, and also Vowel Epenthesis in Loanword Adaptation (2007, Niemeyer). Within phonological theory, he is particularly interested in phonological representations and their role in a constraint-based model of phonology. He is currently writing a monograph on distinctive feature theory for CUP.
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- The Oxford Handbook of World Englishes
- List of Contributors
- Introduction: World Englishes and Linguistic Theory
- The Spread of English
- Models of English in the World
- World Englishes and Phonological Theory
- World Englishes and Syntactic and Semantic Theory
- World Englishes and Corpora
- World Englishes and the Study of Typology and Universals
- World Englishes and Cognitive Linguistics
- World Englishes, Second Language Acquisition, and Language Contact
- World Englishes and Creoles
- World Englishes, Code-Switching, and Convergence
- World Englishes and Sociolinguistic Theory
- World Englishes and Dialectology
- World Englishes, Pragmatics, and Discourse
- World Englishes and Language Ideologies
- English, Language Dominance, and Ecolinguistic Diversity Maintenance
- The Atlantic Archipelago of the British Isles
- English in North America
- The Caribbean
- Australian and New Zealand Englishes
- South Asia
- Southeast Asia
- East African English
- English in West Africa
- English in South Africa
- Isolated Varieties
- English as a Lingua Franca in the Expanding Circle
- On the Intonation of Tonal Varieties of English
- Emergence of the Unmarked in Indian Englishes with Different Substrates
- The Systemic Nature of Substratum Transfer
- Convergent Developments between “Old” and “New” Englishes
- Retention and Innovation in Settler Englishes
- Embedded Inversion as an Angloversal: Evidence from Inner, Outer, and Expanding Circle Englishes
- Canonical Tag Questions in Asian Englishes: Forms, Functions, and Frequencies in Hong Kong English, Indian English, and Singapore English
- Are Constructions Dialect-Proof?: The Challenge of English Variational Data for Construction Grammar Research
- Second-Order Language Contact: English as an Academic Lingua Franca
- Language Index
- Name Index
- Subject Index
