WORD CLASSES

Verb be, drive, grow

Noun brother, car, David
Determiner a, an, my, some, the
Adjective big, foolish, happy, talented
Adverb happily, recently, soon, then, there
Preposition at, in, of, over, with
Conjunction and, because, but, if, or

PHRASES
A phrase may consist of a single word or a group of words.
Different types of phrases: noun phrase, verb phrase, adjective ph., adverb ph.,
prepositional ph. .

PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES
Preposition + noun phrase known as prepositional complement:
- In the morning
- On the night (of the first day)

ADVERB PHRASES
The head is an adverb. It can occur with optional modifiers (pretty soon, fortunately
enough, much more quickly).
Adverb phrases as modifiers:
- Those who were pretty much horribly spoiled
Adverb phrases as adverbials on the clause level:
- She smiled sweetly
 ADJECTIVE PHRASES
Adjective phrases have an adjective as head and optional modifiers that can precede
or follow the adjectives (good enough, desperately poor, so lucky).
Adjective heads can also take complements:
- Guilty of a serious crime
- Subject to approval by
- Slow to respond
Adjective phrases as modifier and subject predicative:
- He’s a deeply sick man (attributive adjective)
- That’s right (s.p. following the verb be)
- He’s totally crazy (“ “ “ “ “)

VERB PHRASES
Verb phrases have a lexical verb or primary verb as their head. The main verb can
stand alone or be preceded by one or more auxiliary verbs.
Verb phrases can be split into two parts. This happens in questions, where the
subject is placed after the (first) auxiliary verb:
- What is he doing?
The parts of a verb phrase can be interrupted by adverbs or other adverbials:
- You know the English will always have gardens wherever they find
themselves.

NOUN PHRASES
A phrase with a noun as its head. The head can be preceded by a determiner (the, a,
her) and can be accompanied by modifiers (elements which describe or classify
whatever the head refers to)
e.g. a house, the little girl next door, many houses
An abstract head noun can be followed by complements, which complete the
meaning of the noun, especially that-clause or infinitive to-clauses
 e.g. The popular assumption that language simply serves to communicate
“thoughts” or “ideas” is too simplistic.

INFLECTION, DERIVATION, COMPOUNDING

Inflection does not change the identity of a word (talking); derivation changes the
meaning or word class of a word (talkative). Compound words contain more than
one stem (girlfriend = girl+friend, cookbook= cook+book).

EXAMPLE LEXICAL DENSITY

1) ”The use of this method of control unquestionably leads to safer and faster
trains running in the most adverse weather conditions”
2) ”You can control the trains this way and if you do that you can be quite sure
that they’ll be able to run more safely and more quickly than they would
otherwise, no matter how bad the weather gets”
(Halliday, 1985)

CLAUSE AND TEXT ANALYSIS

- Simple clauses: units structured around verb phrases
- Main elements of a clause: subject, verb phrase, object, predicative, adverbial

ELABORATION AND CONDENSATION OF CLAUSES

- SUBORDINATION
One clause is embedded as part of another clause:
Although it’s cheap, it’s clean
It is very good although it is cheap (main clause with embedded adverbial
clause)
- COORDINATION
Two clauses are connected, with each having equal status:
It’s cheap but it’s clean
- ELLIPSIS
A device of simplification, it allows us to subtract words from the complete
clause. Their meaning can be “taken for granted”:
 It is clean although (…) cheap.
It’s cheap but (...) clean
It is cheap, but it is very good = compound clause
It (subject) is cheap (long verb phrase: verb phrase + sub.predicative)
It is very good, althoug it is cheap
It is very good (main clause: subject + long verb phrase) although it is cheap
(adverbial clause: link + subject + long verb phrase)

SIGNALS OF SUBORDINATION

SUBORDINATORS: because, although, but, ...

He was screaming because he had to go home

CLAUSE PATTERNS

- SUBJECT CLAUSE
Finite clause: That it would be unpopular with students was obvious.
Infinitive clause: To meet the lady was easy enough.
-ING clause: Including garlic in the diet can reduce cholesterol.

- SUBJECT PREDICATIVE
Finite clause: That’s what I’ll do tomorrow
Infinitive clause: Their function is to detect the cries of the predatory beasts.

- DIRECT OBJECT
Finite clause: She hoped that Joe wouldn’t come in drunk.
Infinitive clause: “I wouldn’t like to leave him”, Olivia said.
-ING clause: Stephanie disliked living in this mess.

- PREPOSITIONAL OBJECT
Finite clause: Well, you pay for what you want
-ING clause: Please forgive me for doubting you

- ADVERBIAL
Finite clause: I’m tense, excuse me if I talk too much
Infinitive clause: I borrowed a mobile phone to ring home
-ING clause: She gazed down at the floor, biting her lip
 COORDINATION
Coordination can link words, phrases or clauses.
Major coordinators in English: and, or, but.
Coordination tags: or something, and everything, and things/stuff... Correlative
coordinators: both...and, either...or, neither...nor
He has a lot of contacts and things.

ELLIPSIS
Omission of elements which are recoverable from the linguistic context of the
situation.
He squeezed her hand but (he) met no response.

COMPLEMENT CLAUSES aka NOMINAL CLAUSES

Complement clauses, or nominal clauses, are dependent clauses that complete the
meaning of a verb, adjective or noun. For example:
I thought that it looked good. = That-complement clause provides the
content of ”thinking”
I said that I wasn’t perfect. = here, the clause is the direct object of the
verb ”said”

A complement clause can complete the meaning of an adjective:

I have to be careful that I don’t sound too pompous.

Different types of complement clauses

FINITE NON-FINITE
That-clauses To-clauses
Wh-clauses Ing-clauses
 THAT- CLAUSES
Verbs controlling that-clauses: say ,know, see, find, feel, suggest, show, guess

Mental verbs: very common with that-clauses, they report various mental states and
attitudes. The verb ”think” is very common;
I think we picked it.
I guess I should probably call Michele.

Other communication verbs:

She said that it’s lovely to wear such a dress  reporting what
someone said

Adjectives controlling that-clauses: certain, confident, evident, annoyed, glad,

appropriate, odd, good, important

Post predicate that clause

Report the speech and thoughts of humans. The subject usually refers to a person .
The main clause verb presents the type of reporting; the that- clause presents the
reported speech or thought.

I think/ know/ say that Stuart’s gone a bit mad.

Adjectives controlling post-predicate that-clauses: sure, certain, confident,

convinced, sure, right, afraid, angry, annoyed, astonished

Subject predicative that clause

Serves as a subject predicative to a copular verb:

The problem is that the second question cannot be answered until

Washington comes up with a consensus on the first.
,
Extraposed that- clause
Involves a main clause that reports an attitude or stance (usually the attitude of the
speaker or writer to the text):

It is certain that the challenges ahead are at least as daunting as

anything the cold war produced.
Adjectives controlling extraposed that-clauses: clear, (un)likely, false, plain, well-
known, embarassing, funny, and all the adjectives which convey emotion or
evaluation.

Embedded that-clauses
Occur in complex series, with various kinds of coordination and embedding:

I think that president Regan believed that not only was the government
the problem, but that it was rare indeed that government could be a
positive force in solving the problem.

WORD ORDER

In English the normal word order is SVO:

Giulia likes chocolate.
Sheila offers chocolate to Mark = SVO + indirect object (to Mark)
Giulia gives his boyfriend a present = S + V + IO + O

it can be normal Mary makes the best cucumber salad.

passive The best cucumber salad is made by Mary.
cleft It is Mary who makes the best cucumber salad.

OTHER TYPES OF WORD ORDER

Remember: the normal SVO order is called ”unmarked word order”; when it
changes, it is called ”marked word order”.

FRONTING
Placing in first position a clause element which is normally placed after the verb:
This I like.
Wheter Nancy was there or not, she could not be certain. (fronted object)
Far more serious were the severe head injuries.
The larger the base, the easier it will be to perform the action. (fronted
subject predicative)
I have said he would come down and come down he did.
Waiting below was Michael Sams. (fronted non-finite constructions)
INVERSION
The verb phrase or the operator comes before the subject:
Best of all would be to get a job in Sweden.
Not before in our history have so many strong influences united to produce so large
a disaster.
So badly was he affected that he had to be taught to speak again.
Such was the message which right-wing politicians and the British press delivered to
the police from 1983.
Freddie wasn’t sorry and neither was I.

EXISTENTIAL THERE
Is a device used to state the existence or occurrence of something. It is used with an
intransitive or copular verb.
At the little town of Vevey, in Switzerland, there is a particularly comfortable hotel.

It mostly occurs with the verb “to be”, but also with used to, is supposed to, seems
to:
There is no answer really; there is little we can do.
There used to be a place called Blackton House.
Once upon a time there were three little piggies…

CLEFTING
IT- cleft It was her eyes that fascinated me.
WH- cleft What I really need is a nice cup of tea.

ADVERBS AND ADVERBIALS

ADVERBS

1) Adverbs of time denote not only specific times, but also frequency. They are
usually put at the end of the sentence, but also at the beginning if we don’t want to
put emphasis on the time:
I’m coming next week.
 On Saturday there will be a chance to speak to her.
People often cannot or will not explain their feelings or attitudes.
I have always regarded it as a serious, intelligent newspaper.
Maggie had never received so much attention.

2) Adverbs of manner tell us how an action is or should be performed:

He nodded slowly.
I won’t do it again and I’m awfully sorry.
Although he defines his terms carefully, he is still somewhat confusing.
I had to run fast to catch the bus.

3) adverbs of place indicate where:

She stood behind the door.
I said I’d been chasing him all over the world.
Swallows were zipping to and from above the water.

Moreover: adverbs can be generally created by adding endings to an adjective

(slow, quick, soft  slowly, quickly, softly); they have gradability (more slowly) and
can be used in comparisons.
Adverbs can be
- additives
German firms have an existing advantage as a greater number of their
managers gave technical or engineering degrees. Japanese managers, too,
have technical qualifications of a high order.
- Exclusives
It’s just a question of how we organise it.
- Particularizers
Now this book is mostly about what they call modulation.

Adverbs in a sentence can introduce a clause (I’ve no idea how it works), or ask
questions (When did it happen?), or can qualify the whole sentence (Frankly I couldn’t
care less).

Adverbs as modifiers:
of adjectives: pretty good, slightly larger, very difficult
noun phrases: Quite a surprise
pronouns: almost nobody
prepositional phrases: well into their seventies
phrasal verbs: they filled it right up
measurements and numerals: roughly 3 per cent
 ADVERBIALS

An adverbial is any structure that modifies a verb: it can be an adverb, but can also
take the form of an adverb phrase, a temporal noun phrase, a prepositional phrase,
or be expressed by a clause (for instance, an adverbial of reason and condition).
I couldn’t sleep well throughout the night.
The difference: they both share the same modifying function, but an adverbial is a
sentence element or functional category, a part of the sentence that performs a
certain function, while an adverb is a type of word, a part of speech. We can say
that an adverb may serve as an adverbial, but an adverbial is not necessarily an
adverb.
James answered immediately (adverb)
in English (prepositional phrase)
this morning (noun phrase)
in English because he had a foreign visitor (adverbial clause)
By modifying a verb, an adverbial changes its meaning. It answers questions such as:
where, when, how, why, how often, how long, how much, ...

There are three main classes of adverbials:

- CIRCUMSTANCE ADVERBIALS We were at the football game.

- STANCE ADVERBIALS From my perspective it was a clear case of abuse.
Fortunately this is far from the truth.
- LINKING ADVERBIALS however, furthermore, yet

Adverbials are subdivided into types (which include manner or degree adverbs):

temporal adverbials now, when, today

spatial adverbials here, north, up, across
attitudinal adverbials certainly, hopefully
modal adverbials not, no, probably
expectation adverbials only, even, again
textual adverbials firstly, finally

...and are very free in their placement, appearing in different positions in the
sentence, not just sentence final (sentence initial, sentence final, preverbal,
postverbal, within the verb group).
All can occur sentence finally, but generally time adverbials are placed sentence
initially and sometimes preverbally, place adv. are clumsy sentence initially, manner
adv. frequently occur preverbally but are less good sentence initially. One position
which is impossible for adverbials is between the verb and the direct object.
 DEFINING THE CONCEPTS OF SPECIALIZED DISCOURSE AND REGISTER

1920-1930: specialized discourse at a lower level. Clear-cut definitions of the

differences between specialized and “general” discourse.

“Differences between current English and technical English can be found at all
linguistic levels and they manifest themselves in a different way, both qualitatively
and quantitatively” (Bares, 1972)

REGISTER STUDIES: research into the concept of ”register” after the WWII
attempted to identify the morphosyntactic, lexical and stylistic features that
characterise specialized discourse.
Register studies by British linguists signal a keen interest in the autonomy of
specialized discourse as compared to general language. Register analysis turned its
attention to the description of any feature that diverges from the default level of
common language.

LEXICAL DIMENSION

”Some lexical items suffice almost by themselves to identify a certain register:

"cleanse" put us in the language of advertising, "probe" of newspapers, especially
headlines, "tablespoon" of recipes or prescriptions..." (Halliday et Al, 1964)

Identification for each specialized language of textual genres linked to sets of

consistent features.

DEFINING SPECIALIZED DISCOURSE

Controversial aspects concerning the term used to define its object:

- specialized discourse as ”restricted language” (ex. flight control,
communication based on the exchange of standard messages using set
phrases with a set of agreed variants). BUT the terms ”restricted code” and
”specialized discourse” are not interchangeable, as specialized discourse
exploits the language code in a far more creative and varied way.

- specialized discourse as a “special language” (ex. Code Q, frequently used in

the telecommunication sector): special rules and symbols deviating from
those of general language are employed. BUT: “Specialized discourse is
distinguished from general language not for its use of special linguistic rules
 absent from general language, but for its quantitatively greater and
pragmatically more specific use of such conventions” (Gotti, 2003)

- specialized discourse as the specialist use of language in contexts which are

typical of a specialized community; where the “coomunity” is crucial to the
field of specialized discourse as the features and forms of specialized texts are
recognized and shared by the members of specific professional groups.

LEXICAL FEATURES OF SPECIALIZED DISCOURSE

- monoreferentiality: only one meaning is allowed

Terminology tendency: “The tendency for a word to have a fixed meaning in
reference to the world, so that anyone wanting to name its referent would
have little option but to use it. Especially if the relationship works in both
directions” (Sinclair)

- lack of emotion: lack of emotive connotations; terms have a purely

denotative function.

- precision: every term must point immediately to its concept (exclusion of

such devices, as euphemism)

Case mentioned by Pannick (1985) of a Cambridge professor reported to the

academic authorities for immoral behaviour towards a student: “She was
walking with a member of the university”. The complaint was insufficient for
the professor to be charged, because of the euphemistic wording used by the
authorities. In academic circles, instead, the espression was an equivalent of
“to be in company with an undergraduate for an immoral purpose”. The court
rejected the university’s complaint on the grounds that “to be walking with a
member of the university does not constitute a criminal offence under
common law or any official law or explicit rule contained in the statute of the
university”.

- transparency: possibility to promptily access a term’s meaning through its

surface form.

Lavoisier developed a new naming system for chemical compounds to allow

readers to immediately identify the nature of the compound concerned:
under his reform, each suffix was assigned a precise meaning which allowed a
functional distinction of similar terms (e.g. nitric acid, nitrous acid; sulphite
and sulphat).
 - conciseness: the concepts are expressed in the shortest possible form.
Conciseness relies on acronyms and abbreviations (e.g. We had a doa last
night –dead on arrival- ; He entered in a bad dka –diabetic ketoacidosis-).
Reduction in textual surface, for example zero derivation: saldo from
“saldare”, convalida from “convalidare”, utilizzo from “utilizzare”…

- conservatism: 17th- 18th century scientists needed to redefine specialized

concepts and replace existing terms with new ones, usually drawn from
classical languages. Old formulae are preferred to newly-coined words
because of their century-old history and highly codified interpretation.

Halliday (1964) identifies three variables that determine register:

- field: the subject matter of the discourse

- tenor: the participants and their relationships
- mode: the channel of communication, e.g. spoken or written

Any or all the elements of language may vary in different registers:

- vocabularym syntax, phonology, morphology, pragmatic rules
- different prosidic features such as pitch, volume and intonation in spoken
English.

E.g. An English speaker may adhere more closely o prescribed grammar,

pronounce word ending in –ing with a velar nasal (walking); but in a more
informal setting would use walkin’.

We can distinguish between variations in language according to the user (defined by

variables such as social background, geography, sex, age) and variations according to
the use. Each speaker has a range of fvarieties and choices between them at
different times (e.g. ”legalese”, ”motherese”, or the language of a biology research
lab, or of a news report).

VARIETIES OF LANGUAGE
Frozen: printed unchanging language such as bible quotations; often contains
archaisms.
Formal: one-way participation, no interruption, technical vocabulary; ”fussy”
semantics or exact definitions are important. Includes introductions between
strangers.
Consultative: two-way participation. Background information is provided, prior
knowledge is not assumed; ”backchannel behaviour” such as uh huh, I see, ecc. is
common; interruptions are allowed.
Casual: in-group friends and acquaintances; no background information provided;
ellipsis and slang common; interruptions common.
Intimate: non public. Intonation more important than wording or grammar; private
vocabulary.

Varieties defined in terms of general situational parameters are known as registers.

We use the label “register” as a cover term for any variety associated with a particular
configuration of situational characteristics and purposes. Thus, registers are defined
in nonlinguistic terms.
Each person plays a number of roles in their everyday life and, in each of these roles,
language is used systematically in slightly different ways.

_____________________________________________________________________
LEGAL LANGUAGE

Functions of directives
Prescriptive rules:
- a final goal prescribed by the Authority to be performed by a given deadline
- a normative message
- requiring national implementation
- allowing the Member State to choose the legal instrument

Structure of directives

- the title of the document, followed by the issue date in the Official Journal;
- the name of the institution enacting the piece of legislation (the Commission
or the Council, which can enact alone or together with the Parliament);
- the citation formula starting with “Having regard to…” (IT “visto”), which
always refers to a previous Treaty or Convention and confers sound legal basis
to the document.
- The section opened by “whereas” (IT ”considerando”), also called the recital:
this introduction presents the several motivations of the document;
- a formula varying in content according to the type of document. For instance,
“Has decided as follows” (IT “ha adottato la presente decisione”) anticipates
the Articles of the Decision, while in Regulations and Directives the wording
used is “Has adopted this Regulation/Directive (IT “ha adottato il presente
Regolamento/la presente Direttiva);
 - the Articles which vary in number and represent the provisions of the
legislative instrument;
- the date and place of signature, sometimes followed by a number of Annexes
containing tables, references or technical information.
(Caliendo, 2004)

Few professions are as concerned with language as in the law. (Tiersma, 1993)

Law forms the framework within which we manage our daily lives, including our
family lives, housing, transport, study and work. Law permeates and constructs
many aspects of modern life.

LEGAL SOURCES OF ENGLISH LAW

- Common Law
- Equity
- Statute Law or legislation
- Custom
- European Law

Doctrine of precedent: the main distinctive feature of the common law legal
systems. The decisions of the House of Lords are binding on all the other courts
trying similar cases.

Equity: it is a system of fairness which steps in to supplement the common law rules
where the common law fails to provide an effective solution. Since 1873, equity anc
Common Law have both been administered together by a single civil-courts system.
Equity is still relevant today, its rules can prevail over common law where there is a
conflict between the rules of equity and the common-law rules.

Status law or legislation: consists of rules which are formally enacted by a body
which has constitutional power to do so. Parliament is now the only body with
inherent power to legislate under english law, and statutes today take the form of
Acts of Parliament.

Custom: it’s only subsidiary; still active in mercantile law and as the basis of certain
rights over land in the countryside.

European law: 1972, Treaty of Accession. Legislation has been extended to include
European Community Law. The Courts of England and Wales apply European
Community law in the light.
 LEGAL COMMUNICATION

non-verbal semiotic system linguistic dimension

both of them are used to negotiate meaning.

Categorization of legal written texts

- operative documents: create or modify legal relations (acts, statutes,

petitions, private documents = contracts, wills)
- expository documents: explain the law (e.g. letter to a client, office
memorandum)
- persuasive documents: submissions designed to convince a court.

“They tend not to be particularly formulaic or legalistic in Language, although they

do use fairly formal standard english” (Tiersma, 1999)

Features of legal discourse

- technicality (lexical dimension): genuine technical terms: more accurate or

efficient when referring to legal concepts. (e.g. large amount of technical
vocabulary used by lawyers)
Some specialist terms: committal (detenzione preventiva), a counsel
(consulente legale), deforcement (espropriazione), felon (criminale). Some
other terms have entered everyday language with a modified meaning:
homicide and assault in legal language do not involve physical contact.

- archaic deictics: old fashioned words which point to another part of the text
in which they are found, or to another place or time. E.g. forthwith, hereafter,
herein, herewith, aforesaid, thence, thenceforth, …
- technical terms derived from Latin or Norman French, e.g. affidavit, ex parte,
habeas corpus (atto rilasciato dalla giusrisdizione competente con cui si
ingiunge a chi detiene un prigioniero di dichiarare in qual giorno e per quale
causa sia stato arrestato), judge, estoppel
- doublets and triplets, e.g. will (OE) and testament (F), new (OE) and novel (F),
fit (OE) and proper (F), give (OE), devise (F), and bequeath (OE)

Many of Legal terms appear in company. They are routinely used in sequences
of two or three. (Melinkoff, 1963)
 - complex function expressions, e.g. slowly = at slow speed, after = subsequent
to, before = prior to;
- ordinary words are used with a specialist meaning, e.g. article (part of a
document), party (one side in a court case).
- textual features: ”Legislative instruments are characterized by standardized
formulas”. (Garzone 2002, Caliendo 2004)

SPEECH ACTS and LEGAL DISCOURSE

“There’s a bull in that field” (Austin 1963) =

Conceptual level: existence of a beefy animal in a certain place.

Speech act level: a possible warning if uttered when someone was about to open
the gate of the relevant field

Performatives speech acts: they “do” whatever it is that they say they do.
Some performatives in legal texts: I hereby promise to pay… I authorize… I hereby
renounce all rights…

“Saying “I name this ship White Shoe” really does name the ship” (Gibbons, 2003)

MODALITY IN LEGAL TEXTS

Modality is a complex concept to categorise and qualify in its different forms.

Modality is mainly expressed by modal verbs and by a considerable range of
grammatically and syntactically diverse items.

Three categories of modality:

- epistemic modality: the speaker or writer’s belief, or opinion, about the
validity of the proposition.
- dynamic modality: used to classify those uses of modal verbs which express
ability and disposition. It is applied to modal expressions of ability, power,
habit, prediction, and circumstance. (Palmer)
- deontic modality: involves the issuing of directives and it is associated with
such notions as permission or obligation (Lew). The speaker gives permission,
threatens or makes a promise, expresses a wish, or places someone under an
obligation. It’s the most popular in legal discourse.

Shall is the most frequent modal in legislative texts, being used to express legal
provisions.
Deontic/prescriptive vs. performative values of shall:
 - The Organization and its members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article
1, shall act in accordance with the following Principles (The UN Charter, art.2)
- Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law (…) (ECHR, Art.2)

_____________________________________________________________________

TRANSLATION STRATEGIES

Nine strategies the translator can apply in translating at a structural, lexicogrammar

level:
Equation and Substitution
Divergence and convergence
Amplification and Reduction
Diffusion and Condensation
Reordering
(Malone, 1988)

The first eight are presented as pairs because they mirror images of one another.
If translation from English to Italian “diverges”, the corresponding back translation
from Italian will “converge”. Equation suggests some form of automatic equivalence,
while Substitution is necessary if that automatism is not present.

EQUATION

- loan words: culturally specific words are often loaned (baseball, lasagna);
neologisms in technical field (software, screening, factory); terms coined for
particular sub-cultures (rap, video-games).
- calque: the target language adapts the source language term to its morpho-
phonological framework (dribblare, crossare  to dribble, to cross).
- default position: a term should be translated by its clear one-to-one
equivalent (”There are no compelling reasons not to translate the first
sentence in the easiest way the target language provides: faithful translation”
– Taylor, 1998)

Trap associated with the word-for-word equation: false friends: the meanings of
similar terms do not match across languages (actual vs. attuale, simpatico vs.
sympathetic, editor vs. editore). Problema, situazione, realtà, possibilità, would
seem to have equivalents in problem, situation, reality, possibility: but there is high
frequency of these words in Italian, much higher than their English equivalents.
SUBSTITUTION: when there is no ”equivalent”. For example:

- the Italian prepositional phrase replaces the English Saxon genitive: Gulliver’s
travels = I viaggi di Gulliver.
- the Italian subjubctive can be replaced by an English infinitive: farò in modo
che si interessi = I’ll try to get her to…
- or we have semantic substitution: the straw that broke the camel’s back = la
goccia che fa traboccare il vaso. In this case, the reason of translation are not
merely linguistic (rhyme, scanning, cultural relocation, entertainment of
children, …).

DIVERGENCE: choosing a suitable term from a potential range of alternatives (e.g.

cream: panna, crema; girare: to turn, to switch on, to pass on, to twist, to go round,
to avoid, to tour, to travel, etc..
- divergence in the meaning and function of the Italian frequency adverb
sempre: always, still, …
- selection from grammatical paradigms, where more than one construction
may be acceptable: se dovesse succedere = if it should happen/ should it
happen/ were it to happen/ if it were to happen.

CONVERGENCE: the opposite of divergence, e.g.: tu/lei/voi/loro converge into you

depending on the context of use; commercialista, ragioniere, contabile, converge
into accountant.

AMPLIFICATION: it requires that the translator add some element to the source text
for reasons of greater comprehensibility. A single lexical item in one language needs
a collocational partner in the other.
Hanno interesse a tenere il prezzo basso = They have a vested interest in keeping
the price low.
- amplification in technical writing: breached duplex = struttura di duplicazione
sconnessa; footwall flat = superficie concordante di scollamento di letto.

REDUCTION: it consists in omitting elements in a target text because they are

redundant, e.g. carta geografica = map; esporre in modo visibile = display

DIFFUSION and CONDENSATION are concerned with the phenomenon of

linguistically tightening source text expressions for the target text version: more or
less elaboration.

DIFFUSION: Doveva arrivare alle tre = He was supposed to arrive at three o’clock
Plural lexemes such as informazioni, consigli, mobili, are expressed as uncountable
nouns (some information, some advice, some furniture) or may even take the form
items of information, pieces of advice, articles of furniture.

CONDENSATION: in condensation the target expression is more linguistically

economic.
a buon prezzo, a buon mercato = cheap; far vedere = show

REORDERING: it requires the translator to operate basic inversion procedures:

- adjective-noun sequence: white horse = cavallo bianco
- verb-object positioning: (io) ti amo = I love you
- reordering at sentence level: è successa una disgrazia = something terrible
has happened typical SV structure)
- An impersonal si construction: le tigri si trovano in India = tigers are found in
India
- an active form using verbs with impersonal agents whose nominal or
pronominal identity never appears: mi hanno detto che… = I have been told
that…; possiamo dedurre che… = it can be deduced that…

TRANSLATION STUDIES

Applied linguistics, Linguistic theory

Translation is a linguistic phenomenon. Translators can benefit from recent

developments related to lexicogrammar.

LANGUAGE STRUCTURE

Structuralism: the way words are put together in logical and grammatical sequences
(Saussure/ American linguistics  Bloomfield)

Structuralism and translation identify meaningful stretches of text through the

examination of various forms of constituent analysis.

Horizontal nature of structure: the joining of words or longer units (syntagms) to

form grammatically acceptable and meaningful clauses and sentences.
He leaves tomorrow. = syntagmatic sequence: pronoun + verb + temporal adverb

Vertical nature of system: choice of competing linguistic options available to

speakers.
He leaves tomorrow
 She goes as soon as the weather improves
They sail to Rio next week

This relationship between the competing linguistic options is referred as

paradigmatic.
When words or word groups have been chosen from the paradigmatic axis by the
speaker/ writer, then they must be combined syntagmatically in a logical order to
create meaning.

STRUCTURALISM

- name given to a group of American linguistics who analysed the constituent

parts of sentence structure (parsing techniques).
- Leonard Bloomfield (1887-1949): Immediate Constituent Analysis, which
means splitting sentences, clauses and clause constituents (noun, phrases,
verb phrases, adverb phrases, etc.) into their component parts.

The meeting broke up at midnight (clause)

and (conjunction)
the delegates went home (clause)

The meeting (noun phrase)

Broke up (verb phrase)
At midnight (temporal adverb phrase)
And (conjunction)
The delegates (noun phrase)
Went home (verb phrase)

The meeting (determiner + noun)

Broke up (verb + particle)
At midnight (preposition + noun)

Quick – ly (adjective + adverbial suffix)

Translators need to recognise “autonomous units” at clause, phrase or word level.

What does the phrase “autonomous units” refer to? It is a strech of language that can
be translated as a single unit in the target text.
The meeting / broke up / at midnight : this elements can stand up on their own
And can be translated successfully ”La riunione si è sciolta a mezzanotte”.
 UNIVERSAL STRUCTURE

Noam Chomsky (1957): theory of universal deep grammar  the structures of

language may be stable over time. The core language that is innate in all human
beings does not change, only the “surface grammar” changes.

Universal structure and translation

- Eugene Nida (1964): concept of ”kernel sentences”

Kernels: minimal structures in a language from which the rest can be derived,
either by addition, omission or some form of permutation (e.g.: subject + verb
/ article + noun). If source texts can be reduced to their kernel form, they will
be easier to translate. They can be retransformed into more complex and
acceptable target text constructions.

THE PRAGUE SCHOOL

- Functional sentence perspective (FSP)
- Communicative dynamism
- Clauses divided into theme and rheme: the theme contains information
dependent on the immediate context or co-text of the communicative act; it’s
somehow ”known”-given information; the rheme contains ”context-
independent” information.
- New information generally comes at the end of a clause
- The latter information is characterized by a very high dynamism

The English have no respect for their language (Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion)
theme: The English. It sets the scene for the rheme, which in this case is what
is said about the English.
Interest rates fell by 2%. This drop caused panic on the stock market as
Brokers rushed to inform clients. =

Interest rates: theme of the first clause

Fell by 2%: rheme
This drop: theme (re-worked as the theme of the next clause)
Caused panic on the Stock Market: rheme

Rushed to inform clients: very high dynamism

THEME IN HALLYDAY (1994)

- Theme is invariably found in initial position
- It may consist of either given or new information, as may the rheme
 On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me a partridge in a pear
tree.

Si avvia al termine la pausa estiva che, come ogni anno, ha determinato la

sospensione dell’attività parlamentare. =
The summer break which, as every year, has brought about an adjournement
of parliamentary activity, is drawing to a close.

A mere copying of the Italian construction could distort the logic. English version
equate the theme with the subject; in the italian version, the verb is thematized.

CORPUS LINGUISTICS: tools and resources for linguistic investigation

Theory vs. methodology

Corpus linguistics re-unites the activities of data gathering and theorising

(“Qualitative change in our understanding of language” Halliday, 1993)

Corpus linguistics is the study of language based on examples of real life language
use (Mc Enery and Wilson, 1996)

Corpus = collection of texts

Corpus linguistics: Analysis and description of language use, as realized in text(s)
(Tognini-Bonelli 2001)

Text Corpus
Read whole Read fragmented
Read horizontally Read vertically
Read for content Read for formal patterning
Read as unique event Read for repeated event

(Tognini-Bonelli, 2001)

Why using corpus analysis in language pedagogy?

Learning a language can be greatly facilitated if one understands how language
works and operates in a given textual environment. Corpus analysis can highlight the
”real world” rhetorical needs of speakers/ authors of strategies adopted to achieve
them.

Corpus linguistics and the learner

Learner as a ”discoverer” (Johns 1991)
Learner as a “researcher doing something which is a unique and individual
contribution (…)” (Leech 1997)
Learner as a “traveller” (Bernardini 2004)

Translation corpora are corpora of text which stand in a translational relationship to

each other. Texts can be a translation of an absent original or one of them can be
the original and the other(s) translation(s). A translational corpus can be used to
shed light on the process of translation itself.
Comparable corpora: corpora whose components are chosen to be similar samples
of their respective languages in terms of external criteria such as spoken vs. written
language, register etc.

Parallel corpora: translation relationship - alignable

Free translation: translation relationship - not alignable
Comparable corpus: no translation - not alignable

Corpus linguistic and tools

Quantitative and qualitative analysis: software suh as Antconc and Paraconc

Word lister: a word lister basically allows you to perform some simple statistical
analyses on your corpus. For instance, it will calculate the total number of words in
your corpus, which is referred to as the total number of “tokens”. I twill also count
how many times each individual word form appears; each different word in your
corpus is known as a ”type”.
Concordancer: a concordancer allows the user to see all the occurrences of a
particular word in its immediate context.
_____________________________________________________________________

VARIETIES OF DISCOURSE

Rewriting science: reformulate scientific concepts through the recontextualization of

scientific lexis (focus on diversity concerning speakers’identity).

 TED Technology Entertainment Design (a website)

The corpus analysed: 215 talks concerning science (where a lot of specialized lexis
was expected) have been analysed in order to examinate the strategies used by
scientists/experts to explain scientific things on the web.

Talk as genre aims at: 1) popularize knowledge

2) entertain
 - different discourse domains
- different speakers
- interactional dimension
 recontextualize specialized knowledge.
Establish social practices which interconnect different genres and registers in
an intertextual potential (Pagano/De Oliveira, 2006).
Methodology and theoretical framework
- studies on popularization (Hamilton 1996, Hilgartner 1990, Hyland 2000,
2005, 2010)
- studies on popularization and ideologies (Shinn/Whitley 1985; Sarangi 1998,
2001)
Popularizing scientific knowledge
The first set of consequences or functions of popularization of scientific knowledge
have been widely recognized by scientists and others seeking funds and other
resources from lay agencies and groups. (Shinn/Whitley 1985).
The lexicon of special languages is their most obvious distinguishing characteristic
(Sager 1980)
A large number of specialized lexical items is used exclusively in specialized fields for
the sake of precision (Serianni 2003)
A low degree of technical sophistication and justification of arguments in the
popularization of scientific knowledge occurs when there is considerable cognitive
distance between scientists and their audience, and scientists have a high degree of
autonomy in setting and applying competence and significance standards. (Shinn/
Whitley 1985).
STANCE vs. ENGAGEMENT
Stance: attitudinal dimension
Engagement: alignment dimension (Hyland 2005)

PROXIMITY IN POPULAR SCIENCE

Proximity: writers/speakers’ control of rhetorical features toward issues in an
unfolding text.
Construction of both the writer/speaker and reader/audience as people with similar
understandings and goals. (Hyland 2010)
REMEDIATION/ RECONTEXTUALIZATION
- transformation of information
- construction of self-identity
- communicative resource (Sarangi 1998)
TED TALKS
Research questions:
1) What kinds of rhetorical strategies have been employed in order to
recontextualize scientific terminology? =
- providing illustrative meaning
- defining explicitly

2) To what extent do the popularization strategies contribute to the ”alignment”

between TED speakers and their audience?
= Further studies concerning the actual usefulness and ”perception” of
popularized scientific concepts by the audience are needed, BUT a strong
”alignment” dimension (personal pronouns, shared knowledge) probably
contributed to an effective communication.
Speakers’diversity: speakers as scientists/ popularizers/ promoters .

SOCIAL VARIATION
SOCIOLINGUISTICS: a term that refers to the study of the relationship between
language and society, and how language is used in multilingual speech communities.
What aspects of language are sociolinguists interested in? Sociolinguists are
interested in explaining why people speak differently in different social contexts and
the effect of social factors (such as social distance, social status, age, gender, class)
on language varieties (dialects, registers, genres, etc.), and they are concerned with
identifying the social functions of language and the way they are used to convey
social meanings.
What do sociolinguists mean by the term variety? A variety is a set of linguistic
forms used under specific social circumstances, with a distinctive social distribution.
 - formality increases between participants (speaker and hearer) when the
social distance is greater.
- informality (solidarity) increases when the social distance is little between
participants.
- Social status depends on a number of factors such as social rank, wealth, age,
gender and so on; therefore the person with the higher social status has the
choice of using formalityor informality/ solidarity when addressing other
persons of lower social status; but the person with the lower social status
uses only formality when addressing a person of higher social status.
- Age, sex and socio-economic class have repeatedly shown to be of importance
when it comes to explaining the way sounds, constructions and vocabulary
vary.
- Choice of occupation has less predictable influence, though in some contexts
(such as the world of law) it can be highly distinctive.
Social language variation provides an answer to the question “who are you?”, “what
are you in the eyes of the English-speaking society to which you belong?” Adopting
social roles (such as chairing a meeting, or speaking at a wedding) invariably involves
a choice of appropriate linguistic forms.
The presence of influential public institutions, such as the monarchy, the established
Church, the civil service, broadcasting, has inevitably given rise to a popular notion
of language authority, which can even become explicit through an official language
policy.
Attitudes to social variations vary widely: all countries display social stratification,
for example, some have more clearly-defined class boundaries than others, and thus
more identifiable features of class dialect.
Britain is usually said to be linguistically much more class conscious than other
countries where English is used as a first language. A particular set of historical
circumstances (such as a strong system of privileged education) may make one
country, or section of society, especially sensitive to a language variation.
In England, one accent has traditionally stood out above all in its ability to convey
associations of respectable social standing and a good education: this prestige
accenti s known as received pronounciation, or RP.
The ancestral form of RP was well-established over 400 years ago as the accent of
the court and the upper classes. The English courier George Puttenham, writing in
1589, thought that “The English of northern men, whether they be noblemen or
gentlemen, is not so courtly or so current as our Southern English is”.
Most people anxious for social advancement would move to London and adopt the
accent they found there - though there are famous exceptions, such as Walter
Raleigh, who held on to his Devonshire accent.
RP came to symbolize a person’s high position in society. During the 19° century, it
became the accent of the public schools, such as Eton and Harrow, and was soon
the main sign that a speaker had received a good education. It spread rapidly
throughout the Civil Service of the British Empire and the armed forces, and became
the voice of authority and power.
Because it was a regionally neutral accent, and was thought to be more widely
understood than any regional accent, it came to be adopted by the BBC when radio
broadcasting began in 1920s.
During World War II, it became linked in many minds with the voice of freedom and
the notion of a “BBC pronounciation” grew.
THE PRESENT DAY SITUATION
With the breakdown of rigid divisions between social classes and the development
of the mass media, RP is no longer the preserve of a social elite; it is best described
as an ”educated” accent – though ”accents” would be more precise, for there are
several varieties. The most widely used is that generally heard on the BBC; but there
are also conservative and trend-setting forms. The former is found in many older
establishment speakers; the latter are usually associated with certain social and
professional groups, in particular the voice of the London upwardly mobile (the
”Sloane Rangers” in the 1980s). Early BBC recordings show how much RP has altered
over just a few decades, and they make the point that no accent is immune to
change, not even ”the best”.
RP is no longer as widely used today as it was 50 years ago. It is still the standard
accent of the Royal Family, Parliament, the Church of England, the high Courts, and
other national institutional; but less than 3 per cent of the British people speak it in
a pure form now.
Most educated people have developed an accent which is a mixture of RP and
various regional characteristics, a ”modified RP”. In some cases, a former RP speaker
has been influenced by regional norms; in other cases a former regional speaker has
moved in the direction of RP.
The “Estuary English” of the 1990s was a major trend in this respect.
Regionally modified speech is no longer stigmatized, as it was in Victorian times; it
can be a plus feature, expressing such virtues such as solidarity and “down to
earthness”.
A pure RP accent, by contrast, can evoke hostility or suspicion, especially in those
parts of Britain which have their own educated regional norms, such as Scotland and
Wales. Nonetheless, RP retains considerable status. It has long been the chief accent
taught to foreigners who wish to learn a British model, and is thus widely used
abroad.

LANGUAGE CHOICE IN MULTILINGUAL COMMUNITIES

Domains
- domains of language use, a term popularised by an American sociolinguist,
Joshua Fishman
- A domain of language involves typical interactions between typical
participants in typical setting about a typical topic. Examples of these domains
are family, friendship, religion, education and employment.
Certain social factors (who you are talking to, the social context of talk, the function
and the topic of discussion) turn out to be important in accounting for language
choice in many different types of speech communities.
Joan Rubin in the 1960s identified complementary patterns of language use in
different domains. Urban bilingual Paraguayans selected different codes in different
situations, and their use of Spanish and Guarani fell into a pattern for different
domains.
Setting
The physical situation or the typical place where speech interactions occur (code
choice), settings such as home, church, mosque, school, office, etc.
- Within any domain, individual interactions may be not “typical” in the sense
in which “typical” is used in the domain concept: they may nevertheless be
perfectly normal, and occur regularly.
People may select a particular variety or code because it makes it easier to
discuss a particular topic, regardless of where they are speaking.
At home, people often discuss work or school, for instance, using the
language associated with those domains, rather than the language of the
family domain.
- The status relationship between people may be relevant in selecting the
appropriate code. Typical role relationships are teacher-pupil, doctor-patient,
soldier-civilian, official-citizen.
 - The same person may be spoken to or in a different code depending on
whether they are acting as a teacher, as a parent or a customer in the market
place.
- Formality may also be important in selecting an appropriate variety or code.
In church, at a formal ceremony, the appropriate variety will be different from
that used afterwards in the church porch.
- Another important factor is the function or goal of the interaction. What is
the language being used for? Is the speaker asking a favour or giving orders to
someone?
DIGLOSSIA
Communities in which to languages or language varieties are used, with one
being a high variety for formal situations and prestige, and the other a low
variety for informal situations (everyday conv.).
Diglossia has three crucial features:
- Two distinct varieties of the same language are used in the community, with
one regarded as high (H) variety and the other as low (L) variety.
- Each variety is used for quite distinct functions: H & L complement each other.
- No one used the H variety in everyday conversation.
- Examples: the standard classical Arabic language is the high variety in Arab
countries, and it is used for writing and for formal functions, but vernacular
(colloquial) Arabic is the low variety used for informal speech situations.
Haiti has been described as a diglossic situation by some linguists, with French
as H and haitian Creole as L.
- People generally admire the H even when they can’t understand it. Attitudes
to it are usually very respectful. It has prestige in the sense of high status.
These attitudes are reinforced by the fact that the H variety is the one which
is described an ”fixed” or ”standardized” in grammar books and dictionaries.
- In Haiti, although both French and the Creole were declared national
languages in 1983 constitution, many people still regard French, the H variety,
as the only real language of the country. They ignore the existence of Haitian
Creole, which in fact everyone uses at home and with friends for all their
everyday interactions.
POLYGLOSSIA
Basically, polyglossia situations involve two contrasting varieties (H and L), but in
general it refers to communities that regularly use more than two languages.
Both Mandarin and formal Singapore English can be considered high varieties
alongside different low varieties. Mandarin functions as an H variety, in relation to
at least two L varieties, Hokkien and cantonese; informal Singapore English is an L
variety alongside the mmore formal H variety.
CODE-SWITCHING
It is to move from one code (language, dialect, or style) to another during speech for
a number of reasons such to signal solidarity, to reflect one’s ethnical identity, to
show off, to hide some information from a third party, to achieve better explanation
of a certain concept, to converge or reduce social distance with the hearer, to
diverge or increase social distance, or to impress and persuade the audience
(metaphorical code-switching).
Another example of referentially oriented code-switch is when a speaker switches
code to quote a person. The switch involves just the words that the speaker is
claiming the quoted person said. So the switch acts like a set of quotation marks.
The speaker gives the impression – which may or may not be accurate – that these
are the exact words the speaker used.
LEXICAL BORROWING
It results from the lack of vocabulary and it involves borrowing single words (mainly
nouns). When speaking a second language, people will often use a term fro their
first language because they don’t know the appropriate word in their second
language. They also may borrow words from another language to express a concept
or describe an object for which there is no obvious word available in the language
they are using.
Code-switching vs. Lexical borrowing: the first involves a choice between the words
of two languages or varieties, but the second is resulted from the lack of vocabulary.

Language shift: it happens when the language of the wider society (majority)
displaces the minority mother tongue language over time in migrant communities or
in communities under military occupation. Therefore, when language shift occurs, it
shifts most of the time towards the language of the dominant group and the result
could be the eradication of the local language.
In countries like England, Australia, new Zealand and the USA, the school is one of
the first domains in which children of migrant families meet English. They may have
watched English tv programmes and heard English used in shops before starting
school, but at school they are expected to interact in English.
What factors lead to language shift?
Economic, social and political factor
- The dominant language is associated with social status and prestige
- Obtaining work is the obvious economic reason for learning another language
- The pressure of institutional domains such as schools and the media
Immigrants who look and sound different are often regarded as threatening by the
majority of group members. There is pressure to conform in all kinds of ways.
Language shift to English, for instance, has often been expected of migrants in
predominantly monolingual countries such as England, the USA, Australia and New
Zealand. Speaking good English has been regarded as a sign of successful
assimilation and it was widely assumed that meant abandoning the minority
language.
Language shift is not always the result of migration. Political, economic and social
changes can occur within a community and thus may result in linguistic changes,
too. As Iran struggles to achieve national unity, Farsi, the language of the largest and
most powerful group, the Persians, can be considered a threat to the language of
the minority ethnic groups.
The social and economic goals of individuals in a community are very important in
acclounting for the speed of shift. Rapid shift occurs when people are anxious to
“get on” in a society where knowledge of the second language is a prerequisite for
success.
Demographic factors
- Language shifti s faster in urban areas than rural
- The size of the group is sometimes a critical factor
- Intermarriage between groups can accelerate language shifts
Although some younger urban people now speak Maori as a second language, the
communities in New Zealand where Maorisurvives as a language of everyday
communication are relatively inaccessible rural areas, populated almost entirely by
Maori people.
Attitudes and values
- Language shift is slower among communities where the minority language is
highly valued, therefore when the language is seen as an important symbol of
ethnic identity it’s generally maintained longer, and viceversa.
 Language death and language loss
When all the people who speak a language die, the language dies with them. With
the spread of a majority group language into more and more domains, the number
of contexts in which individuals use the ethnic kanguage diminishes. The language
usually retreats till it is used only in the home, and finally it is restricted to such
personal activities as counting, praying and dreaming.
A community, such as the Turkish community in Britain, may shift to English
voluntarily over a couple of generations. This involves the loss of the language for
the individuals concerned and even for the community in Britain. But Turkish is not
under threat of disappearing because of this shift: it will continue to thrive in
Turkey.
How can a minority language be maintained?
1) A language can be maintained and preserved when it’s highly valued as an
important symbol of ethnic identity for the minority group.
2) If families from a minority group live near each other and see each other
frequently, their interactions will help to maintain the language.
3) For emigrate individuals from a minority group, the degree and frequency of
contact with the homeland can contribute to language maintenance.
4) Intermarriage within the same minority group is helpful to maintain the native
language
5) Ensuring that the minority group language is used at formal settings such as
schools or worship places will increase language maintenance.
6) An extended normal family in which parents, children and grandchildren live
together and use the same minority language can help to maintain it.
7) Institutional support from domains such as education, law, administration,
religion and the media can make a difference between the success and failure
of maintaining a minority group language.
LANGUAGE REVIVAL
Some times a community becomes aware that its language is in danger of
disappearing and takes steps to revitalise it. Ex.: in 1840, 2/3 of the Welsh people
spoke Welsh, but by 1980 only 20% of the population spoke Welsh. Therefore the
Welsh people began a revival process of Welsh language by using a Welsh-language
tv channel and bilingual edication programs that used Welsh as medium of
instruction at schools.
 LINGUISTIC VARIETIES AND MULTILINGUAL NATIONS
- Vernacular language: it generally refers to a language which has not been
standardised or codified and which doesn’t have official status (uncodified or
standardised variety). It generally refers to the most colloquial variety in a
person’s linguistic repertoire.
There are three components of the meaning of the term “vernacular”:
1) The most basic refers to the fact that a vernacular is an uncodified or
unstandardised variety
2) The second refers to the way it is acquired in the home, as a 1st variety
3) The third is the fact that it is used for relatively circumscribed functions
- In a multilingual community, this variety will often be an unstandardised
ethnic or tribal language.
- Standard language: a standard variety is generally one which is written and
which has undergone some degree of regulation or codification (in a grammar
and a dictionary).
The development of Standard English illustrates the 3 essential criteria which
characterise a standard; it emerged in the 15th as a delicate of the London
area and it was influential or prestigious variety (it was used by the merchants
of London, it was codified and stabilised – the introduction of the first printing
press by Caxton accelerated its codification), and it served H functions in that
it was used for communication at Court, for literature and for administration.
- World Englishes: world English languages are classified into inner circle
Englishes as in the UK, USA (English as a native or first language), outer circle
Englishes as in India, Malaysia, Tanzania (English as a second language with
official status) and expanding circle Englishes as China, Japan, Russia (English
as a foreign language).
- pidgin is a language which has no native speakers. Pidgin develop as a means
of communication between people who don’t have a common language.
- Creole: when a pidgin becomes the language of newly-born generation sas a
mother-tongue or first language, and acquires additional vocabulary and
grammatical structures to serve their various necessary communicative needs
(referential and social functions) it becomes a creole.

REGIONAL AND SOCIAL DIALECTS

Accent: accents are distinguished from each other by pronounciation.
The pronounciation of bath with the same vowel as in sat distinguishes a speaker
from the north of England from a southerner.
While many speakers of English use the same vowel in the three words bag, map
and bad, workers in Belfast pronounce them in ways that sound like [beg], [ma:rp],
and [bod] to English people.
Regional variation
To British ears, a New Zealander’s dad sounds like an English person’s dead, bad
sounds like bed and six sounds like sucks. Americans and Australians, as well as New
Zealanders, tell of British visitors who were given pens instead of pins and pans
instead of pens.
There are vocabulary differences in the varieties spoken in different regions too.
Australians talk of sole parents, for example, while people in England call them
single parents, and New Zealanders call them solo parents.
Pronounciation and vocabulary differences are probably the differences people are
most aware of, between different dialects of English, but there are grammatical
differences too.
Speakers of US English tend to prefer do you have, though this can now also be
heard in Britain alongside the traditional British English have you got.
Americans ask did you eat?, while the English ask have you eaten?
Examples of different regional dialects:
1) In BE: pavement, boot, bonnet, petrol, baggage; but in AmE: sidewalk, trunk,
hood, gas, luggage.
2) The word tog in English refers to clothes one wears in formal dinner, but in
New Zealand it refers to clothes one wears to swim in.

SOCIAL DIALECTS
The stereotypical ”dialect” speaker is an elderly rural person who is all but
unintelligible to modern city dwellers. But the term ”dialect” has a wider meaning
than its stereotype suggest. Dialects are linguistic varieties which are distinguishable
by their vocabulary, grammar and pronounciation.
Social dialects are a variety of language that reflects social variation in language use,
according to certain factors related to the social group of the speaker such as
education, occupation, income level (upper-class English, middle-class Eng., or
lower-class Eng.). For example, Standard English can be classified as a type of social
English spoken by the well-educated English speakers throughout the world; but
there are many standard Englishes.
US standard English is distinguishable from South African standard English and
Australian standard English and all the three differ from the British standard dialect.
In social terms, linguistic forms which are not part of standard English are by
definition non-standard. Because the standard dialect is always the first to be
codified, it is difficult to avoid defining other dialects without contrasting them with
the standard.
As non-standard forms are associated with the speech of less prestigious social
groups, the label acquires negative connotations; but there is nothing linguistically
inferior about non-standard forms. They are simply different from the forms which
have to be used by more socially prestigious speakers.

VERNACULAR DIALECT vs. STANDARD DIALECT

Vernacular forms tend to be learned at home and used in informal contexts.
Vernacular dialects, like vernacular languages, lack public or overt prestige, though
they are generally valued by their users.
Most linguistic variation will be found at the lowest socio-economic level where
regional differences are found. Further up the social ladder, the amount of
observable variation reduces till one reaches the pinnacle of RP (an accent used by
less than 5% of the British population).

SOCIAL CLASS DIALECTS

The term ”social class” is used for differences between people which are associated
with differences in social prestige, wealth and education. In most societies, bank
managers do not talk like office cleaners, and lawyers do not speak in the same way
as the burglars they defend.
People from different social classes speak differently: the most obvious differences
in vocabulary are in many ways the least illuminating from a sociolinguistic point of
view.
In the 1950s in England, many pairs of words were identified which, it was claimed,
distinguished the speech of upper-class English people (“U speakers”) from the rest
(“non-U speakers”). U speakers used sitting room rather than lounge (non-U), and
referred to the lavatory rather than the (non-U) toilet.
Is there a relationship between one’s language and one’s social identity?
The language one uses often reflects one’s social identity and education, for
example dropping the initial h in words like house can indicate a lower
socioeconomic background. On the other hand, pronouncing the letter r in the city
of New York is considered as a prestigious feature, but the opposite is true in
London.
Isogloss: term that refers to the boundary lines that mark the areas in which certain
dialect words are used.
Sharp stratification: it refers to the pattern that certain pronounciation features
such as h-dropping and grammatical features such as mutable negation divide
speaking communities sharply between the middle class and the lower class.
With the third person singular form of the present tense regular verb (e.g. standard
she walks vs. Vernacular she walk) there is a sharp distinction between the middle-
class groups and the lower-class groups. This is an example of sharp stratification.
People are often more aware of social stigma in relation to vernacular grammatical
forms, and this is reflected in the lower incidence of vernacular forms among
middle-class speakers in particular.
Examples of standard and vernacular grammatical forms
Past tense verb forms:
- I finished that book yesterday
- Finish that book yesterday
Present tense forms
- Rose walks to school every day
- Rose walk to school every day
Negative forms
- Nobody wants any chips
- Nobody don’t want no chips
Ain’t
- Jim isn’t stupid.
- Jim ain’t stupid.
Between the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603 and the later years of the
reign of Queen Elizabeth II, the number of speakers of English increased from a
mere five to seven million to possibly as many as two billion.
We can speak of two diasporas of English:
The first diaspora, initially involving the migration of around 25.000 people from the
south and east of England primarily to America and Australia, resulted in new
mother-tongue varieties of English. The English dialects which travelled with them
gradually developed into American and Antipodean English we know today. The
varieties of English spoken in modern North America and Australasia are not
identical with the English of their early colonisers, but have altered in response to
the changed and changing sociolinguistic contexts in which migrants found
themselves.
The second diaspora, involving the colonisation of Asia and Africa, led on the other
hand to the development of a number of second language varieties, often referred
to as ”New Englishes”.
The first diaspora
Migrations to North America, Australia, New Zealand. L1 varieties of English:
USA/Canada: from early 17° century (English), 18° century (North Irish) to USA
From 17° century, African slaves to South American states and
Caribbean Islands
From 1776 (American Independence) some British settlers to Canada
Australia: from 1770
New Zealand: from 1790s (official colony in 1840).

The second diaspora

Migrations to Africa and Asia: L2 varieties of English

South Africa: from 1795. Three groups of L2 English speakers (Afrikaans, Blacks, from
1860 Indians)
South Asia: India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, from 1600 (British
East India Company). 1765-1947 British sovereignty in India.
SE Asia and South Pacific: Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Philippines from late 18°
century (Raffles founded Singapore 1819)
Colonial Africa: Liberia, from late 15° cen. (but no major English emigrant
Settlements: pidgin/ creoles)
East Africa: Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, from c.1850.
The history of English in Colonial Africa has two distinct patterns depending on
whether we are talking about West or East Africa. English in West Africa is linked to
the slave trade and the development of pidgin and creole languages.

THE ORIGINS OF PIDGIN AND CREOLE LANGUAGES

Until very recently, pidgin and creoles were regarded, especially by non-linguists, as
inferior, “bad” languages. In the later years of the 20° century, linguists working in
the field of second language acquisition began to realise what could be discovered
about first and second language learning from the way pidgin and creoles
developed.
Moreover, linguists working in the field of sociolinguistics began to appreciate the
extent to which these languages reflect and promote the lifestyles of their speakers.

A pidgin is a language with no native speaker: it’s no one’s first language buti t is a
contract language. In contrast to a pidgin, a creole is often defined as a pidgin that
has become the first language of a new generation of speakers. A creole, therefore,
is a normal language in almost every sense. (Wardhaugh 2006)

THEORIES OF PIDGIN AND CREOLES ORIGIN

The independent parallel development theory

According to this theory, pidgin and creoles arose and developed in similar ways
because they shared a common European ancestor (European languages and Indo-
European origin).

The nautical jargon theory

This theory is based on the fact that European ships’ crews were composed of men
from a range of language background and therefore had to develop a common
language in order to communicate with each other. The sailors’ lingua franca was
then passed on to African and Asian peoples with whom they came into contact.

The theory of monogenesis and relexification

According to this theory, all European-based pidgin and creoles derive ultimately
from one proto-pidgin source, a Portuguese pidgin that was used in the world’s
trade routes during the 15th and 16th centuries. This pidgin is thought to have
derived, in turn, from an earlier lingua franca, Sabir, used by the Crusaders and
traders in the Mediterranean and in the Middle Ages. It was then relexified by
Portuguese in the 15th century.
The baby-talk theory
This theory is based on similarities found between the early speech of children and
the forms in certain pidgins, such as the large proportion of content words, the lack
of morphological change, and the approximation of the standard pronounciation. It
was also suggested that speakers of the dominant language, in using what is known
as foreigner talk with L2 speakers, themselves promoted the use of this type of
speech among the latter.

A synthesis

The baby-talk theory within a proposal of synthesis (Todd 1990)

Instead of searching for a common origin in the past, we should approach the
concept of common origin from a different perspective altoghether: by speaking
universal patterns of linguistic behaviour in contact situations.

Pidgin and creoles are alike because languages and simplification processes are
alike. For example, speakers from different L1s simplify their language in very similar
ways, be they children learning their L1, adults learning an L2, or even proficient
speakers employing ellipsis.
All these speakers appear to have an innate ability to simplify by means of
redundancy reduction when communication of the message is more critical than the
quality of the language used. This suggests to Todd that there are universal
constraints on language.

Who speaks English today? Three different groups of users speaking English as
- a native language: ENL
- a second language: ESL
- a foreign language: EFL

English as a native language (ENL) or English as a mother-tongue is the language of

those raised in one of the countries where English is historically the first language to
be spoken.
Kachru (1992) refers to these countries (mainly the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and
New Zealand) as “the traditional cultural and linguistic bases of English”.

English as a second language refers to the language spoken in a large number of

territories such as India, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Singapore, which were colonised
by the English. These speakers are also thought to number around 350 million.

English as a foreign language is the English of those for whom the language serves
no purposes within their own countries. Historically, they learned the language in
order to use it with its native speakers in US and UK (though this is no longer the
case).
The current number of EFL speakers is more difficult to assess, and much depends
on the level of competence which is used to define such a speaker. If we use the
criterion of “reasonable competence”, the number is likely to be around 1 billion.

MODELS AND DESCRIPTIONS OF THE SPREAD OF ENGLISH

The oldest model of the spread of English is that of Strevens. His world map of
English first published in 1980 shows a map of the world on which is super-imposed
an upside-down tree diagram demonstrating the way in which, since American
English became a separate variety from British English, all subsequent Englishes
have had affinities with either one or the other.
Later, in the 1980s, Kachru, McArthur and Gorlach all proposed circlle models of
English: Kachru’s ”Three circle model of World Englishes” (1985-1988), McArthur’s
”Circle of World English” (1987) and Gorlach’s ”Circle model of English” (1988).

Kachru McArthur

ENGLISH AS LINGUA FRANCA (ELF)

In the postcolonial period, English has spread beyond its use as a second or
additional language in the countries of the Outer Circle, to be adopted as an
international lingua franca by many countries in the Expanding Circle for whom it
performs no official internal functions.
The present-day international status of English is the result of two factors:
• Its colonial past
• The economic power of the US

The present-day world status of English is primarily the result of two factors: the
expansion of British colonial power, which peaked towards the end of the 19°
century, and the emergence of the United States as the leading economic power of
the 20° century. It is the latter factor which continues to explain the position of the
English language today» (Crystal 2003:106)

HISTORICAL REASONS
Because of the legacy of British to American imperialism, the country's main
institutions may carry out their proceedings in English. These include the governing
body (e.g. parliament), government agencies, the civil service (at least at senior
levels), the law courts, national religious bodies, the schools and higher educational
institutions, along with their related publications (textbooks, proceedings, records,
etc..)

INTERNAL POLITICAL REASONS

English may have a role in providing a neutral means of communication between its
different ethnic groups as it does, for example, in India. A distinctive local variety of
English may also become a symbol of national unity or emerging nationhood. The
use of English in newspapers, on radio or on televisions adds a further dimension.

EXTERNAL ECONOMIC REASONS

The USA's dominant economic position acts as a magnet for international business
and trade, and organisations wishing to develop international markets are thus
under considerable pressure to work with English.
The tourist and advertising industries are particularly English-dependent, but any
multinational business will wish to establish offices in the major English-speaking
countries.
PRACTICAL REASONS
English is the language of international air traffic control, and is currently developing
its role in international maritime, policing, and emergency services. It is the chief
language of international business and academic conferences, and the leading
language of international tourism.

INTELLECTUAL REASONS
Most of scientific, technological, and academic information in the world is expressed
in English, and over 80 per cent of all the information stored in electronic retrieval
systems is in English. Closely related to this concern to have access to the
philosophical, cultural, religious and literary history of Western Europe, either
directly or through the medium of an English translation.

ENTERTAINMENT REASONS
English is the main language of popular music (particularly hip pop), and permeats
popular culture and its associated advertising. It is also the main language of
satellite broadcasting, home computers, and video games, as well as of such
international illegal activities as pornography and drugs.

SOME WRONG REASONS

"Inherently a more logical or beautiful language than others, easier to pronounce,
simpler in grammatical structure, or larger in vocabulary"

This kind of reasoning is the consequence of naive linguistic thinking, and it is

impossible to compare languages objectively in such ways. English, for example, may
have few inflectional endings, but also very complex syntax, and this has not
prevented it from being learned and used around the world.

What exactly is ELF?

It is English as it is used as a contact language among speakers from different first
languages:

1) It is used in contexts in which speakers with different L1s (most, but not
exclusively, from the Expanding Circle) need it as their means to communicate with
each other.
In the past, some ELF researcher used the term "English as an international
language" (EIL) to refer to communication that included native speakers of English,
and reserved ELF exclusively for non-native communication.
ELF researchers do not exclude Inner or Outer Circle speakers form their definition
of ELF, and researchers who still use the term EIL use it interchangeably with ELF.

2) ELF is an alternative to EFL rather than a replacement for it, and depends on the
speaker's (or learner's) potential needs and preferences.
A common myth about ELF is that it is promoted to replace EFL as a learning target.
This is not so. There will always be learners and users of English who need to blend
in with native English speakers, or who wish to acquire a native English accent.
EFL ELF
Part of modern foreign languages Part of World Englishes
Deficit perspective Difference perspective
Metaphors of transfer/interference/fossilisation Metaphors of contact/evolution

Code-mixing and switching are seen as interference Code mixing and switching are seen as bilingual
errors resources
3) Linguistically ELF involves innovations that differ form ENL and which, in some
cases, are shared by most ELF speakers.
ELF speakers use features that are particular to their own ELF variety, and / or to the
English of the broader regional area from which they come.

4) Pragmatically, it involves the use of certain communication strategies, particularly

accomodation and code-switching. This is because ELF forms depend crucially on the
specific communication context rather than being an "all- purpose" English.
ELF depends, like any natural language use, on who is speaking with whom, where,
about what, and so on.

5) Descriptions of ELF that may lead to codification are drawn from communication
involving proficient ELF speakers.

ELF features

Lexicogrammatical features:
- dropping the third person present tense -s
- confusing the relative pronouns who and which
- omitting definite and indefinite articles where they are obligatory in ENL, and
inserting them where they do not occur in ENL
- failing to use correct forms in tag questions, e.g. Isn't it? Or no? instead of
shouldnt'they?
- Inserting redundant prepositions, as in “We have to study about...”
- Overusing certain verbs of high semantic generality such as 'do', 'have',
'make', 'put', 'take'
- Replacing infinitive constructions with that-clauses as in ”I want that... ”
- Overdoing explicitness, e.g. 'black colour' rather than just 'black'

Pronunciation features
- All the consonants sound except voiceless 'th' /θ/, voiced 'th' etc..
- Vowel lenght contrasts (e.g. the difference between the vowel sounds in
"pitch" and "peach")
- Avoidance of consonant deletion at the beginnings of words and only certain
deletions intelligible in word-medial and final position (e.g. "factsheet" as
"facsheet")
- Production and placement of tonic stress
 ELF PROCESSES
ELF has some features in common with changes that have occurred - and are still
occurring - in ENL.
English, like any living language, evolved over time through natural processes such
as regulation. For example, the six Old English present tense verb endings from the
eight century have, over the years, been reduced to two endings, -s on the third
person singular and zero marking on the others.

Attitudes towards ELF

Some sociolinguists refers to ELF forms as "broken, deficient forms of English"
adding that "there is no danger of such deviant uses 'polluting' the standards of
native speakers".
ACTIVITY
Once ELF has been objectively described and once the previously assumed target of
native speaker proficiency is set aside as unrealistic and unnecessary, then new and
less inequitable conceptions of global English and its learning and teaching become
possible'. Do you agree or disagree? Why?
If ELF does become accepted and widespread in intercultural communication, do
you predict problems for native English speakers?

POLITICAL DISCOURSE: INVESTIGATING “WAR ON TERROR”

Aims
- Investigation of Bush’s radio speeches on terrorism in 2005
- CDA (Critical Discourse Analysis): semantic and pragmatic values of “war on
terror” discourse

CDA & discourse

“Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a type of discourse analytical research that
primarily studies the way social power abuse, dominance and inequality are
enacted, reproduced and resisred by text and talk in the social and political context”
(Van Dijk, 2008)

Focus on social problems, political issues and the way discourse structures enact,
legitimate, reproduce or confirm relations of power and dominance in society 
power intended as control
“…virtually all levels and structures of context, text and talk can in principle be more
or less controlled by powerful speakers, and such power may be abused at the
expense of other participants” (Weiss 2003, Fairclough 1989/2003)
 Discourse and social structures
Language is a part of society, as it can be considered a socially conditioned process,
“conditioned that is by other (non-lingiustic) parts of society” (Fairclough)

Foucault  analysis of discourse: discourse as the general domain of all statements,

sometimes as an individualizable group of statements, and sometimes as a
regulated practice that account for a number of statements.

Discourse analysis: analysing “statements”, that is, texts or utterances intended as

constituent elements of texts.
”A dialectical relationship between a particular discursive event and the situation(s),
institution(s) and social structure(s) which frame it” (Weiss, Wodak, 2003)

Fairclough’s three dimensions of discourse:

1) texts: formal properties of the text
2) interactions: relationship between text and interaction
3) contexts: explaining this relationship (interaction and social context)

The formal features we find in a specific text can be regarded ”as particular choices
from among the options (e.g. vocabulary or grammar) available in the discourse
types which the text draws upon”

The political discourse, and more particularly, persuasion, implies specific strategies
aimed at the construction of two opposed spaces (“an internal space or space of
confidence as opposed to an external space or space of fear. This means
metaphorically positioning fear and confidence outside and inside the country for
persuasive purposes”). Thus, ”strategy of fear” is built through texturing contrastive
textual elements revealing the dialectic dualism implied in the war.

CDA (Critical discourse analysis), DS (Discourse Studies), CDS (Critical Discourse

Studies)
Critical Discourse Studies approach does not imply a method of analysis. It “uses any
method that is relevant to the aims of its research projects and such methods are
largely those used in discourse studies generally”.
Both in DS and CDS some common disciplinary fields are taken into consideration,
such as pragmatic analysis of speech acts and communicative acts, rhetorical
analysis, the analysis of specific structures, stylistics, multimodality.

Where does the word “critical” derive from?

“CDS is specifically interested in the critical study of social issues, problems, social
inequality, domination and related phenomena, in general, and the role of
discourse, language use or communication in such phenomena, in particular” (Van
Dijk)

Semantics and pragmatics in CDA-interdisciplinary

Interdisciplinarity is one of the fundamental conditions of discourse-analytical
research. Semantics and pragmatics are two crucial disciplines in CDA.

“The knowledge component of context models thus operate sas a selection device in
the production of semantic meaning of discourse on the basis of mental models of
event” (Van Dijk, 2003)

Pragmatic dimension is involved in knowledge, too. Particularly, it is related to the

features of the immediate context (speakers, hearers, settings, …)

Corpus: six scripts of the President’s radio addresses on War on terror and
Homeland Security (2005). Radio addresses with a standardized structure (“good
morning formula” and a thanking ohrase at their end).

Semantic dimension in lexis

“This question focuses on how a text’s choice of wordings depends on, and helps
create social relationships between participants” (Fairclough 1989).

Two main opposing factions are involved in war on terror: terrorists and American
troops. Terrorists are considered as current threats to the entire nation and
personal freedom; ideological dualism where good fights against evil.
Military troops: adjectives and phrases with a very positive connotation (“our”,
closeness of the President to the whole nation); gratefulness to the American
troops.

The use of opposing categories is coherent with logic categories implicit in a political
discourse, logic of “difference” which creates differences, and logic of “equivalence”
which, conversely, subverts division (Laclau 1985)

General characterization of social processes of classification: people in all social

practices are continuously dividing and combining, producing (also reproducing) and
subverting divisions and differences (Fairclough 2003)

The existence of two opposing factions in war on terrorism reinforced by the

employment of some phrases designating effective military actions (We have
brought to justice dozens of terrorists…We will continue to take the fight to the
enemy…)

Semantic relations from a morphosyntactic perspective

Legitimation
”People are constantly concerned in social life, and in what theu say or write, with
claiming or questioning the legitimacy of actions which are taken, procedures which
exist in organization, and so forth. This means that textual analysis is a significant
resource for researching legitimation” (Fairclough 2003)

Every authority tries to establish and cultivate the belief in its legitimation (Weber,
1964)

ASIAN ENGLISHES IN THE OUTER AND EXPANDING CIRCLES

English use in three Asian settings: India, Hong Kong and China.
There are important differences both in the ways in which English functions in each
context and in the attitudes of their users toward their own English.

INDIAN ENGLISH
India has approximately 200 million L2 and 350.000 L1 English speakers; India has
one of the two highest populations of English speakers.
The earliest English language policy for India was enshrined in Macaulay’s famous
Minute of 1835:
We must do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the
millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English
in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine
the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science
borrowed from Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles
for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population.

- It became the British government+s official language policy in India, giving the
English language priority in Indian administration, education and society.
- English-medium universities and schools and an English press were
established in India, and contributed to the gradual encroachment of English
on Indian languages and its role as the official language and primary lingua
franca of the country.
- The 1950 Constitution of India, in an attempt to acknowledge the strenght of
nationalist feeling, declared Hindi the official national language, but allowed
 English to continue to be used for official purposes for a further fifteen years,
after which it was gradually yo be replaced by Hindi.
- Anti-Hindi feeling in Southern India = in 1967 the Official Languages
(Amendment) Act provided that English would be the ”associate” official
language and could continue to be used alongside Hindi in all official matters
at the national level. The Constitution also recognised 18 regional languages
as having the right to function as the official languages of individual states.

Contradiction between government policy and language use: English continues to be

used as the primary official national language and is also the official language of
many of the states in the south and north-east.
In the post-independence period there has been a growth in the use of English in
the country.
Nowadays, English is primarily used for communication among Indians rather than
with native speakers of English. It is perceived as a neutral language of wider
communication. English is useful both within India and internationally.
In adapting to local cultural norms, Indian English has developed its own
characteristics through the interaction of Indian languages and social behaviours
with those of English.
The Indianisation of English involves on the one hand adaptations of existing
features of British English, and on the other the use of transferred mother-tongue
items where British English lacks the scope to express a particular concept.
Indian English also makes use of code-switching and code-mixing (A.Good morning.
B.Good morning. A. Kya haal hen? –how are you?-).
Growing acceptance of English as an Indian language is not universal and is still the
subject of considerable debate.

HONG KONG ENGLISH

Hong Kong has a population of over seven million, of whom almost two-and-a-half
million speak English (Crystal, 2003).

Hong Kong was a British colony fro 1842 and for the first hundred years of colonial
rule, the British and Chinese communities led separate lives as a result of language
barriers, racial prejudice and cultural differences. For business purposes
communication was for the most part conducted in pidgin English.
English is now spoken in Hong Kong by over seven million people, of whom almost a
third are L2 speakers, but it is not the variety to which many L2 Hong Kong English
speakers aspire. They remain attached to British norms of correctness and, despite
the fact that Hong Kong is often categorised as an Outer Circle English, some see it
as belonging in the Expanding Circle.
Unlike Indian English, there are few reference works such as dictionaries and
grammars that acknowledge the existence of a legitimate Hong Kong English.

Among the non-Chinese minorities of Hong Kong there is much greater linguistic and
ethnic diversity than has previously been recognised. (Bolton 2003)

CHINA ENGLISH
There has been a dramatic and rapid spread of English throughout China in the last
forty years or so. (Bolton 2003)
There are now in excess of 200 million English speakers in China, and the number is
rising fast with around 50 million secundary school children learning the language.

What extent can we yet call China English as a variety?

Kirkpatrick and Xu (2002) present evidence of the existence of certain discourse and
rhetorical norms derived from Chinese in the English of speakers of L1 Chinese
languages.

The most salient and widespread features of China English pronounciation appear to
be: replacement of /θ/ with [s], insertion of a final [ə], avoidance of weak forms for
function words and stressing of final pronouns (Deterding et al. 2006)

Recent studies show that Chinese English speakers are already moving towards
accepting China English as a variety:
As an ever-expanding number of speakers of English in China become proficient in
the language, it is likely that distinctive styles of Chinese English will continue to
emerge, and one day a new variety may become established with its own indeoedent
identity (Deterding et al. 2006)

Activity: what do you predict will happen to China English over the next ten years?

AFRICAN-AMERICAN ENGLISH
Racconto (2010)
The uniqueness of African American English is noticeable in the areas of grammar
and especially vocabulary.
African American English frequently uses multiple negation: in the same sentence
one can find two or more negative morphemes, and the negative meaning is
maintained anyway.
There are four main patterns describing the use of multiple negation which are
common to different varieties of English.
In the first pattern (vernacular varieties) the negation is attached to the auxiliary
and the indefinite: the man wasn’t saying nothing (Wolfram and Schilling-Estes
1998)

In the second pattern (a few Northern and most Southern varieties) the indefinite
simply precedes the verb: nobody didn’t like the mess.

In the third pattern (Southern varieties) the negative auxiliary verb is placed at the
beginning of the sentence and the indefinite precedes the verb: can’t nothing stop
him from failing the course (Wolfram and Schilling-Estes 1998)

The fourth pattern, where multiple negative elements can be found across different
clauses, concerns almost exclusively African American English: there wasn’t much
that I couldn’t do.

Other features of African American English:

- elision of copula: the contracted forms of the verb to be are not used in
African American English. Absence of copula occurs quite often in the
following contexts: before adjectives /nominals / adverbs / prepositional
phrases, and after “empty” there and it.
Examples from Public Enemy (1991) edited by Alberto Campo: Who you? – So
I care where you at black – I think ya dizzy – I think ya hungry.
(ya = you are?)
- subject-verb agreement: variation concerning the agreement between
subject and verb follows several patterns, most of which are not exclusively
African American English. African America speakers often omit the –s suffix of
the third person singular of verbs in the present tense, therefore one
frequently encounters he do or he go instead of Standard American English he
does and he goes. She don’t want, You think it mean funky
The –s suffix can be used with the third person plural subjects: The people in
the black let you know; the people in the crowd makes the best rock well.
- invariant be: invariant be represents a feature which is unique to African
American English. It is used to indicate actions which are repeated over time,
or habitual behaviour. In such a context be is invariant, so it is not declined.
- auxiliary deletion: Standard American English auxiliaries have, be, will, would,
can be contracted depending on the linguistic environment, but with speakers
of African American English the contractions are deleted, especially with the
auxiliary have: And never got caught; you just got caught a.
- fronting: frequency of cases of fronting is not due to reasons of rhythm, but
instead to emphasis. Both King and X they got ridda both.
 - lexical choices: though the vocabulary of African American English has mainly
received contributions from the communities belonging to the African
american family, it is also spreading among White speakers.
- The importance of lexicon for African Americans dates back to old African oral
traditions which would identify in the concept of Nommo, that is to say the
word, the force of life itself. Speech is therefore extremely important because
giving a name to something is just as giving it life.
- ethnically loaded terms: some terms are used as pejoratives for the Whites,
some others ethnically loaded for the Blacks.
- semantic inversion and neutralisation: semantic inversion refers to a
modification in the meaning of words which begins to indicate the opposite of
what they would in Standard American English. One of the most frequent
examples is the use of the adjective fat, which generally has a negative
connotation, as a positive attribute. In African American English, fat refers to
a person or thing which is desiderable or excellent, because body weight is
perceived as something positive, reassuring and beautiful.

IRISH ENGLISH and DUBLIN ENGLISH (Binelli 2010)

Old English was introduced together with Norman French towards the late 12th
century, with the arrival of the multilingual anglo-Normans.
French was rapidly declined and soon followed by English  the local vernacular
was mantained by the natives, but it actually began to be used also by the Norman
tenants  as a result, measures such as the Statutes of Kilkenny (1366) and the
Ordinances for the Government in Ireland (1534) were repeatedly designed to
extirpate the Irish language at the advantage of English.
But despite such attempts, Old English was almost totally supplanted during the
14th and 15th century. The descendants of the Norman settlers mingled with the
natives and assimilated local customs and attitudes to the extent of becoming more
irish than the Irish themselves.

Among linguists, it is generally agreed that a turning point occurred between the
latter half of the 16th century (when Queen Mary and Elizabeth I renewed a
vigorous settlement policy, particularly in the Irish countryside) and the 17th, when
such a policy was implemented by the Stuart sovereigns and Oliver Cromwell’s
protectorate, especially in the northern parts of the island.
”New English” was thus superimposed in the populations who needed this very
medium to deal with local administrations and courts of law.

Contemporary studies on Irish English are a very dynamic field.

During the last five decades, the lexicographical interest of 18th and 19th century
researchers and compilers of glossaries has been gradually replaced by in-depth
explorations of specific phonetic, syntactical and morphological features of the Irish
variety of English. In these works, sociolinguistic features are relevant and the
historical standpoint continues to be crucial.

DUBLIN ENGLISH
Dublin non-vernacular speech has possibly become a sort of supraregional quasi-
standard variety since the late 19th, early 20th century, but the varieties of
vernacular English actually spoken outside Dublin do not seem to be significantly
influenced by local features from the capital.
A classification of DE would lead to the distinction between a Northern and a
Southern speech thus overlapping a familiar geographical separation (North and
South Dublin as divided by the river Liffey) which is also consistent with an
acknowledged bisection of Dubliners according to their economic and social level.
Thus, the speech of upper-class South Dubliners (sometimes satirically referred to as
“Dortspeak” in order to tease its posh accent) would be antithetical to the speech of
working-class North-Dubliners.
This is only a rough mystification which gives a very partial and distorted picture of
the complexity of the linguistic stratification in Dublin.

Hyckey (2005) calls for distinctions of different nature and ends up classifying two
varieties: local vernacular (spoken by “those who show strongest identification with
traditional conservative Dublin life, of which the accenti s very much a part”) and
non-local vernacular “which refers to sections of the metropolitan population who
do not wish a narrow restrictive identification with Dublin popular culture”.