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There has long been a widespread belief that academic writing has to maintain a high degree of formality and impersonality. Despite this, it has been observed that there is a general tendency to use informal style in academic writing by writers from different disciplines. This informality manifests itself in the use of various linguistic devices that were previously observed only in spoken discourse or in informal communication. The aim of the study is to identify common informal features in English academic writing used by Arabic and British scholars and compare the level of informality used in English academic writing by representatives of the two lingua-cultures. The study adopts the corpus linguistics method. The one-million-word Arab Scholar Written English Corpus (ASAWEC) was compiled and analysed for informality features. The results were then compared to the British Academic Written English (BAWE) corpus. We focused on the use of informal features, such as broad references, initial conjunctions, first-person singular, second person pronouns, final preposition, listing expressions, split infinitive, and contractions. The results revealed a significant difference in the use of informality features in favour of the native speakers. The findings showed that Arabic scholars tend to use broad references and initial conjunctions, however, they rarely use contractions and split infinitives. Contrary to this, British scholars used the whole spectrum of informality features. The findings can provide insightful implications for researchers, journal editors and peer reviewers to account for informality levels in academic writing in different linguacultures. They may also be used in teaching English academic writing.

This article deals with regional variation of the English language in terms of aerospace vocabulary. Space-related activities have grown significantly over the past several years. Commercialization of space activities in the space domain has also increased, as well as the development of innovative space technologies. Communication in the aerospace domain involves professionals from many countries the English language being used as the first, second or foreign language. In this regard, regional variation study of English aerospace vocabulary is relevant. The purpose of the study is to examine variations of aerospace vocabulary including technical and industry-specific terminology in British English and American English from the perspective of orthography, pronunciation, grammar and semantics. To carry out the research project the author used definitional, structural, statistical and semiotic methods. The semiotic approach used by the author is based on description and comparison of regionally-marked and regionally-neutral lexical items. The material assembled and studied for the purpose of the present paper includes representative fragments from the authoritative unilingual aviation dictionary. Definitional, comparative, statistical and semiotic methods allowed to conclude that aerospace vocabulary is largely regionally-neutral. Regionally-marked units were identified in orthography, pronunciation, grammar and semantics with regional differences in pronunciation taking the lead. The identified differences perform a semiotic function, as they indicate the regional affiliation (or regional preference) of the speaker and/or writer.

The current article explores the nuanced distinctions between British and American English, particularly focusing on their systematic peculiarities as observed in online newspapers. It discusses how the evolution of newspapers has significantly influenced their style and language over time. Orthographic, lexical, and grammatical variations are well-known features of both British and American English. This article highlights the primary systematic differences between the two. While historically there has been a clear demarcation between British and American English, recent research suggests that this boundary is becoming increasingly blurred. Many prominent American newspapers are now adopting orthographic, lexical, and grammatical conventions traditionally associated with British English. Similarly, renowned British newspapers are showing a tendency to embrace simplified spelling and vocabulary more typical of American English. This mutual influence indicates that neither variety is entirely isolated or static; rather, there is a noticeable convergence between them, which is becoming more apparent over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the loss of regional distinctiveness across the southeastern UK is well studied and largely undisputed, there is less consensus about class-based divisions. This paper investigates this question through an updated analysis of the variety emblematic of Britain's upper class: Received Pronunciation (RP). While previous studies have suggested levelling in RP to a broader standard southeastern norm, our findings indicate that the most recent advances in the variety show it (re)differentiating itself from other varieties in the region. Investigating both individual vowel movements and broader system-wide properties, we argue that the changes observed in RP today result from speakers adopting a particular articulatory setting (lax voice), which has subsequent ramifications on vowel realizations. We suggest that speakers make strategic use of this articulatory setting as a way of embodying an elite persona in the British context, an interpretation that resonates with the social distributions of similar changes in other varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Construction Grammar is an emerging theory of language, but the analysis of sociolinguistic variation is still relatively underdeveloped in the framework. In this article, we consider the representation of social meaning in Construction Grammar through a corpus-based analysis of double modals in British English on social media. We describe the use of double modals in a large corpus of geolocated Twitter posts, including presenting an inventory of observed double modals and maps showing the regional distribution of each of these forms. We find that double modals show a general northern pattern and are concentrated in the Scottish Borders. We also find various rare double modals that occur more widely across the UK. To account for these results, we propose a Construction Grammar account of double modals. We argue that defining double modals as grammatical constructions requires that aspects of their social meaning be delimited, especially register and region. Furthermore, we argue that double modals may be enregistered as dialect constructions, distinguished from standard constructions of British English. We conclude by considering the importance of incorporating social meaning into Construction Grammar, underlining the value of a Cognitive Sociolinguistic approach to grammatical theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Южноафриканский вариант английского языка индийцев был образован в процессе сложной адаптации автохтонных индийских языков и культур и британского английского языка в условиях южноафриканского мультикультурализма. Аккомодация южноафриканского варианта английского языка индийцев в условиях мультилингвизма привела к появлению многочисленных трансформационных процессов, в том числе и на морфологическом уровне. Доказано, что морфологические трансформации касаются как самостоятельных, так и служебных частей речи. Установлено, что к наиболее продуктивным морфологическим трансформационным процессам относятся: употребление абстрактных имен существительных в форме множественного числа; симплификация временных форм глагола; несоблюдение норм при употреблении местоимений; употребление степеней сравнения наречия по форме односложного прилагательного; опущение артиклей и несоблюдение норм при использовании предлогов в составе фразовых глаголов. Причинами морфологических трансформационных процессов в южноафриканском варианте английского языка индийцев являются интерференция и недостаточный уровень образования индийцев, проживающих в ЮАР.

Copyright of Arab Journal for Scientific Publishing is the property of Research & Development of Human Recourses Center (REMAH) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

В статье рассматривается специфика синтаксического строя нигерийского варианта английского языка на примере нигерийских онлайн текстов. Доказано, что онлайн тексты нигерийских СМИ обладают рядом уникальных свойств по сравнению с онлайн текстам британских СМИ. Выявлено, что для нигерийских онлайн газет характерен ограниченный набор рубрик и отклонение от нормы, британского английского языка, на синтаксическом уровне. Синтаксические изменения касаются инверсированного порядка слов и типичны для отрицательных и побудительных предложений. Инверсия в отрицательных предложениях проявляется в виде начальной позиции отрицательных частиц и вспомогательных глаголов в отрицательной форме. Для онлайн текстов нигерийских газет типичны случаи двойного отрицания при инверсированном порядке слов в предложении. Инверсия встречается и в побудительных предложениях, как в положительной, так и в отрицательной формах. Инверсия отрицательных и побудительных предложений в онлайн текстах нигерийских СМИ объясняется влиянием коренных языков, для которых типичен нефиксированный порядок слов в предложении, а также желанием автора публикации при помощи изменения порядка слов воздействую на читателя.

В статье рассматривается специфика нигерийского варианта английского языка на примере нигерийских онлайн газет. Установлено, что английский язык, функционируя в текстах СМИ Нигерии, подвержен значительным изменениям на уровне синтаксиса по сравнению с британским английским языков. Выявлено, что инверсированный порядок слов касается повествовательных и вопросительных предложений, функционирующих в нигерийских онлайн газетах. В повествовательных предложениях инверсии подвергается позиция подлежащего, выраженного местоимением или существительным, и позиция сказуемого. Инверсированный порядок слов характерен для всех типов вопросительного предложения и касается общего, альтернативного, разделительного и специального вопросов. Инверсированный порядок слов в повествовательных и вопросительных предложениях в текстах нигерийских онлайн газет продиктован строем коренных языков.

English possesses different varieties in all the circles mentioned by Kachru (1985). However, two of them, American English and British English are considered the major reference accents. As observed, students prefer to use American English while teachers prefer British English although this proposition has not been confirmed by prior research. Therefore, the present study endeavored to understand Kurdish university students’ and teachers’ preferences and attitudes toward the two major accents of English that are situated within the Inner Circle of Kachru’s model through a self-reported questionnaire adapted from previous studies. More importantly, the study tackled the factors that influenced their attitudes toward either of the aforementioned accents through a second self-reported questionnaire inquiring about the reasons why they preferred one accent over the other. The sample included 87 students and 49 teachers from different universities in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region. The study used percentages, means, and t-tests to analyze the data. Unexpectedly, the data analysis revealed similar attitudes of Kurdish university students toward American English and British English. Nevertheless, the majority of Kurdish university instructors held more positive attitudes toward British English. As for the reasons, although their responses were various, the study listed the order of some factors that influenced their choice of accent.

Статья посвящена вопросу формирования территориального варианта английского языка Нигерии и факторов, влияющих на языковую и культурную составляющую данной страны в разные исторические периоды. В своей работе автор выделяет период Британской экспансии, как ключевого момента в становлении современного нигерийского варианта английского языка и креольского языка, а также варианта, который именуют в лингвистике, как пиджин английский, который развился посредством смешения английского языка и местных языков племен, проживающих на территории Нигерии, а именно йоруба, игбо, хауса, бини, фульбе, и другие. Однако конкретные границы между нигерийским вариантом английского языка и нигерийским пиджин-английским достаточно сложно обозначить, в связи с этим при проводимом сравнительно-сопоставительном анализе в данной работе используется текст электронных средств массовой информации (СМИ) нигерийского и британского издательств, как одного из важной составляющей сохранности языка и возможности проведения контекстуального анализа.

Some English verbs use distinct forms for the preterite (i.e., simple past; e.g., I broke the door) and the past participle (e.g., I've broken the door). These verbs may variably show use of the preterite form in place of the participle (e.g., I've broke the door), which the authors call participle leveling. This article contributes the first detailed variationist study of participle leveling by investigating the phenomenon in perfect constructions using data collected from three corpora of conversational speech: two of American English and one of British English. A striking degree of similarity is found between the three corpora in both the linguistic and the extralinguistic constraints on variation. Constraints on participle leveling include tense of the perfect construction, verb frequency, and phonological similarity between preterite and participle forms. The variable is stable in real time and socially stratified. The article relates the findings to theoretical linguistic treatments of the variation and to questions of its origin and spread in Englishes transatlantically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Lexikos is the property of Bureau of the Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses the effectiveness of academic tutoring in improving English pronunciation skills. The author describes the case of an English philology student who, despite completing a phonetics course, faced difficulties in the correct articulation of English sounds. Over two semesters, the student participated in individual sessions with the author, focusing on practical exercises such as shadowing and recording his own pronunciation. The case of the student illustrates that tutoring can be an effective tool in developing pronunciation skills and enriching language competencies at the academic level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

В статье рассматриваются особенности фразеологического фонда такого варианта как нигерийский вариант английского языка, образованного в процессе контактного взаимодействия британского английского языка и многочисленных нигерийских языков и культур. Фразеологические единицы британского английского языка, адаптируясь к реалиям нигерийских лингвокультур, отражают такие качества культурного наследия как значимость семейных ценностей, формирование твердого и стойкого характера для достижения успеха, работоспособность. Форма фразеологических единиц нигерийского варианта английского языка подвержена изменениям, ключевыми из которых являются сокращение структуры, замена некоторых лексических единиц на соответствующие нигерийской культуре реалии.

The comparison of light verb constructions with the verbs make and do has not received much attention. The present paper is an attempt to contribute to the study of these constructions. It aims to analyze the light verbs make and do in combination with the same deverbal nouns to identify similarities and differences between the two light verbs and examine the contribution of the light verbs and deverbal nouns to the light verb construction in terms of semantic and syntactic features. The research is corpus-based, and the data for analysis are collected from the British National Corpus (BNC). The semantic description deals with characteristics such as generality, polysemy and aspectual meaning, and the syntactic description focuses on complementation. The analysis of findings demonstrates that, despite some similarities, almost all constructions with the two light verbs show either meaning or/and complementation differences. The study also reveals that both light verbs and deverbal nouns have an impact on the semantics and syntax of the construction. Light verbs may affect light verb constructions semantically in terms of generality and polysemy, and the aspectual meaning of constructions depends on both light verbs and deverbal nouns. Likewise, both light verbs and deverbal nouns have an influence on complementation, but in their own way: light verbs on the selection of complements and deverbal nouns on complementation patterns.

The article deals with the features of such a linguistic phenomenon as the change in the word-meaning on the example of the English language. Using a complex model of methodology based on a combination of system analysis, semantic and component analysis, as well as the method of phraseological identification, the authors identify key processes in the course of changing the word-meaning in the English language using the example of idioms. The change in word-meaning is dictated, on the one hand, by the influence of extra linguistic factors, including the processes of historical and cultural interaction, social factors influence; and, on the other hand, by linguistic reasons, the most productive of them is the linguistic analogy. The research work stresses that the influence of extra linguistic factors, namely the change in the socio-cultural characteristics of society to a greater extent, influenced the process of changing the word-meaning. It is proved that over time, words in the English language have changed their meaning to an antonymic one. Word-meaning changing can be of two types: expanding the word-meaning and narrowing the word-meaning. It has been proved that the expansion of the word-meaning is more productive for modern British English and American English. The analysis of the change in the word-meaning on the example of idioms functioning in British English and American English variant proved the possibility of preserving the original meaning of some lexical units within phraseological units, which is dictated by the specific possibility of idioms to preserve the original linguistic and cultural meaning of some words.

This variational pragmatic study investigates the realisation of apologies in local council meetings in New Zealand and Britain. Specifically, it aims to establish to what extent the macro-social factors gender and region influence the choice and combination of apology strategies. The data are drawn from two multi-modal corpora, The Corpus of Australian and New Zealand Spoken English (CoANZSE) and The Corpus of British Isles Spoken English (CoBISE). Our findings reveal general shared trends both across the two regional varieties and the two gender groups. Apologies are mostly realised by sorry forms and speakers prefer to use just one single apology strategy. Nevertheless, within these general trends, some distinct gender patterns are manifest. Overall, though, our findings indicate that the influence of gender and region on the realisation of apologies is limited. The communicative setting of council meetings seems to exert a bigger impact on the apology behaviour of the councillors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the history of the minor complementisers as if, as though, and like (when they follow evidential verbs such as seem and look) in Canadian English. By the 21st century, both as if and as though were rare in Canada, while like appeared to have become popular (López-Couso and Méndez-Naya 2012b). The Victoria English Archive (D'Arcy 2011–2014, 2015; Roeder, Onosson, and D'Arcy 2018) is used to map out the change in a combination of synchronic and diachronic spoken data. Results show that as if and as though are unusual even in the earliest speakers, which puts spoken Canadian English at odds with contemporaneous writing (Brook 2014). However, this unexpected register difference may explain why the complementiser like caught on in North American dialects of English sooner and more readily than in the United Kingdom – where a robust as if and as though in speech would have remained barriers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Politeness is one of the stereotypes associated with the British that seems to be crucial in terms of their self-identification and self-perception. The focus of this study is four frequently-used politeness markers: please, thank you, thanks, and sorry. The paper aims to precisely identify the different senses of these words in the newly released corpus of spoken British English, the Spoken British National Corpus 2014. The findings of this analysis reveal that the markers under investigation are primarily used in their core senses, such as politely requesting something, showing gratitude, or apologising; other identified senses include self-correcting and being confrontational or ironic. The analysis of the authentic data helps us classify senses for each of the target words based on different contextual situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the cultural conceptualization of congratulatory happy events in British English and Turkish and discusses them cross-culturally. A lexical search was carried out in various corpora from the newspaper genre using the verbs congratulate in English and its dictionary counterparts tebrik etmek and kutlamak in Turkish along with their various lexical forms, which not only report the act of congratulating but also perform it. The results of the study showed that there were cultural differences and similarities in the conceptualization of congratulatory happy events. It was found that there were subtle differences between the events of tebrik etmek and kutlamak in the Turkish data and that the Turkish tebrik etmek was closer to congratulating although congratulating events were relatively more restricted. This study contributes to the socio-cultural dimension of congratulating and provides a cross-cultural understanding of congratulatory happy events with implications for foreign language education and intercultural communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English is the language with the largest number of speakers in the world, when both native and non-native speakers are included. With an estimated 1,268 million users around the globe, linguistic variation is bound to occur. Research on World Englishes focuses on the study of this variation, though it has systematically disregarded the linguistic level of orthography. This neglect has operated under the assumption that most contemporary varieties must adhere to British English spelling norms. Nevertheless, recent studies on the Americanisation of English worldwide (Mair 2013; Gilquin 2018; Gonçalves et al. 2018) have brought the question of spelling variation back to the fore. The present paper thus analyses the distribution of the most distinctive spelling variants—i.e. -our/-or, -re/-er and -isation/-ization—in the varieties of the inner circle from a synchronic perspective. By means of a corpus-based investigation of English online, this study will outline the spelling usage patterns for the aforementioned varieties and will analyse the highly-likely Americanisation process in spelling on the Internet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to examine functional idiosyncrasies of seemingly synonymous constructions and explain their frequency distributions in different spoken registers. To this end, lexical and discoursal approaches in the corpus-based research of constructions are combined to investigate how significant collocates of three suggesting constructions – namely, let's , what/how about and why don't you/we – are contextually situated in British English. Constructional analyses of the spoken part of the British National Corpus show that the three suggesting constructions primarily perform different metadiscourse and directive functions. Based on these functional variations, the present study explains the distribution and usage of the three suggesting constructions across the five spoken registers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Несмотря на процессы секуляризации и религиозный плюрализм в Великобритании и США, современные британцы и американцы не утратили окончательно христианские ценности, о чем свидетельствует тот факт, что в языковой картине мира британцев и американцев продолжают функционировать христианские концепты. Однако в связи с интенсивной миграцией мусульман в европейские страны, в том числе, в Великобританию и США, в наше время существует проблема исламизации британо-американской части англосферы. В статье проводится сопоставление частотности исламских понятий в английском языке на материалах корпуса английского языка EEBO, который содержит образцы текстов английского языка с 1470 по 1690 год, и частотности тех же понятий в корпусах современного английского языка: британского английского BNC и американского английского СoCa в целом за период с 1980 по 2022 гг. Исследование показывает, что мусульманские понятия в эпоху Early Modern English только начинают появляться в английском языке, при этом наиболее известны были Allah, Ramadan и houris, в то время как Коran, Muhammad, Islam, muslim представлены в виде следов. Низкие значения частотности у 18 из 20 найденных в корпусах cовременного английского языка исламских понятий, которые можно представить как слова-репрезентанты семи исламских концептов (ВЕРА, СВЯЩЕННЫЕ ИМЕНА, ОБЩИНА, СВЯЩЕННЫЕ КНИГИ, ШАРИАТ, «СТОЛПЫ» ИСЛАМА, МИСТИКА ИСЛАМА) с суммарной частотностью от 15,1 до 1 на 1 млн.слов свидетельствуют о совершенной чуждости ислама и его религиозной терминологии английской языковой картине мира, английской религиозной (конфессиональной) концептосфере. Однако на этом фоне в современном британском и американском англоязычном коммуникативном пространстве выделяются два высокочастотных концепта, связанные с названием религии и принадлежностью к ней: MUSLIM/ MOSLEM, с частотностью 398,2 на 1 млн.слов и ISLAM / ISLAMIC с частотностью 67,4 на 1 млн.слов. Самый высокочастотный концепт MUSLIM/ MOSLEM можно назвать своеобразным лингворелигиозным маркером страха и тревоги в современном англоязычном коммуникативном пространстве.

The historical development and change of the English complementation system has received a great deal of attention in recent years, but work remains to be done on Present-day English. Previous studies on the complement-taking predicate regret have shown that in British English the choice between a that-clause and the gerundial -ing is non-categorical or probabilistic, with the speaker being able to choose between them. This non-categorical variation is the focus of the present article, which aims to identify any existing differences in the clausal complementation profile of regret in British and American English, as well as any linguistic variables that might determine speaker choice.

В статье рассматривается специфика употребления арабоязычной лексики в британском и американском вариантах английского языка на примерах художественной литературы.Актуальным представляется изучение механизма реализации конкретных имплицитных смыслов арабских заимствований, исследование и использование их в произведениях британской художественной литературы и переводов текстов арабской художественной литературы на английский язык.Объектом исследования являются произведения британской художественной литературы и переводы текстов арабской художественной литературы в британском и американском вариантах английского языка.Цель статьи: выявить различия и специфику употребления арабоязычной лексики англоязычного художественного дискурса между британским и американским вариантами английского языка.Вывод. Сходным образом использование заимствований при переводе того или иного текста арабской литературы обусловлено учетом переводчиком места того или иного арабизма в языковой картине мира английского языка, опорой не только на передачи арабизмов при помощи транскрипции, но и калькирования, а также максимально емкого описательного перевода, который используется достаточно часто при переводе значащих имен собственных исследованного нами текста “The Arabian Nights Entertainments”.

The English language is one of the most spoken in the world. The main goal is to find how American English is originated in British English. This research Is also related about the linguistic differences between British English and American English. The study comes up with several interesting findings. Among these findings is the fact that American English is basically an outcome of Elizabethan English which the English settlers brought with them as they came to the North American Continent in the sixteenth century. Despite the fact that the main effect on American English resulted from British English on that time, there were many other things that has affected in the language, such as American Indian Pidgin English, French, and Spanish and recent immigration of other various peoples like the Italian, Chinese and German to the United States. Moreover, with the passage of time, American English influenced British English and enriched its vocabulary, especially in the case of "Americanism.". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we report the analysis of the melodic behavior of wh-questions from the North of England. The corpus contains 107 utterances issued by 19 different native informants in real communicative situations, extracted from recordings of street interviews published on YouTube and carried out in the cities of York, Manchester, Sheffield and Liverpool. The analysis is conducted through the Melodic Analysis of Speech (MAS) method (Cantero, 2002) which allows us to quantify, standardize and compare melodic configurations. The results describe four different intonation patterns for this type of question. A rising final inflection pattern (E1: 27%); a falling final inflection pattern (E2: 58%); a circumflex rising-falling final inflection pattern (E3: 5%); and a high nucleus falling pattern (E4: 10%). After describing and quantifying each of these patterns, the results are discussed in relation to those melodic descriptions made by precedent authors in the existing literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Al-Fatih Journal is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The comparison of light verb constructions with the verbs make and do has not received much attention. The present paper is an attempt to contribute to the study of these constructions. It aims to analyze the light verbs make and do in combination with the same deverbal nouns to identify similarities and differences between the two light verbs and examine the contribution of the light verbs and deverbal nouns to the light verb construction in terms of semantic and syntactic features. The research is corpus-based, and the data for analysis are collected from the British National Corpus (BNC). The semantic description deals with characteristics such as generality, polysemy and aspectual meaning, and the syntactic description focuses on complementation. The analysis of findings demonstrates that, despite some similarities, almost all constructions with the two light verbs show either meaning or/and complementation differences. The study also reveals that both light verbs and deverbal nouns have an impact on the semantics and syntax of the construction. Light verbs may affect light verb constructions semantically in terms of generality and polysemy, and the aspectual meaning of constructions depends on both light verbs and deverbal nouns. Likewise, both light verbs and deverbal nouns have an influence on complementation, but in their own way: light verbs on the selection of complements and deverbal nouns on complementation patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of English Teaching & Learning is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The mere appearance of a foreign word does not necessarily mark the birth of a loanword, which requires documented usage by the speech community. Relatively little research has been dedicated so far to the “prenatal” stage that would investigate the tentative infiltration of foreign-derived words. Nyet, a borrowing from Russian, is taken as a case in point. Although its first recorded instance in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED3) is dated to 1928, it had been increasingly recognized in English for several decades. This article focuses on textual attestations for nyet discovered in a range of digital resources, including British and American newspaper archives, and discusses their usefulness as potential antedatings for OED3’s entry.

В статье рассматривается процесс лексико-семантической адаптации на примерах английского научного дискурса. В процессе заимствования между английским и арабским языками в научном дискурсе появляется профессиональный заимствованный концепт, эволюционирующий со временем, в результате чего принимающий язык не может в полной мере обеспечить равнозначности смыслов в обоих языках. Современная лингвистика уделяет внимание взаимосвязи когнитивных и коммуникативных аспектов языка в связи с возрастанием количества заимствований в условиях глобализации, в результате чего возникает необходимость в рассмотрении специфики арабизмов в британском и американском вариантах английского языка. В результате наблюдения по части лексико-семантических особенностей заимствований установлено, что лексико-семантическая адаптация арабизмов в английском языке протекает по-разному.

В рамках данной статьи рассматриваются языковые особенности арабских заимствований в научном дискурсе британского и американского вариантов английского языка. Так, для процесса заимствования арабизмов в английском научном дискурсе свойственны две противоположные тенденции: первая заключается в том, что новое арабское заимствование, которое до этого было известно только специалистам, употребляется без каких-либо «переводов», комментариев и пр.; вторая – такие же терминологические единицы и даже давно существующие в языке заимствования становятся объектом научных комментариев и авторских рассуждений. Каждый вариант (британский и американский) употребления лексической единицы обладает своей спецификой, обусловленной семантикой слов, словосочетаний, предложений, а также в целом контекстом.

In modern research, works dealing with peculiarities of various cultures and the connection between concepts and cultures are becoming more and more topical. British mentality inevitably finds its linguistic representation in British English. This statement is supported by examples from mass-media language. Furthermore, definitions of insularity from authoritative monolingual dictionaries are adduced. It is noted that insularity is manifested in a special, suspicious attitude towards foreigners. As a result, such words as foreign or foreigner evoke negative associations in British peoples minds. However, this is not reflected in lexicographic sources in any way, apart from the fact that the adjectives alien and strange are given as synonyms for the above-mentioned lexical units. The main methods of the research are lexical-semantic, contextual, linguocognitive and discursive analyses. Concrete examples of lexical units which are used in mass media language and reflect British insularity are studied. Linguistically the concept of insularity is represented by lexical units with positive and negative connotations, for example, the adjectives powerful and abrasive, as well as tropes and figures of speech, for instance, metaphors (liberal grit in the unctuous continental oyster) and oxymoron (romantic self-destruction). These lexical means not only confirm that the concept of insularity is an integral part of linguistic and conceptual worldviews of the British but also help the author of the analyzed article to express the idea that unlike other European countries Britain is an example to follow. The research results contribute to the theory and practice of teaching English language and culture and better understanding of the peculiarities of British English.

This article is an attempt to investigate the divergences in meaning of the variants of English spoken worldwide under the semantic and structural perspective. From the philosophical standpoint, the identity/alterity dichotomy and/or unity is applicable to the scope of this article in that structural convergence falls under the definition of identity, whereas the semantic divergence is defined by the philosophical category of alterity. It is well-known that due to several factors as geographical isolation, cultural identity, regional features, along with others, have led to the development of new connotations ranging from shades of meaning to utterly novel significances, which may puzzle both native speakers originating from other regions or the non-native speakers. One of the aims of the present article is to elucidate the different meanings ascribed to the same words or structures in relation to the variants of English spoken in the UK, USA, Canada and Australia, and a special emphasis has been put on the underlying differences between British and American concepts that may lead to ambiguities, which subsequently may grow into misunderstandings. Another aspect that we have considered here is the translation into Romanian of sentences containing such structures with differing concepts depending on the region where it is used. The third focus of this paper is to provide meaningful recommendations to the translators and/or language learners on avoiding the translation traps and correctly get the message of the sentence where a regionalism has been in use, or on being able to timely identify the non-standard meaning of the word. Nevertheless, the multiplicity of meanings attributed to English structures worldwide (alterity) is thought of as an asset rather than a loophole not only by linguists who study the incongruent-pace evolution of English in different corners of the world, but by the native speakers as well. Incidentally, thinkers as Levinas, Castoriadis, and Baudrillard describe the alterity as a transcendent phenomenon stimulating diversity, and hence, progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1990s, the existing literature anticipated a fast-growing influence of American English on Kenyan English in the following years. Mazrui and Mazrui (1996) even predicted a "coca-colanization" of Kenyan English. Focusing on vocabulary, the present study investigated whether the anticipated influence has occurred or not. From a sample of 75 fourth-year university students it collected self-reports of which words they used from 93 pairs of American-vs-British English counterparts. These self-reports were then compared with, among others, the frequencies of the same words in two corpora of Kenyan English which were compiled two decades apart. The study found that the respondents' self-reports indicated a 59 percent use of British English vocabulary, against only a 28 percent use of American English vocabulary. This finding was by and large corroborated by the frequencies of the words concerned in the two corpora. Thus, the anticipated American English influence has not materialized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of a survey of phonological, lexical, and morphosyntactic variation in British English, based on over 14,000 responses. We map twelve variables using geospatial "hotspot" analysis. One of our aims is to document the patterning of under- and unstudied variables. A second aim is to track changes in real time, which we do by comparing our findings to those of the 1950s-era Survey of English Dialects (SED; Orton, 1962). We improve upon previous dialectological work by paying careful attention to the phonemic status of mergers and splits: In our contemporary data, we do this by asking subjects if they have a phonemic contrast; in the SED data, we do this by superimposing the isoglosses for individual phones. We find evidence for both stability and change; we document previously unverified patterns. Perhaps most importantly, we identify a number of directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the ability of L2 Thai learners to identify eleven British English monophthongs/iː, ɪ, e, æ, ɒ, ɑː, ɔː, ʊ, uː, ʌ, ɜː/. Among these vowels, /æ/, /iː/, /uː/, /e/ and /ɔː/ are vowels that occur in both Thai and English phonological inventories (shared sounds) whereas the other six vowels occur only in English (non-shared sounds). The subjects were split into two groups of L2 Thai learners: highexperienced and low-experienced. The degree to which L2 experience influenced subjects’ ability to identify British English monophthongs was measured by their ability to match spoken L2 vowels to their written counterparts. The hypotheses of this study were generated from the results of the perceptual assimilation task in the study of Kitikanan (2020). The results showed that the low-experienced group performed poorly, with low identification scores, across all vowels. However, the high-experienced group obtained high scores identifying British English /e/, /ɔː/, /ɪ/ and /ɜː/. The scores of correct identifications for these four British English vowels of the high-experienced group were significantly higher than that of the low-experienced group, suggesting the positive effect of the L2 experience. For other vowels, the scores of both groups were not significantly different from one another. The predictions of the perceptual assimilation task failed to predict most results. These results might imply the need for other means to compare L1 and L2 sounds to understand the mechanism regarding the identification ability of the L2 sounds. They may also suggest that some vowels are easier to learn than others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a diachronic analysis of genitive variation in five varieties of English. Based on a set of matching newspaper corpora from the 1960s and the early 2000s from the Bahamas, Jamaica, India, Great Britain, and the U.S., we look into variation and change in the underlying grammar of the genitive alternation, as defined by patterns of constraints affecting the variable. We employ random forests and Multifactorial Prediction and Deviation Analysis to analyze a richly annotated set of over 22,000 genitive tokens. Our analysis corroborates findings with regard to postcolonial Englishes, particularly in the Caribbean, that suggest that these varieties are partaking in American-led global trends in grammar toward, e.g., densification, without actually approximating American norms. We also notice that production-related constraints on genitive variation, such as syntactic weight or givenness, have increased their effects. While metropolitan and postcolonial Englishes share a core grammar of genitive variation, there is noticeable variation particularly with regard to semantic and socioculturally determined predictors such as text type. Overall, we see a widening gap between metropolitan and postcolonial Englishes. The case of Bahamian English is especially interesting as it appears fairly American-oriented during colonial times but has aligned with other postcolonial Englishes since independence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following Trager & Bloch (1941), I argue that diphthongs in English are short vowels followed by a glide, that is, a consonant (Szigetvári 2016). In the present paper, I bring further evidence for this claim, based on the distribution of unstressed vowels in British English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the Clarity Speech Corpus, a publicly available, forty speaker British English speech dataset. The corpus was created for the purpose of running listening tests to gauge speech intelligibility and quality in the Clarity Project, which has the goal of advancing speech signal processing by hearing aids through a series of challenges. The dataset is suitable for machine learning and other uses in speech and hearing technology, acoustics and psychoacoustics. The data comprises recordings of approximately 10,000 sentences drawn from the British National Corpus (BNC) with suitable length, words and grammatical construction for speech intelligibility testing. The collection process involved the selection of a subset of BNC sentences, the recording of these produced by 40 British English speakers, and the processing of these recordings to create individual sentence recordings with associated transcripts and metadata.