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Americanisms in the New Zealand English Lexicon
Author(s) -
Vine Bernardette
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
world englishes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.6
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-971X
pISSN - 0883-2919
DOI - 10.1111/1467-971x.00118
Subject(s) - lexicon , american english , linguistics , term (time) , lexical item , perception , psychology , lexical choice , simple (philosophy) , australian english , british english , sociology , epistemology , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , neuroscience
This paper investigates lexical shift from British to American terms in New Zealand English. The discussion is based on a survey which gathered information on speakers’ perceptions and attitudes and related this to their usage of terms. The suggestion by earlier researchers that some American terms are not being adopted because speakers identify and avoid these terms is explored. The study found little support for this hypothesis and identified various problems with the assumptions made by these researchers and the methodologies that they adopted. In particular, the assumption that lexical choice involves a simple binary choice between British and American lexical items is disputed. There was not much evidence of shift for the twenty pairs included in the study and in many cases where shift was occurring informants were adopting American terms if they felt a need for new terms rather than simply replacing one term with an equivalent term.