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Modals and quasi‐modals in world Englishes
Author(s) -
COLLINS PETER
Publication year - 2009
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/j.1467-971x.2009.01593.x
Subject(s) - modal verb , linguistics , world englishes , popularity , variation (astronomy) , flourishing , set (abstract data type) , history , sociology , psychology , computer science , verb , philosophy , social psychology , physics , astrophysics , programming language
This paper reports findings from a study of the frequency and distribution of a set of modals and quasi‐modals in nine matching corpora representing British, American, Australian, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Hong Kong, Indian and Kenyan English. The analysis presented is form‐based, with meanings dealt with only in an exemplary, qualitative manner. The findings are discussed in the light of two complementary trends noted by corpus linguists: a rise in the popularity of the quasi‐modals, and a decline in that of the modals. The study notes a strong tendency for American English to be leading the way in these developments within the four ‘Inner Circle’ varieties, and for the South‐East Asian varieties as a set to be leading the way within the ‘Outer Circle’ varieties. The evidence furthermore indicates that stylistic variation is a contributing factor in the trends observed, with quasi‐modals flourishing in speech and their modal counterparts more at home in written registers.