Open AccessKiasu
Author(s) -
Kim Ebensgaard Jensen
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
ny forskning i grammatik
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2446-1709
pISSN - 1902-1291
DOI - 10.7146/nfg.v0i27.122129
Subject(s) - linguistics , lexis , grammar , schema (genetic algorithms) , computer science , construals , natural language processing , artificial intelligence , psychology , construal level theory , information retrieval , philosophy , social psychology
This paper presents a study of grammatical usage patterns of the word kiasu in the GloWbE corpus of World Englishes. Kiasu has been borrowed from Hokkien into Singaporean and Malaysian English as a linguistic ‘glocalization’ process enabling speakers to verbalize an important local cultural schema. A grammatical profile is set up that draws on the techniques from linguistic profiling. This study identifies a range of patterns that illustrate how the interaction between grammar and lexis amount to specific semantic construals of the underlying cultural schema of the word.