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Файл:Английский язык в его национальных вариантах. Учебно-методическое пособие
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seven children were born” (marriage bed) and from the Sri Lankan
language Sinhala we get “to buy and give’ and to break rest”.
Syntax. There are three features of Indian English that are
shared with many other varieties. The first is the distinctive use or
non-use of articles, the second is the reduplication of words and the
third is “yes-no confusion” – also seen in Australian Aborigine
English – as in the exchange below:
A: You have no objections?
B: Yes. (I have no objection)
Further features Indian English shares with other varieties
include interrogative word order in indirect questions as in ‘tell me
where can you meet us’ and the use of invariant tag questions as in
“you know it isn’t it?”, “he is coming isn’t it?”, and “you went there
yesterday isn’t it?”
Perhaps the syntactic feature most associated with Indian
English is the use of the present continuous in contexts where other
varieties would use the simple present. This use is particularly
remarkable with verbs of sense and knowing and stative verbs, as
these do not take the present continuous in the same contexts. The
sentence ‘I am knowing him for 20 years’, not only means that I have
known him for 20 years, but that I shall continue to know him in the
future.
Cultural conventions.
1. Indian English speakers use direct questions and
“desiderative” statements (I want/I need etc.) more frequently than
speakers of British English and use indirect questions less frequently.
2. The request strategies of Indian English speakers are
transferred from local languages.
3. A British form in an Indian context may carry a different
meaning. For example, the use of “will you” might be seen as abrupt
or even rude in a British context but no so in an Indian one.
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4. There is variety among the request strategies of Indian
English speakers.
Southeast Asian Englishes
Malaysian English
In describing some of the aspects of syntactic difference
between Standard British English (StBrE) and Malaysian English
(henceforth MalE) in this lecture, some emphasis will be placed on
the possibility of influence from the substrate languages. The main
language used here is Bahasa Malaysia. This is based on two criteria
mainly:
– The population ratio is in the order: Malays (55%), Chinese
(30%), Indians (10%), Others (5%). Based on these figures alone, the
influence from Bahasa Malaysia could be substantial, although actual
quantitative studies have not been done to prove this yet.
– Even among the Chinese and Indians (as well as the
“others”), Bahasa Malaysia is more in use by these speakers than
their own mother-tongue. Thus the subsequent influence of Bahasa
Malaysia on the English spoken by the non-Malays can at times be
considered even more substantial than that exerted by Chinese or
Tamil.
Noun phrase structure.
Three characteristic elements in the noun phrase of Malaysian
English show that there is a specific system underlying the variety,
rather than random simplificatory processes.
Article ellipsis. Article ellipsis does not just occur before any
nouns as such, but abstract nouns in particular. Furthermore, ellipsis
applies, only to those abstract nouns that are modified:
Did you get mileage-claim for that trip?
Pronoun concord. As far as pronominal concord is
concerned, there is a singular/plural distinction for animate nouns,
but no number distinction for inanimate nouns. The following MalE
examples are representative:
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Those books are very informative. It can be obtained at
Dillon’s.
The partial influence from Malay can be postulated on the
basis of examples like the following. In the following examples ia is
used as an invariant pronoun for inanimate as well as animate nonhuman nouns:
Malay: Surat-surat itu baru sampai – mungkin ia dari ayah
saya. Letters those just arrived – must be it from father my. (Those
letters have just arrived – they must be from my father.)
Individuation. It is noticeable how frequently mass nouns
(like staff) are treated as count nouns in MalE. This may be due to
bilingual usage, based on familiarity with the Malay system of
classifiers. The classifiers are not carried over into MalE, but the
noun itself is treated as if it were indeed countable (or governed by a
classifier):
How many staffs are on medical leave?
Verb phrase structure
Tense and temporal distance.
– Past events are considered anterior to the deictic centre, with
three degrees of remoteness. These are immediate past (I ate/was
eating rice this morning); recent past (I have eaten/have been eating
rice yesterday); remote past (I had eaten/had been eating rice last
month).
– Present events are considered simultaneous to the deictic
centre – thus with no degree of remoteness involved, as in ‘I eat (am
eating) rice now’.
– Future events are considered posterior to the deictic centre –
with two degrees of remoteness. These are immediate future (I will
eat/will be eating rice tonight); remote/distant future (I would
eat/would be eating rice tomorrow).
Modals. As for the modals in MalE, the simplified system can
be summarised as follows:
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can − permission, ability
would − past tense of the above meanings
may − possibility
will − immediate futurity (± volition)
would − distant/remote futurity (± volition)
should − obligation, necessity
must − obligation, necessity
Stative verbs in the progressive. The third characteristic
feature in the verb phrase is the occurrence of some of the stative
verbs in the progressive, contrary to (written) StE usage. These are
the relation verbs and verbs of inert perception and cognition:
That bottle is containing sulphuric acid. (...contains...)
Clause structure variation.
Lack of inversion in wh-questions. Noticeable in main clause
wh-questions in MalE is a lack of auxiliary inversion with the subject
NP:
What we have here?
Tagged yes-no interrogatives. Another interesting feature of
MalE interrogative clauses is the yes or not? and or not? tags used to
mark Yes-no interrogatives. Thus the two variant tags are used as
seen below:
a. She can sing or not? (Can she sing?)
b. She can sing, yes or not? (Can she sing?)
Invariant interrogative tags. Another interrogative tag that is
often used in MalE is the phrase can or not? It has several functions:
seeking permission, confirming ability or assessing volition:
I want to come, can or not? (Can I come?)
Yes-no questions without inversion. These use rising
intonation rather than auxiliary inversion:
They were fat or thin? (Were they fat or thin?)
Lack of verb inversion in adverbial initial sentences. In
sentences with an initially-negated declarative or adverbially-fronted
declarative there is no auxiliary inversion:
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Never he was so delighted. (Never was he so delighted.)
Lexis. Any discussions of Malaysian English would be
incomplete without mentioning features of lexical indigenisation.
The main focus will be on substrate language referents (use of
substrate lexicon in MalE) and on StE lexicalisation (English
lexemes with MalE usage).
Local terms can be considered from the following vantage
points: institutionalized concepts; emotional and cultural loading;
semantic restriction; cultural/culinary terms; hyponymous
collocations; campus/student coinages.
Institutional concepts: some local words pertaining to
particular institutions that have been borrowed into MalE have no
equivalent in StE. Some examples are terms like bumiputra “son of
the soil, patriot” and khalwat “proximity, intimacy”.
Emotional and cultural loading: some examples of words with
local cultural and emotional association are kampong “village”,
dusun “orchard”, bomoh “medicine-man”, penghulu “village-chief”
and pantang “taboo”.
Semantic restriction: these are local words with a possible
English translation but used in a semantically restricted field. For
example dadah “drugs” does not mean drugs in general but drugs
used illicitly. Other lexemes with such a semantic restriction are
those like haj (pilgrimage, especially of Muslims to Mecca), toddy
(fermented coconut water – different from fresh coconut water sold
as an iced refreshment), and silat (the Malay art of self-defence).
Thus we read of silat-groups and toddy-shops. The word padi (paddy
in BrE) also has such semantic restriction – meaning “rice-grown in
the fields” – i.e. “unhusked rice”. Hence, there is an overlap but also
an opposition between the pairs dadah – drugs; haj – pilgrimage;
toddy – coconut water; silat – self-defence and padi – rice. In fact the
first item of each pair is a sub-type of the second item.
Cultural and culinary terms: these are local culinary and
domestic referents specifically akin to a characteristic of local origin
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and ecology. Some such lexemes are durian (a thorny fruit) and
sambal “condiment” paste. Such words, similar to the Indian sari and
Japanese kimono are now slowly being transported to at least the
South East Asian region, e.g. the words durian and sambal in Sri
Lanka.
Hyponymous collocations: the presence of local words
collocated with an English term is yet another type of lexical
indigenisation. A hyponymous relationship is exhibited with the
English equivalent as the superordinate and the local word as the
subordinate referent. Some examples are words such as meranti
“wood”, orang asli “people”, batik “cloth”, syariah “court”, nobat
“drums”, bersanding “ceremony” and path dab bhog “ceremony”.
Campus/student coinages: these are a few words that have
recently come into currency – being transported from Malay due to
the change in medium of instruction in education and the subsequent
strong influence of this language. Thus students in schools and at
campuses use these local referents. Some examples are lecheh
“troublesome, inconvenient”; teruk “serious, in bad shape”; doongu
“silly, dumb, stupid, foolish”. Whether these code-switched, slangy
items will prove durable is hard to say.
Singapore English: morphology and syntax
It may be useful to divide the discussion of Colloquial
Singapore English (CollSgE) morphology and syntax into five parts:
1. Features relating to the verb and verb phrase. Here, we
focus on aspect, the absence of number agreement, copular be and
the use of got.
2. Features relating to nouns and the noun phrase. Within the
noun phrase, CollSgE tends not to make use of articles. It treats noncount nouns as count nouns, and its relative clauses are ordered
rather differently than their counterparts in more standard varieties of
English.
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3. Features relating to the clause. These include pro-drop,
object-preposing, question formation, and the passive voice
4. In addition to these three features, CollSgE makes
productive use of reduplication, which cuts across various lexical
categories. It is therefore important that we devote a specific section
to the discussion of reduplication.
5. Finally, CollSgE is also widely recognized as having a large
inventory of particles, which serve various discourse-pragmatic
functions. These discourse particles, too, need to be discussed
separately in order to better appreciate the grammar of CollSgE.
Features relating to the verb and verb phrase.
Aspect. We begin by noting that the verb generally appears in
an uninflected form. As shown below, the verb eat is not marked for
tense or number. Because the verbs are uninflected, time and
aspectual information are conveyed lexically (using words like
yesterday or already). The lack of inflectional marking on the verb
also means that there is no subject-verb agreement in CollSgE, and
even in question formation, there is a tendency to use invariant tags.
a. He eat here yesterday.
b. He not yet eat lunch.
c. They eat already.
Aspect is marked via forms like always, already or still.
Additionally, the progressive is the only aspect that is marked
inflectionally. However, only the suffix –ing is used; the auxiliary be
is not.
Number agreement. As mentioned, CollSgE lacks number
agreement, indicated by the fact that there is no subject verb
agreement in main clauses.
The teacher shout a lot. (The teachers shout a lot.)
As the CollSgE verb phrase is comparatively simpler in
structure – lacking verb inflections and a complex auxiliary system –
there is no variation of the tag. Instead, CollSgE uses an invariant tag
is it. This tag is neutral in that it carries no expectation by the speaker
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as to what the answer to the question might be. It can also be used
when the clause being tagged contains a negative.
Be and got. CollSgE clauses that are attributive or equative
tend not to use the verb be.
The house very nice. (The house is very nice.)
The verb got is used variously in CollSgE as a perfective, a
possessive, and an existential marker.
He got go to Japan. (He has been to Japan.)
Features relating to the noun and noun phrase
Articles. A number of researchers have commented on the
general absence of articles in the noun phrase.
Count/non-count. There is a tendency in CollSgE to treat
non-count nouns as count nouns, giving rise to forms such as
luggages, equipments, staffs and furnitures. In some cases the plural
marker is absent where Standard English (StE) requires one.
She queue up very long to buy ticket for us. (She queued up for
a very long time to buy tickets for us.)
The relative clause. The CollSgE relative clause is fairly
similar to that found in StE. Except for the fact that the verb is not
inflected for tense, the construction is regular, the relative pronouns
who and that precede the modifying clauses pinch my sister and John
buy respectively.
That boy who pinch my sister very naughty. (“That boy who
pinched my sister is very naughty.”)
CollSgE appears to have two kinds of relative clauses. The
first one resembles the StE relative clause: it uses the same kinds of
relative pronouns and has the same word order with the pronoun
preceding the modifying clause. The second one is clearly more
different: it uses one as the relative pronoun and has a different order
where one follows the modifying clause.
Features relating to the clause
Pro-drop. CollSgE has been described as being a pro-drop
language in that the subject and/or object are often left unexpressed,
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particularly when the identities of the pro-dropped elements can be
recovered from the context.
Always late! (You are always late!)
Object-preposing. The following examples are expressions of
doubt on the part of the speaker, but the preposed object and the
unexpressed subject can give the impression that a lack of knowledge
(don’t know) is being attributed to an inanimate entity (the movie,
the car). As (c) indicates, the construction cannot be used to assert
knowledge on the part of the speaker, since without the negative
marker, the construction is unacceptable.
a. The movie don’t know whether good or not. (I don’t know if
the movie is good or not.)
b. The car don’t know whether expensive. (I don’t know
whether the car is expensive.)
c. The movie know whether good or not. (I know whether the
movie is good or not.’)
Question formation. In wh-interrogatives, the interrogative
pronoun typically remains in situ:
You buy what (What did you buy?)
With yes/no questions, CollSgE makes use of the invariant tag
is it. CollSgE also has another tag or not.
The food good or not? (Is the food delicious?)
The passive. CollSgE has two passive constructions, the kena
passive and the give passive. Below are examples of the kena
passive, the agentive by phrase being optional. Although the lexical
verb is sometimes inflected, this need not always be the case.
a. John kena scold (by his boss). (John was scolded by his
boss.)
b. The thief kena caught (by the police). (The thief was caught
by the police.’)
Reduplication. In CollSgE nominal reduplication occurs
primarily with names of close friends or family members, or with
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common nouns that, when reduplicated, refer to someone who can be
considered an intimate.
Where is your boy-boy (boyfriend/son)?
Adjectival reduplication in CollSgE intensifies the meaning of
the base adjective.
Don’t always eat sweet-sweet (very sweet) things.
With verb reduplication, we need to distinguish two different
sub-types. The first type, similar to nominal and adjectival
reduplication, results in only a single copy of the base. The second,
however, results in two copies of the base. There are associated
meaning differences. With only a single copy in the resulting form,
the meaning is that of attenuation. With two copies, the meaning is
that of continuity.
Particles. CollSgE has a large number of particles that
typically occur in clause-final position. Although they are optional
syntactically, it is widely recognized that they perform various
discourse-pragmatic functions. The most common of these particles
is lah. Other particles include ma, hah, meh, leh, lor, hor and wat.
This last particle is apparently based on the English word what.
Below is a brief summary of the various properties of the
CollSgE particles. Three particles, ma, wat and lor, indicate that a
piece of information is obvious. However, there are differences
between them. The particle ma is perhaps the most neutral in that
other than indicating obviousness, it does little else. The other two,
wat and lor, in addition to obviousness, also convey, respectively, a
challenge to some earlier proposition and a sense of resignation.
lah indicates speaker’s mood/attitude and appeals to the
addressee to accommodate this mood/attitude
ma indicates information as obvious
wat indicates information as obvious and contradictory
meh indicates scepticism
leh marks a tentative suggestion or request
lor indicates obviousness or a sense of resignation
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