Formulaic sequences in spoken ENL, ESL and EFL: focus on British English, Indian English and learner English of advanced German learners

Sandra Götz, Marco Schilk

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

31 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In this pilot study we set out to compare formulaic sequences of the type of 3-grams in ENL (spoken British English), EFL (English spoken by advanced German learners of English) and ESL (spoken Indian English). The study shows that, for the overall number of types and tokens, there are no significant differences between ENL and ESL, but there are significantly fewer 3-grams in EFL vs. ENL. A comparison of the common core (i.e. the 3-grams all three variants have in common) reveals that these common-core 3-grams are significantly more frequently used in ESL and EFL-variants compared to ENL. A functional analysis shows differences in the distribution of the 3-grams across the variants. A study of the variant-specific 3-grams reveals less variability in EFL vs. ENL but a higher number and variability of both types and tokens in ESL.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationExploring second-language varieties of English and learner Englishes
Subtitle of host publicationbridging a paradigm gap
EditorsJoybrato Mukherjee, Marianne Hundt
Place of PublicationAmsterdam ; Philadelphia
PublisherJohn Benjamins Publishing Company
Pages79-100
Number of pages22
ISBN (Print)9789027223203
Publication statusPublished - 2011

Publication series

NameStudies in corpus linguistics
PublisherJohn Benjamins Publishing Company
Volume44

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