Lexicogrammar: forms and functions

The availability of large-sized corpora makes it possible to conduct systematic studies at the lexicogrammar level. The VOICE, ACE and ELFA projects have begun to provide corpus data for this type of enquiry. Research in the emerging patterns of lexical and grammatical forms in ELF interactions demonstrates how ELF users exploit linguistic resources in an innovative way. Seidlhofer (2004) and other scholars’ empirical research into ELF in a European context shows a number of shared linguistic features. The following list of lexicogrammatical characteristics put forward by Seidlhofer (2004) as potential non-standard features of ELF has stimulated follow-up research in this area (Cogo & Dewey, 2012).

- confusing the relative pronouns who and which

- omitting definite and indefinite articles where they obligatory in ENL, and inserting them where they do not occur in ENL

- failing to use correct forms in tag questions (e.g., isn’t it? or no? Instead of shouldn’t

they?)

- inserting redundant prepositions, as in We have to study about...

- overusing certain verbs of high semantic generality, such as do, have, make, put,

take

- replacing infinitive-constructions with that-clauses, as in I want that - overdoing explicitness (e.g. black colour rather than just black)

Based on their analysis of corpus data, Cogo and Dewey (2012) observed that the use of the 3rd _{person zero was not restricted by the nature of the ELF setting or the}

linguistic background of the speakers. They further concluded that the presence of ENL speakers in an interaction could increase the use of -s form for 3rd _{person by ELF speakers}

(Cogo & Dewey, 2012). In addition to syntactical non-conformity, lexical innovations are also identified in the VOICE corpus. ELF users create a new word where they feel one is needed. It is interesting to find “verb forms have been ‘regularized’ by applying a regular morphological convention in unconventional ways” (Seidlhofer, 2011, p. 102). For example, a coinage approvement was created by L1 speakers of Polish, Finnish and Portuguese in VOICE (Seidlhofer, 2011). Seidlhofer (2011) claims that ELF users explore the alternative encoding possibilities inherent in the language to achieve communicative effectiveness and the underlying encoding possibilities that speakers make use of is termed “virtual language” (p. 111). Therefore, ELF users are creative when producing actual language that does not fully conform to the regulative conventions in native English grammar and usage.

With a large number of examples of innovative patterns in ELF use, “the crucial challenge has been to move from the surface description of particular features, however interesting they may be in themselves, to an explanation of the underlying significance of the forms...what functions they are symptomatic of” (Seidlhofer, 2009b, p. 241). In terms of the relation between form and function in ELF, Seidlhofer (2011) claims that non- conformity to the standard code and native-speaker idiomatic usage can be seen “as resulting from ELF users making effective strategic use of the language as communicative resource” (p. 148). The formal features of ELF are motivated by the functions they are required to serve. Her assumption is that language development is “self-regulating and that the formal adaptations that are made can naturally enhance functional effectiveness” (Seidlhofer, 2011, p. 148). Cogo and Dewey (2012), through studying the other salient aspects of lexis and grammar including prepositions, articles and collocations, aimed to identify the interrelationship of pragmatics and lexicogrammar and the various motives and underlying causes that contribute to the emergence of new forms in ELF, which they concluded illustrated “redundancy, regularization, prominence, explicitness and semantics” (p. 112).

Translanguaging has become a favoured term referring to the ways bi- and multilingual speakers creatively use their linguistic resources. “A translanguaging lens posits that bilinguals have one linguistic repertoire from which they select features strategically to communicate effectively” (Garcia & Wei Li, 2014, p. 22). Li Wei (2016, p.3) argues that “both languages are used in a dynamic and functionally integrated manner” in translanguaging to make meaning and shape experience. Translanguaging is not simply a process that goes between languages (code switching, crossing) but beyond languages and enables creativity in language users. This is evident in the ways Chinese speakers adapt English when using ELF. Examples of code switching and the creative use of

English are presented in 5.2.3 and 4.2.1 respectively.

In Asian contexts, there have been comparatively few studies of ELF. An exception is Kirkpatrick (2010a) who provides a preliminary description of linguistic features of English as a lingua franca within ASEAN contexts. These include phonological, lexical, and grammatical features as well as the pragmatic norms and communicative strategies adopted by ASEAN speakers of ELF. At the lexicogrammar level, the non-standard features of ASEAN ELF include the marking or non-marking of plurals, frequent use of the present simple verb form, preference for modal form would over will and the frequent use of the preposition about. Kirkpatrick claims that non-standard use in these contexts represents natural language development (Kirkpatrick, 2010a). Scholars, using the ACE corpus, have shown that the ELF of ASEAN speakers shares certain linguistic features (Deterding & Kirkpatrick, 2006; Kirkpatrick, 2008; Kirkpatrick & Subhan, 2014). In a recent article (Kirkpatrick & Subhan, 2014), the authors reviewed the possible motivations for the presence of non-standard forms in the L2 varieties of English. One is the notion of “angloversals” (Kortmann & Szmrecsanyi, 2004), which argues there is evidence for shared features across varieties of English; and the other is “substrate influence” (Ansaldo, 2009; Lim & Gisborne, 2009; Sharma, 2009), which argues that the distinctive linguistic features of a L2 variety are determined by L1 substrate influence, especially when these substrates share certain typological features, as is the case with the Malay and Chinese languages operating as substrates for Singaporean English. After studying the use or non-use of tense marking in a sub-set of ACE, Kirkpatrick and Subhan (2014) conclude that the substrate influence is not as important as previously thought in explaining the marking of tenses for L1 speakers of Malay, as L1 speakers of Malay routinely mark for tense, even though Malay itself is not a tensed language. In the complex situation of language change and variation, however, especially in the fluidity

of ELF, we need to bear in mind Thomason’s (2010, p. 31) advice that “in most cases, no cause can be firmly established and because of the real possibility that multiple causes are responsible for a particular change.”

With research findings coming from different contexts, it is interesting to note that some of the ELF features are shared by ELF users in Asian as well as in European contexts. For example, the non-marking of plurals or the plural marking of uncountable nouns, different use of prepositions, and uniform question tags have been identified in both VOICE and ACE (Kirkpatrick, 2010a; Seidlhofer, 2001)). Although non-standard forms occur frequently in ELF contexts, misunderstandings are actually quite rare (Deterding, 2013; Kaur, 2009; Mauranen, 2006). Mauranen (2015) investigated how ELF users managed to communicate so successfully, despite the frequent non-standard forms, through studying ELFA dialogues. She claims that the approximation strategy of speakers may not pose much difficulty for a hearer to construct the meaning. The approximation strategy can be applied at word level, for example, using potentional instead of potential, and at multi-word unit level, for example, using to put the end on it instead to put an end

to it. Mauranen (2015, p. 43) concludes that “articles and prepositions can become

dispensable” as long as the key vocabulary items are the same in the multi-word units. This contributes to understanding why the non-standard forms and innovative expressions in ELF interactions do not cause any communicative breakdowns.