The use of articles in inner and outer circle varieties of English: a comparative corpus-based study

Abstract

Articles continue to be one of the most puzzling aspects of English grammar. This thesis investigates article use variation in two groups of English varieties: Inner Circle and Outer Circle. The first group, comprising British English, American English, Australian English and New Zealand English, represents English varieties in their traditional contexts. The second group, consisting of Singapore English, Indian English, Philippine English and Kenyan English, represents varieties which are deeply entrenched in their communities due to colonial roots. The study is premised on the naturalness of corpus data. Three corpus-based analyses were conducted to investigate articles and their frequency, collocation and usage types.

The frequency analysis revealed that articles are idiosyncratically used by the varieties with no clear divide between the two groups. Text types, on the other hand, emerged as a more powerful determinant of the observed frequencies. It was found that fewer articles were used in spoken language. In the collocational analysis, the varieties were found to favour different complementation patterns for two-word and multiple-world clusters. The Inner Circle varieties, however, shared more complementation patterns among them, demonstrating greater stability in terms of variation. Finally the analysis of usage types discovered ‘marked’ or untypical patterns of use in the Outer Circle group’s structural and situational definites. A number of untypical usages of first-mention/quantitative 'a/an' were also found in this group. In the same analysis, a case study of ‘house’ uncovered a few marked uses of Ø, which signalled the null form but not the zero article.

Although the collective findings in this study indicate that article use in both groups of varieties has more similarities than differences, the latter leave more impression on observers. These differences can be attributed to such diverse factors as text types, socio-cultural content of collocates, specificity, recategorisation of countness, indiscriminate rule application and ungrammaticality. Theoretically, however, the variation can be captured by the application of Chesterman’s three composite meanings of definiteness – locatability, inclusiveness and extensivity – and their permutations. As an instance of nativisation, article use in the Outer Circle is limited in its diffusion. The observed innovations rarely creep into more formal registers.