“I just wanted to give a partly answer”: capturing and exploring word class variation in ELF data

Ruth Osimk-Teasdale

doi:10.1515/jelf-2014-0005

Article

“I just wanted to give a partly answer”: capturing and exploring word class variation in ELF data

Ruth Osimk-Teasdale
Ruth Osimk-Teasdale is an applied linguist especially interested in ELF. She worked as a researcher for the VOICE Project (Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English) from 2009 to 2013, where she was substantially involved in the development of POS-tagging guidelines for VOICE. She has published on the intelligibility of ELF communication as well as on the challenges of part-of-speech tagging of ELF data and is currently working on her PhD thesis, which is concerned with parts of speech in ELF.

Published/Copyright: March 25, 2014

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From the journal Journal of English as a Lingua Franca Volume 3 Issue 1

Abstract

English as a lingua franca is generally viewed as a user language in which the formal characteristics are adapted to meet the communicative needs of its speakers, inherently resulting in linguistic innovation and variation. In the part-of-speech (POS) tagging of the Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English (VOICE), many cases were encountered whereby ELF users go beyond the commonly assumed boundaries of word class categories in Standard English by the process defined as word class change. Word class change is understood as a change of word class category, or syntagmatic function, without alternation of the morphological form. In this paper, it is demonstrated how forms which were used in a non-codified function were dealt with in the tagging procedure. Reviewing concepts commonly used to explain word class change, namely conversion and multifunctionality, it is argued that a number of presumptions inherent in these concepts cause difficulties when applied to ELF data. In a case study, the most frequent types of word class shifts or variation (terms which are considered more suitable for ELF data) in VOICE are exemplified, analysed, and discussed with regard to the forms which are shifted, the directionality of these shifts, as well as the environment in which the shifts occur. It is shown that word class shifts in ELF interactions follow clear tendencies and thus a reconceptualization of the concepts of conversion and multifunctionality with regard to ELF is proposed. Finally, it is argued that if tagging practices attempt to display, rather than disguise, initial “problems” arising in the tagging process, this can help to gain useful insights into the nature of the data.

Zusammenfassung

English als Lingua Franca wird generell als Nutzersprache gesehen, in welcher die formalen Charakteristika adaptiert werden um den kommunikativen Bedürfnissen ihrer Sprecher und Sprecherinnen zu dienen, was von Natur aus linguistische Innovation und Variation zur Folge hat. Im Prozess des Part-of-Speech (POS) Taggings des Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English (VOICE) trafen wir auf viele Fälle, in welchen ELF Sprecher und Sprecherinnen allgemein angenommene Grenzen von Wortklassen des Standard Englisch mittels Änderung von Wortklassenkategorien, überschreiten. Diese Änderung der Wortklasse wird als Änderung der syntagmatischen Funktion ohne Alternation der morphologischen Form verstanden. In diesem Artikel wird gezeigt, wie mit solchen Formen, welche in nicht-kodifizierten Funktionen benutzt wurden, im Taggingprozess behandelt wurden. Es wird ein Literaturüberblick bekannter Konzepte zur Beschreibung des Phänomens der Änderung einer Wortklasse, nämlich Konversion und Multifunktionalität, gegeben, wobei argumentiert wird, dass einige Grundannahmen dieser Konzepte bei der Anwendung auf ELF Daten nicht unproblematisch sind. In einer Fallstudie werden Beispiele für die häufigsten Formen von Wortklassenverschiebung oder -variation (diese Termini werden für die ELF Daten als geeigneter erachtet) gegeben, analysiert und im Hinblick auf die Art der Verschiebungen, deren Richtungen sowie deren Einbettung in der jeweiligen Sprechsituation diskutiert. Es wird gezeigt, dass die Wortklassenverschiebungen klaren Tendenzen folgen. In der Schlussfolgerung wird im Hinblick auf ELF eine Rekonzeptualisierung der Konzepte Konversion und Multifunktionalität vorgeschlagen. Es wird schließlich argumentiert, dass der Versuch „problematische‟ Aspekte im Tagging Verfahren darzustellen, interessante Einblicke in die Daten, wie Wortklassenverschiebung, ermöglichen kann.

Keywords: word class variation; conversion; multifunctionality; language variation; English as a lingua franca

Schlagworte: Wortklassenvariation; Konversion; Multifunktionalität; Sprachvariation; Englisch als Lingua Franca

About the author

Ruth Osimk-Teasdale

Ruth Osimk-Teasdale is an applied linguist especially interested in ELF. She worked as a researcher for the VOICE Project (Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English) from 2009 to 2013, where she was substantially involved in the development of POS-tagging guidelines for VOICE. She has published on the intelligibility of ELF communication as well as on the challenges of part-of-speech tagging of ELF data and is currently working on her PhD thesis, which is concerned with parts of speech in ELF.

Published Online: 2014-3-25

Published in Print: 2014-3-1

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/jelf-2014-0005

Keywords for this article

word class variation; conversion; multifunctionality; language variation; English as a lingua franca