Milestones in the Corpus of Cameroon English (CCE): research possibilities in an ESL Context

1. Dr. Daniel A. Nkemleke Department of English Ecole Normale Supérieure University of Yaounde I (Festschrift for Paul Mbangwaba, June 2008) Outline Introduction: Key dates in the CCE Objective of the corpus Current state of corpus Envisaged parallel corpus Research possibilities Concluding remarks Milestones in the Corpus of Cameroon English (CCE): research possibilities in an ESL Context

2. Introduction: key dates in the CCE • before 1992: link between the then university of Yaounde & School of English, University of Birmingham • 1992: initial blueprint of the Corpus of Cameroon English • 1992–1994: support from local and foreign colleagues • 1994: initial target of a million-word reached

3. Introduction: Key dates in the CCE (Cont’) • 1995 onward: exploitation of corpus for research and classroom activities • 2003 major research completed, using corpus as database • 2004-2008: over 16 publications/books based on corpus • 2006-2008: corpus underwent major restructuring (editing and tagging)

4. 2. Objective of corpus • provide a textual basis for a quantitative study of CamE • provide a database for the description of the main features and problems inherent in the variety of English which is written in Cameroon • serve as a database for comparative studies on CamE in relation to other varieties of English. • provide a source of authentic material for English language teaching in Cameroon and

5. 3. Current state of corpus (Table 1)

6. 4. Envisaged parallel (written) corpus: ICE-CAM (Table 2)

7. 4. Envisaged parallel (written) corpus: ICE-CAM (Cont’) (Table 3)

8. 5. Research possibilities • Serve as a basis for qualitative and quantitative comparative research on Cameroon English and other varieties of English - Testing frequency and/regularity of features of CamE usage (e.g. see Simo Bobda 2002) & comparing with other corpora

9. 5. Research possibilities (Cont’) • Provide a basis for practical and lexicological description of Cameroonian English: • How common are different words? • How common are different senses of different words? • Do some words have systematic associations with other particular words?

10. 5. Research possibilities (Cont’) • Investigating interference features in CamE • I have been wondering whether I should look for a <non-logement type="French" /> non-logement certificate and marriage certificate again for the money to go through? (PL001) • But as they say <"L on ne lache jamais les cops type="Cam-French" /> "L on ne lache jamais les cops". (PL12) • I heard that your gastric is dealing with you. <Weh h h ! Ashiaii ! type="Cam-pidgin" /> Weh h h ! Ashiaii ! (PL 236) • Brother, <Masa type="Cam-pidgin" /> Masa don't be angry with me. I regret the silence. (PL 239)

11. 5. Research possibilities (Cont’) • Investigating register variation within CamE using MF/MD approach (Biber 1988) • Lexical classes -conjuncts (e.g. consequently, furthermore, however etc.) -downtoners (e.g. nearly, barely, slightly etc.) -hedges (e.g. at about, something like, almost etc.) -amplifiers (e.g. absolutely, extremely, perfectly etc.) -demonstratives (e.g. this, that, those etc.)

12. 5. Research possibilities (Cont’) • Modals -possibility (e.g. can, may, might, could) -necessity (e.g. ought, should, must) -predictive (e.g. will, would, shall)

13. 5. Research possibilities (Cont’) • Nominal forms -nominalization (ending in –tion, -ment, -ity) -gerunds (participle forms functioning as nouns) • Passives -agentless passives -by-passives • Lexical specificity -type/token ratio -mean word length • Questions -direct WH-Questions

14. 5. Research possibilities (Cont’) • Specialized lexical verbs -public verb (e.g. assert, declare, mention, say) - private verbs (e.g. assume, believe, doubt, know) -suasive verbs (e.g. command, insist, propose) • Pronouns - first person pronouns (e.g. I/we) - second person pronoun (e.g. you) - inclusive pronoun (e.g. we, us)

15. 5. Research possibilities (Cont‘) • Investigating features of spoken English (a distant possibility??) -corpus phonology

16. 6. Concluding remarks • the CCE is brainchild of Professor Paul Mbangwana • prospects • students’ participation crucial • the spoken component, an immediate challenge

17. Appendix I: some research undertaken on the CCE so far • Nkemleke, Daniel (2008) Modality in novice academic writing: the case of African and German university students. English Projects in Teaching and Research in Central Europe. Göttingen: Cuvillier • Nkemleke, Daniel (2007) Frequency and use of modals in Cameroon English. Lagos Papers in English Studies, vol. 1(2), 47-61. • Nkemleke, Daniel (2007) Frequency and use of modals in Cameroon English and application to language education. Indian Journal of Applied Linguistics, vol. 33, No. 1, 87-105. • Nkemleke, Daniel (2005) Must and Should in Cameroon English. Nordic Journal for African Studies, vol. 14 No. 1, 27-67. • Nkemleke, Daniel (2004) Context and Function of Need and Be able to in Cameroon English. Indian Journal of Applied Linguistics, vol. 12 No. 2, 23-34.

18. Appendix I: some research undertaken on the CCE (Cont‘) • Nkemleke, Daniel (2004) A corpus-based study of the modal verbs in Cameroonian and British English. CASTALIA: Ibadan Journal of Multicultural & Multidisciplinary Studies, vol. 19, 1-23. • Nkemleke, Daniel and Paul Mbangwana (2001) The modals of and Obligation and Necessity in Cameroon English. CASTALIA: Ibadan Journal of Multicultural & Multidisciplinary Studies vol. 6, 1-14. • Tiomajou, David (1993) Designing the Corpus of Cameroon English. ICAME Journal, 17, 119-124. • Note: Hans-Georg Wolf used data from the corpus in his book English in Cameroon, published in 2001 by Mouton de Gruyter (Berlin/New York).

19. Appendix I: some research undertaken on the CCE (Cont‘) • Nkemleke, Daniel (2008) Please-requests in Cameroonian and East-African private (social) letters”. Discourse and Interaction 1/2. Brno: Masaryk University. • 10. Nkemleke, Daniel (2008) Frequency and variety of if-constructions in Cameroon English. In: English Studies and Language Teaching 3, Department of English, University of Pilsen. • 11. Schmied Josef and Nkemleke, Daniel (2008) Prepositions in Cameroon and Kenyan English: corpus-linguistic comparisons of simplification and expressivity. World Englishes: Problems-Properties-Prospects, to be published by John Benjamins. • 12. Schmied, Josef and Nkemleke, Daniel (2008) Reference, coherence and complexity in students’ academic writing: examples from Cameroon and East-Africa corpus. Pragmatics, Language and Literature: A Festschrift for Efurisibina Adegbija. • 13. Nkemleke, Daniel (2008) The Expression of Modality in Cameroon English”. Approaches to Cameroon English: Features, Structure, and New Perspectives, for the series Varieties of English around the World (John Benjamins) Edited by Edgar W. Schneider.

20. END THANK YOU !