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Comparative Analysis of Prepositions in Kenyan and Cameroonian English

This study compares the usage of prepositions in Kenyan and Cameroonian English through quantitative and qualitative analysis. It examines different aspects such as context, corpus design, simplification, explicitness, and reasons for feature divergence. The findings suggest potential L2 learner or culture-specific influences on prepositional usage.

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Comparative Analysis of Prepositions in Kenyan and Cameroonian English

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  1. IAWE 2007 Regensburg Prepositions in Kenyan and Cameroonian English Josef Schmied / Daniel Nkemleke English Language & Linguistics Chemnitz University of Technology www.tu-chemnitz.de/phil/english/linguistics

  2. Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 2 1. Comparing corpora: quantitatively and qualitatively comparability discussed in ICE project around 1990 (cf. Schmied 1996) • International Corpus of English - East Africa (ICE-EA) • Corpus of Cameroon English (CCE) = more LOB style ICE-EA CCE time of compilation 1990-96 1990-94 medium spoken + written written seize 290.000+ 402.000 820.000  overlap only in written parts of unequal seize  normalize to 1M words

  3. Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 3 1. Context: academic writing

  4. Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 4 1.1. Corpus design: ICE-K-written word count

  5. Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 5 1.2. Corpus design: ICE-K-writtenword count

  6. Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 6 2. Quantitative comparisons even if the text basis is comparable, frequency differences because of • contents (student essays with the same topic?) or • functions (e.g. functional load of in)? categorising prepositions • form (in) • syntactic functions: phrasal verbs (take in), independent prepositions (adverbial: in the garden) vs. dependent prepositions (idiomatic, fixed: succeed in)? • semantic functions(but frequent prepositions have many meanings)

  7. Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 7 2. 1. Simple prepositions

  8. Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 8 2.2. Compound prepositions

  9. Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 9 2.3. Complex (2-word) prepositions

  10. Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 10 3. Qualitative comparison3.1. Simplification: From compound to simple? in for into? (cf. Mwangi 2003, all in spoken!) … but let us take the length and the width of Zanzibar island and the people who are there What do you think if there are so many people just coming in the country. (S1A018T) on for onto? figures too small

  11. Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 11 3.2. Simplification through incorporation esp. if preposition is unambiguous/transparent arrive When I arrive __ the campus on the 15th I found things a little abnormal until the first week was over, then I came back to a new stand. (Cam pl038) I arrived home at 9.30 night having being rained on like nobody's business. (Ken ##) = BrE (parallel: reach) reply (+letter  idiomatic?) Tell her to reply __ my letter if she still knows me as a friend. (Cam pl114) Everybody has been complaining that you no longer reply letters. (Ken ##)

  12. Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 12 3.3. Explicitness: From simple to complex onto Arita lifted the burning charcoal stove and hit Kuya on the chest, pouring all the burning charcoal onto him. (Ken ##) in within Even though within Cameroon there exist some seasonal hunger zones, … (Cam mi022) but gradient! Most of the product is locally used within the country with some surplus for exportation within UDEAC and to Europe. (Cam op001) inthroughout and they have the power, influence and resources to promote environmentally desirable activities throughout the country. (Cam mi014) pen off Permit me to pen off while waiting for your reply. Best regards. (Cam pl244)Let me pen off and say one day we will meet for <O/> enjoyment ceremony.(Ken ##)

  13. Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 13 3.4. Why explicitness? from formal styles (“Biblical”)? onto The lesson learnt here is that man should do onto others just what he wants others to do onto him. (Cam se019)(directive!) I spoke to them in the evening of "GROWING UP ONTO JESUS‘ LIKENESS. (Ken ##) in expressive styles? off For once, all four clubs in the Littoral province smiled off with two points each. In Nkongsamba, Eagle walloped “Maiscam” 3-0. (Cam op113) in prototypes/chunk learning: take into consideration (C 39 – K 13 – UK 1!) In arriving at the estimated retirement benefits in column 9 and 10 the following assumptions have been taken into account (Ken ##)  3-word propositions

  14. Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 14 2.4. Complex (3-word) prepositions

  15. Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 15 4. Conclusion problems: multiple reasons for features of New Englishes diverging trends in simplification – expressiveness underlying properties: L2 learner- or culture-specific? prospects = more research: • larger corpus (WWW) • semantically + POS-tagged corpus • collocation finder: http://ell.phil.tu-chemnitz.de/collCollect/

  16. Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 16 Background reading Jibril, M. (1991) “The Sociolinguistics of prepositional usage in Nigerian English”. In Chesire, J. (ed.) English around the world: Sociolinguistic perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 519-537. Lindstromberg, Seth (1998) English Prepositions Explained. Amsterdam. John Benjamins Mwangi, Serah (2003) “Prepositions in Kenyan English: A Corpus-based Study in Lexical-Grammatical Variation”. PhD thesis, Chemnitz University of Technology. Mwangi, Serah (2004) “Prepositions Vanishing in Kenyan English”. English Today 77, Vol. 20 No. 1, 27-32. Renouf, Antoinette and Sinclair John (1991) ‘Collocational framework in English’. In K. Aijmer and B. Altenberg (eds.) London: Longman, 128-143. Schmied, Josef (1991) English in Africa: An Introduction. London: Longman. Schmied, Josef (2002). "Prototypes, transfer and idiomaticity: an empirical analysis of local prepositions in English and German". In: Rabade, Luis Iglesias/Susana M.a Doval Suarez (eds.). Studies in Contrastive Linguistics. Universidade de Santiage de Compostela, 947-959.

  17. Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 17 4.2. Schemantic comparison

  18. Table: Locative and metaphorical meanings of through in the CCE and ICE-K

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