Cohesive Relations across English Varieties: a systemic functional linguistics perspective

De Bruna Almeida-Büttner

This thesis reports an analysis of patterns in cohesive relations from two complementary perspectives: regional and functional. Generally, this study aims to assess which linguistic resources are used to express cohesion across four varieties of English (British English, Irish English, Philippine English, and Eastern African English) and two registers: conversation and academic writing. More specifically, this thesis tests, first, if there are differences in proportions of lexical cohesion and co-reference between those languages and, second, if there are differences in proportions of lexical cohesion and co-reference between the registers.

• Idioma: Português
• Editora: Editora Dialética
• Data de lançamento: 11 de mai. de 2023
• ISBN: 9786525274515

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This thesis was the result of the encouragement and action of many people without whom it would not have carried out properly. I hermit express my deep and sincere gratitude to those who directly contributed with this study.

I would like to thank my research supervisor Prof. Dr. Robert Fuchs for giving me the opportunity to do this research and providing invaluable guidance throughout the process. I would also like to express my gratitude to my co-supervisor Prof. Dr. Peter Siemund for the lectures and seminars offered during the program, and for encouraging me since my first semester in the university.

My sincere thanks to my colleagues at University of Hamburg and the Ph.D. students for all the help and encouragement in the past two years. A special thanks to Eliane for believing in me and motivating me since the beginning.

To my undergraduate supervisor Prof. Dr. Adriana Pagano for introducing me to the academic world and for showing me my true potential. Without your support and respect, I would not have come this far.

And my most special thanks to my dear husband Jonas Büttner for being my biggest supporter. Thank you for your patience and companionship. I would not have made it without you.

SUMÁRIO

Capa

Folha de Rosto

Créditos

1. INTRODUCTION

2. PREVIOUS RESEARCH

2.1 ENGLISH VARIETIES

2.2 COHESIVE DEVICES ACROSS VARIETIES

3. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

3.1 SYSTEMIC-FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS – BASIC CONCEPTS

3.1.1 THE CONCEPT OF TIE

3.1.2 THE CONCEPT OF COHESION

3.2 CO-REFERENCE

3.2.1 PERSONAL CO-REFERENCE

3.2.2 DEMONSTRATIVE CO-REFERENCE

3.3 ENDOPHORIC AND EXOPHORIC REFERENCE

3.4 LEXICAL COHESION

3.4.1 ELABORATING RELATIONS: REPETITION, SYNONYMY, AND HYPONYMY

3.4.2 EXTENDING RELATIONS: MERONYMY

4. RESEARCH DESIGN

4.1 CORPUS AND DATA

4.2 RESEARCH CORPUS AND COMPILATION CRITERIA

4.3 ANNOTATION

4.4 STATISTICAL TESTS AND ANALYSIS

5. RESULTS

5.1 COMPARISON OF VARIETIES

5.2 COMPARISON OF REGISTERS

5.3 COHESIVE RELATIONS WITHIN THE VARIETIES

6. DISCUSSION

7. CONCLUSIONS

REFERENCES

APPENDIX A

APPENDIX B

Landmarks

cover

titlepage

copyright-page

Table of Contents

bibliography

1. INTRODUCTION

Currently, English has a special status among all the languages spoken in different countries. As a result of extensive colonial expansion, English is spoken in many different regions and is used in many different social contexts. Consequently, new English varieties have emerged in almost all corners of the world. These different postcolonial varieties also have their own singularities which vary according to socio-cultural background and history, as along with the level of prestige that English carries in those regions.

The volume of research that describes the varieties of English is growing constantly (Diaconu, 2011). Hence, it seems necessary to complement these studies with analyses of the semantic features of English and extend the realm of research to non-standard English varieties worldwide. To this end, this study aims to assess which linguistic resources are used to express cohesion across four varieties of English: British English, Irish English, Philippine English, and Eastern African English. These varieties can be classified as native language varieties—British and Irish—and second-language varieties—Philippine and Eastern African (Kachru, 1986).

Linguistic variation can be examined from many perspectives. One of them is the regional perspective: variations in a language occur as a result of geographical diversity, resulting in different dialects and sometimes national varieties. Another perspective is the functional one, and it is determined by the activity in which the language is being used. These activities presume a set of linguistic features that are more common for each context of situation. This set of features is commonly referred to as register.

The concept of register originates from the idea that the context of the language determines its usage. Therefore, it is the linguistic framework that describes the context of a situation (Neumann, 2008). For this analysis, two different registers have been selected: conversation and academic writing. These registers represent specific contexts of situation and are expected to feature different patterns regarding the use of cohesive devices.

Mapping linguistic variation through both regional and functional perspectives would not have been possible without a corpus investigation. In this respect, the components of British English, Irish English, Philippine English, and East African English of the International Corpus of English (ICE) shed light on which cohesive device is more prototypical of conversations and academic writing. The ICE¹ is a set of electronic corpora that includes different national or regional varieties of English around the world. The primary aim of the corpus is to collect material for comparative studies of English worldwide. Therefore, a sampled sub-corpus of ICE, representing these English varieties, is most appropriate for this study.

It is also important to mention that linguistic variation does not occur only on the morphological and syntactic levels but is also present in the interaction between cultural factors and the context of situation. This interaction enables functional alternation between the cohesive devices that are being used in different situations. This thesis focuses on two such devices, co-reference and lexical cohesion, as they inherently extend beyond morphological and syntactic units. Additionally, the methodological steps selected for this analysis are designed to focus on the referential relations