Variation in English Worldwide Registers and Global Varieties Studies in English Language Series

World Englishes is one of the most active fields of present day linguistic research. This book provides a comprehensive overview of variation in English across the globe, by analysing a large corpus of texts from the English speaking world. The analysis draws on a larger number of individual texts and linguistic features than previous studies have done. It includes a systematic comparison of the influence of register and national variety on variation in English world-wide, and explores patterns of variation in both qualitative and quantitative terms. The results provide a testing ground for theoretical models, and highlight the importance of register in mediating linguistic differences across national varieties.

1. Introduction; 2. The world of English: variation in geography and register; 3. Quantifying linguistic variation; 4. The space of variation in the present study; 5. General situational dimensions of variation; 6. Register-specific dimensions; 7. Dimensions with other patterns of distribution; 8. Discussion: feature space and geographic space; 9. Conclusion.

Axel Bohmann is Assistant Professor of English Linguistics at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg.