Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Hoffmann, Thomas

Titel

The cognitive foundation of post-colonial Englishes : construction grammar as the cognitive theory for the dynamic model

Ist Teil von

• Elements in world Englishes

Ort / Verlag

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press

Erscheinungsjahr

2021

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Varieties of English are spoken all over the world from Africa to Asia, from Europe to America. In addition to its use as a foreign language, English in many of these countries is a first or second language variety that initially arose in a colonial setting. Currently, the most influential sociolinguistic model for the evolution of these 'Post-Colonial Englishes' is the Dynamic Model. In this Element, I outline how Construction Grammar, the most prominent cognitive syntactic theory, can provide a cognitive foundation for the assumptions made by the Dynamic Model. As I shall argue, Construction Grammar naturally complements the Dynamic Model and, in addition to that, a 'Constructionist Grammar Approach to the Dynamic Model' approach generates new research questions concerning the productivity of syntactic patterns across Dynamic Model phases.