Navigation auf zora.uzh.ch

Search ZORA

ZORA (Zurich Open Repository and Archive)

Migration von ZORA auf die Software DSpace

ZORA will change to a new software on 8th September 2025. Please note: deadline for new submissions is 21th July 2025!

Information & dates for training courses can be found here: Information on Software Migration.

Differential change in British and American English: Comparing pre- and post-war data

Hundt, Marianne; Dose, Stefanie (2012). Differential change in British and American English: Comparing pre- and post-war data. In: Hoffmann, Sebastian; Rayson, Paul; Leech, Geoffrey. English Corpus Linguistics: Looking back, Moving forward. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 79-101.

Abstract

This chapter uses data from the extended Brown family of corpora (see Hundt and Leech, forthcoming), i.e. material from the 1930s, 1960s and 1990s, to study ongoing linguistic change in British and American English (BrE and AmE) in the twentieth century. Since the prequel to the Brown corpus (B-Brown) is still being compiled, this study focuses exclusively on material from the academic writing and general fiction sections of the corpora, which represent registers that have previously been shown to display substantial linguistic differences (see e.g. Leech et al. 2009). The present case study looks at quantitative as well as qualitative changes in the use of the progressive. By extending the time frame into the past, we are able to shed light on the fine-grained differential developments in the two varieties: For instance, BrE and AmE converge in their use of the progressive in the second half of the twentieth century in terms of overall frequency. At the same time, qualitative analyses taking into account text type, tense, aspect and voice, paint a more varied picture of change in the two varieties. It turns out that BrE and AmE sometimes develop in tandem and at other times show divergent trends, and that changes in BrE are not necessarily due to an American influence.

Additional indexing

Item Type:Book Section, refereed, original work
Communities & Collections:06 Faculty of Arts > English Department
Dewey Decimal Classification:820 English & Old English literatures
Scopus Subject Areas:Social Sciences & Humanities > Language and Linguistics
Social Sciences & Humanities > Linguistics and Language
Physical Sciences > Computer Science Applications
Language:English
Date:2012
Deposited On:03 Apr 2012 07:02
Last Modified:07 Jul 2025 01:36
Publisher:Rodopi
Series Name:Language and Computers - Studies in Practical Linguistics
Number:74
ISBN:978-90-420-3466-2
Additional Information:Papers from the 30th International Conference on English Language Research on Computerized Corpora (ICAME 30). Lancaster, UK, 27-31 May 2009.
OA Status:Closed
Related URLs:http://www.rodopi.nl/senj.asp?BookId=LC+74 (Publisher)
Full text not available from this repository.

Metadata Export

Statistics

Citations

1 citation in Web of Science®
1 citation in Scopus®
Google Scholar™

Altmetrics

Authors, Affiliations, Collaborations

Similar Publications