Variation in English Worldwide

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.

• Explores the structure underlying variation in the global use of English
• Develops ten fundamental dimensions of variation in quantitative terms and provides extensive qualitative analysis of each dimension
• Demonstrates how to combine research in multi-dimensional corpus linguistics and the World Englishes framework on a large scale, in novel and highly productive ways