This book offers an in-depth analysis of several features of spoken Indian English that are generally considered as 'typical', but have never before been studied empirically. Drawing on authentic spoken data from the International Corpus of English, Indian component, the book focuses on the domain of discourse organization and examines the form, function and distribution of invariant tags such as isn't it and no/na, non-initial existential there, focus markers only and itself, topicalization and left-dislocation. By focusing on multilingual speakers' interactions, the study demonstrates conclusively that spoken Indian English bears all the hallmarks of a vibrant contact language, testifying to a pan-South Asian 'grammar of culture' which becomes apparent in contact-induced language change in spoken Indian English. The book will be highly relevant for anyone interested in postcolonial varieties of English, contact linguistics, standardization, and discourse-pragmatic sentence structure.

Professor Braj Kachru (b. 1932) has pioneered, shaped and defined the scholarly field of world Englishes. He is the founder and co-editor of World Englishes, the associate editor of the Oxford Companion to the English Language and contributor to the Cambridge History of the English Language. His research on world Englishes, the Kashmiri language and literature, and theoretical and applied studies on language and society has resulted in more than 25 authored and edited volumes and more than 100 research papers, review articles, and reviews. The second volume of these Collected Works contains selections of some of Kachru's most important work in the field of World Englishes from the years between the 1992 and 2001.

This book provides crucial reading for students and researchers of world Englishes. It is an insightful and provocative study of the forms and functions of English in Asia, its acculturation and nativization, and the innovative dimensions of Asian creativity. It contextualizes a variety of theoretical, applied and ideological issues with refreshing interpretations and reevaluations and can be used both as a classroom text and a resource volume.

Contemporary Indian English: Variation and Change offers the first comprehensive description of Indian English and its emerging regional standard in a corpus-linguistic framework. Drawing on a wealth of authentic spoken and written data from India (including the Kolhapur Corpus and the International Corpus of English), this book explores the dynamics of variation and change in the vocabulary and grammar of contemporary Indian English. The aims are to document the extent of lexical and grammatical nativization at the beginning of the twenty-first century and compare contemporary Indian English to other varieties around the world (for example British and American English). The results are relevant to sociolinguists, variationists and lexicologists seeking to investigate ongoing language change in emerging standard varieties of English. With its strong empirical foundation and its comparative outlook, the book is also of interest to anyone looking for an introduction to the corpus-based description of varieties of English.

American Indian English documents and examines the diversity of English in American Indian speech communities. It presents a convincing case for the fundamental influence of ancestral American Indian languages and cultures on spoken and written expression in different Indian English codes. A distillation of over twenty years' research, this pioneering work explores the linguistic and sociolinguistic characteristics of English language use among members of Navajo, Hopi, Mojave, Ute, Tsimshian, Kotzebue, Ponca, Pima, Lakota, Cheyenne, Laguna, Santa Ana, Isleta, Chilcotin, Seminole, Cherokee, and other American Indian tribes. American Indian English fills numerous gaps in existing studies of language histories, Indian student school experience, Indian-white contact, and "acculturation." Unlike contemporary studies on schooling, ethnicity, empowerment, and educational failure, American Indian English avoids postmodernist jargon and discourse strategies in favor of direct description and commentary. Data are derived from conditions of real-life experience faced by speakers of Indian English in various English-speaking settings. This practical focus enhances the book's accessibility to Indian educators and community-based teachers, as well as non-Indian academics.

This book is a descriptive account of English as it is used in India. Indian English is a second language to most of its speakers. In its 400-year history it has acquired its own character, yet still looks to native varieties of English for norms. The complex nature of Indian English, which is not really a monolithic entity, is discussed in this book. The book also makes a distinction between what are considered to be standard and non-standard varieties, and provides an overview of the salient features. Indian English includes: * A discussion of the sociolinguistic and cultural factors* The history of the establishment of English in India, bringing it up to modern times* A description of the linguistic aspects: phonetics and phonology, lexical, discourse and morphosyntactic features* Samples of written English from a range of contexts* Samples of speech* An annotated bibliography divided according to topic.