1. IAWE 2007 Regensburg Josef Schmied / Daniel Nkemleke English Language & Linguistics Chemnitz University of Technology www.tu-chemnitz.de/phil/english/linguistics Prepositions in Kenyan and Cameroonian English

2. 1. Comparing corpora: quantitatively and qualitatively Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 2 comparability discussed in ICE project around 1990 (cf. Schmied 1996) International Corpus of English - East Africa (ICE-EA) Corpus of Cameroon English (CCE) = more LOB style ICE-EACCE time of compilation1990-961990-94 mediumspoken + writtenwritten seize290.000+ 402.000820.000  overlap only in written parts of unequal seize  normalize to 1M words

3. 1. Context: academic writing Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 3

4. 1.1. Corpus design: ICE-K-written word count Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 4 NON-PRINTED 101,003 Non-professional writing: Student essays40,139 Correspondence: Letters40,837 Legal presentations: Judgements20,027 PRINTED 300,860 Informational: Learned80,277 Informational: Popular80,202 Informational: Reportage40,104 Instructional: Administrative/regulatory20,019 Persuasive: Institutional + personal40,122 Creative40,136 Total Written Kenya 401,863

5. Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 5 AOfficial Press126,539 BPrivate Press49,098 CNovels and Short Stories77,096 DReligion96,380 ETourism26,881 FOfficial Letters12,285 GPrivate Letters79,386 HStudents’ Essays137,399 IGovernment Memoranda71,368 JAdvertisement4,875 KMiscellaneous139,247 Total820,554 1.2. Corpus design: ICE-K-written word count

6. 2. Quantitative comparisons even if the text basis is comparable, frequency differences because of contents (student essays with the same topic?) or functions (e.g. functional load of in)? categorising prepositions form (in) syntactic functions: phrasal verbs (take in), independent prepositions (adverbial: in the garden) vs. dependent prepositions (idiomatic, fixed: succeed in)? semantic functions (but frequent prepositions have many meanings) Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 6

7. 2. 1. Simple prepositions Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 7 corpusCCEICE-KLOBCameroon'Kenya'UK proportion0.820.402normalised of288421370835658351733263835658 to243281273926778296683033126778 in17273877820950210652090020950 for83234240922410150100959224 on487727986995594866626995 at337019295951411045935951 up11956241971145714861971 off246157585300374585 total8845444973108112107871107079108112

8. 2.2. Compound prepositions Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 8 corpusCCEICE-KLOBCameroon'Kenya'UK proportion0.820.402normalised preposition into11775651652143513451652 upon14775407179 407 within376198343459471343 throughout44331195479119 onto241715294015 total17688882536215621142536

9. 2.3. Complex (2-word) prepositions Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 9 corpusCCEICE-KLOBCameroon ' Kenya'UK proportion0.820.402normalised preposition because of28494136346224136 according to215129118262307118 due to144125139176298139 instead of12552106152124106 apart from6346857711085 contrary to182614226214 regardless of231013282413 irrespective of139816218 total88549161910791169619

10. 3. Qualitative comparison 3.1. Simplification: From compound to simple? in for into? (cf. Mwangi 2003, all in spoken!) … but let us take the length and the width of Zanzibar island and the people who are there What do you think if there are so many people just coming in the country. (S1A018T) on for onto? figures too small Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 10

11. 3.2. Simplification through incorporation esp. if preposition is unambiguous/transparent arrive When I arrive __ the campus on the 15th I found things a little abnormal until the first week was over, then I came back to a new stand. (Cam pl038) I arrived home at 9.30 night having being rained on like nobody's business. (Ken ##) = BrE (parallel: reach) reply (+letter  idiomatic?) Tell her to reply __ my letter if she still knows me as a friend. (Cam pl114) Everybody has been complaining that you no longer reply letters. (Ken ##) Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 11

12. 3.3. Explicitness: From simple to complex onto Arita lifted the burning charcoal stove and hit Kuya on the chest, pouring all the burning charcoal onto him. (Ken ##) in  within Even though within Cameroon there exist some seasonal hunger zones, … (Cam mi022) but gradient! Most of the product is locally used within the country with some surplus for exportation within UDEAC and to Europe. (Cam op001) in  throughout and they have the power, influence and resources to promote environmentally desirable activities throughout the country. (Cam mi014) pen off Permit me to pen off while waiting for your reply. Best regards. (Cam pl244) Let me pen off and say one day we will meet for enjoyment ceremony. (Ken ##) Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 12

13. 3.4. Why explicitness? from formal styles (“Biblical”)? onto The lesson learnt here is that man should do onto others just what he wants others to do onto him. (Cam se019) (directive!) I spoke to them in the evening of "GROWING UP ONTO JESUS‘ LIKENESS. (Ken ##) in expressive styles? off For once, all four clubs in the Littoral province smiled off with two points each. In Nkongsamba, Eagle walloped “Maiscam” 3-0. (Cam op113) in prototypes/chunk learning: take into consideration (C 39 – K 13 – UK 1!) In arriving at the estimated retirement benefits in column 9 and 10 the following assumptions have been taken into account (Ken ##)  3-word propositions Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 13

14. Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 14 corpus CCEICE-KLOBCameroon'Kenya'UK proportion0.820.40normalised on behalf of3716 454016 in addition to412838507038 irrespective of139816228 with regard to191421233521 in charge of39514481214 with a view to161412203512 in case of1412517305 for the sake of1681520 15 21 total293189342238264342 2.4. Complex (3-word) prepositions

15. 4. Conclusion problems: multiple reasons for features of New Englishes diverging trends in simplification – expressiveness underlying properties: L2 learner- or culture-specific? prospects = more research: larger corpus (WWW) semantically + POS-tagged corpus collocation finder: http://ell.phil.tu-chemnitz.de/collCollect/ Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 15

16. Background reading Jibril, M. (1991) “The Sociolinguistics of prepositional usage in Nigerian English”. In Chesire, J. (ed.) English around the world: Sociolinguistic perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 519-537. Lindstromberg, Seth (1998) English Prepositions Explained. Amsterdam. John Benjamins Mwangi, Serah (2003) “Prepositions in Kenyan English: A Corpus-based Study in Lexical-Grammatical Variation”. PhD thesis, Chemnitz University of Technology. Mwangi, Serah (2004) “Prepositions Vanishing in Kenyan English”. English Today 77, Vol. 20 No. 1, 27-32. Renouf, Antoinette and Sinclair John (1991) ‘Collocational framework in English’. In K. Aijmer and B. Altenberg (eds.) London: Longman, 128-143. Schmied, Josef (1991) English in Africa: An Introduction. London: Longman. Schmied, Josef (2002). "Prototypes, transfer and idiomaticity: an empirical analysis of local prepositions in English and German". In: Rabade, Luis Iglesias/Susana M.a Doval Suarez (eds.). Studies in Contrastive Linguistics. Universidade de Santiage de Compostela, 947-959. Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 16

17. 4.2. Schemantic comparison Prepositions Schmied/Nkemleke 17

18. Table: Locative and metaphorical meanings of through in the CCE and ICE-K