Some morphosyntactic features and variety status of Zimbabwean English: A corpus-based study Thadeus Marungudzi Thesis submitted for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in English at the Vaal Triangle Campus of the North-West University Promoter: Prof. Bertus Van Rooy November 2016 DEDICATION To my mother Jerita Marungudzi nee Chikati i Acknowledgements Glory to God the Almighty for granting me good health and auspicious days during the course of the research culminating in this thesis. This thesis would not have seen the light of day without the dedicated and patient guidance and mentorship of my supervisor, Professor Bertus Van Rooy. Thank you for your always timeous, meaningful and enlightening comments at various stages of the writing of the thesis and for always being forthcoming when in various ways, I needed your assistance. I also want to thank all the individuals and organisations (not mentioned here for purposes of anonymity) who participated in the generation of spoken and written data for this thesis. Your contribution was invaluable. I would also want to thank Ms. Theresa Louw and Mrs Vongai Madzimure for their assistance with corpus transcription. To colleagues and friends in the department of English and Media Studies (GZU); Kizito Muchemwa, Golden Maunganidze, Pepukai Chiwewe, Amos Mushati and Tendai Mangena, thank you for your support and encouragement. To my ‘diasporan’ friends; Bob Marimbire, Pepukai Bengura and Mind Dhanere, thank you for believing in me and for cheering me on from across oceans and rivers. To members in the department of African Languages and Culture (GZU) including Godwin Makaudze, Khensani Madlome, Hellen Shoko and Faith Sibanda as well as Isaac Mhute (ZOU), thank you for the illuminating discussions on aspects of the thesis relating to Zimbabwean indigenous languages and for directing me to appropriate references. And to my wife, ‘Mai Taa’, thank you for your prayers and for being my unshakeable pillar of support and my never-drying oasis of love in all circumstances. To our three kids, Tariro, Nokutenda and Akudzwe, it’s all because of you. I love you and be blessed. ii Abstract This study aimed to explore the morphosyntactic features characteristic of Zimbabwean English (ZimE) i.e. English as used by Black second language users, and on that basis, determine its variety status. The study mainly adopted the corpus linguistics methodology in which a special corpus of oral and written discourse was collected from various Zimbabwean contexts of use. The corpus was then analysed through Wordsmith Tools to determine the extent to which various morphosyntactic features were characteristic of this new English. The morphosyntactic features were in turn explained in terms of possible factors behind their occurrence and compared with features of other peer new English varieties on one hand and Standard English conventions on the other. The study showed that Zimbabwean English in the main shared, to various degrees, a number of features with peer new English varieties in Southern, Eastern and Western Africa. Among the features which were attested in the ZimE corpus were the extension of the progressive aspect to stative verbs, the deletion of be before verbs in the progressive form, the deletion of be before the auxiliary gonna, use of the resumptive pronoun, use of too, too much, very much for very qualifier, addition of a to-infinitive where Standard English has a bare infinitive, inverted word order in indirect questions, use of like as a focussing device. Other features which did not occur in the corpus at all or were extremely rare were also identified. It emerged that, though there are certain features of ZimE which are uniquely Zimbabwean, to a great extent, there were very few areas of morphosyntactic structure in which it departed from Standard English conventions. The attested characteristics of new Englishes or pidgin varieties reported in the World Englishes literature were found to be largely rare or non-existent in the variety altogether. The occurrence of the features attested in the ZimE corpus were explained through factors related to the educational acquisition context of the variety, pragmatic aspects of information-processing as well as cross-linguistic and intralingual factors related to the languages in contact themselves. The variety status question was settled through appeal to the Dynamic Model of the development of new Englishes (Schneider, 2003; 2007) as a well as a consideration of the characteristic linguistic features of ZimE attested in the corpus. It emerged that though there is evidence of nativisation at the linguistic level, the absence of codification and acceptance (institutionalisation) of the Zimbabwean variety of English, despite an officially pronounced national indigenisation stance in the socio-economic and cultural life of the country, iii are holding back ZimE from progressing beyond the nativisation stage, with chances that the status of the variety is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. Key words: morphosyntactic, Linguistic features, Zimbabwean English, new English, interlanguage, language variety, variety status, ICE. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Introduction 1 1.2 Problem statement and contextualisation 2 1.3 Theoretical background 5 1.4 Research questions 9 1.5 Research objectives 9 1.6 Research methodology 9 1.6.1 Broad approach 9 1.6.2 Data collection and analysis 11 1.6.3 Features explored in the study 11 1.7 Ethical considerations 12 1.8 Justification of the study 12 1.9 Structure of the thesis 13 CHAPTER 2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE 14 2.1 Introduction 14 2.2 English as a world language 16 2.2.1 Reasons for the emergence of English as a world language 18 2.2.2 Attitudes towards English as a world language 19 2.3 Study of world Englishes: Theoretical conceptualisations 22 2.4 Research traditions and orientations in the study of world Englishes 27 2.5 The linguistic tradition in the study of world Englishes 31 2.6 Determining statuses of new Englishes 34 2.7 New Englishes and Pidgins and Creoles 37 2.8 African varieties of English: West Africa, East Africa and Southern Africa 40 2.9 The sociolinguistic history and status of English in Zimbabwe 47 2.10 Some studies of English in Zimbabwe 52 2.11 Conclusion 56 CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 58 v 3.1 Introduction 58 3.2 Historical origins of corpus collection 58 3.3 The influence of technology on corpus linguistics 59 3.4 Motivation for modern corpus collection 60 3.5 Definition of corpora and types of corpora 61 3.5.1 Corpora, archives and other databases 62 3.5.2 Types of corpora 63 3.6 Reasons for building one’s own corpus 64 3.7 Basic considerations to be made when building a corpus 65 3.7.1 Recording 67 3.7.2 Transcribing 68 3.7.3 Coding 68 3.8 Limitations in using corpora for research purposes 70 3.9 The possibilities of corpus linguistics in non-native English contexts 71 3.10 Building a corpus to represent a variety of a language 73 3.11 The corpus design of the present study 76 3.11.1 The research questions addressed by the corpus study 76 3.11.2 The corpus sample 76 3.11.3 Data collection procedures 79 3.11.3.1 The collection of spoken data 80 3.11.3.2 The collection of written data 81 3.11.4 Nature of texts and file-naming conventions 84 3.11.5 Corpus analysis techniques 85 3.11.5.1 Frequency lists 85 3.11.5.2 Concordance analysis 86 3.12 Conclusion 88 CHAPTER 4 DATA: PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION 89 4.2 The eight salient morphosyntactic features of ZimE 90 4.2.1 Extension of progressive aspect to stative verbs (Feature 88) 90 4.2.1.1 Description of the feature in Standard English 90 vi 4.2.1.2 Possible ways in which ZimE and other new varieties of English differ from Standard English 92 4.2.1.3 Results from the corpus 94 4.2.1.4 Interpretation and discussion 96 4.2.1.5 Conclusion 97 4.2.2 Deletion of be auxiliary before progressive (Feature 174) 98 4.2.2.1 Description of feature in Standard English 98 4.2.2.2 Possible ways in which ZimE and other new varieties of English differ from Standard English 99 4.2.2.3 Results from the corpus 99 4.2.2.4 Interpretation and discussion 101 4.2.2.5 Conclusion 102 4.2.3 Deletion of auxiliary be before gonna (Feature 175) 103 4.2.3.1 Description of feature in Standard English 103 4.2.3.2 Possible ways in which ZimE and other new varieties of English differ from Standard English 103 4.2.3.3 Results from the corpus 103 4.2.3.4 Interpretation and discussion 105 4.2.3.5 Conclusion 106 4.2.4 The resumptive pronoun (Feature 194) 107 4.2.4.1 Description of feature in Standard English 107 4.2.4.2 Possible ways in which ZimE and other new varieties of English differ from Standard English 109 4.2.4.3 Results from the corpus 109 4.2.4.3.1 Distance of resumptive pronoun to the head noun 111 4.2.4.3.2 Head noun semantics 113 4.2.4.4 Interpretation and discussion 115 4.2.4.5 Conclusion 116 4.2.5 Addition of ‘to’ where StE has bare infinitive (Feature 209) 117 4.2.5.1 Description of the feature in Standard English 117 4.2.5.2 Possible ways in which ZimE and other new Englishes may differ from vii Standard English 119 4.2.5.3 Results from the corpus analysis 120 4.2.5.4 Interpretation and discussion 122 4.2.5.5 Conclusion 127 4.2.6 Too, too much, very much for ‘very’ as qualifier (Feature 222) 129 4.2.6.1 Description of feature in Standard English 129 4.2.6.2 Possible ways in which ZimE and other new Englishes may differ from Standard English 130 4.2.6.3 Results from the corpus 130 4.2.6.4 Interpretation and discussion 134