Chapter 5. Lexical use in spoken New Englishes and Learner Englishes

Abstract

This chapter, set within the framework of constrained communication, investigates the linguistic effects, in terms of lexical use, of a number of shared and distinct communicative constraints that are thought to play a role in New Englishes and Learner Englishes. Relying on corpora of spoken Hong Kong English (HKE) and Mainland Chinese English (MCE), as well as native British English as a reference, it adopts a twofold methodology combining automatic measures of lexical complexity and a manual examination of lexical choices in a picture description task. The vocabulary used by HKE speakers appears to be more varied and sophisticated than that of MCE speakers, but otherwise the two groups display similar traces of potential L1 influence and employ the same strategies to compensate for limitations on proficiency. Native speakers’ vocabulary tends to be less complex and less formal, which is explained by their better stylistic awareness and possibly their lower task expertise.