Cross-dialectal transfer between World Englishes
This research strives to trace a cross-dialectal transfer of colloquial lexical items through blogs and blogging in general by means of the corpus of global web-based English with certain geographic specifications.
The present paper contributes to three lines of research: research on Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC), the study on World Englishes (henceforth WEs) and Bilingualism/Multilingualism, as the study of Language Contact falls within this wider field.
The analyzed varieties of English will serve as an illustration of current tendencies in dialectal
influence through social media.
Research Questions
1. What [main] factors influence the transfer of a colloquial lexical item originating in one variety of English to the other five varieties of English?
2. To what extend blogs act as a site of dialectal spread?
3. Which dialect of English among the six varieties is the most influential lexifier?
Hypothesis 1: Geographic proximity is no longer the main factor that influences the transfer. I think prestige plays a significant role in the transfer as well.
Hypothesis 2: A consistent trend towards Americanization continues and, thus, AmE is the most influential lexifier. BrE is second.
Hypothesis 3: Social media is a good example of contact environment between varieties of English.
Mobility exposes speakers of one variety to other varieties of English, but social media exposes them even more, since they do not need to travel/go elsewhere to find themselves in a language contact situation.
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