The influence of the learner's mother tongue on the use of a second language has long been of interest within applied linguistics. Whilst most studies have focused on the sentence level, contrastive rhetoric has broadened this area of investigation to the levels of discourse and text. This study explores and applies the approach to written English and Shona of Shona native speakers in Zimbabwe. It is both theoretical and practical, highlighting the importance of multi-dimensional andnon-evaluative analytical frameworks, and providing information for second language teachers and learners.
The Routledge Handbook of World Englishes constitutes a comprehensive introduction to the study of World Englishes drawing on the expertise of leading authors within the field. The Handbook is structured in nine sections covering historical perspectives, core issues and topics and new debates which together provide a thorough overview of the field taking into account the new directions in which the discipline is heading. Among the key themes covered are the development of English as a lingua franca among speakers for whom English is a common but not first language, the parallel development of English as a medium of instruction in educational institutions throughout the world and the role of English as the international language of scholarship and scholarly publishing, as well as the development of ‘computer-mediated’ Englishes, including ‘cyberprose’. The Handbook also includes a substantial introduction and conclusion from the editor. The Routledge Handbook of World Englishes is the ideal resource for postgraduate students of applied linguistics as well as those in related degrees such as applied English language and TESOL/TEFL.
Bilingualism is one of the by-products of globalization and migration. As people from different ethnicities come into contact, their languages will influence each other. People learn a second or third language in different environments leading to their linguistic proficiency levels being different. In conversations involving bilinguals, code-switching may be prevalent. This practise of alternating between two or more languages during a speech act has been of great interest to researchers with various models and hypotheses being proposed to explain it. Although code-switching has been studied extensively in literature, indigenous languages such as Shona have received less attention. This study aims to determine whether the markedness model of code-switching can be applied to Shona oral discourse (speech). An analysis is done to ascertain the nature, occurrence and characteristics of code-switching in the speech of Shona-English bilinguals. Participants who attended formal education for at least ten years were selected for the study. In order to inform on the theoretical background and on previous studies that dealt with code-switching, a literature review was conducted. The study used semi-structured interviews, a cloze test and recordings as data collection methods. Data was analysed to determine the applicability of the markedness model to the compiled corpus. Data analysis was also aided by WordSmith, (corpus analysis software). Results of the analysis seem to suggest that the markedness model can be applied to Shona-English code-switching. In addition, an analysis of the corpus using WordSmith showed frequently used English words and collocations and concordances of the code-switched words. An examination of the collocations and concordances shows the contexts in which the code-switched words appear.
