LINGUIST List 22.4530
Sat Nov 12 2011
FYI: FRIAS Launches eWAVE
Editor for this issue: Brent Miller
<brentlinguistlist.org>
1. Heike Meier ,
FRIAS Launches eWAVE
Message 1: FRIAS Launches eWAVE
Date: 11-Nov-2011
From: Heike Meier <heike.meierfrias.uni-freiburg.de>
Subject: FRIAS Launches eWAVE
E-mail this message to a friend
FRIAS -- the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies -- and the Max-Planck-Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig) proudlyannounce the availability of a fascinating new open access online toolwhich can be exploited both in research and teaching on the grammarsof varieties of English worldwide:
eWAVE -- the electronic World Atlas of Varieties of English, edited byBernd Kortmann and Kerstin Lunkenheimer.
eWAVE was designed and compiled at the Freiburg Institute forAdvanced Studies (FRIAS) and the English Department of theUniversity of Freiburg, Germany, between 2008 and 2011. eWAVE isan interactive database on morphosyntactic variation in spontaneousspoken English mapping 235 features from about a dozen domains ofgrammar in 48 varieties of English (traditional dialects, high-contactmother-tongue Englishes, and indigenized second-languageEnglishes) and 26 English-based Pidgins and Creoles in eightAnglophone world regions (Africa, Asia, Australia, British Isles,Caribbean, North America, Pacific, and the South Atlantic; see here fora list). It was compiled from descriptive materials, naturalistic corpusdata, and native speaker knowledge by a team of 80 contributors, allleading experts in their fields, directed by Bernd Kortmann and KerstinLunkenheimer. eWAVE is unique not only in its coverage and user-friendliness, but also in being an open access resource. As such it hasthe potential for serving both as a teaching tool in academic teachingaround the world and as an indispensable research tool by specialistsin many different fields of linguistics, including creolistics, dialectology,dialect syntax, language change, language typology, sociolinguistics,second language acquisition, and the study of World Englishes andlearner Englishes.
What eWAVE can do for you:
eWAVE facilitates the investigation of global-scale patterns ofmorphosyntactic variation in English and helps answering questionslike the following:- Which features are most/least widespread across varieties of Englishworldwide?- How many varieties of English worldwide share feature X?- Is feature X restricted to or characteristic of a particular part of theEnglish-speaking world?- Is feature X restricted to or characteristic of a particular group ofvarieties?- Does variety A have feature X?- In which area of grammar does variety A differ most from variety B?
The information required to answer questions of this kind can be foundin the central parts of eWAVE: the varieties index, the features index,and the individual variety and feature profiles. These combinesearchable catalogues of varieties and of morphosyntactic featureswith interactive maps, and allow you to explore in detail the distributionof features within and across varieties of English and English-basedPidgins and Creoles worldwide (see the help pages for more details).Ultimately, the information provided in eWAVE can also be used for theinvestigation of more general questions, such as the following: Whichfeatures generally are characteristic of a particular variety type (e.g. L2varieties)? In which domain of grammar is there most/leastheterogeneity/homogeneity among varieties of English worldwide? AreEnglish-based pidgins and creoles as a group significantly differentfrom other varieties in terms of morphosyntax?
eWAVE was partly designed and entirely programmed in collaborationwith the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig),and is also hosted by the MPI. Since eWAVE is designed as anevolving interactive tool, we are planning to have annual updates.
eWAVE can be accessed from TODAY, November 18, 2011 onwards.Please visit: http://www.ewave-atlas.org
Linguistic Field(s): Sociolinguistics
Page Updated: 12-Nov-2011
|