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Tag Questions; The Use of Invariant Tags

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Tag Questions; The Use of Invariant Tags

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One morphosyntactic feature that is used in Indian English is the use of invariant tags in relation to tag questions at the end of a sentence. Invariant tags are used in the everyday life of an Indian English speaker along with most other varieties of English including Irish English, Singaporean English and Canadian English. One of the most recognisable uses of an invariant tag is the use of ‘eh?’ at the end of the sentence in Canadian English. In Indian English, the tag question ‘isn’t it?’ is one of the most popular uses of invariant tags.

Indian English gave rise to its emergence when Britain colonised most parts of India in the 1600’s. It is evident that “since then, English became the language of administration, economy, industry and education as well as social advancement” in India (Krimi, 2017). The English that is spoken in India “is characterized by many different linguistic features that it carries from many of the indigenous Indian languages'' (Krimi, 2017) including phonological, morphological, syntactical and lexical features.

In terms of tag questions, there are two kinds of tags that can be used. The first one being variant tags and the second one being invariant tags. Even though both of these tags are used at the end of a sentence, they are used in different ways resulting in the meaning of different things.

In relation to variant tags, which are used mainly by British varieties of English, “you can usually identify a tag question by noting that the statement and resulting tag are opposites'' (Locke, 2016). A few examples of these include ‘you are from Dublin, aren’t you?’ and ‘you will come to the cinema with me later, won’t you?’. Variant tags can also be used simply to “confirm that what you are saying is already understood” (Locke, 2016). An example of this would be ‘the football match is taking place in Croke Park, right?’. A third and “most common form of a variant tag is the use of a rhetorical question” (Locke, 2016). A rhetorical question is one that does not need an answer and is used very often in daily speech in British varieties of English. An example of a rhetorical question is ‘you’re still in your pyjamas so you want me to see who’s at the door, yeah?’.

As mentioned above, the invariant tag that is used at the end of its sentences in Indian English is the tag ‘isn’t it?’. This tag is used to “provide attitudinal and/ or evidential information about that of the preposition” (Columbus, 2010). This isn’t always phrased as a question and sometimes can be said as a statement to conclude the sentence. If it were to be translated to American English, it would merely translate to ‘you see?’ or ‘isn’t that right?’  (M, 2014). An example of the tag ‘isn’t it?’ being used in a sentence is ‘you like most fruits and vegetables, isn’t it?’, as opposed to ‘don’t you?’.

In 2015, a study was carried out issuing a theory on how frequent this invariant tag is used across six different types of English, Indian English included. Unlike any other study before, this study “covered both spoken and written registers” (Parviainen, 2015) of these different types of English. The results of this study conclude that the tag ‘isn’t it?’ is most commonly used in Indian English, both in speech and in writing. The frequency of the use of this invariant tag per 100,000 words spoken is 7.76 in Indian English, and the frequency of the use of this invariant tag per 100,000 words written is 0.49. The average between this invariant tag being spoken and being written is 5.01 per 100,000. Although this number doesn’t seem very high, it is higher than both Singaporean English and Hong Kong English whose averages are 3.10 per 100,000 and 1.66 per 100,000 respectively. (Parviainen, 2015)

Bibliography

Columbus, G. (2010). "Ah, lovely stuff, eh?"-invariant tag meanings and usage across three varieties of English. In G. Columbus, Corpus-linguistic Applications (pp. 85-102). Brill.

Krimi, M. (2017). The Linguistic Features of Indian English . Retrieved from Indian English: http://engindian.weebly.com/

Locke, G. (2016, August 16). What is a Tag Question? Retrieved from Transparent Language: https://blogs.transparent.com/english/what-is-a-tag-question/

M, D. (2014, February 14). Why is the term "isn't it?" so predominant in Indian English? Retrieved from Stack Exchange: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/151949/why-is-the-term-isnt-it-so-predominant-in-indian-english#:~:text=It's%20a%20direct%20translation%20of,simplified%20to%20just%20%22right%22.

Parviainen, H. (2015, October 26). The invariant tag "isn't it" in Asian Englishes. Retrieved from Wiley Online Library: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/weng.12168

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I have chosen to look at the strengths and weaknesses of the model for World Englishes originally created by Tom McArthur (1987).

Strengths

From a visual perspective the model in itself is clearly outlined and easy to read. In contrast to some other models outlining World Englishes it isn't too challenging to understand the different categories it is separated into. The ‘hub-and-wheel’ design is intuitive to follow making it a useful visual representation of the spread of World Englishes.

The model is geographically coherent in that it is clear where the roots of the different forms are supposed to be. McArthur has chosen clear geographic splits between the areas that he has chosen to include in this model. This allows readers of the model to infer the historical origins of where different forms of English initially emerged and the ways in which they have developed. Having indications of where different forms originally stemmed from provides useful information for ascertaining the historical context of the development of the different varieties presented which can have influences on their usage today. This is particularly relevant given the role that colonialism played in the spread of English to so many nations in different parts of the world.

The model does highlight the important observation that the forms of English represented in the second circle of the model are vastly outnumbered by the wide, diverse range which are found in the outer circle, and the outer circle in this model is not even an exhaustive list. This gives an insight into the wide array of different varieties of english that have been developed throughout the world.

Weaknesses

The varieties of English included are not exhaustive. With the exception of the UK and Ireland all forms of European English are excluded from this model. As English is one of the official languages of the European Union  it seems an odd exclusion to  leave out such a wide variety of commonly used forms of English.

The model is based on a premise that there is such a thing as ‘World Standard English’. In Linguistics there is no agreed upon list of the characteristics that should be included in what might be considered a World Standard English currently in existence and it seems doubtful that there ever will be. What individual speakers consider to be ‘standard’ in terms of use of English is influenced by factors such as geographical location, historical context, group membership and personal identity therefore deciding on one ‘Standard English’ doesn’t seem a very realistic goal.

McArthur makes no distinction between English as a native Language (ENL), English as a Second Language (ESL) and English as a Foreign Language (Mesthrie & Bhatt, 2008). He includes all three in the second circle of his model e.g. the USA as an example of a country with English as a native language, South Africa which has English as a second language  and some counties in Africa which use English as a foreign language. The lack of clarity between these three types seems like an oversight when it comes to the nature of the use of English in these countries.

Another weakness of this model is it simply lacks nuance. The outer circle place Englishes in the same category as each other that are questionable. For example, placing English English in the same circle as Norn seems like a strange pair to equate. There is also no differential between the primarily geographically based forms of English and the couple of social dialects that McArthur includes for example, BBC English. Additionally, McArthur places pidgins and creoles in the outer circle also. Mesthrie and Bhatt (2008) highlight that most scholars would not necessarily place pidgins and creoles in such rigid boxes as they often overlap between two or more families of World Englishes. Additionally some scholars would question the inclusion of pidgins and creoles as varieties of English in and of themselves. Due to this lack of clarity it is hard to see how this model lends itself to real life applications.

Bibliography :

Mesthrie, R., & Bhatt, R. (2008). World Englishes (pp. 27-28). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Indian English (IE) has many distinctions from the Standard variety of English when it comes to its phonology. What will be discussed in this section is just one of these differences. One distinctive feature of the Indian variety of English, in terms of phonology, is their use of fricatives. The IE variety has a very limited amount of fricatives in the speech and writing. Most of these fricatives, when comparing to the standard English phonological IPA table, are replaced by other existing consonants or some do not exist in general as the Indian population chose not to produce them so they just replaced them with others.

For one, the labiodental fricatives, /f/ and /v/, are often not found in IE. They are in fact realised as either [ph] instead of the letter /f/, or /v/ instead of /w/ (H, 2016), for example in IPA the word tower would translate as [ta:vər] rather than the standard “correct” version [ta:wər]. These features can be seen in the parts Orissa and Benga in India (Gargesh, 2008).

Other fricatives that do not exist in IE are the dental fricatives such as /θ/ and /ð/. Instead of using these, they are replaced with the already existing consonants of /t/ for /θ/. /θ/ can also be replaced by an aspirated voiceless stop in some cases (Gargesh, 2008). An example for the /θ/ replacement would be [tink] instead of the standard English variety [think]. The /ð/, dental fricative is not found either so words with this consonant are pronounced with a /d/, for example [dese] rather than [these].

The consonants /s/ and /z/ are present in IE but they replace other consonants. For example, the /s/ is usually seen to replace the alveolar palatal fricative /ʃ/ because they do not really utilise this sound in their phonology. The letter /z/ is then replaced by the affricate /ʤ/. Another consonant that /ʤ/ replaces is for the sound /ʒ/,  as this letter is not typical or almost never seen in IE . Since the consonant /ʒ/ is not there at all, it is also replaced by the letters /ʤ/ as mentioned but also /z/ and /j/. This is interesting as /ʒ/ is such a similar constant to the rest of them but for some reason it cannot be articulated by the IE users. For example, for the word [meʒer] it can either be as one of the following three options: [meʤər], [mezər] or [mejər] (Gargesh, 2008).

The last set of fricatives is the glottal fricative /h/. This consonant is seen in the phonology of IE but it may sometimes be dropped or not pronounced. For example, the word for house might only be pronounced as “ouse”, dropping the h completely. /h/ is also replaced by the glides /j/ and /w/ in some cases, also dropping the h and adding these glides instead, [hill] would be [yill] for example (Gargesh, 2008).

These fricative distinctions were all created by the influence of the British colonisation, which is what  gave rise to the emergence of the English language to the country and heavily grew on the Indian population. They were forced to learn English as it was in education and in administration, which is how English became the second language of India. The Indian native language mixed with the English language is what made these various phonological distinction and how they came to existence (H, 2016). The British, who came to India, were also from many parts of Britain, with some British people but also a mix of Irish and Scottish (Pingali, 2009). IE is so similar in many ways to the standard English variety but it does contrast in some factors such as the fricatives that were discussed.

Real life example - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxzev7zehre
This shows different ways of pronouncing words, Indian vs another language. It gives various examples of different phonological variations but also the one discussed, the fricative features.

Bibliography:
Gargesh, R. (2008). Indian English: Phonology. ResearchGate, 231-243. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/288864849_Indian_English_Phonology

H. (2016). Indian English history. Indian English. https://indianenglishblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/31/indian-english-history/

Pingali, S. (2009). Indian English. Edinburgh University Press, 17-38. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/indian-english/phonetics-and-phonology/C82DC3F6B30A78F008EF2D43B07BDC85

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1. Identify each group member and his/her role

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1. Identify each group member and his/her role

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Alice Saly (19426054) - Question 5

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3. Identify and briefly describe your chosen variety of English

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3. Identify and briefly describe your chosen variety of English

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6. Choose ONE model of World English (from Week 3's classes). List the main strengths and weaknesses of your chosen model in terms of how successfully it accounts for the use of English on a global basis

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6. Choose ONE model of World English (from Week 3's classes). List the main strengths and weaknesses of your chosen model in terms of how successfully it accounts for the use of English on a global basis

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4. Discuss one (morpho)syntactic feature of your chosen variety of English and the processes that gave rise to its emergence 

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4. Discuss one (morpho)syntactic feature of your chosen variety of English and the processes that gave rise to its emergence 

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2. Provide evidence of your group meetings

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2. Provide evidence of your group meetings

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1. Identify each group member and his/her role

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1. Identify each group member and his/her role

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5. Discuss one phonological feature of your chosen variety of English and the processes that gave rise to its emergence

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5. Discuss one phonological feature of your chosen variety of English and the processes that gave rise to its emergence

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Kate Farrell (19424966)- Question 4

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Eva Conroy - (19486382)
Question 6

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Indian English is it's own distinct dialect spoken widely across India and by much of the population, although it is not recognized by many as an 'official English'.
The English spoken in India has increased in recent years due to the employment of Indian citizens in western multinational companies, which has led India to become one of the countries where English is most widely spoken.

Andrews, M (2019), Getting to Know Indian English, StoryNeedle.com
https://storyneedle.com/getting-to-know-indian-english/

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Laura Kehoe (19334856) - Q.2, Q.3 /edit/proof reading