Between exonormative traditions and local acceptance: A corpus-linguistic study of modals of obligation and spatial prepositions in spoken Ugandan English
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Date
2022
Authors
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Publisher
Open Linguistics
Abstract
Research into Ugandan English places it in the nativisation phase of the evolution of Englishes,
amidst a nexus of local acceptance with ingredients of endonormativity and ingrained exonormative
traditions. The current study shows how the use of modal verbs of obligation and spatial prepositions
provides insights into how the nexus of the above phenomena has shaped Ugandan English. For example,
although the preference of have to over must is a global trend, in Ugandan English, it is more prevalent in
Bantu-speaking than in Nilotic-speaking areas because of substrate influence. Crucially, although the use
of spatial prepositions is generally similar to how they are used in, for example, (standard) British English,
the peculiar use of from to encode stative location in Ugandan English is, despite some regional variations,
so widespread in the country that it tends towards endonormative stabilisation.
Description
Keywords
Ugandan English, Obligation, Prepositions
Citation
Isingoma, B., & Meierkord, C. (2022). Between exonormative traditions and local acceptance: A corpus-linguistic study of modals of obligation and spatial prepositions in spoken Ugandan English. Open Linguistics, 8(1), 87-107. https://doi.org/10.1515/opli-2022-0185