{"title":"Revisiting the aspectual BUSY\n in (South African) English","authors":"Adri Breed","doi":"10.1075/eww.00090.bre","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\n This paper investigates the so-called South African English busy progressive (for example,\n I’m busy working). Linguistic literature on South African English (SAfE) often states that this construction\n is a typical feature of this variety of English. The use and the frequency of this construction is mostly attributed to the\n influence of the Afrikaans [BUSYPROG XCOMP VINF] construction, as in Ek is besig om te\n werk (‘I am working’). The aim of this paper is twofold: Firstly, it critically evaluates some of the claims that\n have been made about the so-called “SAfE busy progressive” and, secondly, it uses a corpus- and usage-based approach that employs\n a greater assortment of available corpus data from SAfE and other English varieties, as well as available information on the\n Afrikaans and Dutch progressives, to explore the possibility of new insights into the use of busy in English\n aspectual constructions.","PeriodicalId":45502,"journal":{"name":"English World-Wide","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"English World-Wide","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.00090.bre","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"N/A","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This paper investigates the so-called South African English busy progressive (for example,
I’m busy working). Linguistic literature on South African English (SAfE) often states that this construction
is a typical feature of this variety of English. The use and the frequency of this construction is mostly attributed to the
influence of the Afrikaans [BUSYPROG XCOMP VINF] construction, as in Ek is besig om te
werk (‘I am working’). The aim of this paper is twofold: Firstly, it critically evaluates some of the claims that
have been made about the so-called “SAfE busy progressive” and, secondly, it uses a corpus- and usage-based approach that employs
a greater assortment of available corpus data from SAfE and other English varieties, as well as available information on the
Afrikaans and Dutch progressives, to explore the possibility of new insights into the use of busy in English
aspectual constructions.
期刊介绍：
English World-Wide has established itself as the leading and most comprehensive journal dealing with varieties of English. The focus is on scholarly discussions of new findings in the dialectology and sociolinguistics of the English-speaking communities (native and second-language speakers), but general problems of sociolinguistics, creolistics, language planning, multilingualism and modern historical sociolinguistics are included if they have a direct bearing on modern varieties of English. Although teaching problems are normally excluded, English World-Wide provides important background information for all those involved in teaching English throughout the world.
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