Educated Fiji English

Book excerpt: This volume contains a comprehensive corpus-based study of prepositional constructions in written Fiji English. It explores the endo- and exonormative dynamics of norm-giving and norm-developing varieties and contributes to our understanding of structural nativization and variety formation in a multi-ethnic setting. The book provides an account of the sociolinguistic development of English in Fiji against the backdrop of the country's colonial and post-independence history, with special focus on the Indo-Fijian part of the population. Drawing on the written sections of the Indian, Great Britain, New Zealand and preliminary Fiji components of the International Corpus of English, quantitative and qualitative analyses of prepositional phenomena are conducted on the word level (frequency, semantic effects and stylistic variation), phrase level (productivity in verb-particle combinations), and pattern level (prepositions and -ing clauses). The book will be relevant to scholars interested in lexico-grammar, variety and corpus linguistics, and sociolinguistics in general.