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World Englishes, Vol. 32, No. 3, pp. 338–357, 2013.

0883-2919

Globalization, postcolonial Englishes, and the English language press


in Kenya, Singapore, and Trinidad and Tobago

EVA CANAN HÄNSEL∗ AND DAGMAR DEUBER†

ABSTRACT: This paper analyzes online English-language newspapers from the former British colonies
of Kenya, Singapore, and Trinidad and Tobago with respect to Americanisms in spelling and vocabulary.
The guiding question is whether the degree of Americanization can be related to the different degrees to
which these countries participate in globalization. It is shown that the influence of American English is least
pronounced in Kenya and most in Trinidad and Tobago, with Singapore in between, and that globalization
is indeed a factor, but that other factors including official language attitudes play a role as well. The role of
international news agencies in disseminating Americanisms is also considered and is found to be prominent
mainly in the case of Singapore.

INTRODUCTION
Kenya, Singapore, and Trinidad and Tobago were chosen for the purposes of this paper
as exemplary former British colonies that differ in terms of geography, ethnicity, culture,
and standard of living. Today, English is an official language in all three countries. As
this language was introduced by the British colonizers, British English served as a model.
In the last half of the twentieth century, however, a second major norm-providing variety
of English arrived on the scene—American English (AmE) (Kachru 1985). Since the end
of the Cold War, the United States of America has been the only remaining ‘military and
political superpower’ (Schneider 2011:52) and has stood out as the strongest economy in the
world, making it an important trading partner for many countries (Schneider 2011). Sinking
transportation costs, enhanced communication technologies (especially the internet), and
the opening of markets have made it possible for companies to produce and sell their
products internationally. In this process of economic globalization, US culture has spread,
too. Consequently, not only American beliefs and world views, but also the American
English variety are disseminated throughout the world and affect Englishes of the Inner,
Outer, and Expanding Circles. However, AmE is considered to be influential especially
in such countries that actively take part in the world’s economy. The Swiss research
institute KOF has established a globalization index (Dreher et al. 2008), according to
which Singapore ranks first on the list of economically globalized countries (out of 144)
and 22nd (out of 199) concerning social globalization, that is, in terms of personal contact,
information flows, and cultural proximity. In contrast, Kenya ranks very low: in 129th
place in terms of economic globalization and 156th with regard to social globalization.
Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) takes an intermediate position, ranking 38th on the economic
scale and 115th on the list of socially globalized countries.

∗ English Department, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Johannisstraße, 12–20, 48143 Münster, Germany.
E-mail: evahaensel@uni-muenster.de
† English Department, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Johannisstraße, 12-20, 48143 Münster, Germany.
E-mail: deuber@uni-muenster.de


C 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Globalization, postcolonial Englishes, and the English language press 339

To find out whether there is a relation between the degree of globalization and the degree
of the Americanization of postcolonial Englishes, this paper will examine the language of
three daily newspapers published in Kenya, Singapore, and Trinidad and Tobago that are
available online, namely the Daily Nation, the Straits Times, and the Trinidad Guardian,
respectively. Newspaper articles normally reflect the written standard variety, a variety
that is used by well-educated speakers and that is mostly oriented toward the norms that
are taught in school, and they do not usually represent mesolectal and basilectal varieties.
We can, however, expect regional distinctive features, especially those of a lexical nature,
to appear in the articles. The most easily discernible differences between British (BrE)
and American English are found in spelling and vocabulary, which is why these will be
in the focus of this paper. The frequencies of BrE/AmE spellings and lexical items were
established with the help of commercial search engines. When used for linguistic purposes,
these search engines present a number of problems that will be addressed and that it will
be tried to keep minimal. Moreover, possible influences on the results of articles from
international news agencies will be taken into account. The results will be discussed in the
context of the countries’ sociolinguistic settings, with special attention paid to language
policy and official attitudes toward the English language. This will be considered against
the background of economic globalization and the spread of American popular culture and
language in order to determine whether the degree of globalization is indeed the dominant
factor for the Americanization of postcolonial Englishes.

METHODOLOGY
Search-engine based corpus linguistics
The internet is increasingly gaining importance in linguistic research. As it provides a
huge amount of text that can be searched for linguistic features, it fulfills ‘the minimum
requirement for classification as a corpus’ (Thelwall 2005:519). However, we do not
yet have at our disposal a web concordance program that is particularly designed for
linguistic purposes and are obliged to rely on commercial search engines like Google or
Yahoo. Though these can be quite useful as retrieval software, they also have a number
of drawbacks, which makes it essential that linguists use them with care and provide an
account of how they were used.
The Yahoo search engine (http://search.yahoo.com) was chosen because it showed cer-
tain advantages over other search engines. First, it ‘apparently assign[s] relatively more
weight to term salience and less to link popularity than Google’ (Fletcher 2007:37). More-
over, it makes less use of query caches, in which the most popular queries are stored. These
caches speed up later searches as the results can be extracted directly from the cache.
This might be responsible for inconsistencies on a temporal scale and for irregularities
concerning queries that are carried out at short intervals, as it is possible that the word is
not searched in the whole Web or the required subpart of the Web but only in the cache
(Eu 2008:181–3). Another advantage of Yahoo lies in its scarce use of the ‘exact cache,’
namely, the cache for results for a whole query phrase (Eu 2008:197).
Most algorithms and search tactics are confidential, so that we have to blindly trust that
our results are valid. However, in this study, the accuracy of frequency counts has been
enhanced by counting all displayed results instead of relying on the estimated numbers
provided on the first page of results.1 For this purpose, it was important that the frequency

C 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
340 Eva Canan Hänsel and Dagmar Deuber

of the term in question was not above 1,000 as Yahoo does not show more results. Thus,
high frequency terms had to be restricted to phrases (e.g. travelling to instead of travelling)
to obtain smaller but more reliable numbers. More than 1,000 results were allowed only
for the American Washington Post and the British Guardian (see Tables A1 and A2 in
the Appendix) as they have only been used to verify that the terms in question are really
typical of AmE/BrE.

Searches conducted
Two series of searches were conducted. In the first one, all articles of the world news
agencies Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, and Reuters as well as BBC articles
and the random letter cluster echms, which could not be found as a word in any of the
newspapers, were excluded. A minus sign was inserted in front of every term to be excluded
(-echms, -ap, -afp, -reuters, -bbc, -“agence france-presse”, -“associated press”). These data
will be used in the general discussion of results. In the second series of searches, only
echms was entered as a term to be excluded in order to avoid inconsistencies between the
results of searches that excluded terms and those that did not.2 Compounds and phrases
were joined by double quotation marks. In order to search only in the online versions of
the three newspapers, the query was restricted on Yahoo’s option page by entering the
respective URLs. The Kenyan Daily Nation was very suitable for this study’s purposes and
no further restrictions had to be made (http://www.nation.co.ke). The Singaporean Straits
Times provided too much material so that the search was restricted to the breaking news
section (http://www.straitstimes.com/breakingnews) and additionally the term printed was
excluded because otherwise too many articles would have been displayed twice, once in
the normal online version and once in the print version. Searches of the Trinidad Guardian
showed that many articles were displayed more than once. For this reason the analysis of
this newspaper is based on an archive that contains all issues from April 2003 through
May 2009 (legacy.guardian.co.tt). The amount of text is therefore smaller than that from
the other newspapers, but it was important to give consistency priority over data size.

AMERICANISMS VERSUS BRITICISMS


Spelling
Most of the differences between British and American spelling are ‘of a systematic
nature and can be reduced to a few rules’ (Tottie 2002:10). Therefore, for each spelling rule
considered some representative word pairs were chosen (see Table A1 in the Appendix) so
that all observations (except for those concerning the category ‘miscellaneous’) are based
on more than one actual realization of the rule.
BrE spellings are the widely preferred option in all three varieties, making up between
84 per cent and 93 per cent of all word tokens studied in this section (see Table 2). All
newspapers share a very clear preference for British <-our> over American <-or> (e.g.
<favour>/<favor>), for <-re> as in BrE over <-er> in AmE (e.g. <centre>/<center>),
and for the doubling of the verb-final consonant before the inflectional endings {-ing}
and {-ed} as in BrE but not in AmE (e.g. <travelling>/<traveling>). Likewise, all
varieties strongly prefer BrE <-ence> to AmE <-ense> (e.g. <defence>/<defense>) (see
Table 1).

C 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Globalization, postcolonial Englishes, and the English language press 341

Table 1. Spelling according to spelling rule groups in per cent


Kenya Singapore T&T
(DN) (ST) (TG)

-our 94 97 99
-or 6 3 1
-re 96 98 91
-er 4 2 9
-ll- 95 96 94
-l- 5 4 6
-oguea 98 99 100
-og 2 1 0
-l/-l- 78 37 81
-ll/-ll- 22 63 19
-ence 90 98 98
-ense 10 2 2
miscellaneous BrE 90 93 14
miscellaneous AmE 10 7 86
Note: a The word endings <-ogue> and <-og> (e.g.: <catalogue>/<catalog>) are normally considered to be a BrE/AmE
spelling difference (Kövecses 2000:180). However, according to Tottie (2002:10), the longer form is also often used in
AmE. This observation is confirmed by the results from the control query in the American WP (see Table A1 in the
Appendix). DN, Daily Nation; ST, Straits Times; TG, Trinidad Guardian.

Table 2. Total number and percentage of BrE and AmE spellings (see Table A1 in the Appendix for
detailed results)
Kenya Singapore T&T
(DN) (ST) (TG)

British types preferred 25 24 23


American types preferred 0 1 2
All tokens British 4,623 (93%) 3,088 (89%) 2,152 (84%)
All tokens American 358 (7%) 392 (11%) 401 (16%)
Note: DN, Daily Nation; ST, Straits Times; TG, Trinidad Guardian.

Kenyan English (KenE) as used in the Daily Nation sticks to the British spelling model
most closely; no AmE spelling variant was found to be the preferred option in this variety,
and altogether only 7 per cent of all word tokens analyzed are spelled according to AmE
rules. Somewhat more AmE influence is evident in the Straits Times, where 11 per cent of
all tokens are spelled the American way and where there is even one predominant AmE
spelling option, <fullfil> (BrE: <fulfil>). Finally, the strongest impact of AmE can be
found in the Trinidad Guardian, where 16 per cent of all tokens analyzed show American
spellings and two AmE spellings are the vastly preferred variants: <mom> and <jewelry>
(BrE: <mum>; <jewellery>). It seems that AmE spellings are more easily adopted in the
case of words that represent individual instances of variation, as most AmE spellings were
found in the category ‘miscellaneous.’
Overall, the lower percentages of BrE spellings in the Straits Times and the Trinidad
Guardian are mainly a consequence of the few exceptional cases where the AmE spelling
was strongly favored. If these were disregarded, these two varieties would also have per-
centages of British spellings of over 90 per cent.

C 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
342 Eva Canan Hänsel and Dagmar Deuber

Table 3. Frequency of BrE and AmE vocabulary (see Table A2 in the Appendix for individual lexical
items)
Kenya Singapore T&T
(DN) (ST) (TG)

British types preferred 16 14 8


American types preferred 3 5 11
All tokens British 1,700 (69%) 1,908 (63%) 926 (53%)
All tokens American 747 (31%) 1,129 (37%) 826 (47%)
Note: DN, Daily Nation; ST, Straits Times; TG, Trinidad Guardian.

Vocabulary
The results obtained from the investigation of vocabulary differ considerably from what
was found for spelling. The influence of American lexical items is clearly stronger and
especially pronounced in the Trinidad Guardian. While the other two newspapers are more
closely aligned with BrE, a number of AmE expressions have found their way into their
English, too (see Table 3).
The three newspapers share many preferences for the same expressions. They all rather
use the simpler British forms expiry date and public transport than the longer AmE
versions expiration date and public transportation. Similarly, they all prefer the BrE terms
trade(s) union and railway to the AmE options labor union and railroad. This might
be ascribed to the fact that these were introduced by British colonizers. Moreover, they
are concepts closely associated with the British nation, as Britain was one of the first
countries to have trade unions and the steam engine had been invented there. Another
parallel is the inclination in all three varieties toward British economic and financial
terms like hire purchase, pay rise, and current account (AmE: installment plan, pay raise,
checking account). The only exception is the word pair price rise/price hike, where Kenyan
journalists prefer the BrE term price rise, whereas the other two newspapers favor the AmE
expression.
This trend can also be witnessed in the word field car, where there are vast differences
between BrE and AmE vocabulary. It has been hypothesized that these differences are
due to automobiles being a nineteenth-century technological innovation; during this time
period, many inventions were given distinct names in the Old and the New World, while
differences in the terminology of technical inventions developed before the nineteenth and
since the twentieth century are rare (Kövecses 2000:141). Here, the Kenyan newspaper
again shows great allegiance to BrE vocabulary (e.g. driving licence, number plate, drink
driving). The Trinidad Guardian, in contrast, mostly prefers the American option (driver’s
license, license plate, drunk driving). The Singaporean newspaper principally favors the
British car vocabulary, with the exception of the AmE terms license plate and taxi stand.
An example of a general preference for an AmE term is the case of motorcycle. However,
the traditional BrE variant motorbike has generally lost popularity and is now used side
by side with its AmE counterpart even in BrE. The word pair mobile phone/cell phone
constitutes an exception to the above mentioned tendency that there are no vocabulary
differences for twentieth-century technological inventions. In this case, we again observe
the prevailing pattern that the Trinidad Guardian has a clear preference for the American
variant, whereas the Daily Nation favors the British option, and the Straits Times takes a
position in between, though more in favor of BrE.

C 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Globalization, postcolonial Englishes, and the English language press 343

INFLUENCE OF THE WORLD NEWS AGENCIES


World news agencies and their style guides
In the three newspapers analyzed, the majority of all external contributions come from
the so called world news agencies Reuters, Associated Press (AP), and Agence France-
Presse (AFP). Additionally, in all papers, and particularly in the Daily Nation, articles are
taken from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which, in principle, is no news
agency, but fulfills a similar function. BBC articles were therefore also treated like news
agency articles in this study. Because of limitations in the use of search engines as retrieval
software, we could not exclude articles from the Asia News Network (ANN), a union of
East-Asian newspapers that share articles among themselves.3 The Straits Times takes part
in this exchange, and thus articles from Asian newspapers such as China Daily or The
Korea Herald are found in the Singaporean newspaper.
News agencies act on an international level, but are mostly aligned with countries.
Different news agencies therefore have different recommendations on which variety of
English to use. Associated Press is based in the US and in its handbook The Associated
Press stylebook (Goldstein 2005), it demands the use of American conventions in terms
of spelling (Goldstein 2005:72) and intelligibility as regards the choice of vocabulary.
The BBC as Britain’s public broadcasting company naturally has a closer association with
BrE. The BBC News styleguide (Allen 2003:19–21) advises scarce and conscious use of
Americanisms and states that generally American words tend to lead to distraction and
irritation on the part of British readers. Reuters was founded in Britain but currently has its
headquarters in New York City. Concerning style, it takes a middle position between the
BBC and AP. In its Handbook of journalism, it establishes the general rule that everything
produced in the Americas ‘should follow North American spelling conventions’ and ev-
erything produced ‘elsewhere should follow British spelling norms’ (Reuters 2009:404).
There is no style guide by Agence France-Presse available to the public. As the numbers
of articles using BrE and AmE are quite balanced, it seems that AFP leaves the choice of
language variety to each individual writer. It is possible that the agency’s French origin
leads to neutrality concerning the variety of English to be used.

General influence of news agencies


A comparison of the influence of world news agencies on the English used in the
three papers is not without problems. It was difficult to obtain comparable results for
the Trinidad Guardian, as there is a great number of articles whose provenance is not
explicitly mentioned. However, the Daily Nation and the Trinidad Guardian generally use
fewer articles from news agencies than the Straits Times. More of their articles are written
by native authors, and they focus more on national and regional topics than on international
ones. In the Kenyan Daily Nation, the inclusion of news agency articles does not lead to
a significant change in the frequency distributions of BrE and AmE forms. A possible
explanation could lie in the large quantity of BBC articles in the Daily Nation. This again
shows a close alignment of the Kenyan newspaper not only with the BrE variety, but also
with Britain’s news coverage in general.
As stated above, we can only make very tentative guesses about the influence of the
news agencies on the Trinidad Guardian. According to the frequency counts, news agency
articles make no difference in the proportion of British and American vocabulary, but it

C 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
344 Eva Canan Hänsel and Dagmar Deuber

Table 4. News agency influence on BrE and AmE spellings (see Table A1 in the Appendix for detailed
results)
− + Increase Chi square
NA NA rate p-value
(p ≤ 0.05 significant,
P ≤ 0.01 highly significant)

Kenya British 4,623 (93%) 5,600 (92%) 21% 0.51


(DN) American 358 (7%) 455 (8%) 27%
Singapore British 3,088 (89%) 7,335 (81%) 138% 0
(ST) American 392 (11%) 1,713 (19%) 337%
T&T British 2,152 (84%) 2,702 (86%) 26% 0.04
(TG) American 401 (16%) 433 (14%) 8%
Note: DN, Daily Nation; ST, Straits Times; TG, Trinidad Guardian.

Table 5. News agency influence on BrE and AmE vocabulary usage (see Table A2 in the Appendix for
detailed results)
− + Increase Chi square
NA NA rate p-value
(p ≤ 0.05 significant,
P ≤ 0.01 highly significant)

Kenya British 1,700 (69%) 1,956 (69%) 15% 0.81


(DN) American 747 (31%) 872 (31%) 17%
Singapore British 1,908 (63%) 3,465 (55%) 82% 0
(ST) American 1,129 (37%) 2,821 (45%) 149%
T&T British 926 (53%) 950 (53%) 3% 0.95
(TG) American 826 (47%) 844 (47%) 2%
Note: DN, Daily Nation; ST, Straits Times; TG, Trinidad Guardian.

seems that a somewhat larger number of BrE spellings enter the Trinidad Guardian through
news agency articles (see Tables 4 and 5).
The impact of the news agencies on the English in the Straits Times is tremendous.
Although British spellings predominate as well, the increase rate of AmE spellings is
much higher than that of BrE spellings. AmE vocabulary also shows a much higher
increase rate than that of the BrE equivalents. In this case, even more AmE than BrE
tokens have entered the Straits Times through the articles. Moreover, news agency articles
lead to some AmE and BrE lexical items being used with approximately equal frequency.
While BrE car park, rubbish, and driving licence are clearly in the majority when there are
no news agency articles, they are used side by side with their AmE counterparts parking
lot, garbage, and driver’s license when the whole newspaper is examined.

Hybrid words
A surprising finding from the data from all three newspapers is the large number of
AmE compounds that are spelled according to BrE conventions, manifested in the hybrid
mixtures <licence plate>, <driver’s licence>, and <labour union>. Likewise, in the

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Globalization, postcolonial Englishes, and the English language press 345

Table 6. Hybrid words


Kenya Singapore T&T
(DN) (ST) (TG)

− + − + − +
NA NA NA NA NA NA

driving licence 55 55 54 66 4 4
driving license 15 15 1 1 0 0
driver’s license 4 4 2 27 1 1
driver’s licence 7 10 11 28 28 28
Number plate 27 29 12 33 20 20
License plate 1 2 6 35 0 1
Licence plate 1 3 22 33 18 19
Trade(s) union 123 175 201 385 352 364
Labor union 0 1 2 14 0 0
Labour union 7 13 9 53 6 6
Note: DN, Daily Nation; ST, Straits Times; TG, Trinidad Guardian; NA, news agencies.

case of <driving license> a BrE word is given an AmE spelling. In the following, these
phenomena will be called ‘hybrid words’ in order to emphasize the combination of two
different language varieties in one word.
As can be observed in Table 6, hybrid words are rather exceptional in the Daily Nation;
the number increases a little when news agency articles are added. In the Trinidad Guardian,
news agency articles do not seem to contribute to the emergence of hybrid words, as almost
all appeared in the first series of searches. Thirty-four of the 35 instances of <driver’s
licence> could be identified as having originated in Trinidad and Tobago. Moreover, as it
clearly outnumbers both <driving license> and <driver’s license>, it can be concluded
that the hybrid word <driver’s licence> is the standard spelling in Trinidad & Tobago
English (TTE). Furthermore, the hybrid word <licence plate> can apparently be used
interchangeably with the BrE <number plate>. Thus, what has been found for spelling and
vocabulary in the Trinidad Guardian is now confirmed in one word: there is a preference
for BrE spelling, but a high tendency toward the use of AmE vocabulary.
In the case of the Straits Times, the number of hybrid words increases noticeably when
news agency articles are added. It can therefore be assumed that the Straits Times uses
computer spell check programs for copy-editing purposes. These recognize American
spellings and change them into their British equivalent, but are not able to recognize
American words as such and change them into their BrE counterparts. When news agency
articles are included, the hybrid word <licence plate> appears roughly as often in the
Straits Times as the British variant number plate and the AmE-spelled <license plate>.
The other two hybrid words, <driver’s licence> and <labour union>, are not as common
as their British counterparts, but still appear quite frequently. In order to find out whether
these hybrid words are indeed the result of automatic editing of news agency articles, it
was checked whether the same spelling is used in the same article published by other
newspapers. Only Reuters provides the original on their website (www.reuters.com). For
articles from other news agencies, the sentence in which the hybrid word appears was
entered in Google, with a wild-card character (*) inserted for the term in question. Then,

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346 Eva Canan Hänsel and Dagmar Deuber

the first 30 hits were examined to determine whether the word in question had originally
been written according to British or American rules. Here are some examples of hybrid
words in news agency articles from the Straits Times:
(1) It started as a police encounter based on an expired plate or the lack of a licence
plate. (AFP, 05/01/2010)
(2) A CAR with the licence plate of a high-ranking Afghan general approached the
gates of the Defence Ministry in Kabul last month. (AP, 05/29/2011, italics added)
(3) Drunk driving bishop quits [ . . . ] State prosecutors in the northern city of Hanover
had said on Monday Bishop Kaessmann was under investigation and could lose her
driver’s licence for a year [ . . . ]. (Reuters, 02/25/2010, italics added)
(4) [ . . . ] about 100 bleary-eyed activists from a Communist Party-backed labour
union covered ticket machines with plastic bags [ . . . ] to protest public transport
ticket price hikes. (AP, 02/22/2011, italics added)
All of the extracts above originally had the American spelling, which later must
have been changed to the British one. Of particular interest are examples (2), (3), and
(4), as they also contain other words with two different variants. In example (2), the
Straits Times writes about the <Defence Ministry> (orig.: <Defense Ministry>). This
change to British spelling is unexpected, as the Afghan government refers to its min-
istries in the American spelling conventions, as can be seen on their official website
(http://www.mfa.gov.af/links.asp). Example (3) shows an American item that has not been
changed to British standards: drunk driving does not become drink driving. Finally, exam-
ple (4) shows a British lexical item (public transport) co-occurring with an American one
(<labour union>, orig.: <labor union>).
In the examples below it can be seen that hybrid words are also used by Singaporean
authors, sometimes even side by side with the British variant, as shown in example (6).
(5) He had also tried to get motorcyclist Hong Bok Leng into trouble by giving police
his licence plate number [ . . . ]. (Singaporean writer, 03/25/2008)
(6) The driver, [ . . . ] who obtained his driving licence a year ago, was discharged from
hospital yesterday morning. [ . . . ] They were eating [ . . . ] with Mr Toh Tian Boon,
[ . . . ] who had just obtained his driver’s licence. (Singaporean writers, 01/31/2008,
italics added)
There are also a few instances where hybrid words already appear in the original news
agency article: <labour union> occurs in the same form as in example (7) below on
Reuters’ website.
(7) ‘We have been in talks with the labour union and have come to an agreement
[ . . . ],’ Vincent Tong, Foxconn’s senior director said. (Reuters, 10/26/2010)

THE INFLUENCE OF GLOBALIZATION


Kenya
In our study, the Kenyan Daily Nation was the newspaper most faithful to BrE. It
appears that although Kenya has been independent since 1963, the norms of BrE remain
very powerful and that despite globalization, the American variety has not yet made strong
inroads into the English used in Kenya.

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Globalization, postcolonial Englishes, and the English language press 347

Ohmae (1985) developed the theory that globalization takes place primarily between
North America, the European Union, and East Asia. These three regions form a ‘triad’
which is affected by globalization. Africa, however, is left out almost completely. The
triad is responsible for about 75 per cent of global trade (Fäßler 2007:12) and African
export only makes up about 3 per cent (bpb 2009). Kenya generally performs poorly in
the global economy (Library of Congress—Federal Research Division 2007:9). Its main
export goods are horticultural products, tea, coffee, and petroleum products, which are
sold mainly to other African countries. Half of Kenya’s industrial sector is foreign-owned,
‘with the United Kingdom providing half. The United States is the second largest investor’
(Library of Congress—Federal Research Division 2007:12). Kenya’s clothing industry has
profited from the US government’s African Growth and Opportunity Act (2000), which
allows increased access to the US market (Library of Congress—Federal Research Division
2007:12). Apart from that, however, the European market has been the primary destination
for Kenyan products outside Africa. An important factor in Kenya’s economy is the tourism
industry, which provides about 11 per cent of all employment (Michieka 2005:181). Kenya
is part of many international organizations such as the UN, WHO, WTO, and UNESCO, so
it ‘is a member of the larger global world that is now mainly using English as the language
of international communication’ (Michieka 2009:29). Nonetheless, only a small part of
the Kenyan population is engaged in international matters. Most Kenyans are unlikely to
be in contact with a native speaker from Britain or the US (Michieka 2005:180).
Thus, Kenya does take part in globalization, but not on a large scale. Moreover, trade
relations with the US have only recently become stronger, and the biggest part of trade
outside Africa is still focused on the UK. What is more, the highest number of tourists
comes to Kenya from the UK (16%), followed by visitors from the US (10%) (Ministry of
Tourism, Kenya, n.d.). Hence, contact and alignment with the UK is still more pronounced
than with the US. This tendency is also reflected in the teaching curriculums, which have
British English and Received Pronunciation as their model (Kembo-Sure 2003:210). This
has been repeatedly criticized by various scholars because ‘teachers and learners of English
have very little or no contact at all with the supposed Standard British English’ (Kioko
and Muthwii 2001:209). Therefore, most scholars support a local KenE standard as a more
realistic target.
While Kenya does not have strong economic ties to the US, it does receive a lot of
cultural influence. Especially in metropolitan areas, youths are exposed to English in
general and to AmE in particular. AmE comes to Kenya through the internet, which is
accessible in urban areas, as many internet cafés have been established there (Michieka
2009:6). As we have seen, AmE appears in newspaper articles, especially those written by
news agency reporters, and it is present in music and television. The private TV stations
KTN and NTV broadcast a number of current American TV series like Law and Order,
House, and 30 Rock. American Idol and CNN News are part of their repertoire, too, bringing
American culture and language to Kenya. The state owned KBC and its station Metro TV
aimed at young people, however, focus more on Kenyan television shows, show only a few
American series, and fill the night hours with BBC programs. Private radio stations play
American music, with Hip Hop apparently being particularly popular.4 Still, the question
of how many people can actually watch and listen to these programs remains, as poverty
in Kenya is widespread, especially in rural areas. However, the reporters of the Daily
Nation most certainly have access to modern technology and as a consequence also to the
globalized world. Most writers will have pursued higher education and they have access to

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348 Eva Canan Hänsel and Dagmar Deuber

the internet. Although they are thus bound to encounter the American variety of English,
they consistently stick to British terms and spellings.
From a Daily Nation article written by a former journalist at the newspaper we find out
that there seems to be a style guide favoring the BrE model. The author laments ‘our failure
to abide by our own house stylebooks in which we purport to outlaw American spellings
and diction in preference for British ones’ (Ochieng 2011). While not being per se against
AmE expressions in Kenyan newspapers, he strongly calls for consistency in the use of
one language variety. In a comment on this article, a blog poster states in non-standard
English that nowadays the side-by-side use of BrE and AmE conventions should be seen
as normal because of the existence of social networks, the internet, TVs, and radios. Thus,
it is possible that attitudes toward BrE as the dominant model are changing in younger
generations, who also accept the AmE variety. However, older generations, the government,
the education system, and intellectual authorities like the Daily Nation strongly maintain
the BrE language variety as their model, so that this continues to enjoy the highest prestige.

Singapore
British spelling with a more or less free choice between British and American lexemes
seems to be the general approach of the Straits Times and thus places it in an interme-
diate position between the BrE-loyal Daily Nation and the more AmE-oriented Trinidad
Guardian. To what extent does this reflect Singapore’s language policy?
Singapore is a multiracial state with three major ethnic groups, Malays, Indians and
Chinese, and a number of ‘others,’ who are mostly of European heritage (Bokhorst-Heng
et al. 2010:135). This mixture of diverse descents has led to societal multilingualism,
which Singapore’s government has seen as a challenge that can work to its advantage. For
this purpose, it was of particular importance not to grant any preference to one of the
languages of these races (Alsagoff 2010:342). Hence, it was agreed to have four official
languages, one language characteristic of each of the ethnic groups, Malay, Tamil, and
Mandarin, plus English. English was chosen to act as ‘a “neutral” inter-ethnic lingua
franca’ (Rubdy et al. 2008:63), however, without being a language of identity. Apart from
this local role, English had been assigned a global purpose. As a small island state lacking
a sufficient amount of agricultural production and natural resources, Singapore has always
been dependent ‘on being competitive in an increasingly internationalized economy and
market’ (Alsagoff 2010:341). Thus, native-like competence in English has been seen as
the ‘key to Singapore’s competitive edge in a globalised economy’ (Lui 2006), especially
in the direct comparison to other Asian countries.
Therefore, the Singapore government has always paid particular attention to language
policies, defining the purpose of each official language and trying to assume control over
speakers’ attitudes toward them. Furthermore, the government is trying to prescribe how
English should be spoken, supporting exonormative standards, namely BrE and AmE.
Local deviations are not welcome (Lim et al. 2010b:7–8). The government’s greatest fear
is that with an English variety of its own, Singaporeans might not be understood by English
speakers from other nations, and that this English variety could become the language of
identification, thereby causing a gradual elimination of the ‘mother tongues’ and of the
(Asian) values they are associated with. This is why the colloquial variety of Singapore
English, called Singlish, is in the focus of the government’s concerns. A campaign called
the Speak Good English Movement (SGEM) was launched in 2000. In cooperation with

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Globalization, postcolonial Englishes, and the English language press 349

the media and other institutions, it tries ‘to promote the use of Standard English’ (Rubdy
2001:348).
It seems that the governmental concern that Singlish could become too prominent has
relativized the view of what is ‘good English.’ Whereas British English and Received
Pronunciation were supposed to be taught in schools after Singapore’s independence in
1965 (Gupta 2010:57), the Ministry of Education does not prescribe this standard anymore
today. The 2010 syllabus defines the target variety as ‘internationally acceptable English
(Standard English) that is grammatical, fluent, mutually intelligible and appropriate for
different purposes, audiences, contexts and cultures’ (Curriculum Planning & Development
Division 2010:10). The curriculum suggests neither the British nor the American standard,
but wants students to speak a neutral variety that can be used in communicating with
speakers of English from all over the world and that can be adjusted to individual contexts
and interlocutors. Students should ‘become aware that they have to adjust their choice of
words including terms of address and tone, when they interact with their peers and others
from different cultures and background’ (Curriculum Planning & Development Division
2010:107); an example cited in this connection is that ‘what the British call the boot of
the car, the Americans call the trunk’ (Curriculum Planning & Development Division
2010:107). Thus, vocabulary and spelling may be used in either variety as long as they are
used consistently and appropriately; for example, ‘American-British spelling (e.g. color-
colour)’ is cited as one of the aspects of spelling that students are supposed to learn to apply
‘consistently’ (Curriculum Planning & Development Division 2010:69). This demand for
consistency and context awareness is also found in the ‘Improve Your English’ section of
the website of the SGEM (http://www.goodenglish.org.sg). The exonormative value of the
AmE variety was justified by Singapore’s current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in a
speech within the context of the SGEM as follows:

The US is the most powerful economy on earth, and they have a big influence on the way English is
spoken around the world, through Hollywood movies, internet sites, books, music, business and social
contacts. They can set standards for the rest of the world. (Lee 2001)

Concerning pronunciation, it is emphasized that there is no need to adopt ‘an artificial


English or American accent’ (Lee 2005). In the advice articles on good English on the
SGEM website (as viewed in 2011), words are normally transcribed in a non-rhotic and
therefore British-oriented accent, though web links to audio samples by American speakers
are provided, too. The website and the syllabus are composed in the British variety and the
SGEM cooperates with the British Council, so we can assume that the British model still
plays an important role.
Singapore’s two major media corporations Singapore Press Holdings and MediaCorp,
which together hold a monopoly of the Singaporean press, ‘are not independent of ex-
ecutive influence’ (Tsun 2008:890). Thus, we can expect newspapers to reflect official
views in terms of language use because the ‘Minister even has the power to direct the lan-
guage any newspaper is to be published in’ (Tsun 2008:888). The Straits Times, too, can
be assumed to be subject to considerable governmental control. Unfortunately, its style
guide is not available to the public, so that one can only make guesses on what kind
of language standard is expected. The Ministry of Education’s demand for consistency
is fulfilled to a great extent in the articles written by Straits Times journalists, who pri-
marily use BrE. This could be explained by the fact that BrE has a long history of

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350 Eva Canan Hänsel and Dagmar Deuber

being the standard variety. The newspaper as a whole, however, does not present such
uniformity.
The main reason for the increased use of AmE words in Singapore English seems to
be globalization. The main purpose of English (at least from the official point of view)
is to enable Singapore to become a full member of the globalized world. Thus, it is no
wonder that vocabulary and spellings typical of AmE, the variety associated with the
country that epitomizes globalization, are accepted into Singaporean English. However,
although Singapore has good relations with the US, engages in economic, scientific and
educational exchange, and is not drawn to anti-American attitudes as are other Asian
countries (Fullerton et al. 2007:211), it is afraid of ‘the risk of seepage of what is perceived
as “undesirable” Western influences into the collective consciousness of its people in
learning English integratively’ (Rubdy et al. 2008:44). Singapore’s upholding of specific
exonormative standards without commitment to only one can be understood in this light.

Trinidad and Tobago


The English used in the Trinidad Guardian contains many AmE spellings and lexical
items. Whether the AmE or the BrE expression is used often depends on the domain the
word belongs to. This can give indications as to when and why American words have come
into the Trinidad and Tobago standard and thus, what role globalization has played in this
process. More AmE than BrE word types were found to be the preferred option in this
study. However, the British variety was stronger in terms of the overall token number, so
it can be concluded that BrE is used for those words that appear with higher frequency in
the language. This is no surprise, as the British colonial rule over Trinidad and Tobago
started at the end of the eighteenth century and lasted until 1962. Consequently, the British
influenced culture and language in Trinidad and Tobago over a considerable period of
time. This also explains the noticeable tendency toward BrE for pre-nineteenth-century
inventions.
A large amount of AmE vocabulary is found in domains that appeared later. The word
field car (a nineteenth-century invention) is based almost entirely on American terminology
(Winer 1993:94). The cell phone, a twentieth-century innovation, is also mainly referred
to by the AmE term. According to Winer (1993:48–9), the preference for AmE vocabulary
has been growing ‘since the large U.S. presence in the country during World War II,
increased contact from visits and migration for education and work since the 1960s, and
increased importing of television programs and commercials.’ We can speculate that cars
might have become more widely available in Trinidad and Tobago around that time. Thus,
AmE expressions possibly entered TTE already at the very beginning of the phase of
globalization that is characterized by Americanization, namely the second part of the
twentieth century.
Trinidad and Tobago is not only close to the United States geographically; both countries
also maintain close economic relations. Today, the US is Trinidad and Tobago’s most
important trade partner. According to the CIA’s World Factbook (2011), 38.53 per cent of
all exports in 2009 was to the US (mostly natural resources). The highest proportion of
imports (mainly manufactured goods) also comes from the US (30.87% in 2009). We may
conclude that cell phones together with their advertisements come mainly from the US and
that therefore the AmE term is used in Trinidad and Tobago. Cultural Americanization is
also far advanced. Many television programs on local channels are imported, often from the

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Globalization, postcolonial Englishes, and the English language press 351

US, and a great variety of American channels can be accessed via cable (Winer 1993:62;
Deuber and Leung 2013). Thus, as ‘families and youth [ . . . ] are growing up immersed
in the media and commercial culture’ (Palmer 2003:499), children are exposed to AmE a
great deal, which is surely an important factor in TTE’s observable shift toward becoming
a more AmE-oriented variety of English.
The sociolinguistic situation in Trinidad and Tobago is characterized by the coexistence
of English and a mesolectal English-lexifier Creole, with a continuum of variation in
between (Deuber 2010:107). In 1975, Creole was officially recognized as a language in
its own right by the Ministry of Education (Youssef and Deuber 2007:2), and it may be
used in education until students have achieved sufficient competence in English (Deuber
2009:85–6). Students are supposed to learn to communicate effectively and according
to context in both varieties (Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, Ministry of Education
2008:22). Deuber (2009:86) notes that in Trinidad and Tobago, unlike, for example, in
Jamaica, official documents do not refer to a local standard of English. And, as Youssef
(2004:43) argues, Trinidadians think of the standard as being ‘an external variety’ and
only see the Creole as being specifically theirs. Moreover, as Deuber (2009:87) further
mentions, ‘it is the “global” dimension of English that is specially mentioned in the [2003]
secondary school curriculum.’ In a more recent curriculum, ‘Standard English,’ which in
the earlier curriculum (Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, Ministry of Education 2003:2–4)
was not specified further, is defined as ‘Internationally Acceptable English’ (Republic of
Trinidad and Tobago, Ministry of Education 2008:13). It appears therefore that from the
official point of view, ‘Standard English’ in Trinidad and Tobago has an exonormative
orientation, similar to the one encountered in Singapore. Nevertheless, in the Trinidad and
Tobago English Language Arts Curriculum, there are no direct references to norm-giving
varieties of English, and there is no demand for consistency in the use of one exonormative
native-speaker model. This ties in with the quite balanced numbers of AmE and BrE word
tokens found in this study.

CONCLUSION
At the outset of this paper, it was hypothesized that globalization is a major factor
contributing to the Americanization of postcolonial Englishes. Therefore, the study aimed
to determine whether the degree of globalization of a postcolonial country is reflected
in the number of AmE spellings and words in its standard variety of English as used in
newspapers. In part, the hypothesis has proven to be true, although it is without doubt too
general and imprecise.
The hypothesis has turned out to be correct in so far as the smallest number of AmE
lexical items and spellings was found in the data from Kenya, the country that is least
globalized among the three countries under study. The UK remains Kenya’s most im-
portant trade partner outside Africa and provides the highest percentage of tourists to
Kenya. Exports to the US have become more important only in the last decade. Thus,
from an economic viewpoint, it seems logical that the standard variety is more oriented
toward BrE. Moreover, in Kenya, access to American cultural exports such as movies,
TV shows, books, computer games, and pop music is mostly restricted to urban areas.
Consequently, young people in cities like Nairobi certainly tend to take on features of
AmE. The definition of the standard, however, remains the responsibility of the more
conservative and British-oriented elite. As a consequence, the exonormative orientation

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352 Eva Canan Hänsel and Dagmar Deuber

toward the BrE model seems to hinder the entry of AmE words into Kenyan newspaper
English.
The results for the other two varieties do not quite conform to the hypothesis. Singapore
is one of the most globalized countries in the world, the US is one of its most important trade
partners, and American vocabulary reaches Singaporeans via American cultural exports.
Thus, a higher number of Americanisms might have been expected. Yet, the BrE model
is still rather strong. This may be ascribed to Singapore’s demand for consistency in the
use of one variety and its traditionally strong ties to BrE. However, the current language
standard is ‘Internationally Acceptable English,’ and both British and American words
and spellings are officially accepted. This can be related to Singapore’s reluctance to claim
ownership of English. In Trinidad and Tobago, the strong influence of AmE lexical items
and spellings may be attributed rather to the country’s close relationship to the US (not
least in terms of geographical proximity) than to its degree of globalization in general.
Trinidad and Tobago’s economy is primarily oriented toward trade with the United States
and there is a lot of US influence from tourism and American cultural media exports. As
the target standard variety is ‘Internationally Acceptable English,’ the use of American
lexical items is not impeded.
Thus, it seems that globalization is only a precondition for the Americanization of post-
colonial Englishes. American influence is only possible when the speakers of a postcolonial
variety are exposed to Americanisms. However, contact with AmE does not automatically
lead to an adoption of Americanisms in the standard variety. It has become obvious that
there must be other major forces playing a role in the acceptance or rejection of AmE
words and spellings in newspapers. One important factor seems to be the official defini-
tion of the standard. The lowest number of AmE words was found in the newspaper of the
country whose English variety has BrE as its target (Kenya), and the highest number in the
newspaper of the country where the official target is ‘Internationally Acceptable English’
without reference to any particular variety (Trinidad and Tobago). The newspaper of the
country that demands consistency in either one of the exonormative models (Singapore)
was found to hold a middle position with regard to the frequency of AmE expressions.
The contribution of international news agencies to the Americanization of newspaper
English in former British colonies was very noticeable in the Singaporean newspaper,
where it led to a considerable change in the proportions of BrE and AmE words. Spellings,
however, remain largely British, which was attributed to automatic editing by spell check
programs. In Singapore, this automatic editing has led to the emergence of hybrid words
where BrE spelling conventions are applied to AmE expressions. This shows that it is much
easier to regulate spelling than the use of lexical items. In Trinidad and Tobago, however,
hybrid words seem to be widely accepted and probably reflect the general TTE pattern of
preferring AmE words and BrE spellings.
On the whole, globalization appears to be the driving force introducing American
vocabulary into postcolonial varieties of English, and although the willingness to adopt
AmE words in the language of journalism varies from country to country, the English
in all three newspapers considered in this paper shows at least some influence of AmE.
Thus, there seems to be a gradual shift toward a variety that allows words of both BrE
and AmE origin. Consequently, although the major norm-providing varieties supply the
basic vocabulary, the negotiation of what words will belong to ‘Internationally Acceptable
English’ is taking place in the postcolonial English varieties. Due to the spread of American
media throughout the world and the persistent economic and political hegemony of the

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Globalization, postcolonial Englishes, and the English language press 353

US, AmE will play an increasingly important role in the emergence of a truly international
lexicon of English, while terms that were firmly established in former British colonies are
likely to remain in the language. ‘Internationally Acceptable English’ will thus be a lexically
hybrid variety (cf. also Igboanusi 2003:603). This might lead to British and American
English becoming less relevant as normative models. However, in the present study, there
was evidence not only of hybridity, but, to different extents in the three newspapers, also of
efforts to keep the British and the American model apart in the respective Englishes, which
was especially noticeable in spelling. On the whole, the different degrees of influence of
AmE and accordingly the allegiance to BrE were found to be based on an interplay of
various factors including globalization.

NOTES
1. The estimated number often still contains double entries.
2. The numbers of the unrestricted search were at times lower than the ones obtained in the restricted search. The
exclusion of the letter cluster in all searches had the effect of stabilizing the frequencies.
3. Yahoo only allows a restricted number of search or exclusion terms. As the exclusion of ‘ANN’ would have been
too restrictive, all newspapers involved would have had to be excluded individually, which was not possible due to
Yahoo’s restrictions.
4. For example, Capital FM, http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/radio/index.php.

APPENDIX

Table A1. Spelling—individual items (5/25/2011)


Kenya Singapore T&T UK US
(DN) (ST) (TG) (GU) (WP)

− + − + − + − −
NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA

my favourite 35 141 42 69 98 104 24,900 63


my favorite 9 13 0 14 3 4 3,240 10,100
a neighbour 152 172 73 178 136 139 3,270 8
a neighbor 6 9 0 24 0 0 156 4,270
the colour 129 145 43 142 67 74 10,200 30
the color 6 9 0 27 0 1 693 6,940
of labour 179 215 60 256 22 228 18,600 14
of labor 2 3 4 57 0 0 480 5,130
a favour 96 102 12 34 33 34 5,520 6
a favor 14 15 0 32 0 0 399 1,900
flavour 113 122 152 258 88 88 14,600 40
flavor 10 11 7 32 1 1 683 11,400
harbour 169 206 161 536 100 105 10,400 1,690
harbor 6 10 16 121 2 2 2,000 12,600
humour 214 236 117 290 110 116 29,300 114
humor 14 17 5 44 2 2 1,610 25,600
travelling to/travelled to 546 691 174 670 152 173 12,870 195
traveling to/traveled to 20 26 8 166 13 16 470 9,060
levelling/levelled 229 294 68 277 188 192 7,620 38
leveling/leveled 18 24 2 69 9 12 642 3,270
(continued)


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354 Eva Canan Hänsel and Dagmar Deuber

Table A1. Continued


Kenya Singapore T&T UK US
(DN) (ST) (TG) (GU) (WP)

− + − + − + − −
NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA

centre and 469 539 281 524 26 276 11,200 114


center and 23 27 10 111 12 15 598 19,400
the theatre 72 84 102 137 35 38 13,400 511
the theater 2 3 0 26 0 0 211 4,840
kilometre 510 626 63 486 73 75 1,700 6
kilometer 13 17 2 49 3 5 240 698
a metre 18 26 35 89 3 3 1,570 1
a meter 15 17 5 7 1 2 320 370
litre 458 487 222 335 27 27 6,120 47
liter 11 11 1 17 1 1 138 1,960
catalogue 33 40 74 138 18 18 14,000 3,920
catalog 2 4 3 54 0 0 407 1,510
the/a dialogue 67 47 246 433 19 21 4,550 3,560
the/a dialog 0 0 0 1 0 0 131 195
fulfil 320 367 152 308 164 172 10,400 24
fulfill 90 101 274 424 43 43 2,200 7,900
wilful 26 27 11 21 29 30 2,770 15
willful 6 11 2 22 3 4 730 1,140
the defence 397 591 252 965 594 613 16,000 50
the defense 19 33 5 157 9 10 1,120 36,000
a licence 155 163 132 211 122 124 4,600 8
a license 44 45 4 54 7 7 871 3,820
TV programme 16 20 15 33 8 8 1,510 2
TV program 2 2 3 9 0 0 185 419
mum and 59 68 70 116 5 5 4,540 71
mom and 10 10 21 45 24 24 617 3,750
jewellery 100 124 468 755 14 14 10,900 28
jewelry 1 18 16 135 258 274 219 9,790
cosy 61 67 63 74 21 25 13,900 51
cozy 15 19 4 16 10 10 760 6,680
Note: DN, Daily Nation, ST, Straits Times, TG, Trinidad Guardian, GU, Guardian, WP, Washington Post, NA, news
agencies.


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Globalization, postcolonial Englishes, and the English language press 355

Table A2. Vocabulary—individual items (5/25/2011)


Kenya Singapore T&T UK US
(DN) (ST) (TG) (GU) (WP)

− + − + − + − −
NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA

the/of public transport 63 65 144 167 51 52 1,233 22


the/of public transportation 4 4 8 8 12 12 33 326
the railway 254 268 49 134 29 29 4,050 250
the railroad 7 8 1 15 1 1 204 1,240
motorbike 84 97 69 181 20 23 3,260 283
motorcycle 164 194 503 923 54 58 3,520 6,480
driving licence/license 70 70 55 67 4 4 1,401 24
driver’s licence/license 11 14 13 55 29 29 270 4,608
number plate 27 29 12 33 20 20 681 4
licence/license plate 2 5 28 68 18 20 151 2,314
drink driving 20 20 326 417 2 2 2,230 5
drunk driving 15 18 52 147 27 28 270 1,500
car park 36 50 82 186 245 249 7,440 36
parking lot 68 87 25 185 33 36 725 13,400
petrol station 189 206 59 111 0 0 1,340 2
gas station 7 16 5 56 89 89 279 4,130
petrol and 104 117 172 227 1 1 2,100 5
gasoline and 4 13 11 98 24 24 148 1,090
taxi rank 2 2 0 2 0 0 204 1
taxi stand 0 0 81 87 39 41 10 38
hire purchase 79 88 13 20 11 11 270 1
installment plan 0 0 1 4 0 0 9 79
current account 20 40 46 241 7 7 3,130 277
checking account 4 4 0 1 0 1 22 587
pay rise 134 144 167 365 8 8 4,820 17
pay raise 78 83 7 41 2 3 54 1,380
price rise 24 25 102 168 6 6 2,370 82
price hike 6 6 151 220 26 26 802 105
trade(s) union 123 175 201 385 352 364 8,320 219
labour/labor union 7 14 11 67 6 6 165 677
a mobile phone 205 227 98 230 9 10 4,930 340
a cellphone/a cell phone 46 57 50 171 91 93 356 6,110
bookshop 41 48 13 33 11 12 1,300,000 570
bookstore 5 8 62 151 33 34 1,260 4,560
rubbish 212 260 262 448 146 148 65,100 484
garbage 318 339 118 451 340 341 6,790 6,400
expiry date 13 25 38 50 4 4 378 7
expiration date 1 2 2 13 2 2 63 705
Note: KenE, Kenyan English, SgE, Singapore English, TTE, Trinidad and Tobago English, BrE, British English, AmE,
American English, DN, Daily Nation, ST, Straits Times, TG, Trinidad Guardian, GU, Guardian, WP, Washington Post,
NA, news agencies.


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356 Eva Canan Hänsel and Dagmar Deuber

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(Received 12 February 2013)


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