Asia Pacific Journal of Corpus Research (아시아태평양코퍼스연구)

Institute for Corpus Research (국립인천대학교 코퍼스연구소)
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A Comparison of the Constructions Make / Take a Decision in Malaysian English with the Supervarieties

  • Received : 2023.05.29
  • Accepted : 2023.08.12
  • Published : 2023.08.31
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Abstract

This study aims to compare the structures of light verb constructions (LVCs) taking decision as the deverbal noun in Malaysian English, British English and American English. A general corpus made up of Internet forum threads from Lowyat.Net, was created to represent Malaysian English while the British National Corpus (BNC) and Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) were used to represent the supervarieties. Light verbs make and take are found to be heading deverbal noun decision. Differences are observed in the use of articles. The frequency of Malaysian English LVCs without article is the highest while supervarieties LVCs prefer indefinite article. The high occurrences of LVCs without articles in Malaysian English can be attributed to the influence from Malaysian substrate languages. Findings also show that descriptive adjective is the most frequently used modifier in all three varieties of English. This suggests the standard LVC structure, comprising a light verb, the indefinite article, and a deverbal noun is no longer rigidly adhered to even among the native speakers of English.

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References

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