APJCR_2023_4_1_43

Asia Pacific Journal of Corpus Research Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 43-59
Abbreviation: APJCR
e-ISSN: 2733-8096
Publication date: 31 August 2023
Received: 29 May 2023 / Received in Revised Form: 3 August 2023 / Accepted: 12 August 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22925/apjcr.2023.4.1.43

A comparison of the constructions make / take a decision in Malaysian English with the supervarieties

Christina Sook Beng Ong (Wawasan Open University), MALAYSIA
Copyright 2023 APJCR

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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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Keywords

Light Verb Constructions, Structural Patterns, Malaysian English, British English, American English

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The Authors

Christina Sook Beng Ong is a senior lecturer at the School of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences, Wawasan Open University, Malaysia. Her research interests include the use of corpus linguistics methodology to study written discourses and varieties of English.

The Authors’ Addresses

First and Corresponding Author
Christina Sook Beng Ong
Lecturer

Wawasan Open University
54, Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah,10050 Penang, MALAYSIA
E-mail: christinaskb@wou.edu.my

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