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The major objective of the study is to develop a framework allowing for the systematic investigation of the institutionalised varieties and performance varieties of English (also known as learner Englishes). This involves a detailed description of the forms of English spoken in India and in Russia as well as discussion of sociolinguistic histories and cultural background. Relying on evidence obtained for Indian English and English spoken in Russia, this paper argues that learner Englishes are self-contained forms of English that reflect order and structure within the grammar and need to be documented and studied systematically in analogy to indigenised forms of English. Moreover, the description of both varietal types should take into account various factors relating to the extra-linguistic setting and sociolinguistic history of the variety in question. Finally, the study shows how systematic accounts of a learner variety can provide a sound basis for -and a useful source of -differentiated cross-varietal comparisons with other forms of English.

This article is concerned with the acquisition of sociolinguistic variation, which is central to native speaker competence. It explores the acquisition of variable quotative marking within the local Learner English ecology in a cohort of German students. The data consist of 809 instances of quotation produced by 45 speakers, all of whom are currently completing their bachelor's and master's degrees and who have different exposure types to English spoken in a naturalistic context. The authors focus on the acquisition of the constraints that govern the variable use of the innovative quotative form be like, which is not formally taught in classes of English as a foreign language. The data suggest that German learners of English with an extensive record of face-to-face communications with native speakers are rather adept at picking up on the grammar that governs the quotative system and innovative be like more specifically. Overall, the study contributes to the discussion of what is possible in the second-language acquisition of the variable grammar, while exploring the sociolinguistic and cognitive mechanisms that shape the formation of nonnative Englishes worldwide.

This article examines the perception of the quotatives

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