Towards improved coverage of Southeast Asian Englishes in the 'Oxford English Dictionary'

Abstract

This paper examines the lexicon of Southeast Asian varieties of English and its representation in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). It begins by describing the OED's changing editorial policies with regard to words originating from outside of Britain. It then focusses on Southeast Asian words included in the OED's third and latest edition, and on recent efforts to improve the OED's handling of this type of vocabulary. The paper concludes with a discussion of the key issues that need to be addressed to ensure adequate treatment of Southeast Asian and other World Englishes in the OED: overcoming the shortage of written resources through targeted and collaborative research programmes, providing better regional labelling through the comparative study of the lexis of national and regional varieties, and diversifying the OED's coverage of Southeast Asian Englishes by including words and meanings of more current usage, as well as lexical innovations beyond simple borrowing.Keywords Oxford English Dictionary · Southeast Asian Englishes · World Englishes The OED and World EnglishesWidely regarded as the most authoritative and comprehensive dictionary of the English language, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) contains information on the meaning, history and pronunciation of over 600,000 English words, exemplified by Communicated by Yukio Tono.

African Englishes in the <i>Oxford English Dictionary</i>

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Documenting World Englishes in the Oxford English Dictionary: Past Perspectives, Present Developments, and Future Directions

“…Although, as previously stated, the OED now has access to a more geographically diverse range of research resources, it remains true that the amount of lexicographical evidence available for region-specifi c vocabulary is still very small compared to that for general English. Th is is compounded by the fact that publications in postcolonial nations continue to be edited following British or American standards, so that lexical innovations in speech may not always make it into the written texts that the OED regularly consults ( Salazar 2014 ). It is for this reason that OED editors are increasingly turning to less mediated forms of writing, such as tweets and song lyrics, in order to fi nd quotations that more closely approximate the way that speakers of world Englishes talk, and therefore serve as more authentic illustrations of how words from world Englishes are used in real-life contexts.…”

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