Contemporary Indian English

“[Contemporary Indian English] CIE is a rich and abundant source of solid empirical evidence on Indian English. It will not of course be the last word on Indian English, but it suggests other questions whose answers may be sought through corpus linguistics – questions about style, for example, in Indian writers such as Mulk Raj Anand, R.K. Narayan, and Raja Rao, to mention only three of my personal favourites. One hopes that CIE has ploughed a furrow for other corpus-based linguistic studies of not only different aspects of Indian English but of other world Englishes as well. CIE is very “micro” – I try to limit myself to one clich´e per review – but that is not to detract from its value. CIE is a well-rounded and successful production, a tribute to its author’s Sitzfleisch and sense of balance. It has an “authoritative” feel to it.”

“The present book provides a very interesting and rich, innovative and valuable contribution to the description of the largest institutionalised second-language variety of English world-wide, i.e. Indian English (IndE) [...] the book contains a goldmine of data and interpretations, a differentiated analysis of contemporary IndE usage, many interesting examples of variation in IndE and explanations of pathways of change. The present study marks a quantum leap in the description of IndE lexis, morphosyntax and grammar; without any doubt, this book is a must for everyone who is interested in present-day IndE.”

“Andreas Sedlatchek's book Contemporary Indian English is a valuable edition to any linguist's book shelf for several good reasons. Consider, for instance, the topic of the book. English has existed on Indian native soil, to a greater or lesser degree, for ove 370 years; but the quantum of research in this area is disproportionately sparse when compared to the length of period. So, clearly, there is need to welcome all research contributions to this field. Sedlatchek's work, however, also deserves appreciation in its own right. His discussion of theoretical and historical issues relating to Indian English (IE) is brief but balanced. While his study brings to light a number of interesting features relating to the way in which English is actually used in the writing of educated people in India, its greatest strength lies not so much in the linguistic facts that it has unearthed as in the model that it has succeeded in providing for future empirical research in this area of study. Sedlatchek's project reflects a tightly constructed research design, rigorous analysis of both a quantitative and qualitative kind, and meticulous, transparent documentation. In a field of investigation where opinion where opinion and anecdotal accounts have sometimes passed for substance, there can be little doubt, that this work sets a standard which future researchers cannot possibly ignore.”

“The book achieves in truly impressive style its purpose of describing high proficiency IndE. It substantially advances our understandings of IndE beyond insufficiently contextualized claims, bringing to light intriguing tendencies and resolving long-standing ambiguities in claims about the variety. The book also contributes more generally to the study of English with its remarkable, cross-varietal diachronic and synchronic reach, and is likely to be of interest to corpus linguists, applied linguists, lexicographers, dialectologists, and any scholar interested in variation and change in English around the world.”