Corpus Linguistic Studies of Standard Bahamian English: A Comparative Study of Newspaper Usage

Abstract

While several studies have studied the unique features of Bahamian Creole, there have been to date no academic studies analysing Standard Bahamian English, the language of formal communication in the Bahamas. This study fills this gap in the literature. Using the methods of corpus linguistics, the study presents some of the unique features of Standard Bahamian English in comparison to other international variants of English, specifically British, American, and Jamaican English. For methodological purposes the texts analysed are limited to the genre of newspaper reportage. Features analysed include keywords and word counts.