Award for Prof. Fuchs
9 November 2018, by JH und IP
Prof. Dr. Robert Fuchs, Associate Professor for English Linguistics at the Institute of English and American Studies, was awarded this year's book prize for linguistics (category B) by the European Society for the Study of English for his monograph on "Speech Rhythm in Varieties of English: Evidence from Educated Indian English and British English" (Springer, 2016). At the heart of the study is the question of how the pronunciation of English in India differs in its speech rhythm from that of English in Britain. At the same time, the study proposes a new method to analyse speech rhythm. As in many other postcolonial contexts, the character of English in India differs from that of English in Great Britain. The English language fulfills an important link function, as a so-called lingua franca, in this multilingual country of 1.3 billion people. The local use and local relevance of English in India has, over time, led to the emergence of a new dialect of English in India, which the study documents and analyses. Research on such postcolonial dialects of English is an important focus of research in English linguistics at the Department of English and American Studies and the University of Hamburg.