the meaning of an idiomatic expression cannot be transparently worked out from the meanings of its constituent words due to its figurative and unpredictable nature. consequently, the syntactic composition and the structural paradigm of an idiomatic expression are supposed to be the same in every context. however, this is not the case in the institutionalized second language varieties of english...

This article surveys current approaches to world Englishes (WE), provides a review of recent critiques of the world Englishes paradigm, and considers the ways in which the theorisation of world Englishes faces new challenges related to the effects of globalisation, as well as possible responses to such changes. This it does specifically by examining the sociolinguistic backgrounds and experienc...

The concepts of language variety and variation lie at the heart of the world Englishes enterprise, not least because many researchers in this field have identified their interests as the study of "varieties of English," "localized varieties of English," "non-native varieties of English," "second-language varieties of English," and "new varieties of English." The issue of linguistic variety is a...