Some Syntactic Innovations in New Literatures in English

Abstract

New literatures in English mirror the identity of non-native writers who are eager to weave linguistic and thematic elements in English in divergence to the so-called Anglo English literature so that their nationality appearing in the characterization and various literary devices would contribute to the uniqueness of new varieties of English. This paper pays attention to an innovative facet of such linguistic components, particularly regarding syntax, which are manifested in the discipline of World Englishes. It aims to present particular types of syntactic innovations used in literary texts in English produced by Asian, African and Caribbean authors whose mother tongue is not English, through a range of previous studies. It appears that those authors mainly point out six types of syntactic creativity - literal translation, overgeneralization, omission, reduction, restructuring and progressive verb forms - to highlight their writings which reflect localization of the English language.