Wiewpoint -wise : The spread and development of a new type of adverb in American and British English

Abstract

In the second half of the twentieth century, a new type of adverb, viewpoint adverbs formed with the suffix -wise, appeared in English. This article traces the diffusion and development of viewpoint -wise adverbs using American and British newspaper corpora, the spoken component of the British National Corpus, and the Longman Spoken American Corpus. It is shown that the adverbs are at least twice as frequent in the spoken corpora as in the written, that they are increasing in both American and British English, and that the originally American adverb type is now more frequent in British English. Its spread seems to be motivated by both functional and social factors. In newspapers, a high proportion occurs in represented speech, and the major domains are sports, art and entertainment, and “living.” It has extended its range of bases from nouns to noun phrases and, to some extent, generalized to adjectives and adverbs.