The same kinds of comment can be made about other possible lexicogrammatical
features of Expanding Circle ELF. For example, there is a shift in article use
particularly, but not exclusively, in East Asian ELF. Speakers systematically
employing articles in ways more appropriate to their own than to NSs’ use of English,
both use articles in grammatical contexts where NSs do not, and vice versa (see
Dewey 2007). Again, ELF speakers in East Asia (and elsewhere) tend not to use the
cumbersome system of question tag forms employed by NSs of English. Instead, they
often use an invariant form, particularly either isn’t it? or is it?, both of which are
frequently found in Outer Circle Asian Englishes such as Lankan and Singapore
English too (and also as ‘innit’ among many younger British English speakers of all
social groups in informal conversation contexts). Another example is the shift in
preposition use with, for example, the regularisation of the verb ‘discuss’ so that it
becomes ‘discuss about’ alongside verbs such as ‘talk about’, ‘speak about’ and the
like, or ‘emphasise on’ in preference to the Inner Circle form ‘emphasise’. Similarly,
prepositions that would be used by mother tongue speakers may be deleted (e.g.
‘against’ in the multiword verb ‘to discriminate against someone’).