Topicalization in Asian Englishes : Routledge : 9781138549456 : 1138549452 : 29 Jan 2019 : Shortlisted for the 2020 ESSE Book Award in English Language and Linguistics This monograph is the first comprehensive study of topicalization in Asian second-language varieties of English and provides an in-depth analysis of the forms, functions, and frequencies of topicalization in four Asian Englishes. Topicalization, that is, the sentence-initial placement of constituents other than the subject, has been found to occur frequently in the English spoken by many Asians, but so far the possible reasons for this have never been scrutinized. This book closes this research gap by taking into account the structures of the major contact languages, the roles of second-language acquisition and politeness as well as other factors in order to explain why topicalization is highly frequent in some varieties such as Indian English and much less frequent in other varieties such as Hong Kong English. In addi