A more modern language shift: Multicultural London English (MLE) Flashcards
what is the key factor of MLE?
The key factor in MLE is that it moves away from the notion of a single ethnicity influencing one’s language use and to a model by which speakers of a certain age (predominately young) use features drawn from a mixture of ethnic influences
MLE features?
Lexis – slang ‘bare’ (very), ‘beef’ (conflict), ‘choong’ (attractive), ‘ting’ (girlfriend)
Grammar – ‘dem’ as plural marker (‘man dem’ for men) and ‘man’ acting as a 1st person pronoun to refer to self (‘man paid for my own ticket’)
Discourse – ‘innit’ as tag question, ‘you get me’ as confirmation check, ‘this is me’ as a quotative (‘I went…and this is me/him “blah blah…”’)
Pronunciation – ‘straight’ becomes ‘stret’ (flattened, short vowels – diphthongs becoming monothongs)
what varieties of world english are used in MLE
Caribbean, Greece, Asia, Africa
what does multiethnolect mean?
Language use isn’t just influenced by a single ethnic identity – multiple ethnic influences can contribute to a speaker’s language.
Arguments being made by writers about the negatives of ‘Black English MLE
Sounds “ridiculous…unpleasant, sinister, idiotic, absurd”
Children pick it up from undesirable TV characters (Ali G, Tim Westwood)
A “fake” form – not a full variety – a “by-product”
Won’t help children trying to “get on in London”
Arguments that could be made to challenge these negatives and defend ‘Black English’:
Creativity of the variety
Use by youngsters of all ethnicities a way of breaking down racial divides
All language communicates and builds bonds between people
Associations with negatives like criminality/rebellion are nothing to do with the language, just the people (surely a minority) who use it
theories that are relvant to the debate of MLE?
Julia Snell – association are arbitrary…. - socialisation
Accommodation theory – speakers may converge/diverge to one another
Code-switching – speakers switch between varieties
Overt/Covert prestige – speakers are motivated to use different forms in different contexts
Register – different language appropriate at different times
Prescriptivism – idea there is a ‘correct’ English that people should be using
john pitts resitance identity?
it can be a way to mark rebellion/opposition to mainstream culture, law and order, the establishment….
what does MUBE mean?
(Multicultural Urban British English) to label the way in which Multicultural London English has spread to other large conurbations in the UK
what is code switching?
speakers switch from language variety to another in the course of the same conversation
How do the labels ‘language’, ‘dialect’ and ‘non-standard’ imply different status to varieties?
‘language’ – formal, standard, long-standing, has an accepted status
‘
dialect’ – less formal, a sub-category of a language, less respected, prone to change,
‘non-standard’ – less respected than ‘standard’, something that carries stigma and not what people aspire to use to be taken seriously in formal situations
what is ethnolect?
language used by a particular ethnic group
