Black British English, MEYD, London Jamaican Flashcards
Why did London Jamaican evolve?
Due to immigration communities which came to England and produced new generations here.
Who did research into the London Jamaican variety?
Mark Sebba
What did Sebba describe the London Jamaican variation to be between?
Caribbean creole forms
Cockney “London English”
Standard English/RP forms
What is London Jamaican a combination of?
Lexical, grammatical and phonological elements from all the influencing variations
Example of the differences in pronunciation used:
creole 1st, cockney, SE
|l| in “well” : |l| , |u| , |l|
|th| in “with” : |d| , |v| , |th|
|ow| in “how” : |oh| , |a| , |ow|
|uh| in “love” : |o| , |uh| , |uh|
Who did Sebba involve in his research?
Young, British born teenagers with Jamaican parentage
Who did research into MEYD?
Sue Fox
What does MEYD stand for?
Multi Ethnic Youth Dialect
Where and when was Fox’s study carried out?
Early 21st century
London
What did Fox term the variety of MEYD that she looked at?
Multicultural London English (MLE)
Where were the characteristics for MLE drawn from?
Several other languages, creoles and cultural sources
Who are the users of the MLE dialect?
Adolescent users in greater London, however evidence suggests it is used with youths of other large cities such as Birmingham and Bristol
What communities are the speakers of MLE from?
Asian, White and Black
however influences have come from West Indian, West African and Bangladeshi
What is the lexis like for MLE?
It is only current and used for a short period of time, much like slang
Example of pronunciation feature of MLE:
shortened vowel sounds
e.g. face = fehs , go = goh
Examples of MLE lexis:
Blud - mate/friend
Grime - type of music
Nang - good
What does the term Jafaican mean?
Fake Jamaican - used by white speakers as a way of mimicking the black-origin language
What does Kerswill believe about MLE and Cockney?
Cockney will no longer be used in London and will be replaced by MLE by the year 2030
What does the research by Kerswill and Fox suggest about MLE?
That it is a genuine and evolved dialect which belongs to both black and white speakers
What is Black British English a term for?
Different varieties of creole English spoken in Britain
Who are associated with BBE?
Black youth culture
People who have grown up with the influences of British dialect, yet have creole speaking parents
What are some grammatical features of BBE?
No gender marking for 3rd person singular
only use “i”
Base form of verb “to be” used as an auxiliary
No plural markers (also lack of inflection ‘s’ for 3rd p s verbs)
Multiple negation
Use of 1st p object pronoun in subject position e.g.”me take you there”
What are some phonological features of BBE?
Consonant clusters simplified
Voiceless “th” - |f| or |t| used for “think” , |v| or |d| used for “the”
“tion” suffix pronounced as SHARN
How can nouns be marked for gender in BBE and why?
Adding man (for man) or meri (for woman) at the end of the word Because there are no gender marking pronouns
What are some grammatical structure features of BBE?
Absence of plural forms - rely on context
Absence of tense and person - all verbs are in infinitive form, times indicated by addition of auxiliary “did” or “been”
Few prepositions
What are some lexical patterns in BBE?
Reduplication of words to extend limited vocabulary and distinguish words which may sound similar to avoid confusion
Reiterated words used to intensify meaning e.g. small, small small (very small)
