Black British English, MEYD, London Jamaican

Question 1

Why did London Jamaican evolve?

Answer 1

Due to immigration communities which came to England and produced new generations here.

Question 2

Who did research into the London Jamaican variety?

Answer 2

Mark Sebba

Question 3

What did Sebba describe the London Jamaican variation to be between?

Answer 3

Caribbean creole forms
Cockney “London English”
Standard English/RP forms

Question 4

What is London Jamaican a combination of?

Answer 4

Lexical, grammatical and phonological elements from all the influencing variations

Question 5

Example of the differences in pronunciation used:

creole 1st, cockney, SE

Answer 5

|l| in “well” : |l| , |u| , |l|
|th| in “with” : |d| , |v| , |th|
|ow| in “how” : |oh| , |a| , |ow|
|uh| in “love” : |o| , |uh| , |uh|

Question 6

Who did Sebba involve in his research?

Answer 6

Young, British born teenagers with Jamaican parentage

Question 7

Who did research into MEYD?

Answer 7

Sue Fox

Question 8

What does MEYD stand for?

Answer 8

Multi Ethnic Youth Dialect

Question 9

Where and when was Fox’s study carried out?

Answer 9

Early 21st century

London

Question 10

What did Fox term the variety of MEYD that she looked at?

Answer 10

Multicultural London English (MLE)

Question 11

Where were the characteristics for MLE drawn from?

Answer 11

Several other languages, creoles and cultural sources

Question 12

Who are the users of the MLE dialect?

Answer 12

Adolescent users in greater London, however evidence suggests it is used with youths of other large cities such as Birmingham and Bristol

Question 13

What communities are the speakers of MLE from?

Answer 13

Asian, White and Black

however influences have come from West Indian, West African and Bangladeshi

Question 14

What is the lexis like for MLE?

Answer 14

It is only current and used for a short period of time, much like slang

Question 15

Example of pronunciation feature of MLE:

Answer 15

shortened vowel sounds

e.g. face = fehs , go = goh

Question 16

Examples of MLE lexis:

Answer 16

Blud - mate/friend
Grime - type of music
Nang - good

Question 17

What does the term Jafaican mean?

Answer 17

Fake Jamaican - used by white speakers as a way of mimicking the black-origin language

Question 18

What does Kerswill believe about MLE and Cockney?

Answer 18

Cockney will no longer be used in London and will be replaced by MLE by the year 2030

Question 19

What does the research by Kerswill and Fox suggest about MLE?

Answer 19

That it is a genuine and evolved dialect which belongs to both black and white speakers

Question 20

What is Black British English a term for?

Answer 20

Different varieties of creole English spoken in Britain

Question 21

Who are associated with BBE?

Answer 21

Black youth culture

People who have grown up with the influences of British dialect, yet have creole speaking parents

Question 22

What are some grammatical features of BBE?

Answer 22

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”

Question 23

What are some phonological features of BBE?

Answer 23

Consonant clusters simplified
Voiceless “th” - |f| or |t| used for “think” , |v| or |d| used for “the”
“tion” suffix pronounced as SHARN

Question 24

How can nouns be marked for gender in BBE and why?

Answer 24

Adding man (for man) or meri (for woman) at the end of the word
Because there are no gender marking pronouns

Question 25

What are some grammatical structure features of BBE?

Answer 25

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

Question 26

What are some lexical patterns in BBE?

Answer 26

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)