Ethnicity Flashcards
Acts of Linguistic Identity
- With every speech act all individuals perform, to a greater or less extent, an ‘act of identity’, revealing through their personal use of language their sense of social and ethnic solidarity or difference.
- At the same time people also have powerful (if unconscious stereotypes about the norms and standards of their own language and those of others - often at variance with observable behaviour.
Migration
- With the large scale arrival of Caribbean people in the UK from the late 1940s onwards (they were encouraged and asked to come as a postwar drive which needed healthy workers for the UK’s growing public services -it was known at the time as The Wind Rush) new and exciting forms of English started to be heard in may urban areas.
- The creole spoken by many Jamaicans is over 500 years old and is inextricably linked with the slave trade. It is made up of both English and the various West African languages that were spoken by slaves
How Aspects of Jamaican English became
Embedded in Our Culture.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the contact between Jamaican-English young people and their white working class neighbours at work and at school, and the increasing number of mixed race relationships meant that people of different ethnic backgrounds were exposed to each other’s varieties of English.
A degree of ‘crossing’ was evident e.g. a young white person might use more traditional language with some peers groups but ‘shift into a lexis more influenced by Jamaican English when with black friends
Non-Standard Use of the Verbs
The verb ‘to be’ can be used in a non-standard way:
* She be pretty
* He be wrong
Or, the use of the verb ‘to be’ is omitted altogether:
* She dreaming:
* He gone
Also,verbs are not always marked for tense.
* Him tell me dat yesterday
* She think he a super star
How Creole was viewed
- Ben Rampton ‘Creole was widely seen as cool, tough, and good to use. It was associated with assertiveness and verbal resourcefulness, competence in heterosexual relationships and opposition to authority’ (2010)
- It has been noted, that even as early as the 1960s and 1970s features of creole were being used by urban youngsters who didn’t have a black peer group - probably for the reasons Rampton outlines above © This can take the form of code mixing - including some words and phrases from one language in another (compared to ‘fully’ taking it on)
A Language that Expresses Identity
- In some ways, the usage of language that is influenced by Jamaican Creole can be seen as the creation of a resistance identity through language.
- Shunned and mocked by the establishment, the usage of creole could be seen almost as a political stance - an intentional divergence.
- John Pitts (2012) - stated that young black people who felt ignored by society might see their use of creole as statement of resistance.
Linguistic Appropriacy
This is the way in which language choices reflect ideas for what is appropriate in any given context.
Why Users of Black English Should Code Switch
(Gerrard McClendon on Black English Usage in America)
Of course, switching from using a language that reflects your ethnic heritage, to one that is ‘standard’ may carry an even greater significance than a working class lad from Liverpool ‘toning it down a bit’ at his university Intervlew in London.
- Formality
Super-standard forms
- There is a strand of research that looks at super-standard forms that are used by some white speakers.
- Mary Bucholtz (2001) for example, looks at the language of ‘white nerds’ who deliberate distance themselves from white peers who are more likely to adopt ‘cooler’ black speech styles.
- In her book White Kids Mary Bucholtz looked at ‘white nerds’ in America who refused to strive for coolness, which typically involves adopting at least some features of Black American English. The linguistic practices that they did engage in, gloried in their ‘super standard’ stance that was both culturally and racially that be uncool. In this sense, they were creating an alternative identity.
Code-switching
- The ability to move between different types of language in order to suit the needs of your interlocutor.
Gary Ives’ Bradford study
- Study in schools in Bradford and London.
- Young people make a conscious choice about the language that they use.
- Students distinguished themselves from those they termed ‘freshies’, meaning those born in Pakistan and themselves, who they would describe as British Asians
- Students didn’t look down on ‘freshies’ but didn’t feel connected to them either
- Inclusion of Punjabi taboo words in order to create a ‘secret language’
- Language is used to create a well-defined social identity
- Influences also come from popular culture, not just students’ Pakistani heritage.
- Clear links with Labov’s Martha’s Vineyard study.
Convergence
Where a speaker moves towards another speaker’s accent, dialect or sociolect
Divergence
Where a speaker actively distances themselves from another speaker by accentuating their own accent or dialect
Sue Fox, Multi-Ethnic Youth Dialect
- MLE is identified with by adolescent users in the wider city environment of greater London - and is gaining ground in other large UK cities likeBristol and Birmingham.
- Influence of settled immigrant speakers is significant (West Indian, West African and Bangladeshi) but speakers are drawn from white, black and Asian communities alike.
- MLE is viewed as a fully functioning dialect in its own right - a gelling of a common culture.
- A Rapidly changing dialect - words and phrases only remain current for a short while.
- “It is likely that young people have been growing up in London exposed to a mixture of second-language English and varieties of English from other parts of the world, as well as local London English, and that this new variety has emerged from that mix,”
- The dialect is heavy with Jamaican and Afro-Caribbean inflections; words are clipped, as opposed to the cockney tendency to stretch vowels(thus face becomes fehs, as in “look a’ mi fehs”), and certain words - creps, blud (thought to relate to blood, as in brother) and sket, are Jamaican in origin.
- A“perfect storm” of circumstances has arisen to ensure the rapid dissemination of MLE: a nexus of immigration, population mobility, and a wave of successful London garage stars (and MLE speakers) such as Lady Sovereign and Dizzee Rascal.
Mark Sebba (1993): London
Jamaican
London Jamaican is often linked to BBE and has been identified as main language choice of young, new-generation speakers brought up in London’s Carribean community. It lies between Carribean creole forms and Cockney forms (in a similar way that EE lies between RP and Cockney).
Viv Edwards (1986):
Jamaican English in West
Midlands
- English is the official language of the former British West Indies, therefore African-Caribbean immigrants had few communication difficulties upon arrival in Britain compared to immigrants from other regions.
- Nevertheless, indigenous Britons were generally unused to the distinct Caribbean dialects, creoles and patois (patwah) spoken by many African-Caribbean immigrants and their descendants, which would be particularly problematic in the field of education.
- In a study by language and education specialist Viv Edwards, The West Indian language issue in British schools, language - the Creole spoken by the students - was singled out as an important factor disadvantaging Caribbean children in British schools. The study cites negative attitudes of teachers towards any non-standard variety noting that;
“The teacher who does not or is not prepared to recognise the problems of the Creole-speaking child in a British English situation can only conclude that he is stupid when he gives either an inappropriate response or no response at all. The stereotyping process leads features of Creole to be stigmatised and to develop connotations of, amongst other things, low academic ability.”
