Ethnicity Flashcards
Ethnic identity
Common descent and shared heritage based on descent
Racial identity
Common descent and cultural heritage but on a larger scale. Can be a problematic term
Giles and Johnson 1987
Welsh teenagers.
Concerned with the choice of language strategies employed by into ethnic encounters.
Male teenagers with a strong importance of Welsh identity.
Membership in various groups associated with Wales.
Impermeable boundaries - no outside members
Case study: American black English
Holmes 1994 textbook
A distinctive dialect of English tracing back to the plantation creole, mixed with linguistic features that do not occur in standard American English.
Heard especially in northern cities of the United States of America -> e.g. ABE ‘he my teacher‘ Vs. ASE ‘he is my teacher‘ -> the deletion of personal pronoun possessive marker -s. e.g. ABE ‘she be at school on weekdays’ Vs. ASE ‘ she’s always at school on weekdays‘ -> ‘be’ to signal re-occurring/repeating actions
Shuy, Wolfram and Riley 1967
Investigated linguistic features of black and white Americans.
Found that black Americans used more multiple negations.
Black Americans were more likely to use consonant clusters simplification e.g ‘las time‘ rather than ‘last time‘
Case study: British Black English
Holmes 1994 textbook
Usually referring to a variety of Jamaican creole but linguistically differs from the Jamaican variety.
Many young British blacks use Patois for in-group talk as a symbol of their ethnicity.
Those who do not know much Patois use a variety clearly marked as black.
Linguistic features of patois:
‘lick‘ meaning ‘hit‘
Pronunciation differentiations: ‘then’ -> ‘den’
Plural forms do not include -s
Maori - New Zealand
Many Maori people routinely use Maori greetings such as Kia ora.
Very close to the language Pakeha.
In general, Maori people use more Maori words more frequently in their speech compared to Pakeha e.g. ‘kuia’ meaning ‘old woman’ is used widely
Distinctions between the two but ethnic identities could overlap
