🪅• Language & Ethnicity: Key Jargon Flashcards
What is a nationality?
A single thing, simply what is stated on your passport: where you were born
What is an ethnicity?
A much more complex concept than nationality, separate from race. A person’s ethnicity can include things such as:
* religion
* community
* culture
* ancestry
* heritage
* family
Who was the first to colonise the Caribbean?
(+Year)
Spain, 15 century
What was the Empire Windrush?
- A former German cruise liner commandeered to take service men back to the Caribbean (as more than 10,000 Caribbean men & women crossed the Atlantic to support in WW2)
- On its way back, the Windrush set sail from Kingston, Jamaica to take some Caribbean people **back to the UK **as they were told they would find work their upon there arival.
What date did the Empire Windrush leave Kingston, Jamaica & what date did it arrive in Tilbury, England?
- DEPARTED: 27th May 1948
- ARRIVED: 22nd June 1948
What did the UK government wrongly assume about the Passengers of the Empire Windrush?
That they were to stay temporarily
For how long did the primary migration of Caribbean individuals last for?
From the first disembarking on the 27th May 1948 up ontil the 1960s
By 1961, how many Caribbean indiviudals populated London?
The Caribbean population grew to over 100,000 in London by 1961
Where did most of the Caribbean migrant settle?
The Notting Hill in London
Became an extremely diverse area of London due to Windrush Gen
What were the Notting Hill Riots?
(+Year)
The Notting Hill race riots were a series of racially motivated riots that took place in Notting Hill, a district of London, between August and September 1958.
What was created in Notting Hill as a movement aimed at empowering cultural eduaction and representation?
The Notting Hill Carnival
* Originally held by one woman, each year until her death in 1964
* Others influenced by such a movement so solidifited the celebration by creating the Notting Hill Carnival, now the largest street festival in Europe
What was the Windrush scandal?
(+Year)
- Changes in immigration laws that meant some citizens who had lived in the UK for a while from Windrush, even those who had been born there, were **threatened with removal from the country **
- Immigration Act of 1971 required any citizen who was questioned about their residency to porve that they were a legal citizen
- Was found that the Home Office destroyed thousands of landing cards slips that were proof of the Windrush migrants’ arrival dates in UK
- This new Act went against one previously instated, The 1948 Nationality Act, that promised citizenship to all those who arrived on the Windrush
Give an example of an individual who has faced upsetting consequences due to the scandal
- Judy Griffith, 63
- Judy joined her parents in 1963
- She lived in the UK for 52 years
- In 2015, a job centre employee told her she was an ‘illegal immigrant’ after having her passport stolen
What is a linguistic repertoire?
A set of communicative resources that a speaker commands together with the knowledge of when to use those resources e.g. code-switiching/ style-shifting, using certain language features when the context a person is in requires them perhaps to appeal to an interlocutor
What is Sharma’s metaphor for a linguistic repertorie?
‘Most people have a repertore or set ways of speaking, like a painters palette, and they choose from those options at different moments’
What is it that shapes a persons linguistic repertoire?
The communities they interact with, described as communities of practice or social networks, shape a persons repertoire of ways of speaking over the persons’ lifetime
(Also said by Sharma)
What is a demographic?
The characteristics of a population
List 2 primary facts from the 2021 census that can be used for the reasoning behind language change in terms of ethnicity
- Percentage of people in ‘white other’ ethnic group went up from 4.4% to 6.2%
- The number of people who identified as ‘any other ethnic background’ went up from 330,000 to 920,000 (rounded) - almost a 600,000 increase from 2011 to 2021 (10 years) –> INFERRING DEMOGRAPHIC OF UK HAS INCREASED EXPONENITALLY IN TERMS OF DIVERSITY
What is MLE?
- Multicultural London English
- Used to describe the speech of young people in multiethnic areas of London regardless of the speakers own ethnic background or gender - MLE is a dialect and accent that transcends gender and race
- It also has no particular regional asociation and is spoken all over the UK
Give 2 examples of exemplary speakers of MLE
- Stormzy
- Anne Marie (Good as she is a White speaker, proof of MLE’s breach of racial boundaries, its not ethnically exclusive)
List one Lexical feature of MLE
Colloquialisms/ slang such as:
* ‘mandem’ –> group
* ‘long’ –> boring
* ‘shank’ –> knife (to stab)
List 9 of the Phonological features of MLE
- Th-fronting –> thing = ‘fing’
- Th-stopping
- Goose fronting
- H reinstatement (Pronounciation of ‘h’, unusual as cockney doesnt)
- G-dropping
- T glottaling
- Price Monophthongonisatiom
- Ing-omission –> replacement of ‘ing’ ending with ‘n’ –> ‘working’ = ‘workin’
- Dh-stopping
Explain th-stopping
‘thing’ –> ‘ting’
‘that’ –> ‘dat’
Explain Goose fronting
- In fOOd, chOOse, dO and yOU (etc…) the tounge is placed to the front of the mouth as opposed to the centre
- Your emphasising the ‘OO’ sound for longer when you speak
Explain Price monophthongonisation
- Diphthong becomes a Monopthong (monophthongonisation)
- Therefore sound becomes shorter
- /I/ –> /ai/
- So it sounds like this:
- e.g. ‘I’ –> ‘aie’
- e.g. ‘Advice –> ‘Advaice’
- e.g. ‘Like’ –> ‘Laike’
Explain Dh-stopping
‘they’ –> ‘dey’
‘this’ –> ‘dis’
‘that’ –> ‘dat’
List two of the Grammatical features of MLE
- Non-standard use of auxiliary verbs
- Preposition omission
Explain the Non-standard use of auxiliary verbs
Explain Preposition omission
List two of the Discourse features of MLE
- Tag questions, e.g. ‘innit’
- Common male-to-male adress of ‘blud’
List one of the Syntactic features of MLE
- The pronoun ‘man’ as a first person singular pronoun, e.g. Im going to the shop –> ‘mans going to the shop’
Label this diagram of the linguistic history & development of MLE
Breifly describe details of ‘London Jamaican’
- Earliest identified form of MLE
- Only spoken by Black people/ youths
- Used to express a resistance identity
In what year (not to be exact) did Young People start to adopt a form of Jamaican creole as a resistance identity in response to racism and a lack of opportunities?
Young People –> Not just jamaican, it was regardless of where come from, solidarity of minority ethnic groups
1970s
The ________________ youth environment in the _______ was when ___ rose
The multicultural youth environment in the 1970s was when MLE rose
Breifly describe details of ‘Black Cockney’
- Identififed now as more of a multiracial vernacular
- Primary use only in adolescent groups
- Dispite name, not a vernacular but a style of speaking
What is a multiethnolect?
A language variety, typically formed in youth communities in working class, immigrant neighborhoods of urban areas, that contains influences from a variety of different languages.
What is code-switching?
Changing language use based on formaility
What is style-shifting?
Changing language used based on the topic of discussion/ environmen/ context, commonly in order to perform a specifc identity
What is a performance identity?
Consciously style-shifting by selectively drawing on ones linguistic repertoire to use certain language features to appear in a certain way to others/ perform a sought-out identity
What is enregisterment?
When one or more linguistic features are asociated with a specific dialect or stereotyped social persona
What is the name commonly given to MLE within the media?
‘Jafaican’/ ‘Jafaikan’
Mainly used in right-wing (CONSERVATIVE) e.g. Daily Mail
What is a pidgin language?
- A language invented by adults who speak different languages, in order for them to communicate, a very basic form of a language
- The defining characteristic of a pidgin language is that it is neither group of speakers first language: it is a second language for all its speakers
- They are not proper languages, they are short & brief, only used based on the necessity communicate, commonly found during colonisation
If a _________ language is formed between two adults, and then a child _________ it via using it as it’s first language, its becomes a _________.
If a pidgin language is formed between two adults, and then a child inherits it via using it as it’s first language, its becomes a creole
What is a creole language?
- The ‘evolved’ form of a pidgin
- A stable natural language developed from the mixing of parent languages
- They differ from pidgins as they have been nativized by having children use it as their primary language
- The vocabulary of a creole is largely supplied by the parent languages, commonly that of the most dominant local group
What is AAVE?
- African American Vernacular English
- ‘African American’ = Black American individuals with African heritage
- ‘Vernacular’ = most relaxe/ local/ natural form of a language
- It is essentially MLE but within America as opposed to London/ the UK
- Speakers recieve similar treatment to those who speak MLE in the UK e.g. still stereotyped with AAVE being asociated with criminality & lower education
List 5 Phonological features of AAVE
- G-dropping –> sipping = ‘sippin’
- Th-stopping –> thing = ‘ting’/ ‘that’ = ‘dat’
- Price monophthongonisation
- No rhoticity –> lord knows = ‘lawd knows’
- Consonant cluster reeduciton
Explain consonant cluster reduction
When an individual simplifies a cluster of consonant sounds into a single sound or a easier combination of sound
* stand near me –> ‘stan near me’
List some Lexical features of AAVE
- ‘hood’ rather than neighbourhood
- ‘homie’ to refer to a friend
- Y’all
- Yass
- Ratchet
- Mamma
- Taboo lexis
- Reclaimed lexis (n-word)
List 3 Syntactical features of AAVE
- Coupula absence
- Demonstrative ‘them’ –> those boots = ‘them boots’
- Completive ‘done’ –> you bought me a flower = ‘done bought me a flower’
Explain coupula absence
Simply the absence of the coupulas ‘are’ and ‘is’ e.g.
* oh you are nasty –> ‘oh you nasty’
What is cultural appropriation?
When members of a majoity group adopt cultural elements of a minority group in a disrespectful way/ stereotypical way
What is the name of the individual who belives we should change the name of MLE?
Ife Thompson, lawyer and communnity activist
What does Ife Thompson belive we should change the name of MLE to?
BBE
* Black
* British
* English
Give a quote from Ife Thompson that supports her disliking the name MLE
‘The term mulicultural means everything and nothing’
‘Using MLE divorces the history specifics from the language form’ consequently therefore erasing black culture
Who is David Starkey?
An English historian and radio/ television presenter known for publicly discussing his controversial views, without a filter, being insensitive
Give the famous quote that David Starkey made when being interviwed on the 2011 London riots
‘The whites have become black’
* Quotation infers a decline, clearly making it racist as it implies its negative
* Implying all MLE speakers are one single homogenous group
* Immediately stereotyping Black people by asociating them with crime/violence
+ CONSTANTLY USED ‘THEM’/ ‘THESE’ WHEN REFERRING TO ETHNIC MINORITIES, PLACING THEM AS THE ‘OTHER’, SEPARATE FROM EVERYONE ELSE
+ COVERTLY VIEWS BLACK CULTURE AS SYNONOMOUS TO GANG CULTURE (as many others do)
What is a disctinctive feature of the Punjabi dialect?
Retroflexive ‘t’
Explain the retroflexive ‘t’
When uttering /t/ phoneme, rather than the tounge being futher back in the mouth, it touches the front of the roof of the mouth, futher forward almost touching behind of teeth
What is the name of the linguist that created the term MBE?
(+ Explain MBE)
- Drummond, 2016
- MBE = Multicultural British English
- He proposed that there is a need of a term to describe people in UK who used a variety of English which contained features of MLE, alongside elements of their local accent or dialect
