Paper 2 : ethnic differences

Question 1

What is an ethnolect?

Answer 1

Lexical and grammatical differences dependent on ethnic background

Question 2

What is BBE / patois?

Answer 2

English variation in the UK (20th century - ) spoken mainly by black people

Question 3

What is a pidgin?

Answer 3

A form of language that emerges when speakers of two different languages communicate, in order to facilitate trade, communication, and colonisation

Question 4

What is a creole / creolisation?

Answer 4

When a pidgin becomes the predominant language in a speech community - learnt as the mother tongue

Question 5

What is code mixing?

Answer 5

When immigrant speech (ethnolects) blend with those of regional dialects in a host area (eg. BBE mixing with Mancunian)

Question 6

What is MLE / MUE?

Answer 6

Multicultural London / Urban English - an evolution of BBE in urban areas of Britain

Question 7

What is resistance identity?

Answer 7

When a code of speech with covert prestige values references cultural heritage

Question 8

What is code switching in the instance of ethnic English?

Answer 8

Switching between SE / ‘mainstream English’ and ethnolects

Question 9

How are pidgins characterised?

Answer 9

Very restricted in their use, limited vocabulary, simple grammatical structure (simple clauses, few prepositions)

Question 10

What is Jamaican Patois / Creole?

Answer 10

English-based creole with west African influences, developed in the 17th century when slaves from centra and west Africa were exposed to, learnt, and nativized the dialectal forms - English was spoken by the slave holders

Question 11

How did BBE emerge?

Answer 11

Combination of Patois, West African creole and black-British vernacular - arrived in the UK following the Windrush generation of Caribbean migrants post-war to working lass areas in industrialised cities

Question 12

Examples of BBE

Answer 12

wagwan, mandem

Question 13

Examples of Patois

Answer 13

‘jus a word’ (excuse me), ‘Jamrock’ (Jamaica)

Question 14

Changes to creolised English / BBE in the 60s and 70s

Answer 14

Contact between Jamaican-English young people and white working-class neighbours meant that code mixing began to develop, mixed race relationships meant that different varieties of English were exposed to one another

Question 15

Ben Rampton (KCL)’s commentary on BBE

Answer 15

‘cool, tough and good to use’ - linked to assertiveness, verbal resourcefulness and opposition to authority

Question 16

Roger Hewitt (1986) and Mark Sebba (1993) - notes on ‘Black cockney’

Answer 16

Style rather than a distinct variety that emerged in London, became illustrative of how language reflects identity and belonging

Question 17

Cheshire et. al (2008) - MLE

Answer 17

Identified new forms of English, mostly among young people, emerging out of London due to its nature as a multicultural city

Question 18

How is MUE characterised?

Answer 18

Doesn’t have a uniform set of features therefore isn’t a distinct variety, but is instead a pool of language characteristics that can be adopted by differing degrees by its users depending on age, ethnicity, region or identity

Question 19

Vocab examples of MUE

Answer 19

bare, beef, ting, ends

Question 20

Phonological examples of MUE

Answer 20

Diphthong vowel sound of the word ‘face’ is pronounced /fes/

Question 21

Grammatical examples of MUE

Answer 21

‘dem’ as a plural marker eg. ‘man dem’, ‘man’ as a first person singular pronoun

Question 22

Discourse features of MUE

Answer 22

‘innit’ as a tag question

Question 23

Relevance of MUE

Answer 23

-Differentiates itself from previous contact languages across the course of English as the influence of the secondary language (Ghanaian, Patois etc) is arguably more influential than the primary language (English)
-Anglicisation is less noticeable, convergence is taking place to form an authentic hybrid

Question 24

John Pitts (2012) observations about resistance identity

Answer 24

Some young black people who feel ignored and constrained by mainstream society gravitate towards a resistance identity / covert prestige model

Question 25

Lindsay Johns’ perspective on MUE

Answer 25

young people should imitate the language of those who can afford them opportunities, refutes descriptivist perspective by saying that liberal academics speak from ivory towers and are closed off from reality

Question 26

Michael Rosen’s perspective on MUE and refutal of Johns

Answer 26

The term ‘slang’ is ambiguous - we can all be bi-dialectal, and this will be fostered anyways if slang is banned

Question 27

Commentary from Gerrard McClendon in his book ‘Ax or ask’

Answer 27

Advocates for the ability to code switch, children need to have their English corrected with out the fear of being perceived a racist, usage contexts need to be better differentiated