Ethnolect

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An ethnolect is generally defined as a language variety that marks speakers as members of ethnic groups who originally used another language or distinctive variety. [1] [2] According to another definition, an ethnolect is any speech variety (language, dialect, subdialect) associated with a specific ethnic group. [3] It may be a distinguishing mark of social identity, both within the group and for outsiders. The term combines the concepts of an ethnic group and dialect.

Contents

The term was first used to describe the monolingual English of descendants of European immigrants in Buffalo, New York. [4] The term ethnolect in North American sociolinguistics has traditionally been used to describe the English of ethnic immigrant groups from non-English speaking locales. Linguistically, the ethnolect is marked by substrate influence from the first language (L1), a result of the transition from bilingualism to English monolingualism. [5]

Overview

The idea of an ethnolect relates to linguistic variation and to ethnic identity. According to Joshua Fishman, a sociologist of language, the processes of language standardization and nationalism in modern societies make links between language and ethnicity salient to users. [6]

Ethnicity can affect linguistic variation in ways that reflect a social dimension of language usage. The way in which ethnic groups interact with one another shapes their usage of language. Ethnolects are characterized by salient features that distinguish them as different from the standard variety of the language spoken by native speakers of the particular language. These features can either be related to the ethnolect's lexical, syntactic, phonetic or prosodic features. [7] Such linguistic difference may be important as social markers for a particular ethnic group. [6]

Types of ethnolects

Ethnolect varieties can be further subdivided into two types. One type is characteristic of a specific group, where a majority language currently used by speakers is influenced in terms of lexicon, grammar, phonology and prosody by a minority language associated with their ethnic group but is no longer in active use. Examples include Jewish American English, previous German Australian English and African American Vernacular English. [1]

The other type, is called a multiethnolect, because several minority groups use it collectively to express their minority status and/or as a reaction to that status to upgrade it. In some cases, members of the dominant (ethnic) group, especially young people, share it with the ethnic minorities in a 'language crossing' situation to express a new kind of group identity. Examples include Kiezdeutsch, Multicultural London English and Singapore English. [1]

Purpose

Establishing identities

Using ethnolects allow speakers to define their social position, and helps them construct their identity. [8] Subscribing to language features commonly associated with a particular ethnic group works to either affiliate or distance themselves from a particular ethnic group. [8] [1]

Establishing an ethnic identity through language is not necessarily singular. Studies have found speakers who have melded linguistic features of separate communities together in order to create a mixed ethnic identity. African Americans in rural western North Carolina have been found to adopt both local pronunciation and AAVE vocabulary in their speech. [9] Second-generation Italian Canadians in Toronto have been recorded to participate in a vowel shift that resembles both Italian and Canadian pronunciations. [10]

Facilitating communication

Ethnolects can also serve a communicative purpose in the intergenerational context. Common in new migrant families of non-english language background, ethnolects can be used by the younger generation to communicate with their elders. This usage of ethnolects may be concurrent or in replacement of the community language. [1] Speakers have been found to believe that the use the ethnolect eases communication with the older generations. [1]

The use of ethnolect may also address bilingual communication in the home, where there is a discontinuity in the language that parents and their children use. Children whose first language are different may pick up terms from their parents’ ethnolect. The two varieties in this case can symbolize a speaker’s multiple identity. [1]

Examples

Listed below are a few examples of ethnolects, with several linguistic features they display highlighted. These distinguished linguistic features are present in areas such as phonetics, grammar, syntax and lexicon. They are usually brought about by influence of another language - the mother tongue of its speakers.

Chicano English (Mexican ethnolect)

Chicano English, or Mexican-American English, refers to the ethnolect spoken primarily by Mexican Americans. Chicano English developed as a result of immigration into the United States in the 20th century. Some features of Chicano English include:

Your mother is planching.
Planching has been anglicised from the Spanish word planchando 'ironing'. [11]
  • Prosodic
    • Prosody that is similar to the syllable-timed Spanish [11] [12]
  • Phonological
    • Vowel contraction: Chicano English is more monophthongal than American English, especially in monosyllabic words. [12]

African American Vernacular English (African-American ethnolect)

African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is one of the most researched and salient ethnic varieties of English. It generally refers to the ethnolect primarily spoken by working or middle-class African-Americans in more informal conversations. Some prevalent features of AAVE include:

  • Phonological
    • The de-voicing of word-final consonants /b/, /d/, /g/ [13]
cub may sound identical to cup
  • Metathesis in lexical items [14]
aks for ask
graps for grasp
  • Syntactical
    • An optional tense system that differs from the tense-marking system in English
He been done workin 'he finished work a long time ago'
He done been workin 'until recently, he worked over a long period of time' [15]
I didn't go nowhere 'I didn't go anywhere'
If the sentence is negative, all negatable forms are negated.

Greek Australian English (Greek ethnolect)

Greek Australian English refers to the English spoken by Greek immigrants in Australia. It is known and used by the Greek Australians during the last 170 years of settlement. [16] Some salient features of Greek Australian English include:

  • Phonological [7]
  • Vowel changes
  • /ə/ advanced to [ε] in closed syllables, e.g. houses
  • The diphthong in ‘face’ has an open starting point, [e:i] e.g. day.
  • ‘near’ has an open finish [ia] or with glide insertion, [ija], e.g. here.
  • The final nucleus in ‘comma’ is consistently open [back a], e.g.soccer, longer.
  • Consonant changes
  • /t/ in together, /t/ in Tuesday
  • intervocalic /p/ in properly
  • /s/ in baseball
  • Frequency of /t/ tapping is higher than in comparable speakers from other backgrounds
This is limited to in-group communication, especially with parents.
  • Auxiliary deletion, for example:
How you know?
  • Preposition deletion, for example:
We’ll go movies.
  • Quantifier deletion (some), for example:
Can I have money?

Further manifestations

Ethnolects are typically employed by speakers to either decrease or increase social distance with others. Listed below are more atypical manifestations of using ethnolects in order to achieve certain social purposes.

Crossing

Crossing refers to the use of a language, or aspects of it, by speakers who are not accepted by members of the group associated with the language. [17] In reference to ethnolects, crossing refers to speakers using ethnolects that do not formally belong to them. Considering the inherent connection between ethnolect and ethnicity, crossing is highly contentious as it involves a movement across ethnic boundaries. [17] Speakers are required to negotiate their identity to perform crossing. Beyond being a linguistic phenomenon, crossing has social implications, and community members are generally aware of the sanctions against crossing. [8]

Hypercorrection

Ethnolects may also be rejected by its speakers. This linguistic choice is apparent in ethnic hypercorrection. Ethnic hypercorrection is a subclass of linguistic hypercorrection, and refers to the over-application of certain linguistic markers common in the variety of another group. Speakers belonging to an ethnicity, often a minority group, hypercorrect to draw distance between themselves and their ethnic groups. Often, speakers hypercorrect due to the social prestige associated with the different language varieties. [8] For example, second and third generation Italian and Jewish immigrants in New York were found to have stronger vowel sounds that are distinctive of the New York accent in their speech. (link 19) The vowels they spoke were opposite of what was expected from their Italian and Yiddish ethnicity. [18]

Criticism of the "ethnolect" approach

Some twenty-first century linguists object to broader application of the term ethnolect to describe linguistic differences that are believed to reflect ethnic group affiliation. According to these scholars, this may inaccurately posit ethnicity as the central explanation for linguistic difference, when in fact there may be other variables which are more influential to an individual's speech. [19] [20] [21] [22]

Some scholars also point out that the common use of ethnolect is used to compare the "ethnolects" of ethnic minorities with the "standard" speech of ethnic majorities, which is designated as the regional dialect instead of as a majority ethnolect. [19] [20] The ethnolinguistic repertoire approach is therefore proposed as a more effective model in linguistic research that could counteract the problems of the ethnolect approach as listed below. [22]

Intra-group variation

The way one speaks can vary widely within any ethnic group on a continuum of styles that could be mixed across variants. Some may employ a few or none of the features in an ethnolect while others may use many. Therefore, it is difficult to draw the line between speakers and non-speakers of an ethnolect. Although qualifications and modifiers are established in definitions to enhance the fluidity of the concept, it is still unable to fully resolve the problem as variation exists in complex and intricate patterns that are unlikely to be fully accounted for in brief definitions. [22]

Intra-speaker variation

Speakers of ethnolects tend to be aware of the differences in their speech compared to others to some extent. They may therefore temper their usage of salient features in their ethnolects when speaking to interlocutors who are not part of their ethnic group and may also be able to code-switch fluently between their ethnolectal variety and Standard English. Speakers who do that are considered to be "bidialectal". Yet, the selective use of elements from an ethnolect is not predictable, which then confounds the notion of code-switching. [22]

Out-group use

Some speakers who are not part of a particular ethnic group may also make use of elements of the group's ethnolect, which can include behaviours like crossing or passing when people imitate an ethnic stereotype or assimilate to an ethnic group's behaviour to be included. This can be observed in phenomena such as "crossing" in multi-ethnic interactions. For example, elements of AAVE are used by people who have little association with African Americans because of the language's influence in hip-hop. Non-group members may also extensively employ features from an ethnic group's repertoire in their speech if they spend much of their time with the group members. [22]

Delineating the ethnic group

It is difficult to define the ethnic group a person belongs to, especially in Western societies where ethnic groups are porous and fluid. Individuals often shift from one ethnic identity to another as they transition between life stages. Ethnic group membership is constructed not just on the basis of descent but also on the basis of symbolic practices, including language. Viewing ethnic identity as an inheritance that cannot be changed may pose problems. [22] [17] In addition, an increasing number of individuals consider themselves as part of two or more ethnic groups. It is thus difficult to define one's ethnicity by their parentage or physical features. Ethnic identification also generally involves self-identification of a shared understanding and belonging with culture or language, as well as affirmation from existing members of the existing ethnic group. The factors that determine ethnic identity are ambiguous. [22] [17]

Delineating the term ethnolect

The final problem lies in the conceptualisation of a given group's language as a separate ethnic variety like AAVE and Chicano English, or merely as ethnic variation from an abstract norm such as the phonological variation among people of a shared ethnicity. In the ethnolect approach, distinctions are drawn to categorize certain languages spoken as ethnolects (i.e. ethnic varieties) while others are considered as a repertoire of linguistic features associated with the ethnic group that are employed in ethnic variation. [22]

See also

Related Research Articles

African-American English is the set of English sociolects spoken by most Black people in the United States and many in Canada; most commonly, it refers to a dialect continuum ranging from African-American Vernacular English to a more standard American English. Like all widely spoken language varieties, African-American English shows variation stylistically, generationally, geographically, in rural versus urban characteristics, in vernacular versus standard registers, etc. There has been a significant body of African-American literature and oral tradition for centuries.

In sociolinguistics, hypercorrection is nonstandard use of language that results from the overapplication of a perceived rule of language-usage prescription. A speaker or writer who produces a hypercorrection generally believes through a misunderstanding of such rules that the form or phrase they use is more "correct", standard, or otherwise preferable, often combined with a desire to appear formal or educated.

African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is the variety of English natively spoken, particularly in urban communities, by most working- and middle-class African Americans and some Black Canadians. Having its own unique grammatical, vocabulary, and accent features, AAVE is employed by middle-class Black Americans as the more informal and casual end of a sociolinguistic continuum. However, in formal speaking contexts, speakers tend to switch to more standard English grammar and vocabulary, usually while retaining elements of the nonstandard accent. Despite being widespread throughout the United States, AAVE is not the native dialect of all African Americans, and not all speakers are African American.

In sociolinguistics, a sociolect is a form of language or a set of lexical items used by a socioeconomic class, profession, an age group, or other social group.

In the field of dialectology, a diasystem or polylectal grammar is a linguistic analysis set up to encode or represent a range of related varieties in a way that displays their structural differences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Speech community</span> Group of people who share expectations regarding linguistic usage

A speech community is a group of people who share a set of linguistic norms and expectations regarding the use of language. It is a concept mostly associated with sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chicano English</span> Dialect of English spoken in the Southwestern United States

Chicano English, or Mexican-American English, is a dialect of American English spoken primarily by Mexican Americans, particularly in the Southwestern United States ranging from Texas to California, as well as in Chicago. Chicano English is sometimes mistakenly conflated with Spanglish, which is a mixing of Spanish and English; however, Chicano English is a fully formed and native dialect of English, not a "learner English" or interlanguage. It is even the native dialect of some speakers who know little to no Spanish, or have no Mexican heritage.

In sociolinguistics, prestige is the level of regard normally accorded a specific language or dialect within a speech community, relative to other languages or dialects. Prestige varieties are language or dialect families which are generally considered by a society to be the most "correct" or otherwise superior. In many cases, they are the standard form of the language, though there are exceptions, particularly in situations of covert prestige. In addition to dialects and languages, prestige is also applied to smaller linguistic features, such as the pronunciation or usage of words or grammatical constructs, which may not be distinctive enough to constitute a separate dialect. The concept of prestige provides one explanation for the phenomenon of variation in form among speakers of a language or languages.

Trinidadian and Tobagonian English (TE) or Trinidadian and Tobagonian Standard English is a dialect of English used in Trinidad and Tobago. TE co-exists with both non-standard varieties of English as well as other dialects, namely Trinidadian Creole in Trinidad and Tobagonian Creole in Tobago.

California English collectively refers to varieties of American English native to California. As California became one of the most ethnically diverse U.S. states, English speakers from a wide variety of backgrounds began to pick up different linguistic elements from one another and also develop new ones; the result is both divergence and convergence within Californian English. However, linguists who studied English before and immediately after World War II tended to find few, if any, patterns unique to California, and even today most California English still largely aligns to a General or Western American accent. Still, certain newer varieties of California English have been gradually emerging since the late 20th century.

A diaphoneme is an abstract phonological unit that identifies a correspondence between related sounds of two or more varieties of a language or language cluster. For example, some English varieties contrast the vowel of late with that of wait or eight. Other English varieties contrast the vowel of late or wait with that of eight. This non-overlapping pair of phonemes from two different varieties can be reconciled by positing three different diaphonemes: A first diaphoneme for words like late, a second diaphoneme for words like wait, and a third diaphoneme for words like eight.

Linguistic insecurity comprises feelings of anxiety, self-consciousness, or lack of confidence in the mind of a speaker surrounding their use of language. Often, this anxiety comes from speakers' belief that their speech does not conform to the perceived standard and/or the style of language expected by the speakers' interlocutor(s). Linguistic insecurity is situationally induced and is often based on a feeling of inadequacy regarding personal performance in certain contexts, rather than a fixed attribute of an individual. This insecurity can lead to stylistic, and phonetic shifts away from an affected speaker's default speech variety; these shifts may be performed consciously on the part of the speaker, or may be reflective of an unconscious effort to conform to a more prestigious or context-appropriate variety or style of speech. Linguistic insecurity is linked to the perception of speech varieties in any community, and so may vary based on socioeconomic class and gender. It is also especially pertinent in multilingual societies.

Variation is a characteristic of language: there is more than one way of saying the same thing. Speakers may vary in pronunciation (accent), word choice (lexicon), or morphology and syntax. But while the diversity of variation is great, there seem to be boundaries on variation – speakers do not generally make drastic alterations in word order or use novel sounds that are completely foreign to the language being spoken. Linguistic variation does not equate to language ungrammaticality, but speakers are still sensitive to what is and is not possible in their native lect.

Hypocorrection is a sociolinguistic phenomenon that involves the purposeful addition of slang or a shift in pronunciation, word form, or grammatical construction and is propelled by a desire to appear less intelligible or to strike rapport. That contrasts with hesitation and modulation because rather than not having the right words to say or choosing to avoid them, the speaker chooses to adopt a nonstandard form of speech as a strategy to establish distance from or to become closer to their interlocutor.

In sociolinguistics, a style is a set of linguistic variants with specific social meanings. In this context, social meanings can include group membership, personal attributes, or beliefs. Linguistic variation is at the heart of the concept of linguistic style—without variation, there is no basis for distinguishing social meanings. Variation can occur syntactically, lexically, and phonologically.

Dialect levelling or leveling is the process of an overall reduction in the variation or diversity of features between two or more dialects. Typically, this comes about through assimilation, mixture, and merging of certain dialects, often by language standardization. It has been observed in most languages with large numbers of speakers after industrialisation and modernisation of the areas in which they are spoken.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New York accent</span> Sound system of New York City English

The sound system of New York City English is popularly known as a New York accent. The New York metropolitan accent is one of the most recognizable accents of the United States, largely due to its popular stereotypes and portrayal in radio, film, and television. Several other common names exist for the accent that associate it with more specific locations in the New York City area, such as "Bronx accent", "Brooklyn accent", "Queens accent", "Long Island accent", and "North Jersey accent"; however, no research has demonstrated significant linguistic differences between these locations.

Real-time sociolinguistics is a sociolinguistic research method concerned with observing linguistic variation and change in progress via longitudinal studies. Real-time studies track linguistic variables over time by collecting data from a speech community at multiple points in a given period. As a result, it provides empirical evidence for either stability or linguistic change.

A multiethnolect is 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. Unlike an ethnolect, which associates one language variety with one particular ethnic group, speakers of a multiethnolect often come from varied ethnic backgrounds, and their language usage can be more closely attributed to the neighborhood in which they live than their nationality or that of their parents. The term "multiethnolect" was first coined by Clyne (2000) and Quist (2000). Research of multiethnolects has thus far focused primarily on urban areas in northwestern Europe, such as Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Great Britain, but the phenomenon is far more universal than that. Researchers Jacomine Nortier and Margreet Dorleijn call multiethnolects “a phenomenon of all times, that was only waiting for linguists to give it a name." In recent research, multiethnolects are often explored as a form of contact language, meaning a language that is used for communication between two speakers who don’t share a native tongue.

In sociolinguistics, covert prestige is a type of scenario in which nonstandard languages or dialects are regarded to be of high linguistic prestige by members of a speech community. This is in contrast to the typical case of linguistic prestige, wherein only the standard varieties of a speech community are considered prestigious.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Clyne, Michael (31 January 2000). "Lingua Franca and Ethnolects in Europe and Beyond". Sociolinguistica. 14 (1). doi:10.1515/9783110245196.83.
  2. ↑ Nekvapil, Jiří; Nekula, Marek (2017). "ETNOLEKT". In Karolak, Petr; Nekula, Marek; Pleskalová, Jana (eds.). Nový encyklopedický slovník češtiny (in Czech).
  3. ↑ Wicherkiewicz, Tomasz (2016). "Ginące języki, etniczność, tożsamość i polityka". In Nau, Nicole; Hornsby, Michael; Karpiński, Maciej; Klessa, Katarzyna; Wicherkiewicz, Tomasz; Wójtowicz, Radosław; Zabrocki, Władysław (eds.). Języki w niebezpieczeństwie: księga wiedzy (PDF) (in Polish) (1} ed.). Poznań: Adam Mickiewicz University. pp. 105–106. doi:10.14746/9788394719845. hdl:10593/17548. ISBN   978-83-947198-4-5.
  4. ↑ Carlock, Elizabeth; Wölck, Wolfgang (1981). "A method for isolating diagnostic linguistic variables: The Buffalo ethnolects experiment". In David Sankoff and Henrietta Cedergren (ed.). Variation Omnibus. Edmonton: Linguistic Research. pp. 17–24.
  5. ↑ Becker, Kara (2013). "Ethnolect, dialect, and linguistic repertoire in New York City" (PDF). New Perspectives on the Concept of Ethnolect. Durham: Duke University Press.
  6. 1 2 Fishman, Joshua (1997). "Language and ethnicity: The view from within". In Florian Coulmas (ed.). The Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 327–343.
  7. 1 2 3 Clyne, Michael (2003). Dynamics of language contact: English and immigrant languages . Cambridge University Press. pp.  152-158. ISBN   9780511606526.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Van Herk, Gerard (2012). What is Sociolinguistics?. Ethnicity: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 162–178.
  9. ↑ Childs, Becky; Mallinson, Christine (2004). "African American English in Appalachia: Dialect accommodation and substrate influence". English World-Wide. 25 (1): 27–50. doi:10.1075/eww.25.1.03chi.
  10. ↑ Hoffman, Michol F.; Walker, James A. (14 May 2010). "Ethnolects and the city: Ethnic orientation and linguistic variation in Toronto English". Language Variation and Change. 22 (1): 37–67. doi:10.1017/s0954394509990238. S2CID   145603237.
  11. 1 2 Garcia, Ricardo L. (March 1974). "Toward a Grammar of Chicano English". The English Journal. 63 (3): 34–38. doi:10.2307/813844. JSTOR   813844.
  12. 1 2 Santa Ana, Otto; Bayley, Robert (2004). Kortmann, Bernd; Schneider, Edgar W; Burridge, Kate; Mesthrie, Rajend; Upton, Clive (eds.). "Chicano English: Phonology". A Handbook of Varieties of English: Phonology. 1: 407-424. doi:10.1515/9783110175325.1.417. ISBN   9783110197181. S2CID   241442849.
  13. ↑ Green, Lisa J (2002). African American English : a linguistic introduction . Cambridge University Press. ISBN   0-521-89138-8.
  14. ↑ Baugh, John (2000). Beyond Ebonics: Linguistic Pride and Racial Prejudice . New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN   0-19-515289-1.
  15. ↑ Fickett, Joan G (1972). "Tense and aspect in Black English". Journal of English Linguistics. 6: 17-19. doi:10.1177/007542427200600102. S2CID   145716303.
  16. ↑ Tamis, Anastasios. "The Greek language in contact with English in Australia". Études Helléniques. 17 (1): 20–42.
  17. 1 2 3 4 Rampton, Ben (1 December 1995). "Language crossing and the problematisation of ethnicity and socialisation". Pragmatics. 5 (4): 485–513. doi: 10.1075/prag.5.4.04ram .
  18. ↑ Labov, William (2001). Principles of Linguistic Change, Volume 2: Social Factors. Blackwell. ISBN   978-0-631-17915-3.
  19. 1 2 Becker, Kara. (2014). Linguistic repertoire and ethnic identity in New York City. Language and Communication 35: 43-54.
  20. 1 2 Eckert, Penelope (1 March 2008). "Where do ethnolects stop?". International Journal of Bilingualism. 12 (1–2): 25–42. doi:10.1177/13670069080120010301. S2CID   35623478.
  21. ↑ Brubaker, Rogers, Mara Loveman, and Peter Stamatov (2004) Ethnicity as cognition. Theory and Society 33(1): 31–64.
  22. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Benor, Sarah Bunin (2010). "Ethnolinguistic repertoire: Shifting the analytic focus in language and ethnicity1". Journal of Sociolinguistics. 14 (2): 159–183. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9841.2010.00440.x .

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