1 / 45

Supralocalisation equals deracination; innovation equals striking new roots

Paul Kerswill FRIAS, 27 November 2009 Workshop III: Language, Space and Geography. Supralocalisation equals deracination; innovation equals striking new roots. Dialect change, speech communities and dialect recognition. Expectation: speech community type has a perceptual correlate

gutierrezg
Download Presentation

Supralocalisation equals deracination; innovation equals striking new roots

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Paul Kerswill FRIAS, 27 November 2009 Workshop III: Language, Space and Geography Supralocalisation equals deracination; innovation equals striking new roots

  2. Dialect change, speech communities and dialect recognition • Expectation: speech community type has a perceptual correlate • Perceptual linguistic parameters: what is the envelope of variability? • Perceived social parameters: which parameters? Which values (ethnicity, class)? • Link to focusing • What is effect of listener characteristics?

  3. British social dialectology • More consideration of the ‘big picture’: • Expansion in ethnographic and cognitive approaches • More concern with geographical context • But perceptual dialectology has not (yet) made a big impact • Garrett et al.’s study of recognition of Welsh English varieties (1990s) • Montgomery’s perceptual maps (200os)

  4. RQ: What insights can direct perceptual methods give us into the dynamics of regional dialect levelling and dialect innovation? The context: a model of dialect change • Speech community type • Community structure (Henning Andersen’s open/closed, exocentric/endocentric dichotomies), stratification, group formation, intergroup relations, in-migration/immigration, outward contact, orientation • The mirroring of these factors in observable sociolinguistic variation patterns, including change • The embedding of the speech community in wider geographical dynamics of levelling and divergence • Community-external factors, related to wider (both local and national) ideologies about social groups and language

  5. The specific British case: processes of change • Dedialectalisation • Regional dialect levelling (= supralocalisation) • Geographical diffusion • Innovation (divergence)

  6. Cross-district migration flows(from Sayers 2009)

  7. Travel-to-work patterns(from Sayers 2009)

  8. Objective 2 Areas, inner London(from Sayers 2009)

  9. Speech community types in Britain – a take on Andersen’s scheme Endocentricclosed (Type 1): Metropolitan inner city. Language contact-based innovation. Examples: London and Birmingham inner cities Endocentricopen (Type 2): General urban, with strong external contacts favouring outward diffusion. Examples: Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester Exocentricclosed (Type 3): A low-contact community whose orientation to outside linguistic norms is positive. Change by ideology, not contact. Example: Glasgow inner-city communities, taking up off-the-shelf features (discussed in Lecture 1). Exocentricopen (Type 4): Often rural communities, and unlike Type 1 not especially protective of local norms. Strongly affected by incoming features, diffusing from local urban centres. Example: Huntly. Also high-mobility, high-contact urbanised regions around a metropolis: the south-east of England

  10. Expectations for direct dialect perception (dialect recognition) • Hypothesis 1: Recognising voices from one’s own community (‘own-community recognition’) will be better if one has strong local ties. Thus, working-class judges in established towns will be more successful than middle class groups in the same towns, but working-class judges in a New Town will not have the same advantage. • Hypothesis 2: Own-community recognition will be better in towns with relatively little mobility than in towns with high mobility. • Hypothesis 3: Own-community recognition of an accent with strongly localised phonetic features will be better than that of accents without such distinctive features

  11. Dialect levelling and deracination: Reading and Milton Keynes Voices presented to judges in Hull, Reading and Milton Keynes

  12. Hull: a focused speech community (From P. Kerswill and A. Williams 2002)

  13. Reading: a levelling community (From P. Kerswill and A. Williams 2002)

  14. Milton Keynes: a high-mobility, levelling community (From P. Kerswill and A. Williams 2002)

  15. Reading: WC and MC identifications of young Reading voices (aged 18 & 15)

  16. Reading: WC and MC identifications of older Reading voices (aged 82 & 50)

  17. Reading: identification of voices as ‘West Country’

  18. Reading: identification of voices as ‘Reading’

  19. Reading: identification of voices as ‘London’

  20. Reading: an accent converging with London • Perceptual disjunction between older voices and younger voices • Older voices perceived as ‘further west than here’ • But judgement of young voices not uniform: voice with levelled accent was problematic, though notably not judged as ‘London’ • Difference in WC and MC perceptions • Ascribable to differences in familiarity

  21. Linguistic Innovators: the English of Adolescents in London (2004–7) Investigators: Paul Kerswill (Lancaster University) Jenny Cheshire (Queen Mary, University of London) Research Associates: Sue Fox (Queen Mary, University of London) Eivind Torgersen (Lancaster University) E· S· R· C ECONOMIC & SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/activities/278/

  22. Multicultural London English: the emergence, acquisition and diffusion of a new variety (2007–10) Investigators: Paul Kerswill (Lancaster University) Jenny Cheshire (Queen Mary, University of London) Research Associates: Sue Fox, Arfaan Khan, (Queen Mary, University of London) Eivind Torgersen (Lancaster University) E· S· R· C ECONOMIC & SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/activities/539/

  23. Are these the innovators? Roll Deep Crew (East London Hip-Hop crew)

  24. Havering Hackney

  25. Diphthongs: Working-class white male Londoner born 1938 (Hackney) GOAT CHOICE FACE PRICE MOUTH START TRAP STRUT

  26. Young Hackney speakers, aged 17 (inner city) Laura, Anglo Issah, Kuwait Issah & Grace: shorter trajectories than Laura & Jack. In GOAT, they go their own way – divergence from south-eastern fronting change Grace, Nigeria Jack, Anglo

  27. Can “Multicultural London English” be described? • There is awareness in the press and radio of a ‘new’ way of talking in London: people claim that more and more white kids ‘talk black’ or ‘sound like they’re black’ • The media have coined this ‘Jafaican’. We’ve called it Multicultural London English • Is there evidence that it is ethnically relatively neutral? • If so, we have evidence of a new, multiethnic variety (a “multiethnolect”)

  28. Perception tests • Task: ethnic and geographical classification of real speech from 2005 interviews • 10 second sound clip per speaker • All listeners from inner London • Listeners aged 12 or 17 (N=68)

  29. Who are the speakers? Plus four Birmingham voices: 2 female, 2 male, one Afro-Caribbean, one Anglo for each sex

  30. Supposition: • If a listener claims a voice to be that of a Londoner, then we take this as a claim that the voice belongs to the listener’s speech community

  31. Perception test screen

  32. Forced-choice judgements of Birmingham voices in terms of ethnicity and location Judgement of speaker’s ethnicity based on voice sample Actual ethnicity of speakers (1f, 1m for each ethnicity) Actual ethnicity/sex of speaker Is heard as coming from ...

  33. Forced-choice judgements of Havering (‘Essex’) Anglo (score 2) voices in terms of ethnicity and location Is heard as ... Is heard as coming from...

  34. Forced-choice judgements of Hackney Anglo voices in terms of ethnicity and location Is heard as being ... Is heard as coming from...

  35. Forced-choice judgements of Hackney non-Anglo in terms of ethnicity and location Is heard as ... Is heard as coming from ...

  36. Quantitative results • Birmingham Non-Anglo voices are more likely to be heard as ‘London’ than Birmingham Anglos voices • Havering Anglo voices are heard as ‘white’ and as from London or Essex • Hackney Anglo voices are also heard as ‘white’, but much less consistently. One is consistently heard as ‘black’. They are heard as from London with more consistency than the Havering Anglos • Hackney Non-Anglo voices are heard as coming from various backgrounds, with no correspondence with actual race/ethnicity. The exception is Grace.

  37. Conclusion from quantitative analysis • Non-Anglo voices are heard as coming from London • This effect is extended to Birmingham Non-Anglo voices • Anglo voices are less strongly associated with London • Anglo voices from Hackney are more likely to be heard as being from London than those from Havering Question: can a content analysis of interviews shed light on these associations?

  38. Questions for content analysis • How are ‘own place’ and ‘own language’ constructed? • Likely relevant categories for language: ‘Cockney’, ‘posh’, ‘Multicultural London English’ (need to look for members’ term for this concept, along the lines of Kiezdeutsch), ... • Parameters of construction for place and language: Age, behaviour, dress, ethnicity, words, pronunciation ...

  39. Hackney teenagers’ constructions – 1

  40. Hackney teenagers’ constructions – 2

  41. Construction of identities • 5/13 Anglos claim to be Cockneys • Citing family background: ‘Mum is a real Cockney’ • Also language mentioned • No Non-Anglos claim either the identity or the dialect • Cockneys are defined by a process of othering • Social and linguistic practices (tea, bags of chips; ‘mate’, ‘geezer’ ...) • White (and sometimes racist) • Older people • ‘Cockney’ spoken somewhere else (other parts of London, Essex) • Or spoken here, but in another time • Own identity defined as local, East London, sometimes by postcode • But never ‘East End’, thus setting themselves apart from the soap Eastenders • No mention of race or ethnicity in this section of interviews

  42. Construction of own language • Almost everybody says their speech is different from Cockney • Cockney is defined by words, freely cited • The speakers claim different words for themselves • Own speech and speech of the area rarely given a name • The designation ‘slang’ is often used, but speakers cite vocabulary to define it (what’s up, blood, bredren, save it, safe, shank, mug, bless) • Accent never mentioned • Match in individual cases between self-ascription and members’ perception • Ryan is heard as black. He says of himself that he hates white people, and is always taken for black in the absence of visual clues • Dom does not claim a British identity. Of the Non-Anglos, he is heard as the least ‘London’

  43. Conclusion • Dialect recognition and geographical ascription shows local perceptions of speech communities • Correlation with focusing/diffuseness, ongoing levelling • Gives quantifiable, but subtle picture of how individuals perceive local areas, local speech, and who is ‘one of us’ • Match with both variation patterns and with ethnographic information

More Related