Variation in ‘Native’ Englishes - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Variation in ‘Native’ Englishes

For use with Chapter 4 of:Galloway, N. and Rose, H. (2015). Introducing Global Englishes. Routledge.© Dr. Heath Rose and Dr. Nicola Galloway

Slide2

Review of Lecture 3There are many advantages to having a global lingua franca – increased

efficiency in international organizations, political gatherings, and international business, scientific scholarship, popular media, travel, and personal communication.However, the spread of English and its adoption as a lingua franca come at a cost – a threat to other languages and associated with Americanization.Linguistic imperialism is a notion that the spread of English and destruction of other languages was the direct result of policies connected to colonialism and the pursuit of power through inequality. Arguments against linguistic imperialism take a bottom-up perspective.We can also examine policy in light of globalization, which promoted English education and use through a top-down policy (such as Georgia’s switch from Russian to English), and which aimed to curb the bottom-up intrusion of English into educational domains (such as in Sweden).

Overall, issues

and attitudes surrounding English are a complex mix of

factors.

Slide3

Overview

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Introductory activitiesLook at the example sentences in the introduction to Chapter 4 and then discuss the questions below.

Discuss and record on a scale whether each sentence fits into an ideology of ‘acceptable English’ (1 = completely acceptable; 2 = acceptable; 3 = unacceptable; 4 = completely unacceptable).Are there any forms that you personally believe are completely acceptable, but that standard language proponents might not?Are there any forms that might be more acceptable in certain geographic regions of the world (or in certain demographic communities) but not in others? All the sentences are found in native Englishes around the world. Calling the time half-

eight

is common for speakers in the

UK

but not in Australia. To say someone

sings good

is acceptable for younger speakers in the

USA

but not

for older

generations. How do you think such differences emerged? Consider historical factors, geographical factors,

socio-economic

factors, and generational factors.

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Slide6

This lecture will focus on only a few features:

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English language variation in theBritish Isles

Part 1

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Image source: www.mapsinternational.co.uk

/blog/index.php/2013/01/16/mapping-dialect-and-its-influences/

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Phonemic variation (1)

Vowel mergers of /ʌ/ and /ʊ/ – much research has focused on the strut–foot vowel merger. The /ʌ/ vowel does not appear in north of England accents (including Midlands) and some Irish accents. In these places the /ʊ/ sound exists in both words, making the words strut and foot rhyme. Interestingly, the difference here is due to a historical phonemic split of other regions (Hughes et al., 2012), which did not take place in northern England or Ireland. Vowel mergers of /

ʊ

/ and /u:

/

–

Scottish speakers make little distinction between

/

ʊ

/ and /u:

/, or in

/

ɒ

/ and /

ɔ

:/, causing the following pairs to be homophonous:

pam

–

palm

,

pull

–

pool

,

cot

–

caught

(Hughes

et al.

, 2012).

Distinction

of

/a/ and /

ɑ

:

/

–

a

distinction in

north

and

south England can

also be made with the vowels /a/ and /

ɑ

:/. Northern accents say /a/ in

bath

, but southerners say /

ɑ

:

/.

Intrusive

nasals

–

within

the group of

north

of England accents a strong division exists between even neighbouring varieties, such as a distinct final /g/ sound in the word

sing

in Central Lancaster English, as opposed to a final /

ŋ

/ in the neighbouring areas north of Lancaster.

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Phonemic variation (2)

Interdental voiceless fricatives – the initial phoneme /θ/ in the word thin is pronounced /t/ throughout much of Ireland.Labiodental replacing interdental fricatives – /v/ and /ð/ variations also exist across the UK and often have developed independently in regions as diverse as Scotland, Yorkshire, London, the south-west, and the south-east. It has been reported, for example, that /v/ has been used in place of /ð/ in words like smooth in Glasgow (Stuart-Smith, 2008). Insertion of schwa in consonant clusters

–

in

many accents across the region, the schwa intrudes in consonant cluster

-lm

, as in words like

calm

and

film

, producing a sound /

ləm

/

.

Slide12

Lexical variation

Borrowing from indigenous languages – the result of an influence of contact with Celtic language in various parts of the British Isles has resulted in the adoption of borrowed lexical items. In Ireland and Scotland, there has been heavy influence from Gaelic, as seen from everyday words like glen (valley) and loch (lake).Same meaning, different words – an Atlas of English dialects offers nine alternative words for splinter alone (spell, spelk, speel, spill, splie,

spool

,

splint

,

shiver

,

silver

).

Figure 4.1: Lexical

variation in England (adapted

from Upton

and

Widdowson

, 1996)

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Grammar-syntactic variationTense and aspect –

the use of progressive aspects in a wider range of applications is observable in Scottish English and Irish English, such as: Barbara is knowing the answer.Irregular verb levelling – irregular verbs occur in Scottish English, such as brung instead of bought, writ instead of wrote, and selt instead of sold. Plurality and concord with collective nouns – in Scotland, the following examples have been observed: The windies wiz aw broken (‘was’ replacing ‘were’ in stating ‘the windows were all broken’);

The lambs is

oot

the field

(‘is’ replacing ‘are’); and

There’s no bottles

(‘is’ replacing ‘are’, again).

Negation

–

we

see variation in Scottish English, such as:

She’s no leaving

;

She

isnea

leaving

; ‘no’ used as a tag question in

That’s miles

away,

is it no?

; and ‘none’ used to indicate an absence of ability as in

Rab

can sing

nane

.

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Grammar-syntactic variation shows a north–south divide

 NorthSouth 

Scottish English

Irish English

Northern English

Welsh English

South-west

English

South-east English

Second person plural pronouns:

youse

,

y’all

,

you guys

✔

✔✔

✔✔

✖

✖

✖

Progressive tense widening:

She’s knowing that

well

✔

✔✔

✔

✖✖✖Be as perfect auxiliary:They’re not finished yet✔✔✔✔✖✔✖Double modals:I tell you what we might should do✔✔✖✔✔✖✖✖Must for conclusions drawn:This mustn’t be true!✔✔✔✔✔✖✖✔What you doing?✔✔✔✔✔✖✖✖You get the point?✔✔✔✔✔✔✔✖✖Ain’t for negative ‘be’✖✖✔✔✔✔Ain’t for negative ‘have’✖✖✖✖✔✔I wasn’t a doing nothing✖✖✖✔✔✔They had them in their hair, innit?✔✖✖✔✔✔✔What in relative clauses: This is the man what painted my house✖✔✔✖✔✔✔

Table 4.1:

Kortman’s

(2008, p. 491) synopsis of variation across the British Isles

Slide15

Attitudes towards variation in the British IslesEven though RP is spoken by less than 3%

of the population of the UK (Milroy and Milroy, 1999), it still holds power and prestige in UK political circles.While geography plays a major role in determining an accent in the UK, class also plays a pivotal role – an RP accent can be found in almost any region of the UK. In pop culture it is regional varieties of English that are thriving (e.g. The Beatles, Cheryl Cole, Gary Barlow, Geordie Shore).The media is moving towards more linguistic diversity (e.g. BBC).

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English language variation in Canada and the USA

Part 2

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English in North AmericaIn the USA, there is no official language, although English takes on the role of an official language for most political,

administrative, and educational functions. According to 2011 US census data:English is the main language of 79.4% of the population. Spanish speakers constitute half of the 21% of the population who speak another language at home. English is the official language of Canada, alongside French. According to 2011 Canadian census data:17.4% of the population are bilingual in both official languages. More than 20% of Canadian population reported a mother tongue other than English or French.

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Standard American English is an institutional construct and

thus ‘it has no native speakers’ (Kretzschmar, 2010, p. 101). Standard American is characterized by speech with ‘no accent’. This does not mean that a standard American accent is neutral, but that it is devoid of characteristics usually associated with particular regional American accents. Image source: http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/dialectsofenglish.html

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Phonemic variation

Vowel lengthening – prevalent across much of North America, has resulted in homophonous pairing of words like cot and caught, and don and dawn with vowel /ɔː/ (Levey, 2010). Short vowels are realized as diphthongs – southern American English creates diphthongs from short vowel sounds, changing vowels like /ɪ/ in think to

to

produce vowels in the range of /

ɛi~æi

/ (Thomas, 2008).

Vowel

mergers

–

Mary–merry–marry

lexical

set have merged to

be equivalent of the vowel in

square

in

Standard

American (but not in the north-east)

Canadian rising

–

the

famous example of this is the raising of /

ɑʊ

/ to /

ʌʊ

/ in words like

about infamously mimicked by Americans asa boot.

Slide21

Lexical variation

Borrowing from indigenous languages – English originally adopted borrowings from indigenous languages, resulting in words like kayak and toboggan which have since spread to other parts of the world. Same meaning, different words – tennis shoes vs sneakers; soda vs pop vs coke.

Image source:

https://

www.e-education.psu.edu

/geog160/node/1882

Slide22

Grammar-syntactic variationTense and aspect –

the perfective done is observed in pockets across the continent (e.g. That squirrel was done eat in Appalachian English).Pronouns – the second person plural pronoun y’all is used pervasively in the south, in favour of you guys in the north and the west (although geographic pockets prefer alternative terms, such as yous in Newfoundland). Negation – double negation (he didn’t do nothing) is also pervasive.Adverbs – the adoption of adverbs without -ly

is pervasive across the North American continent.

Slide23

Attitudes towards variation in the United StatesMilroy and Milroy (

1999, p. 153) state ‘distasteful public disparagement of African American English is commonplace and often openly racist’. Appalachian accents are often negatively used to depict uneducated characters such as Cletus in The Simpsons. When the movie Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was first released there was controversy that the bumbling idiotic character of Jar Jar Binks was based on African American or Black Caribbean stereotypes.Sothern accents are favourably viewed in politics (e.g. George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush).

Slide24

English language variation in Australia and New Zealand

Part 3

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Slide26

A note on why different accents emergedThe Englishes that emerged in

Canada and the US (and Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa) were the result of mixing of contact dialects from numerous parts of the British Isles. This type of mixing of dialects is referred to as koineization. Variables such as proportions of dialects (Scottish settlers, Irish settlers, Cockney settlers, settlers from other nations) in each of the country’s koineization mix created quite distinct Englishes across and within each of the countries. The accents in Australia and New Zealand are less regionally defined within their borders, because these are younger countries, and population mobility and improvements in communications didn’t allow for the geographic isolation needed for accent fragmentation.

Slide27

Phonemic variation

Vowel mergers – the merger of near and square to the /iə/ diphthong in New Zealand causes bear and bare to be pronounced the same as beer.Vowel distinctions – the kit vowel in New Zealand English is centralized, e.g. fish and chips as [fəʃ ən tʃəps

].

Vowel

distinctions /

æ

/ and /a:

/

–

there

are class and regional differences in the pronunciation of certain vowels, such as

/

æ

/ or /a:/ in words

like

chance

and

castle

,

with middle classes favouring the latter.

Rhoticity

–

speech

is generally non-rhotic across the region, except in some pockets like the Southland region of New Zealand.

Slide28

Lexical variation

Borrowing from indigenous languages – in Australia, lexical borrowing mainly occurred in the naming of aboriginal or local environmental items, such as boomerang (hunting weapon), billabong (waterhole). In New Zealand, borrowing extends further than items associated with indigenous culture.Same meaning, different word – walking in the woods is called hiking in Australia and tramping in New Zealand; light footwear are jandals in New Zealand and thongs in Australia; and a sweater is a jumper in Australia and a

jersey

in New Zealand.

Preserved

vocabulary and idiomatic

expressions

–

of

interest

is

the preservation of lexis that have been largely dropped from use in their UK origins. Examples include

billy

(a pot for boiling water) from Scotland,

fair dinkum

(authentic) from

Derbyshire.

Abbreviation

–

another

common feature is lexical shortening, including the addition of the famous

-

o

and

-

ie

suffixes

typical of Australian English. The result is words like tellie (television), chrissie pressies (Christmas presents), barbie (barbeque), and journo (journalist). These features are also found in New Zealand English.

Slide29

Grammar-syntactic variationTense and

aspect – studies have shown younger speakers in Australia are levelling irregular verbs, but New Zealand English is more conservative in terms of the regularization.Modal verbs – modals in Australasia see the decline of shall in favour of will, and should in favour of ought. The region also sees better or gotta instead of have to or should (e.g. we better go; we

gotta

go

).

Pronouns

–

inconsistency

of

use of gendered pronouns. There are objects

that are consistently masculine (e.g. plants,

animals,

and vehicles with unknown drivers), and objects that are consistently feminine (e.g. environment, vehicles

themselves,

and buildings). Interestingly, a

vehicle

–

driver

combined referent is masculine (e.g.

A truck came flying out in front of me, and he was swerving all over the place

), but a vehicle by itself is feminine (e.g.

She’s a beautiful car, that one

).

Slide30

Attitudes towards variation in the AustraliaThe Australian media has been very active in bringing the accents of politicians to the

forefront:The Courier Mail newspaper, for example, associates the broad accent of Julia Gillard (former prime minister) with political prowess. Alexander Downer’s (politician) ‘cultivated’ Australian accent has been labelled ‘posh’ and ‘plummy’. Tony Abbott (current prime minister) stated that his political party would ‘always speak with a strong Australian accent’ when targeting a member of the then prime minister’s cabinet, who spoke with a broad Scottish accent, as not being ‘local’ or ‘home

-

grown’.

Because

of such public attitudes, ‘posh’ Australian accents are very likely to vanish in the following decades from Australia as they are seen as the remnant of a colonial past (Moore, 2007).

Slide31

English language variation inthe Caribbean

Part 4

Slide32

Slide33

Development of Caribbean EnglishesChannel 2 (slavery) played a larger role in the spread in this region than channel 1 (settler migration).

Most importantly in the present linguistic perspective, different settlement patterns have resulted in North American varieties of English being characterized by dialect transmission (with some degree of koineization but also innovation) as against Caribbean forms of English being shaped by process of creolization (Schneider, 2008, p. 23).

Slide34

A note on difficulties in generalizing across regionsThe book acknowledges

the inherent dangers in making any geographic or historical division of linguistic boundaries: The English of the Bahamas has more in common with North American Englishes due to its place in history as a settler destination for Anglo-Bahamian British loyalists who escaped the US after the Revolutionary War (Childs and Wolfram, 2008).Boundaries with USA are less distinct, such as Gullah-speaking Afro-Bahamians moving from South Carolina and Georgia to the Bahamas.Barbados could be argued to have developed its creole English very differently than other plantation colonies in the Caribbean, due to its long 300-year British colonization history and the fact that white settlers outnumbered black slaves in the first 25 years of its settlement, marking a huge difference in language exposure in the creolization

process (Blake, 2008).

Slide35

Role of English in the CaribbeanEnglish is the official language of a number of Caribbean nations,

including: Antigua and BarbudaThe BahamasBarbados (alongside Bajan)Dominica (alongside Antillean French creole)GrenadaJamaica (alongside Jamaican Patois)Saint Kitts and NevisSaint Lucia (alongside Saint Lucian French creole)Saint Vincent and the GrenadinesTrinidad and Tobago

Belize

.

Only

Jamaica lists their English

creole

(Patois) alongside English as a separate official language. Most nations have English as the official language, although in practice the English creole is more commonly used, or an official distinction is not made between the two.

Slide36

Phonemic variation (1)Bahamian English vowels are more similar to North American than Caribbean varieties in the cases of

their goat and lot vowels (Childs and Wolfram, 2008).The mid-central vowel /ʌ/ in strut is prominent in Bajan English, but it is rare in North American Englishes. Anglo-Bahamian Englishes are often compared to UK varieties of English (Childs and Wolfram, 2008).Bajan English has a distinctive pronunciation of the price and prize diphthong as [ʌɪ], which causes visitors to comment that Bajan English is somewhat ‘reminiscent of the west of England, or an Irish brogue’ (Blake, 2008, p. 315).Vowel mergers

–

in

Trinidadian English, vowel mergers appear, such as the vowels

in

bird–bud

;

body–buddy

;

cut–cot–caught

;

bit–beat

;

and

harm–ham

.

Words like

hat

and

heart

are only distinguishable by vowel length

(

James

and

Youssef,

2008

)

.

Slide37

Phonemic variation (2)Dental fricatives

– the stopping of voiced and voiceless dental fricatives is characteristic of Caribbean English, with RP accented /θ/ realized as /t/ as in think, and /ð/ realized as /d/ as in these.Rhoticity – Caribbean accents tend to be non-rhotic across most of the region except in Bajan, which is fully rhotic across all communities of speakers. There is a tendency in the Bahamas to delete the initial /h/ sound in words like harm, hat, and

hurry

(to produce

’arm

,

’at

,

’

urry

). Tobagonian

English also omits the /h/ sound in most words where it is the initial sound

(

James

and

Youssef,

2008

)

.

Vowel assimilation

in Jamaican English occurs across

syllables,

as in

see it

pronounced [

si:t

]; and syllable amalgamation occurs across syllables like do it pronounced [dwi:t], and go on pronounced [ɡwa:n] (Devonish and Harry, 2008). A similar phenomenon is also reported in Tobagonian English, where words like boil become bwoil (James and Youssef, 2008).Consonant clusters – in Togonian English, sounds are omitted in consonant clusters, such as from becoming fom, and smell becoming mell (James and Youssef, 2008).

Slide38

Lexical variationDue to the process of creolization, many African words from

the language: e.g. Bahamian obeah meaning witchcraft. Because of the links between the USA and the Bahamas, some lexical items entered Bahamian English through Gullah: hoe-cakes (cornmeal cake)gulin (greedy)ninny (breast) (Reaser and Torbert, 2008).

Slide39

Grammar-syntactic variationTense

and aspect:Omission of the verb to be: you [are] fat, I [am] smart, he [is] over there.Levelling of verbs to the present in the Caribbean (e.g. he swim yesterday). Tense markers (e.g. past tense indicated with the addition of ben in

I ben

run

,

done

in

he done eat it

).

Auxiliary

verbs

–

double-modals

(

he

might

could

come

)

are

common

in

Jamaican

English, but not in Bahamian.Pronouns – like many British varieties of English discussed inSection 4a, substitution of pronouns is pervasive across the Caribbean. Gendered pronouns (e.g. she’s a good boat) are also pervasive, perhaps due to the influence of seafarers in the islands.Reaser and Torbert (2008) on Bahamian English; Patrick (2008) on Jamaican Creole English; and James and Youssef (2008) on Trinidad and Tobagonian English.

Slide40

Attitudes: the case of Jamaica

Jamaica is one of the few Caribbean nations to make an official distinction between English and Patois as co-official languages, creating a political view that they are two distinct languages. While English is used in formal public settings and in written discourse, Patois is used in informal private setting and in oral discourse. The lines between the two languages are not as distinct as policy indicates, and as education in Jamaica has traditionally moved speakers towards Jamaican English and away from Patois, features of Jamaican English regularly make their way into spoken Patois. Devonish and Harry (2008) argue that for many Jamaicans, English is a second language acquired through education as the language of formal speech and writing, and that the creole is spoken as a native language. In the Caribbean, historical educational policy sought communities to move toward a more ‘standard’ English instead of the creoles spoken there: Policy over time has changed and Caribbean Englishes are now promoted in education, government, and literature.In

Jamaica,

‘recent

years have seen the

“functional dethronement”

of Standard English as the exclusive language of

public

–

formal

domains and there is a shift toward a local variety as the new

standard’

(Melchers

and Shaw

, 2011, p. 123).

Slide41

Summary of Lecture 4 (1)

The ‘native’ Englishes were developed from transported Englishes from theBritish Isles.Contact with other languages and accents in each region gave birth to new varietiesof English. Power of class-based divisions in the UK manifested in a geographically unboundRP accent. The Englishes of Canada, the USA, Australia, and New Zealand are the result of koineization process. Plantation colonies in Jamaica, Bermuda, and other parts of the Caribbean resulted in the development of new L1 varieties of English

through

creolization

.

It is clear that English varieties have different connotations of politics and power in various parts of the

Inner Circle:

In

the UK, an RP accent is considered a marked accent and still holds a great deal of power.

In America,

the standard American accent (whether

northern

or

southern

) permeates across

America. This region sees divisions

in power and language that

are based

along race and regional lines, rather than class and regional lines as seen in the UK.

Due

to the youth and mobility of the Australian population, there

is far

less regional variation than in the UK and USA, and lines are drawn almost entirely according to

‘broad’

and

‘cultivated’ lines.

Slide42

Summary of Lecture 4 (2)

Other members of the Inner Circle show divisions of power and standardizations along the lines of these three examples: In Ireland and New Zealand there are similarities with post-colonial Australia which show a movement away from RP-influenced accents. Canada follows a similar line with the USA with an unmarked ‘standard’ English, although racial lines are far less pronounced than in the USA due to a very different history of racial tensions. The Caribbean sees movements like those witnessed in the UK, where regional varieties are becoming a source of pride and identity rather than as deviations.In summary, politics, power and language is a very complex network, and is subject to quick change due to society attitude and other external factors.

Slide43

Key terms

KoineizationGendered pronounsHigh rising toneAccommodationCanadian risingVowel merger 

Appalachian English

African American Vernacular English

Bare root verbs

Levelling (of accents)

Bajan

Patois

Slide44

Further readingOn Englishes of the British Isles:

Kortmann, B. and Upton, C. (eds). (2008). Varieties of English: The British Isles. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Hudges, A., Trudgill, P., and Watt, D. (2012). English Accents and Dialects. New York: Routledge. On the Englishes of North America and the Caribbean:Schneider, E. W. (ed.). (2008). Varieties of English 2: The Americas and The Caribbean. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter

.

 

On the Englishes of Australia and New Zealand:

Kortmann

, B.,

Buridge

, K.,

Mesthrie

, E., Schneider, E. W., and Upton, C. (eds.) (

2008).

Varieties of

English 3:

The Pacific and Australasia

.

Berlin: Mouton

de

Gruyter

.