Lecture (8) Ethnicity and social networks Ethnicity Ethnicity is - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Lecture (8) Ethnicity and social networks

• Ethnicity is considered to be

shared characteristics such as culture, language, religion, and traditions, which contribute to a person or group’s identity.

• An

‘ethnic group’ has been defined as a group that regards itself or is regarded by others as a distinct community by virtue of certain characteristics that will help to distinguish the group from the surrounding community. Ethnicity

• Even when a complete conversation in an ethnic language is not

possible, people may use short phrases, verbal fillers or linguistic tags, which signal ethnicity. Ethnicity New Zealanders use Maori linguistic signals like kia ora, e ki, ne to express their ethnic identity.

• Many ethnic groups use a distinctive language to identify their

ethnicity

• If

the dominants/main language is used, speakers may incorporate linguistic signals that identify their ethnic background

• Chinese Singaporeans in Singapore use the tag la to express

solidarity

• Italians in Boston and Sydney use particular high percentage of

vernacular pronunciations of certain vowels Ethnicity

• Scottish people in New Zealand

retain the [r] sound

• Jewish people in Boston and New

York use marked linguistic tags such as

• y

vay, and Yiddish vocabulary items such as bagel Ethnicity

Three cases of ethnic dialects in English

• 1. African American Vernacular English
• 2. British Black English
• 3. Maori New Zealanders

Ethnicity

• 1. African American Vernacular English

Ethnicity

• African American Vernacular English (AAVE) has some

features which do not occur in standard American English, and some which less frequently occur

• Linguistic differences act as symbols of ethnicity
• It exists particularly in the northern cities of the United States

• 1. African American Vernacular English

Ethnicity

 Omission of the verb be  Invariant be to signal recurring actions  Multiple negation  Consonant cluster simplification

• 1. African American Vernacular English

Ethnicity

 Omission of the verb be

• 1. African American Vernacular English

Ethnicity

 Invariant be to signal recurring actions

• 1. African American Vernacular English

Ethnicity

 Multiple negation

e.g. ‘I don’t have no money’

• 1. African American Vernacular English

Ethnicity

 Consonant cluster simplification

• In the phrase last time, last [la:st] in Standard American English is

[la:s] in AAVE

• aks in place of ‘asks’

• 2. British Black English

Ethnicity

• Members of British Black community (born in England)

speak a variety of Jamaican Creole, also known as Patois

• Patois used as symbol of ethnic identity.
• Those who are not fluent in Patois use English with Patois

features.

• This way, their English is marked as “Black” which signals

the identity of the speaker

• 2. British Black English

Ethnicity

Vocabulary Pronunciation Morphology, Syntax Lick meaning ‘kick’ [den], [tin] for ‘then’ and ‘thin’ Plural forms without /s/ suffix: ‘many cow’ Kenge meaning ‘weak’ [niem] for ‘name’ Verbs are not marked for tenses: walk, jump for ‘walked’, ‘jumped’ Simplified pronouns: [mi] for I, me, my and [dem] for they, them, and their

Patois

3. Maori New Zealanders Ethnicity In New Zealand there has been considerable discussion about whether a Maori dialect of English exists. Many people assert firmly that there is such a variety, but there is little evidence so far of linguistic features which occur only in the speech of Maori people.

3. Maori New Zealanders Ethnicity

Pronunciation Vocabulary Morphology, Syntax Use of [d] sound: then pronounce as ‘den’, Kia ora for greetings Vernacular present tense forms: with /s/ ‘I says you wanna bet’ The pronounce as ‘de’ Tangi meaning ‘funeral’ Vernacular past tense ‘She seen it happen…’ Kuia meaning ‘old woman’

Maori

New Englishes Ethnicity

New Englishes Ethnicity

• the term ‘new Englishes’ is most often used to describe

varieties which have developed in post-colonial societies where the colonial powers have been displaced, but the legacy

• f English remains.
• Some examples were discussed in chapter 4 under the heading

‘world Englishes’.

• Fiji English, Hong Kong English, Singapore English, Indian

English and the English used in the Philippines are typical examples of ‘new Englishes’.

New Englishes Ethnicity

• It has been suggested that these varieties represent different stages along a

trajectory towards the development of a distinct local variety which symbolises the identity of each particular group of speakers.

• In other words, English undergoes re-colonisation in order to express the

identities of the local peoples in different communities.

• Using this framework, New Zealand English, Australian English and

South African English are well-developed examples, with distinctive lexis, grammatical patterns and phonological features, as well as established literatures in each of these varieties.

• Young people who use New Zealand English no longer think of their

language as a variety of British English.

New Englishes Ethnicity

• Another view makes a sharp distinction between

‘settlement’ colonies like Australia and New Zealand, where English has always been the first language of the majority group, and ‘exploitation’ colonies such as Hong Kong and Singapore, India, Kenya and Tanzania, where multilingualism is the norm, and English has been adopted primarily for administrative convenience.

• In these countries, English was not initially taught

by native speaker ‘settlers’ to new generations, and the varieties

• f

English which have developed are typically influenced by local languages spoken in the region, e.g. Hokkien Chinese, Malay and Tamil in Singapore.

Lecture (8) Ethnicity and social networks

• People’s speech reflect the types of networks they belong to.
• Sociolinguistic surveys have shown that language variation

cannot only be found among groups with varying socio- economic status but also within one group.

• Following the regular class pattern, we could expect the

members of one socio-economic status group to show uniform linguistic behaviour. Obviously this is not the case in reality. Even speakers with the same socio-economic status are characterized by their varying use of language.

• Consequently, there must be other significant factors than such

static social variables as class or gender which can account for linguistic variation.

• The concept of the social network was introduced to the field
• f sociolinguistics by Lesley and James Milroy.
• In her study of three working-class communities in Belfast,

Northern Ireland, Lesley Milroy (1980) found significant deviations from the classic class and gender pattern.

• Linguistic variation in these communities could be explained on

the basis of differences in speakers’ social network structures.

• There was a correlation between linguistic variation and a

speaker’s integration in a social network.

People’s speech reflect the types of networks they belong to.

Networks in sociolinguistics refer to the pattern of informal relationships people are involved in on a regular basis.

• A social network is an abstract mechanism that denotes the

social relationships an individual contracts with

• ther

individuals in a society.

• If society as a whole is viewed as the macro-level, then social

networks can be described as ‘micro-level social clusters’: families, friends, neighbourhoods, etc., i.e. particular patterns of social organization within society as a whole.

Features of Social Networks

• The character of a social network is defined by the contact

patterns between its members (How many members know each

• ther and how well do they know each other?).
• These patterns then construct different types of network

structures which can reveal an individual’s integration into a network.

• The structure of a network can be determined by the factors of

density and plexity.

Features of Social Networks

• Density

refers to whether members of a person’s network are in touch with each other

Features of Social Networks

• Density

For example, Ani knows Alex, who lives next door to her. Alex’s wife, Alice, works at the same office as Ani. Alex plays tennis

• nce a week with Hendri, Ani’s husband. Alex’s boss, Paul, is a

business partner of Robby, Hendri’s uncle.

Features of Social Networks

• Plexity

refers to the type of transactions people are involved in

• Uniplex relationship: when the link to someone else is only in
• ne area
• Multiplex relationship: interactions with others in several

dimensions

Features of Social Networks

• Plexity

Here, the double lines depicts the dual role that Ani and Alice have with each other, as neighbors and workmates. Similarly Alex and Hendri, are both neighbors and friends.

• People’s speech should indicate the types of networks they

belong to.

• The people we interact with are one important influence on our

speech.

• When

the people we mix with regularly belong to a homogeneous group, we tend to speak the way the rest of the group does, provided we want to belong to the group and like the people in it.

• A study which examined language shift in Oberwart, an

Austrian town on the Austrian–Hungarian border, made good use of the concept of social networks.

• Susan Gal noted who talked to whom over a set period of time.

The patterns of social interaction which emerged accounted for people’s language preferences.

• Some people in the Oberwart area worked in the fields and kept

farm animals as their parents had before them – they continued to cling to a peasant way of life.

• Others worked in the industries which had become established

in the town.

• Those people who interacted more with peasants were more

likely to prefer Hungarian as their primary language, while those who had more contacts with people involved in industrial jobs tended to prefer German.

Communities of practice (and the construction of social identity)

Communities of practice (and the construction of social identity)

• If we examine the speech of Mary’s parents and Tracy’s parents

in an interview with a white teacher visiting the community, we find some interesting patterns.

• There are differences between the women’s and the men’s
• speech. There are also differences between the speech of the

African American parents and the white parents. But not the differences you might predict without thinking a little about their social networks.

• Tracy’s father’s (WAVE) speech is much closer to Mary’s

mother’s speech (AAVE) than it is to Tracy’s mother’s speech.

• Both Tracy’s dad and Mary’s mum use more standard forms

than their spouses. Mary’s dad uses a great many creole forms, while Tracy’s mother uses local vernacular dialect forms.

• The patterns in these communities are best explained not by

gender or by ethnicity, but by the interactive networks the two sets of parents are involved in.

• African American women interact in their daily work with

tourists and middle-class Americans who use high frequencies

• f standard English forms.

• White men and young white women similarly work in service

industries, interacting not with members

• f

their

• wn

community but with strangers and outsiders. Their networks are neither dense nor multiplex.

• The people they work with are different from the people they

live with and ‘play’ with. Their speech is correspondingly more standard, and they use fewer vernacular or creole forms than the white middle-aged women and the African American men.

Individual network structures:

• Their degree of integration into a social network can give their

members a status of ‘insider’ (core member) or ‘outsider’ (peripheral member).

• Language use depends on how deeply a member is integrated

into a particular social network.

• Social networks are characterized by network-specific norms

and values including norms of language use. The more an individual is integrated into a social network, the more (s)he will adhere linguistically to the existing norms and values of this network.

Individual network structures:

Communities of practice (and the construction of social identity)

Communities of practice (and the construction of social identity)

• Penelope Eckert, a sociolinguist who spent many months at this

US high school, uses the term community of practice to capture the complexities of what it means to belong to a social group like the burnouts.

• The burnouts are mainly, but not exclusively, from low-income
• families. They socialise in the local urban neighbourhood and

their friendships extend beyond the school.

• They reject school values and they are aiming to join the

workforce immediately on leaving school.

Communities of practice (and the construction of social identity)

• Their behaviour, both linguistic and non-linguistic, distinguishes

them clearly from the jocks , a much more conformist group who largely accept school values and are heading for college.

• Groups like these exist in every school community, though the

names are different – nerds , bums , greasers , hoods , cholos , gangsters , drop-outs and so on.

Communities of practice (and the construction of social identity)

• So, communities of practice develop around the activities which

group members engage in together, and their shared objectives and attitudes.

Communities of practice (and the construction of social identity)

• Linguistic patterns described by sociolinguists correlate to

macro-level categories such as gender, age, ethnicity and class

• The concept of community of practice is aimed at understanding

the complexities of belonging to a certain group

Communities of practice (and the construction of social identity)

• The concept ‘community of practice’ has been adopted by some

sociolinguists to permit a focus on social categories like these which make more sense to participants than abstract categories such as class and gender.

Communities of practice (and the construction of social identity)

• Different aspects of an individual’s social identity will be more
• r less relevant in specific social contexts, and even at different

points within the same interaction.

• So for instance, a young African American male talking to an

African American female is likely to highlight his masculinity at certain points in the conversation, but their shared ethnicity at

• thers.
• Similarly, Jo constructs her identity as a super-cool, non-

conformist burnout when she interacts with jock guys but, at certain points in the interaction, her linguistic choices may emphasise her gender identity, or her low income background.

Communities of practice (and the construction of social identity)

Communities of practice (and the construction of social identity)

The speaker in example 12 is Geraldine, a young working-class Maori woman, describing a fight in which she was involved. In this brief snippet, talking to a much better educated and very feminine-looking Maori woman, she selects consistently vernacular variants of the –ing variable, and vernacular present tense forms of the verb say , as well as using swear words.

 Linguists believe that no variety is superior to another and that

all varieties are capable of developing their own grammars and vocabulary.

 In reality, not all varieties manage to have high status in the

community.

 The vernaculars, such as the Patois, AAVE, or Maori are

considered sub-standards.

 Someone’s speech is influenced by social factors, including

their social network.