Dialect stabilization and speaker awareness in non‐native varieties of English1

Research on indigenized non‐native varieties of English has aimed to distinguish these varieties from individual second language learning in structural and social terms ( B. Kachru 1983 ; Platt, Weber and Ho 1984 ; Cheshire 1991 ) ; however, quantitative evidence of this divergence remains scarce. Through an analysis of a range of Indian English speakers in a contact situation in the United States, this study distinguishes developing dialect features from second language learning features and explores the concomitant emergence of dialect consciousness. First, an implicational analysis shows that some non‐standard variables (past marking, copula use, agreement) exhibit a second language learning cline while others (articles) form a more stable, incipient non‐standard system shared to some extent by all speakers; a multivariate analysis suggests that both sets of variables are governed by proficiency levels. Next, the explanatory scope of proficiency is assessed by examining the use of selected phonological variants (rhoticity, l‐velarization, aspiration). The use of these features resembles native‐like style‐shifting, as it appears to be more sensitive to speakers’ attitudinal stances than to proficiency levels. This points to the importance of understanding emerging speaker awareness and perceptions of stigma, risk, and value in new varieties of English.     

Constructing identity with L2: Pronunciation and attitudes among Norwegian learners of English1

This study investigates L2 pronunciation and evaluation of American and British varieties of English among Norwegian adolescent learners. By integrating quantitative sociolinguistics and L2 acquisition, the article investigates stylistic practice in an L2 context. Results from an auditory analysis of four phonological variables and a matched‐guise test are interpreted with reference to speaker commentary. Learners’ self‐expressed accent aims correlate significantly with accent use, but American English is the dominant pronunciation. Results show that both L1 and L2 speakers of English varieties are socially evaluated by the learners; British English is considered the most prestigious model of pronunciation, while American English is associated with informality. These evaluations seem to motivate learners’ pronunciation choices. The data indicate blended use of the English varieties. Learners seem to exploit linguistic resources from English, and reshape and adapt the social meaning of the variables to a local construction of identity.     

Sociophonetic variation in a long‐term language contact situation: /l/‐darkening in Welsh‐English bilingual speech

This study investigates /l/‐darkening in the Welsh and English speech of bilinguals in North Wales. Although it is claimed that /l/ is dark in all syllable positions in northern varieties of both languages, there have been no quantitative investigations of this feature which consider cross‐linguistic phonetic differences, the differing nature of language contact between North East and North West Wales, and differences in the way both languages are acquired by speakers. The dataset of 32 Welsh‐English bilinguals, aged 16–18, was stratified by speaker sex, home language, and area. Tokens of /l/ in word‐initial onset and word‐final coda positions were analysed acoustically. The results show cross‐linguistic differences in onset position and that such differences were found to be greater in the speech of female speakers. Differences were also found between the two areas. These results are discussed with reference to the influence of extra‐linguistic factors on speech production and the possible social meaning associated with dark /l/.     

The social stratification of tongue shape for postvocalic /r/ in Scottish English1

The sociolinguistic modelling of phonological variation and change is almost exclusively based on auditory and acoustic analyses of speech. One phenomenon which has proved elusive when considered in these ways is the variation in postvocalic /r/ in Scottish English. This study therefore shifts to speech production: we present a socioarticulatory study of variation of postvocalic /r/ in CVr (e.g. car) words, using a socially‐stratified ultrasound tongue imaging corpus of speech collected in eastern central Scotland in 2008. Our results show social stratification of /r/ at the articulatory level, with middle‐class speakers using bunched articulations, while working‐class speakers use greater proportions of tongue‐tip and tongue‐front raised variants. Unlike articulatory variation of /r/ in American English, the articulatory variants in our Scottish English corpus are both auditorily distinct from one another, and correlate with strong and weak ends of an auditory rhotic continuum, which also shows clear social stratification.     

Intonation,identity and contact‐induced change among Polish‐speaking migrants in the U.K.

This article examines intonational variation in a language contact situation. The study contributes to sociolinguistic research on the social meaning of intonational variation (Podesva 2006 ; Levon 2014 ). Intonation is studied in a multilingual context of global mobility: within a group of Polish‐speaking migrants in Britain who, thanks to cheap transportation and new channels of communication, could make use of linguistic resources unlimited by territorial boundaries from the beginning of their transnational experience. The study shows that speakers with seemingly similar linguistic and cultural profiles make use of intonation patterns in different ways in the context of the narrative of the self: speakers oriented towards the global economy and the English‐speaking world incorporate a mainly English intonational pattern, the fall‐rise, with increased frequency to do interactional work that it does in English, while other groups maintain Standard Polish norms. As shown, intonational variation participates in the creation of fluid identities that blur linguistic and sociocultural boundaries.     

The Effect of Linguistic Distance and Country of Origin on Immigrant Language Skills: Application to Israel

This article is concerned with identifying, for the first time, the separate effects of linguistic distance (language of origin) and country of origin on the destination language proficiency of immigrants. The determinants of Hebrew language proficiency (fluency and literacy) among immigrants in Israel are studied using the 1972 Census of Israel and the Immigration Absorption (panel) Surveys conducted in the 1970s. Country of origin and language of origin matter for proficiency in Hebrew, especially in the longer term. By country of origin, those from North Africa are the least proficient. By language of origin, Arabic speakers are the most proficient, suggesting a small linguistic distance from Hebrew. Immigrants from English‐speaking origins are the least proficient in Hebrew. This may reflect a large linguistic distance or, more likely, the unique role of English as the international language, which reduces incentives for investments in Hebrew. Immigrants from dual‐language countries of origin are more proficient in Hebrew than those from single language origins.     

‘Talkin' Jockney’? Variation and change in Glaswegian accent1

This paper presents an analysis of language variation and change in a socially stratified corpus of Glaswegian collected in 1997. Eight consonantal variables in read and spontaneous speech from 32 speakers were analysed separately and then together using multivariate analysis. Our results show that middle‐class speakers, with weaker network ties and more opportunities for mobility and contact with English English speakers, are maintaining traditional Scottish features. Working‐class adolescents, with more limited mobility and belonging to close‐knit networks, are changing their vernacular by using ‘non‐local’ features such as TH‐fronting and reducing expected Scottish features such as postvocalic /r/. We argue that local context is the key to understanding the findings. Mobility and network structures are involved, but must be taken in conjunction with the recent history of structural changes to Glasgow and the resulting construction of local class‐based language ideologies which continue to be relevant in the city today.     

It don't go both ways: Limited bidirectionality in sociolinguistic perception

This article explores the sociolinguistic perception of morphosyntactic variation, using sociolinguistic priming experiments. Two experiments tested participants' perception of the connection between social status and variation in two English subject‐verb agreement constructions: there's+NP and NP+don't. Experiment 1 tested sentence perception and found that exposure to non‐standard agreement boosted the perception of non‐standard agreement, but only for there's+NP. Social status cues had no effect on sentence perception. Experiment 2 tested speaker perception and found that participants were more likely to believe that non‐standard agreement was produced by low‐status than high‐status speakers. Results suggest that, especially for heavily stigmatized variables, non‐standard sentences strongly constrain the social judgments made by speakers, yet social cues do not necessarily constrain linguistic perception. The results suggest that the perceptual relationship between linguistic and social knowledge may be one of only limited bidirectionality. Implications for sociolinguistic perception and exemplar‐theoretic accounts of sociolinguistic competence are discussed.     

Situating language rights: English and Swahili in Tanzania revisited1

This paper argues for an ethnographic‐sociolinguistic approach to the issue of linguistic rights. In much of the literature on linguistic rights, a fundamentally flawed set of assumptions about language and society is being used, leading to assessments of language situations that are empirically not sustainable. An alternative set of assumptions is offered, grounded in ethnography and focused on language use as oriented towards centering institutions that attribute indexicalities – function and value – to linguistic resources. Such centers are invariably multiple but stratified, and the state occupies a crucial place in these systems, between the world system and local forces. This model is applied to the Tanzanian sociolinguistic situation, where a strong state appeared to be caught between pressures that were both transnational and local. This gave rise to a pattern of distribution of linguistic resources, including English and Swahili, that offered semiotic opportunities to speakers to construct deeply ‘local’ meanings. The languages were not in themselves agents of inequality, but the way in which they were distributed nationally and in relation to transnational hierarchies is the key to understanding inequality. Discussions of linguistic rights should start from assessments of the real potential and constraints of linguistic resources, not from idealized and static conceptions of language and society and predefined scenarios of their interaction.     

The learning of spoken French variation by immersion students from Toronto, Canada

This study on the learning of sociolinguistic variants by 41 adolescents from a French immersion program in Toronto, Canada, synthesizes the findings of our research on this topic. This article provides answers to the following questions. First, do the immersion students use the same range of sociolinguistic variants as do speakers of Quebec French, who are used in our research as a first language (L1) benchmark? Second, do they use variants with the same discursive frequency as do L1 speakers? Third, is their use of variants correlated with the same linguistic constraints observable in L1 speech? Finally, what are the independent variables influencing their learning of variants, for example: treatment of variants by immersion teachers and authors of French language arts materials used in immersion programs; interactions with L1 speakers; influence of the students' L1(s); influence of intra‐systemic factors – markedness of variants; and influence of the students' social characteristics – social standing, sex?     

Persona‐based information shapes linguistic perception: Valley Girls and California vowels

This paper investigates the effect of persona‐based information on implicit linguistic perceptions of a sociolinguistic feature – the backed trap vowel. trap ‐backing is associated both with macro‐social region (California) and with a particular persona that inhabits this region (the Valley Girl). An eye‐tracking paradigm is used to examine these associations in early, automatic stages of perception. One group of listeners was told the speaker was from California, while another group was told that the speaker had been described as a Valley Girl. Findings demonstrate that both the California information and the Valley Girl information caused listeners to expect the speaker to exhibit trap ‐backing. While previous studies have highlighted the influence of macro‐sociological categories on linguistic perception, the present study suggests that persona‐based social meanings can also serve to influence perception, supporting theories that foreground personae as social constructs crucial to interaction.     

A tipping point in dialect obsolescence? Change across the generations in Lerwick,Shetland1

The dialect spoken in the Shetland Islands is one of the most distinctive in the British Isles. However, there are claims that this variety is rapidly disappearing, with local forms replaced by more standard variants in the younger generations. In this paper we test these claims through a quantitative analysis of variable forms across three generations of speakers from the main town of Lerwick. We target six variables: two lexical, two morphosyntactic and two phonetic/phonological. Our results show that there is decline in use of the local forms across all six variables. Closer analysis of individual use reveals that the older age cohort form a linguistically homogeneous group. In contrast, the younger speakers form a heterogeneous group: half of the younger speakers have high rates of the local forms, while the other half uses the standard variants near‐categorically. We suggest that these results may pinpoint the locus of rapid obsolescence in this traditionally relic dialect area.     

Heteroglossia as a resource for reflexive participation in a community of Christian snowboarders in Finland

This paper addresses the ways in which linguistic heteroglossia is mobilized to construct participation in a youth cultural community of practice. The analysis focuses on spoken interaction among Christian snowboarders in Finland, and specifically on how the community members create social meanings by using their shared linguistic resources (e.g. religious register or snowboarding terminology). These socially indexical resources gain new meanings when the snowboarders engage in debates concerning gender, expertise and literal versus non‐literal interpretations of the Bible. During specific interactive events, they reflect on their responses to different Biblical discourses, thus aiming to reconcile traditional church teachings with late‐modern lifestyles. In the process, they construct themselves as authentic Christian members of the community. Humor and playfulness are often important means for the snowboarders to negotiate the potential contradictions between traditional religious voices and their lived social reality. Hence, ultimately, heteroglossia and indexicality enable the Christian snowboarders to establish and transform meanings, identities and cultural contexts.     

An analysis of Montréal's Quartier Chinois and sense of self: Une Loi peut faire mal au dragon,mais La Loi ne peut pas tuer le dragon

In 1976, the provincial parliament in Québec ratified the Charter of the French Language, or La Loi 101. The Charter is a collection of linguistic laws meant to promote the French language in Québec. Since its ratification, supporters of the Charter have called it a protection of “French‐Canadian identity”. The Charter has also come under scrutiny from Anglophones (English speakers) and Allophones (non‐native English or French speakers) in Québec. This paper analyzes one group of Allophones, Chinese‐Canadians, in Québec's largest city, Montréal. In particular, this analysis examines how the Chinese‐Canadian community in Montréal perceives their self‐identity as threatened by La Loi 101 and believes this law is a form of forced assimilation.     

The Formation and Development of New Zealand English: Interaction of Gender-Related Variation and Linguistic Change

This research assesses the relative roles played by men and women in the development of New Zealand English. Real-time evidence on the development of NZ English over the past fifty years is provided by comparison of speakers recorded in 1948 and their present day descendants recorded recently. Elements of two vowel shifts are studied, and particular attention is paid to the vowel variables in words such as MOUTH, TRAP and DRESS. Results indicate that women lead in changes which are new and dynamic, but lag behind men in the use of variables representing older changes. While these results mirror patterns of gender-related variation observed in other contexts, explanations in terms of prestige which are often assumed to account for this pattern of variation are found to be inadequate in the New Zealand case. Rather, a hypothesis in terms of dialect contact, and specifically women's preferred discourse strategies in contact situations, is used to explain the process and progress of linguistic change in NZ English.     

The Economic Value of Bilingualism for Asians and Hispanics1

This study examines how bilingualism affects the wages of Asian and Hispanic workers using 2000 Census data. In contradiction to the general belief that bilingualism can provide a competitive advantage in the labor market, we find no evidence that 1.5‐generation and U.S.‐born Asian and Hispanic bilingual workers generally have higher wages than their English monolingual co‐ethnics; in some cases, in fact, their wages are significantly lower. In search of specific circumstances under which bilingualism might provide an economic advantage, we also examine interactions of language with such variables as education, employment in the public rather than the private sector, and the size of the population of mother‐tongue speakers. With limited exceptions, we find no sign of greater economic returns to bilingualism. Since bilingualism requires considerable effort to maintain across generations in the United States, we conclude that the virtual absence of economic rewards for it creates pressure for linguistic assimilation.     

Language,multiple authenticities and social media: The online language practices of university students in Mongolia

This paper seeks to contribute to the current discussion of the sociolinguistics of globalization by revealing youth linguistic diversity from the perspective of the online mixed language practices of university students in contemporary post‐socialist Mongolia. Drawing on sets of Facebook data, the paper firstly argues that the online mixed youth language practices should be understood as ‘translingual’ not only due to their varied recombination of linguistic and cultural resources, genres, modes, styles and repertories, but also due to their direct subtextual connections with wider socio‐cultural, historical and ideological meanings. Secondly, online users metalinguistically claim authenticity in terms of their own translingual practices as opposed to other colliding language ideologies such as linguistic dystopia. How they relocalize the notion of authenticity, however, differs profoundly depending on their own often‐diverse criteria, identities, beliefs and ideas. This shows that, with mixing and recombining at its very core, the translingual practices of modern young speakers provide us with a significant insight into the co‐existence of multiple authenticities and origins of authenticity in an increasingly interconnected world.     

Using english as a foreign language in international and multicultural consulting: Asset or hindrance?

When it comes to an encounter of people of mixed national and ethnical backgrounds, one of the major challenges is undoubtedly the linguistic diversity. Given the widely acknowledged status of English as the world language, English has also become the most widely used language when it comes to professional counselling in intercultural contexts. Due to the growing demand of counselling processes in English, a certain command of the English language has also become indispensible for consultants. It has to be noted, however, that it??s rarely English native speakers who prompt a ??multilingual?? group to speak English. In most working contexts it is speakers, for ??none of whom is the mother tongue?? (House 1999: 74), who agree to use English as common code of understanding, i.e. English as a lingua franca (ELF). Current researches strongly question the status of native English norms as the only point of reference for ??correct?? usage of English (cf. e.g. Seidlhofer et al. 2006). Based on empirical data, this contribution chooses an interdisciplinary approach at the interface between linguistics and other social sciences to examine some implications of the use of ELF in professional counselling processes with a strong focus on supervision. It is meant to show that consulting processes in English, among non-native speakers, can be carried out successfully despite clear linguistic deviations from native speaker norms.     

Think really different: Continuity and specialization in the English dual form adverbs

This paper analyses variation between ‐ly and ‐ø in English dual form adverbs by examining conversational data from York, U.K. Using multivariate analysis and the comparative method we assess the constraint ranking, significance and relative importance of external factors (age, sex, education level) and internal factors (lexical identity, function and meaning). The results show that ‐ly is dominant and has increased dramatically in apparent time. However, cross‐tabulations with individual lexical items reveal that this correlation with speaker age is restricted to a single item–really. In conjunction with evidence from the history of English, we suggest that this does not reflect ongoing developments in English adverb formation, but is the result of continuous renewal in the encoding of ‘intensity’. In contrast, separate analysis of the other adverbs shows that variation between ‐ly and zero is retained in part as a socio‐symbolic resource, in particular for marking less educated male speech. Underlying this social meaning however, is a linguistic constraint which operates across all speakers. The zero adverb encodes concrete, objective meaning–a tendency which can be traced back 650 years or more. This provides yet another example of the interface between social and historical developments in language variation and change.