Ethnolectal research across the globe

While language patterning in minority communities has long been of interest (e.g., Labov 1966), increased mobility has made the emergence of ethnolects—varieties spoken by ethnolinguistic groups in multicultural... [ view full abstract ]

While language patterning in minority communities has long been of interest (e.g., Labov 1966), increased mobility has made the emergence of ethnolects—varieties spoken by ethnolinguistic groups in multicultural societies—a global phenomenon, with major projects being undertaken in a number of locations: Sydney (Horvath 1985), Toronto (Hoffman & Walker 2010), Sweden (Gross et al. 2016), London (Cheshire et al. 2011), New Zealand (Szakay 2008), and others.

This colloquium features talks that approach the study of ethnolects from different perspectives in locations around the globe (New Zealand, Sweden, the UK, Canada, and Australia) and tackle features across several levels of linguistic representation.

Talks address issues including: the relationship between features of ethnolects and those of surrounding varieties; the role played by language contact and ethnolinguistic groups in the initiation of and participation in language change; how variation manifests in ethnolects and the factors that affect it; how ethnolectal variation informs language transfer; and the extent to which social factors shape ethnolectal features, including the role played by identity. A discussion will follow the talks.

This research aims to frame ethnolectal variation as crucial in its ability to address issues in language variation and change. With international mobility likely persisting into the future, identifying how language varieties interact is vital to understanding how multilectal interactions shape the linguistic landscape.

References

Cheshire, J. Kerswill, P., Fox, S., & Torgersen, E. (2011). Contact, the feature pool and the speech community: The emergence of Multicultural London English. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 15(2), 151-196.

Gross, J., Boyd, S., Leinonen, T., & Walker, J. (2016). A tale of two cities (and one vowel): Sociolinguistic variation in Sweden. Language Variation and Change, 28, 225-247.

Hoffman, M.F. & J.A. Walker. (2010). Ethnolects and the city: Ethnic orientation and linguistic variation in Toronto English. Language Variation and Change 22: 37-67.

Horvath, B. (1985). Variation in Australian English: The sociolects of Sydney. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Labov, W. (1966). The Social Stratification of English in New York City. Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics.

Szakay, A. (2008). Ethnic Dialect Identification in New Zealand: The Role of Prosodic Cues. Saarbrücken: Vdm Verlag.