Language and

ethnicity/age
CCEN4019 LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY
LESSON 7
Rundown

1. Language and ethnicity

 Language as symbol of ethnicity
 African American Vernacular English
 London Jamaican
 Maori English
2. Language and Age
 Age-graded features of speech
 Age and social dialect data
 Age grading and language change
Learning Objectives

 When people belong to the same group, they often speak similarly.
 But there are many different groups in a community, and so any individual
may share linguistic features with a range of other speakers. Some features
index a person’s social status, others may vary in frequency in the speech of
women and men or identify a person as a teenager rather than a middle-aged
citizen (age).
 There are also linguistic clues to a person’s ethnicity.
 Individuals draw on all these resources when they construct their social
identities. This chapter illustrates the relevance of ethnicity and age in
accounting for people’s speech patterns
1. Language and ethnicity
Quizizz
 What are the ethnicities of the following speakers?
 Now, take out your electronic device, and log into the game room using the
URL and game code!
Language as symbol of ethnicity

Example 1
 When I was in Montreal I found a small restaurant in the old French quarter
where the menu looked affordable and attractive. I was greeted in French by
the waiter and I responded in French, though my accent clearly signalled that I
was a native English speaker. At this point, the waiter, who was undoubtedly
bilingual, had a choice. He chose to continue in French and, though I cannot be
sure of his reasons, I interpreted this choice as expressing his wish to be
identified as a French Canadian. In any case, I was very happy that my French
had not been so awful that he felt he had to switch to English.
Language as symbol of ethnicity

 Many ethnic groups use a distinctive language associated with their ethnic
identity, as shown in example 1 above. Where a choice of language is available
for communication, it is often possible for an individual to signal their
ethnicity by the language they choose to use. 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. So interactions
which appear to be in English, for example, may incorporate linguistic signals of
the speakers’ ethnic identity, as illustrated in example 2:
 Lee: Kia ora June. Where you been? Not seen you round for a while.
June: Kia ora. I’ve just come back from my Nanny’s tangi [FUNERAL]. Been up in
Rotorua for a week.
Lee: E kï [IS THAT SO!] a sad time for you, e hoa [MY FRIEND] and for all your
family, ne [ISN’T IT].
June: Ae [YES]. We’ll all miss Nanny. She was a wonderful woman.
Language as symbol of ethnicity

 In New Zealand many Maori people routinely use Maori greetings such as kia ora,
and a conversation between two Maori people may include emphatic phrases,
such as e kï, softening tags such as ne, and responses such as ae, even when
neither speaks the Maori language fluently.
 Bargaining with Chinese retailers in the shopping centres, Chinese Singaporeans
similarly often signal their ethnic background with linguistic tags, such as the
untranslatable but expressive la, and phrases or words from their ethnic
language. Emphasising common ethnicity may mean they get a better bargain!
Language as symbol of ethnicity

 As we saw in lesson 3, when a group adopts, willingly or perforce, the dominant

language of the society, an important symbol of their distinct ethnicity – their
language – often disappears.
 Italians in Sydney and New York, African Americans and Hispanics in Chicago,
Indians, Pakistanis and Jamaicans in London are in this situation. For different
reasons, so are most Scots, Irish and Welsh people in Britain, Aboriginal people in
Australia and Maori people in New Zealand.
 Ethnic groups often respond to this situation by using the majority language in a
way which signals and actively constructs their ethnic identity.
 For groups where there are no identifying physical features to distinguish them
from others in the society, these distinctive linguistic features may be an
important remaining symbol of ethnicity once their ethnic language has
disappeared.
 Food, religion, dress and a distinctive speech style are all ways that ethnic
minorities may use to distinguish themselves from the majority group.
Language as symbol of ethnicity

 Italians in Boston use a particularly high percentage of vernacular

pronunciations of certain vowels, such as the vowel in words like short and
horse. Similarly, both first and second generation Italians in Sydney are
distinguishable in different ways by their pronunciation of Australian English
vowels.
 In New Zealand, as elsewhere in the world, Scots people tend to retain
features of their Scottish English. The pronunciation of [r] in words like part
and star is widely noted as a marker of Scottish ethnicity.
 American Jewish people often signal their ethnicity with a distinctive accent of
English within any city in which they have settled. Studies of Jewish people in
Boston and New York have identified distinctive pronunciations of some
vowels. Jewish Americans also use ethnically marked linguistic tags such as oy
vay, and occasional Yiddish vocabulary items, many of which, such as
schmaltz, bagel, glitch and shlemiel, have passed into general US English.
African American Vernacular English

Example 3
 Jo: This ain’ that ba’, bu’ look at your hands. It ain’t get on you either. Asle,
look at mine. This all my clay...In your ear wi’ Rosie Greer...I ain’ gone do that
one . . . Did you hear about the fire at the shoe store? It wan’t a soul lef’.
 In the USA, though their distinct languages disappeared centuries ago, African
Americans do not need a distinct variety or code as a symbolic way of
differentiating themselves from the majority group. They are visibly different.
Nevertheless, this group has developed a distinct variety of English known as
African American Vernacular English (AAVE).
 This dialect has a number of features which do not occur in standard
mainstream US English, and others which occur very much less frequently in the
standard variety. These linguistic differences act as symbols of ethnicity. They
express the sense of cultural distinctiveness of many African Americans.
African American Vernacular English
Example 5

African American Vernacular English US Standard English

She be at school on weekdays She’s always at school on weekdays
The children do be messin’ around a lot The children do mess around a lot
I run when I bees on my way to school I always run when I’m on my way to
school
The beer be warm at that place The beer’s always warm at that place

Another distinctive grammatical feature of AAVE is the use of invariant be to signal

recurring or repeated actions, as in example 5.
African American Vernacular English

AAVE is heard especially in the northern cities of the USA. One of its most
distinctive features is the complete absence of the copula verb be in some social
and linguistic contexts. In most speech contexts, speakers of standard English use
shortened or reduced forms of the verb be. In other words, people do not usually
say She is very nice but rather She’s very nice. They reduce or contract the is to s.
In the same kinds of context, speakers of AAVE omit the verb be, as illustrated in
example 4.

In recordings of Detroit speech, for instance, white Americans never omitted the
copula verb be, whereas African Americans – especially those from the lower
socio-economic groups – regularly did.
African American Vernacular English

Clearly the grammar of AAVE has some features

which simply do not occur in the grammar of
white Americans. However, there are many
features of the English used by lower socio-
economic groups in the USA which also occur in
AAVE. Most AAVE speakers simply use these
features more frequently than most white
Americans. Multiple negation was identified in
for instance, as a feature of the English of many
lower socio-economic groups. It is also a feature
of AAVE, as figure 8.1 illustrates. In every social
group interviewed in Detroit, African Americans
used more multiple negation than white
Americans did.
 African American Vernacular English

 Consonant cluster simplification is another feature which distinguishes the speech of

white and African Americans. All English speakers simplify consonant clusters in some
contexts. It would sound very formal, for instance, in a phrase such as last time to
pronounce both [t]s distinctly. Most people drop the first [t] so the consonant cluster [st]
at the end of last becomes simply [s].
AAVE speakers also simplify the consonant clusters at the ends of words, but they do so
much more frequently and extensively than speakers of standard and regional dialects of
English. AAVE is different from the English of white Americans, then, in a number of ways.
 There are features which clearly distinguish the two dialects, such as the omission of
the verb be and distinct meanings of be, as illustrated in example 5. And there are other
features, such as multiple negation and consonant cluster simplification, where AAVE uses
higher frequencies than are found in the English of most white Americans.
 African American Vernacular English
Exercise 2

1.  Using figure 8.1 as data, what is the relationship between ethnicity and social class in
relation to the vernacular features of speech?

2. Identify the features of the following passage which distinguish it from standard English.
These are all features of AAVE, though some also occur in other vernacular varieties.
It’s a girl name Shirley Jones live in Washington. ‘Most everybody on her street like her,
’cause she a nice girl. Shirley like a boy name Charles. But she keep away from him and
Charles don’t hardly say nothing to her neither.’
 African American Vernacular English
Exercise 2

3. Look at sentences a–f. * = ungrammatical utterance

(i) What is the rule for the occurrence of be?

a. They usually be tired when they come home.
b. *They be tired right now.
c. James always be coming to school.
d. *James be coming to school right now.
e. Sometimes my ears be itching.
f. *My ankle be broken from the fall.

(ii) Which of these is grammatical in this dialect?

g. Linguists always be asking silly questions about language.
h. The students don’t be talking right now.
London Jamaican

 In recent years, interest has grown in this creole, or patois/patwa

（方言 / 鄉村土語） as it is usually known by its users, who may also
refer to it as 'Black Talk: 'Nation Language' and 'Black Slang' (Sebba
2007). As Sebba points out, ‘London Jamaican emerged as the
"heritage language" used among the second generation of migrants
from the Caribbean, even those whose parents were not Jamaican
Creole speakers' and is 'used as a symbol of group identity by "Black
British" children and adolescents - as well as by some White
adolescents in friendship groups with Black peers.’ For its black
British speakers, then, it reflects the process of recreolisation, where
a creole that has moved further along the Creole Continuum in the
direction of the standard language, shifts back towards earlier creole
forms.
London Jamaican
 London Jamaican, a combination of creole and a local form of non-standard
English, is spoken, as its name suggests, particularly (though not exclusively)
in the London area.

 Since most of its speakers are also fluent in British English, they do not need
creole for communicative functions and use it, rather, as a powerful marker
of group identity. It serves this function even for speakers who have limited
fluency in creole, and who are only able to smatter their conversation with
token creole features such as sterotypical creole words and pronunciations
(Sebba 2007: 281). In other words, as Sebba goes on to say, 'Creole in the
London context is a speech style, defined by the participants of an interaction
in contrast with 'English; and marked by a selection of salient 'non-English'
features’. He points out the cultural attraction that creole bolds for its
speakers and its value as a ‘non-legitimated variety’, arguing that this
accounts for the fact that London Jamaican focuses on Jamaican Creole
instead of the many other mother-tongue creoles of its speakers, and adding
that ‘it is often not learnt in the family home, but at school and from the
peer group’.
London Jamaican

Grammatical features:
 interchangeable use of pronouns, e.g. 'mi' and ‘I' both used for ‘I' and 'me';
‘im’, 'i' both used for he, she, it, him, her, its, his, hers, its,
 use of present tense for both present and past, e.g. ‘an I se’ meaning
‘and I said’,
 elimination of tense suffixes -s, -ed,--t and participle endings –ing,-ed,
-en, -t, e.g. 'yu bret stink' for 'your breath stinks’,
 negation with ‘no’, often with phonological changes, as in 'no bret stink'
for standard English 'my breath doesn't stink’,
 lack of inversion in question forms, as in 'im did phone you?’,
 absence of the copula, as in 'dis party well rude’.
London Jamaican

 Phonological features (1):

 substitution of /θ/ and /ð/ with /t/ and /d/ e.g. 'bret' for 'breath' and
'dis' for 'this' (whereas speakers of AAVE can also substitute these sounds
with /f/ and /v/);
 labialisation when the sound /b/ is followed by certain vowels, e.g. 'boys'
is pronounced ‘bwoys’;
 dropping of word-final consonants, e.g. 'bulleh' for 'bullet';
 realisation of the vowel sounds /ɒ/ and /ɔ:/ as /a:/ so that 'cloth'
becomes ‘klaat’
London Jamaican
 Phonological features (2):
 lack of weak vowels especially schwa, so that, e.g. the word ‘rapper’ is
pronounced [rapa] rather than [rƏpƏ] and the article 'the' is regularly
pronounced [da] and [di].
 the glottal stop (represented by ʔ). e.g. 'ghetto' pronounced [geʔo] and
'gotta' as [goʔa]’,
 the vocalisation of dark ‘L' (the RP /I/ sound ,when it is followed by a
pause or a consonant) e.g. 'bill' as 'biw'. and ‘help' as ‘hewp’, whereas in
Jamaican Creole, this ‘I’ is pronounced as clear/light ‘L' (the RP /I/ sound
when it is followed by a vowel, like in ‘lap’ and ‘list’)’
London Jamaican

 Lexical features:
 Graham quotes from Hewitt (1986: 129-30) including mash-up (‘destroy’),
picky-picky (frizzy ( 捲曲 ), of hair) and duppy ('ghost’). However, she
repeats Hewitt’s caution that words of Jamaican Creole origin may also
be used by speakers from other groups including Whites and non-
Caribbean blacks.
 Examples in Graham's own data include the taboo Jamaican Creole words
bomb-klaat ('toilet paper') and blodklaat ('sanitary towel’).
London Jamaican

 Dark vs Light L: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANa8UWr22x0

Maori English
Example 7
 An’ den an old ant came – there was a old kuia. She went and walk to de ant’s
house. An’ den she went and knock at the window. An’ den de ant started to
open his window. An’ den he’s told the old kuia to go back. An’ den de old
kuia was talking. An’ den de old kuia went and walk back.

 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.
 The alternation between [d] and [th] at the beginning of words like the and
then, which is indicated in example 7, for instance, is by no means confined
to the speech of Maori people. Greetings like kia ora and vocabulary items
like tangi (‘funeral’), illustrated in example 2 above, are used by Pakeha
(New Zealanders of European origin) as well as Maori in New Zealand.
Maori English

 However, in general, Maori people use Maori words more frequently in their
speech than Pakeha people do. The word kuia in example 7 illustrates this.
Kuia is a Maori word meaning ‘old woman’, which is widely known in New
Zealand. Nevertheless, its occurrence in the child’s story suggests the speaker
is more likely to be Maori than Pakeha.
 There are also grammatical features which occur more frequently in Maori
people’s speech. In a study of 8-year-old children’s speech, vernacular verb
forms (such as walk for walked) occurred more often in the speech of the
Maori children than the Pakeha. There were also some distinctive uses of
verbs, such as went and, which seemed to be used as a narrative past tense
marker by the Maori children, as illustrated in example 7.
 Maori English
 A comparison of the speech of a small group of New Zealand women also found that
the Maori women were more likely to use vernacular past tense forms of some verbs,
as illustrated in sentences (a) and (b) in example 8. Moreover, Maori women were
more likely than Pakeha to use present tense forms with s as in (c) and (d), and much
more likely to omit have, as in (e) and (f).

Example 8
(a)  She seen it happen and she stopped and picked Jo up off the bloody road.
(b)  Well next I rung up the police.
(c)  I says you wanna bet.
(d)  So I gets home and I waited a couple of weeks.
(e)  Yeah well you * seen him dancing eh so you understand.
(f)  See I * been through all that rigmarole before.
 * indicates where have/had has been omitted.
 Maori English
Example 9
He’s a hell of a good teacher and everything eh. And um I sit in with him sometimes, and
’cause all of a sudden he’ll come out speaking Pakeha you know, just it was only, it was
only a sentence that he’ll speak, you know, one line of it, and the rest is just Maori eh.
 There are a number of different types of clues suggesting that the speaker is a Maori.
 The expression ‘speaking Pakeha’ for ‘speaking English’ is more frequently used by
Maori than Pakeha people. The pragmatic particle eh is another feature which tends
to be more frequent in the speech of Maori people.
 The other interesting feature is the tense switching which has also been noted more
frequently in Maori narratives.
 Note that the features discussed are matters of frequencies. They do not occur
exclusively in the speech of Maori speakers.
2. Language and age
Age-graded features of speech
1. One of the most obvious speech differences between women and men is in
the pitch of their voices.
 Most people believe this difference develops at puberty- it is difficult to
guess the gender of a 5-year-old on the phone.
 It is certainly true that young boys’ voices often ‘break’ at puberty and
become noticeably lower in pitch.
 As a result, male voices generally sound lower in pitch than women’s,
while children have the high pitch among all.

2. The frequency with which people use swear words tends to diminish through

age, especially as they begin to have children and socialise with others with
young families.
 It seems possible that adult men restrict swearing largely to all-male
settings, whereas females reduce their swearing in all settings as they
move into adulthood.
Age-graded features of speech

3. Current slang is the linguistic prerogative of young people and generally 

    sounds odd in the mouth of an older person.
 It signals membership of a particular group – the young.
 In New Zealand, young people currently use the terms sweet, choice,
awesome and cool to describe something they approve of, while earlier
generations used bosker and bonzer.
Age and social dialect data
 A common pattern shows that the use of vernacular forms is high in childhood
and adolescence ( 青春期 ).
 The usage steadily reduces as people approach middle age when social
pressures to conform are greatest. 
 Vernacular usage gradually increases again in old age as social pressures
reduce.
Age grading and language change
 When a linguistic change is spreading through a community, there will be a
regular increase or decrease in the use of the linguistic form over time.
 For an innovation – a form on the increase – this will show up in a graph as a
low use of the form by older people and a higher use among younger people.
 For a form which is disappearing, younger people will use less of the form and
older people more.

 Vernacular pronunciation of standard [t] in medial and final position in New

Zealand English:
Language Use and Age
 How teenagers/seniors/adults use language (16:10)
 How we talk to children/teenagers/adults/elderly people? (18:30)
Parentese
 Parentese, also known as infant directed speech or motherese, is a special way of
talking that is more interesting to infants and children than listening to regular adult
speech.
 It is universally spoken by most caregivers in every culture, regardless of gender.
 This distinctive style of speech uses exaggerated tones, inflection and prosody. We
often refer to it as using a sing song voice:
 Higher-pitched
 Hyper-articulated
 Repetitive
 Rhythmic and melodic
 Shorter sentences and slower in speed (tempo)
 Elongates vowels
 Exaggerates intensity
 Speaking in parentese is important because it has inherent acoustic cues that
stimulate the young child’s developing auditory system. A child who hears parentese
frequently becomes more efficient in understanding spoken language and have
larger vocabularies as they mature.
Parentese
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7XtROS_Rpg&t=82s
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlMH02hPiXU