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SUMMARY:Multicultural London English: the rise of a new phonological varie
 ty? - Paul Kerswill\, University of York
DTSTART:20131107T160000Z
DTEND:20131107T173000Z
UID:TALK48231@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Madeleine Forbes
DESCRIPTION:For some years now\, people in England have been noticing the 
 rise of what is sometimes called ‘talking black’ among young Londoners
 : there is a sound\, a style\, which older people associate with some sort
  of Jamaican influence and hip-hop. Partly it involves the adoption of you
 th slang by groups who do not fit the stereotypical demographic of late ad
 olescent\, working-class youth who either belong to ethnic minorities or w
 ho have ethnically mixed peer groups. In the context of the London riots o
 f August 2011\, certain commentators have castigated this way of speaking 
 as both foreign (Jamaican) and the badge of a violent\, black youth cultur
 e (rioters can be heard to speak it). \n\nIt is easy\, however\, to show t
 hat it is neither ‘foreign’ nor a contributory cause of the violence. 
 Our studies show that it is a new phonological variety which actually has 
 multiple origins arising out of a highly multilingual environment. Large-s
 cale restructuring has taken place\, with changes in the traditionally bro
 ad diphthongs of London English leading to what amounts to a reversal of 
 ‘diphthong shift’\, which was a southern continuation of the Great Vow
 el Shift. There is also marked syllable-timing. In the consonant system\, 
 we find the almost categorical re-instatement of /h/ in lexical words\, as
  well as a uvular allophone of /k/ before nonhigh back vowels. \n\nWe cont
 end that this new variety\, which we call Multicultural London English (ML
 E)\, is likely to have a permanent influence on London’s English\, thoug
 h this is not certain so long as its speakers are still young\, and so lon
 g as its use is a matter of style for a number of people. We also investig
 ate just how ‘multicultural’ the variety is: we see speakers picking f
 eatures from a ‘feature pool’ (Mufwene)\, but doing so in slightly dif
 ferent ways depending on a number of sociolinguistic factors which include
  ethnicity\, gender and heritage language. Despite these differences\, the
  conclusion is that MLE qualifies as a ‘new dialect’\, containing the 
 type of variation one would expect of any demographically delineated langu
 age variety. \n\nReferences:\nCheshire\, Jenny\, Kerswill\, Paul\, Fox\, S
 usan & Torgersen\, Eivind (2011) “Contact\, the feature pool and the spe
 ech community: The emergence of Multicultural London English” Journal of
  Sociolinguistics 15/2: 151–196. \n\nKerswill\, Paul. 2013a fc. Identity
 \, ethnicity and place: the construction of youth language in London. In A
 uer\, Peter\, Martin Hilpert\, Anja Stukenbrock & Benedikt Szmrecsanyi (ed
 s) (in press). Space in language and linguistics: geographical\, interacti
 onal\, and cognitive perspectives (Series: linguae & litterae). Berlin: de
  Gruyter. \n\nKerswill\, Paul\, Torgersen\, Eivind & Fox\, Susan (2008). R
 eversing ‘drift’: Innovation and diffusion in the London diphthong sys
 tem. Language Variation and Change 20: 451–491.\n
LOCATION:Room GR06/07\, Faculty of English\, Sidgwick Site\, West Road\, C
 ambridge
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