Ethnicity

• Ethnolect


  Ethnolect is a term used to describe a variety of language that is associated with a particular ethnic group. It is often used for marked varieties, those that stand out as being marginalised or minority varieties.
• Fishman (1997)


  Fishman (1997) describes ethnic boundaries as 'rigid distinctions'. She says white varieties are seen as regional dialects and not ethnic variants.
• Penny Eckert on Ethnicity


  Penny Eckert said 'the white anglo variety is considered a regional dialect, while African American and Latino varieties are considered ethnic dialects.'
• Ethnolinguistic repertoire 


  Ethnolinguistic repertoire describes the full set of the linguistic recourses available to a speaker in order to signal their ethnic identity
• Ethnicity


  Ethnicity is a shared social identity consisting of practices, language, beliefs and history
• Race


  Race is a perceived physical similarity and difference that groups and cultures consider culturally significant. These are biologically-based differences between human groups.
• Bobo's definition of ethnicity


  Laurence Bobo an academic and professor at Harvard teaching African American and African studies, characterised ethnicity as associated with cultural factors such as language religion and nationality. Race is exclusively yo do with the biological differences between human groups.
• Potential issues with labelling ethics


  There are so many ethnicities, often people end up as 'other' which can come across as exclusionary and offensive

  It is hard to define, especially separating it from race
• Kara Becker (2014) 


  Kara Becker looks 'beyond the fixed category'. She argues past research is limited by categories in capturing the complexity of speaker practice. Opting for a linguistic repertoire approach to allow for more fluidity. Her approach draws and expands on Benor (2010) 'by looking at how a speaker constructs not only ethnic identity but other aspects of multivalent identity' She challenges ideas of older studies with her ideas of fluidity, identity is a construct, a performance, in differences and avoiding assumptions.
• Janet Holmes (2013) 


  Janet Holmes says speakers don't have to have a native or extensive knowledge of their second language to claim their ethnic identity. The act of code-switching to create a sense of solidarity with an ethnic group is enough.
• Kara Becker New York City Study


  Kara Becker found in her New York City Study that varities are often classified by ethnicity- however not all speakers of the variety belong to the ethnic group. For example, not all African Americans use AAE (African American English) and not all people who use AAE are African American.
• Kara Becker's Case Study


  In an interview with 'Lisa,' she found that she demonstrated features of African-American English (AAE). Phonologically she varied her language to fit AAE. Grammatically her use of verbs varied, sometimes using the standard form and other times not.

  • Some of her identity will be due to her socioeconomic background (she is working class but college-educated and working as a housing activist)
  • She adopts features from a broad linguist repertoire
• Shivonne Gates


  Her research into East London Language at Riverton High School, an ethnically diverse school, found that ethnicity and gender affect language. The girls identified them selves in groups e.g. white squad, a group of white British girls, Black squad, Main squad. For example, White British year ten girls spoke very differently to their peers from other ethnic backgrounds, but we don’t see the same contrast between the boys. She found boys were less influenced by ethnicity
• Multi-Cultural English


  An accent that grew from a number of different ethnicities living amongst each other in London as a result of high levels of immigration
• Paul Kerswill


  Kerswill wanted to challenge writers such as Starkey who said 'gangster culture has become the fashion' 'Jamaican patois has intruded English'. He looked at code-switching and found the majority of MLE had deep English roots like 'my ends'. He emphasised that socio-economic factors had an influence, MLE was more prominent in places lacking funding, due to more family-orientated families providing better conditions for contact between languages. People with fewer opportunities speak differently as 'an exclusionary strategy'. Concluding that ethnicity and race aren't huge factors.
• Gary Ives Bradford study


  In the bradford study, he examined the relationship between language and ethnicity. He interviewed 8 teen boys with a Pakistani background, from a school with a strong Pakistani influence about language use and code-switching. Responses suggested they found code-switching was natural and due to where they were born/ live. Further investigation found it was deliberate to separate themselves from 'freshies' (born in Pakistan, moved to UK), using words like 'bare' and Punjabi swear words. Code-switching emphasises group identity and excludes people who won't understand.
• Gary Ives London Study


  At a school in London, he interviewed students from various ethnic backgrounds, asking their opinions on other areas of the country's language. Key vocab such as 'bare' 'calm' and 'hype' (MLE). It was used by students from all ethnic backgrounds. Teens from white-british backgrounds used lexis from Jamaican Afro/ Afro-Caribbean origins. The study shows language didn't hugely depend on ethnicity but rather on where you live and group identity.
• Multiethnolect


  A collection of linguistic resources combining features from a variety of languages within a multi-ethnic, multicultural context.
• Drummond Polish Study (2012) 


  In his 2012 paper, he looked at the language of Polish immigrants, those who moved and intend to stay and those who moved and intend to return. Those who wanted to stay had a positive attitude towards their new country and intended to adopt the local accent to sound more like local teens. Those who intended to return tended to adopt non-standard features such as 'ink' rather than 'ing' to end words, distinguishing them from locals. He concluded language can signal a sort of allegiance to a culture. Reflecting attitudes to their identities.
• Lindsay Johns (author and Journalist) (Radio 4 2013) 


  In this interview, he gave his very strong opinions of 'Anti ghetto gramma' such as 'ya get me', 'moronic street slang', filler words 'innit' and lack of grammar and punctuation. He says 'language can be power but also a threat to power'. Young people must reject slang and use standard English as people won't take it seriously, it is self-sabotage, making themselves unemployable. He blames hip-hop and music and says lack of language skills is responsible for violent behaviour as they are unable to communicate properly.