1
Will we all talk like Americans?

• Philip Shaw
• English Department
• Stockholm University

2
Contents

• 1 Americanization
• Dimensions
• Examples
• Expanding circle Sweden
• Inner circle NZ and Britain
• 2 Glocalization Bebo
• 3 Inner Circle divergence issues
• Vowels in New Zealand,vowels in Detroit
• 4 Lingua franca issues
• The basic idea (Seidlhofer, Jenkins, Mauranen)
• Examples (Beyza)
• Status of the notion
• Euro-English (Mollin)

3
Americanization
4
Levels to be considered find examples of UK/US
differences at each

• Lexis
• Physical objects
• Slang
• Unclassifiable
• Syntax
• Morphology
• Pronunciation
• Phoneme system
• Word-level
• Realization

5
Levels to be considered

• Lexis
• Physical/natural objects cellphone/mobile
  phone kerosene/paraffin elk/red deer
  hood/bonnet
• Slang guy/bloke it sucks phat bling
• Unclassifiable maybe/perhaps
• Syntax shes like What? / she goes What? demand
  that he go/should go
• Morphology dove/dived snuck/sneaked
  ?toward/towards
• Pronunciation
• Phoneme system caught/court/cot/soft/
• Word-level bath/chance schedule cCHECK WELLS!
• Realization examples of TRAP

6
Examples of /æ/

• Nigerian planets
• Scottish pam
• RP back (17)
• Older RP back (87)
• GA bad
• Northern US cities back
• NZ rat

7
Levels where do you expect most difference
among varieties?where do you expect most
Americanization?
formal informal
written Newspaper () textbook, school work On-line chat, homepage
spoken Lecture, presentation, Face-to-face chat, small talk, daily interaction
8
Kachrus Circles where do you expect
Americanization?

• Expanding Circle
• Dubbing countries
• Subtitling countries
• Outer Circle
• Traditional L1 literacy
• Limited traditional L1 literacy
• Inner Circle
• Non-codified varieties
• Reference varieties

9
Americanization in Sweden Söderlund Modiano
2002 and Thörnstrand 2008
10
Americanization in the Inner Circle Sources of
innovation in NZE
Mayerhoff and Niedzelski 2003
11
(No Transcript)
12
Limits to Americanization in NZ

• Mayerhoff and Niedzelski write
• Even if New Zealanders are trying to sound more
  American and/or more British, this somehow has to
  be reconciled with the fact that this gesture is
  embedded in an entire vowel system that is
  increasingly distinctive from any other variety
  of English (including other Southern Hemisphere
  varieties).

13
Camerons replication in London
We found that the proportion of British speakers
reporting active use of American forms like
truck, cookie, and can (either instead of or as
well as the British equivalents) was indeed far
lower than the proportion reported by either
Meyerhoff or Bayard. Actually, in our sample the
incidence of these foprms was negligible most
showed no sign of spreading at all. Our
informants were also unlike many of the New
Zealanders in Meyerhoffs study in that they
clearly identified the forms in question as
American and therefore foreign .
14
The new quotatives
15
Swedish quotatives
16
Quotatives in the UK and Canada 1995-6
17
Quotatives in Scotland1997
18
Be like same but differentBuchstaller 2006

• Overall, the stereotypes towards be like in the
  U.K. are relatively similar but not equivalent to
  the ones reported from the U.S. In both
  localities, be like is clearly associated with
  younger speakers. But while be like is rather
  associated with WC women in the British Isles, be
  like is perceived more as feature of MC
  (middle-class) women in the U.S. Similarly, U.S.
  and U.K. respondents agree on the socio-economic
  class but not on the gender and age of go-users.
  Taken together, these findings suggest that the
  perceptual load of global variables is not
  necessarily equivalent in different varieties.
  .. During the adoption process, speakers in
  the U.K. are attaching new and potentially
  different local social meaning to them.

19
British peoples beliefs about the origins of
quotatives (Buchstaller)
go go Be like
N N
U.S. 12 11 37 36
British 4 4 3 3
Other 9 8 4 4
No idea 74 67 56 55
20
Why is the UK not like NZ?

• (Discuss)

21
Reverse influence

• Wee
• Wanker

22
Glocalization
23
Glocalization

• Mayerhoff and Niedzelski write

We may want our descriptions of variation to
distinguish clearly between cases where the
details of the social and linguistic meaning of a
variable are manifested in the nature and ranking
of the constraints operating on the variable ,
and cases where diffeernt linguistic codes share
only a superficial similarity in the form of a
variable, but the constraints on the variable
have been (re) created in, say, different
comunities of practice.
24
the penetration of American slang into British
youthspeak via music and TV

• Cameron says

A lot of the slang recorded..in East London
would bewilder any high-school kid transplanted
from the US, since it owes more to Bangladesh
than Brooklyn the hiphop nations phat and
bling coexist with more localised terms like
creps trainers and nang good.Their language
reflects their contact with global media , but is
also strikingly rooted in the local.
25
Da Ali G show

• Ali Selecta! I is ere wiv none uver dan da
  Queenie Mum of pop muzic,
• Madonna. Check it!
• Ali So Madge, is you really preggers or as you
  just got a spare tyre up your jumper?
• Madonna No, I am five months pregnant, Ali.
• Ali Wicked. So you ain't bin frough da menaplaws
  yet den?
• M No, I thought I'd better have another baby
  before my time ran out,so to speak.
• Ali Aiiih, fer real. An who is da dad? Does you
  even know who da dad is?
• M Of course I know who the father is. It's my
  boyfriend, Guy.
• Ali An is e related to dat geezer who make all
  da fireworks for bonfire night?
• What is Ali G doing with the language?

26
Bebo/myspace personal homepages

• The homepage seems to be a medium that includes a
  number of multimedia features (background music,
  background graphics, icons for different
  participants), and several textual genres.
• Personal details
• Age, gender, location some short comments on
  'what I like' 'what I hate', etc. Written by
  owner a persona/avatar assumed to be
  representative of the location.
• Comments
• Short, (1-2 sentences) greetings, post-card like
  comments,. Many different contributors, mostly
  acquaintances of the owner
• Blog
• The Bebo format makes it possible to publish a
  blog on this page, but most are fairly short.

27
Three text genres on homepages

• Personal details
• Age, gender, location some short comments on
  'what I like' 'what I hate', etc. Written by
  owner represents a persona/avatar which is
  assumed for these qualitative purposes to be
  representative of the location.
• Comments
• Short, (1-2 sentences) greetings, post-card like
  comments, arrangements to meet, comments on
  quality of page. Many different contributors,
  mostly acquaintances of the owner
• Blog
• The Bebo format makes it possible to publish a
  blog on this page, but most are fairly short.

28
(No Transcript)
29
Homepage spellings Discussion

• What spelling do you expect for
• you
• going to
• going, having, being, doing
• the, that, with
• think, thing,
• together, later, better
• what, because, thought, laugh
• Any differences between US, England, Ireland?

30
Representations of YOU
31
Representations of GOING TO
32
Results -ing
33
Summary colloquial style

• A number of features representing colloquial
  style have similar distributions in all three
  national groups

34
Representations of THE /ð/
35
Representations of THIS/THAT /ð/
36
Representations of WITH /ð/ or /?/
37
Representations of THINK /?/
38
Representations of THING /?/
39
Summary dental fricatives

• /ð/ is represented by ltdgt in all three groups,
  but more in Ireland than the others.
• The spelling ltdagt suggests that this is cool
  AAVE/hiphop/London Jamaican.
• ltvgt occurs only (?) in wiv in England
• The spelling ltdegt suggests that in Ireland
  ltdgtalso represents Irish pronunciation
• /?/ is represented by /t/ in all three groups,
  but more in Ireland than the others, perhaps
  representing Irish as well as cool
  pronunciation
• /?/ is represented by /f/ outside the US,
  especially in England, presumably representing
  Estuary English

40
Regularizations of WHAT
41
Regularizations of BECAUSE
42
Regularizations of the vowel in THOUGHT
43
Regularizations of LAUGH
44
Summary of regularization

• Regularization can reveal the (genuine, not
  enacted) phonology of the writers system
• Representation of /? ? / by spellings with ltrgt
  only in non-rhotic group
• Representation of the vowel in what, cause as
  ltugt in US, ltogt i England
• Representation of the vowel in thought as ltogt
  only in N. Ireland
• But local fashion plays a part too why ryt in
  Europe not US?

45
Examples of localization

• S. England I faught nah e neva wud
• S. England giv us bell or somink init m8 l8ron
• N. Ireland So ne othercrc wit ya?
• Wales this skwl iz cwl
• US Well, Im gonna go watch Andy play video games
• BUT
• Ireland (north) just fot Id leave ya a wee
  message to say ave fun dis weekend

46
Meanwhile, in the Outer Circle..

• hahs cam bak home after dat
• den 7 liaos yasmiin LAOPO sae wan go lot 1
  again DIAOS .
• cuuz der got nite market llors .
• okayys n iie went again . DIAOS .
• 1 dae go der 2 time alrights !
• iie noe ii was mad but jus wanna buy handbag
  llors
• x walk around n ii dint find ani nice one llarr
  !
• pek cek liaos
• den go in lot1 AHA ! found 1 quiite niice de
• buy yasmiin llaopo sae the cloth nortt niice de .
  N SO ii diidnt buy llor DIIAOS .
• so next to it ii found another one llarrh .
• verii nice tis time yasmin laopo oso agree to it
  18.40 lors kays llarrh so BOUGHT it !

47
So will we all end upspeaking American English
with different accents?

• No, probably not in the inner and outer circles,
  but glocalized variety is not so great as local,
  and in the expanding circle there is no
  identity-base for localization, only global
  identities (local would be L2)

48
Differentiation
49
The universal vowel quadrilateral
Front
Back
Central
High/close
u
i
Rounded/ Unrounded
o
e
?
Mid
?
?

a
?
Low/open
50
?
51
What does New Zealand English sound like?

• In particular kit, dress, trap

52
/?/ centring in NZ (Trudgill, Gordon, and Lewis
1998)
53
The NZ vowel shifts (Watson et al 2000)
54
Arthur the rat

• One fine day his aunt Josephine said to him, "Now
  look here! No one will ever care for you if you
  carry on like this. You have no more mind of your
  own than a greasy old blade of grass!" The young
  rat coughed and looked wise, as usual, but said
  nothing.
• "Don't you think so?" said his aunt stamping with
  her foot, for she couldn't bear to see the young
  rat so coldblooded. "I don't know," was all he
  ever answered, and then he'd walk off to think
  for an hour or more, whether he would stay in his
  hole in the ground or go out into the loft.
• One night the rats heard a loud noise in the
  loft. It was a very dreary old place. The roof
  let the rain come washing in, the beams and
  rafters had all rotted through, so that the whole
  thing was quite unsafe. At last one of the
  joists gave way, and the beams fell with one edge
  on the floor. The walls shook, and the cupola
  fell off, and all the rats' hair stood on end
  with fear and horror.

55
What does English sound like in Detroit?

• In particular, kit, dress, trap, lot, strut

56
(No Transcript)
57
The St. Louis Corridor
Core areas of the NCCS
Labov, Ash and Boberg 2005
58
?
?
59
Hi. My name is Monica, and Ive grown up in
Lansing my entire life. My parents are from
Lansing, and my grandparents are from Lansing
too. I went to Waverly High School, which is
about ten minutes away, and I went to St. Gerard
for my primary education. (Thanks to Denis
Preston)
Monica /?/ is front up /?/ is back Lansing
grandparents /æ/ is high front ten
education /?/ is low back
60
Lingua franca, global English, Euro-English
61
If not American, maybe a lingua franca norm?

• Could there be a written norm different from the
  current US-British-Australian one?
• Could standardisation be weaker?
• Could there be an international/global/lingua-fran
  ca/Euro variety?

62
Lingua franca English situations

• Comunication is going on in English but no one or
  almost no one is a native
• Railway stations, airports, border crossings,
  youth hostels, hotels, lectures, group work, pop
  festivals, meetings, negotiations, ASEAN,
• Experience?

63
Lingua franca at the sharp end

• Italian immigration officials meet West African
  boat survivors
• A Who helped you to escape from Nigeria?
• B Di car kom pick os and I bin drive for Niger
  hhh di awa yansh dem bin break hhh for di uranium
  mine dem hhh for won year
• A Did they did they make you to work in the
  mines who
• B Yeah hh di mine dem bin give di money for go
  awa away for Agadez.. Hie won truck kom drive for
  di desert... After two days di sand bin make os
  gtwakawakalt for di sun, mek Libya border no see os
• A The border, eh? Hhh You had no documents, eh?
  

64
Basilect in a lingua-franca situation

• Allan James gives this example of
  Austrian/Italian/Slovenian conversation
• A I don wanna drink alcohol
• B Me too
• C I also not

65
Syrian (A) - Danish (B) lingua frnca negotiation

• Alan Firths example  
• A So I told him not to send the cheese after the
  blowing in the customs. We dont want the order
  after the cheese is blowing
• B I see, yes.
• A So I dont know what we can do with this order
  now. What do you think we should do with this all
  blowing, Mr Hansen?
• B Im not uh (pause). Blowing? What is this, too
  big or what?
• A No the cheese is bad Mr Hansen. It is like
  fermenting in the customs cool rooms.
• B Ah, its gone off.
• A Yes, its gone off.

66
Beyza Björkmans academic lingua franca features

• 
  interaction lectures
• Incorrect word forms/word formation 7 6
• Incorrect analytic comparative 15 18
• Incorrect plural forms/countability 19
  30____
• Not marking the plural on the noun 37
  154
• Article usage 30 159
• Double comparatives/ 16 8
• Subject-verb agreement 53 126
• Tense and aspect 33 130
• Double comparatives/ superlatives 16
  8
• Question formulation 56 18
• Pre-/ Post- dislocation 19
  88
• Word order 23
  31
• Negation 16
  12

67
Lingua franca discourse features

• Successful communication adapted to needs of the
  situation (topic abandonment common in
  common-room chat, rare in dairy industry
  negotiations)
• Tolerance of variety
• Phonological problems from certain features
• Need for lexical etc strategies

68
Lingua franca code features

• Almost confined to oral and informal-written
  (formal writing highly standardized to NS-like
  norm, but tolerance increasing?)
• Varied accent, often similar deviations from NS
  use, apparently to avoid redundancy, maximize
  explicitness.

69
The (Spoken) Lingua Franca Core

• By experiment and observation we can find out
  which features of spoken English are necessary
  for communication in instrumental lingua-franca
  situations.
• While there is no reason why these should be the
  only ones we focus on, they should be
  prioritised.
• Jenkins phonological core, Seidlhofers
  lexicogrammatical and pragmatic core.

70
Euro-English?

• Adverb position and focussing My last point in
  relation to the environmental benefits is that
  the enlargement is important for the environment
  also in the existing Member States .
• Verb complementation patterns may be different I
  am particularly pleased to be able to address you
  today . I appreciate that we can exchange views
  and increase our mutual understanding on our
  common goal.
• Prepositions may be different prices on raw
  materials, I do not agree to the charges on the
  EU that it.... agree with the charges against
• minor morphological irregularities may be
  regularised trees have no leafs

71
Lingua franca among exchange students

• ..........though here in Sweden he practices
  English every day, he practices it mainly with
  Erasmus students. People who are in his same
  linguistic situation. These students could speak
  better or worse, but they are not the better
  sample to follow. But since they speak different
  languages from him, they are not making gross
  Spanish mistakes. He will develop a kind of
  Euro-English
• But will he? Will his Euro-English be like
  others Euro-English?

72
Is there already a Euro-English norm?

• Sandra Mollin no evidence of a new norm in
  informal EU-oriented texts,
• or in European academics attitudes
• And probably a norm will not emerge because there
  is no Euro-English community or identity to
  support it lingua-franca English is English in
  certain types of situation, not a variety.
• Marko Modiano thinks the EU should formulate a
  Euro-English norm.

73
Websites

• http//www.english.su.se/staff/shaw
• http//www.britishcouncil.org/learning-research-en
  glishnext.htm
• NJES website https//gupea.ub.gu.se/dspace/handle
  /2077/204
• IDEA website http//web.ku.edu/idea/
• Vetenskapsengelska med svensk kvalitet? Jansson,
  Erland
• http//www.diva-portal.org/sh/abstract.xsql?dbid1
  601