…Will we all talk like Americans?

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: she’s 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. Nigerian planets Scottish pam RP back (17) Older RP back (87) GA bad Northern US cities back NZ rat Examples of /æ/

7. Levels: where do you expect most difference among varieties?where do you expect most Americanization?

8. Kachru’s 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

12. Limits to Americanization in NZ Mayerhoff and Niedzelski write: Even if New Zealanders are trying tosound 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. Cameron’s 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 Meyerhoff’s 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 people’s beliefs about the origins of quotatives (Buchstaller)

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 nation’s 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 uverdan 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 datgeezer 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.

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 /θ/

37. Representations of THINK /θ/

38. Representations of THING /θ/

39. Summary: dental fricatives • /ð/ is represented by <d> in all three groups, but more in Ireland than the others. • The spelling <da> suggests that this is ‘cool’ AAVE/hiphop/London Jamaican. • <v> occurs only (?) in wiv in England • The spelling <de> suggests that in Ireland <d>also represents Irish pronunciation • /θ/ is represented by /t/ in all three groups, but more in Ireland than the others, perhaps representing Irish as well as ’cool’ pronunciation • /θ/ 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 writer’s system: • Representation of /ɑ: ↄ: / by spellings with <r> only in non-rhotic group • Representation of the vowel in what, ’cause as <u> in US, <o> i England • Representation of the vowel in thought as <o> 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 fotId 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 Central Back High/close u i Rounded/ Unrounded o e ə Mid  ↄ Low/open a ɑ

50. ɒ