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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 101

Thematic Session (Papers belonging to this Thematic Session)

Sociophonetic research in emerging varieties

Authors: Zerbian, Sabine
Submitted by: Zerbian, Sabine (University of Potsdam, Germany)

Cities have always been the meeting place for speakers of different language backgrounds and ethnicities. Consequently, different recognizable group dialects of any given language emerge more easily and quicker in these places than elsewhere. Emerging varieties are often defined along ethnic lines, e.g. British Asian English, Black South African English, or Türkendeutsch. Similarly, in the paradigm of World Englishes, emerging recognizable group dialects of English are termed according to their country of origin, e.g. Singapore English or Nigerian English, or the language background of the speakers, e.g. Bengali English, Tswana English. It is a common explanation for all these new varieties that they differ from the "standard language" because linguistic characteristics from the “mother tongue” have been transferred in a process of language acquisition that has or had taken place at some stage. As a consequence, the linguistic features of these ethnically or regionally delineated varieties are often described with reference to the dominant language of an (earlier) generation, e.g. the language of the immigrating generation.

Next to linguistic transfer also other reasons can account for differences from a standard language. E.g., it is known that language contact opens up the opportunity of linguistic innovation, i.e. the emergence of new structures in a language.  And of course, sociolinguistic research has long shown that language varies within a society even if speakers share a common language background.

This thematic session wants to bring together researchers who are interested in sociophonetic variation in emerging contact varieties that involve ethnicity and/or language background as a variable. The aim of the thematic session is both to report on observable linguistic variation and to try and disentangle processes of language transfer, innovation, and sociolinguistic variation. Contributions are also welcome which concentrate on methodological issues in this area of research, or contributions which critically investigate if it is ethnicity and/or language background which are the determining variable for a given aspect of linguistic variation, or if other sociolinguistic variables, such as social class, are taking over.