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Programme: accepted abstracts

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Abstract ID: 1281

Part of Session 191: Language variation, identity and urban Space (Other abstracts in this session)

Constructing identity and perceiving ethnicity in Citétaal: a multimethodological approach

Authors: Ceuleers, Evy (1); Marzo, Stefania (2)
Submitted by: Ceuleers, Evy (University College Ghent / Ghent University, Belgium)

Many urban regions have demographically, socioculturally and ethnically changed into multicultural environments which has led to the emergence and use of multilingual speech styles and codes, particularly among young speakers (Bucholtz & Skapoulli 2009; Cheshire et al. 2011; Nortier 2009; Rampton 1995).

Citétaal is a label that is used to refer to a variety of Dutch spoken by (local and multiethnic) youngster in the Eastern part of Flanders (Limburg). It is a melting pot language, based on Dutch but with a high amount of code mixture from immigrant languages, mostly Italian, Turkish and Moroccan. In a previous study (Marzo - Ceuleers 2011) we have demonstrated that Citétaal seems to be spreading among speakers in Limburg and that it is shifting from marking ethnicity to indexing a new, localized identity: a sense of belonging to and identifying with the local neighbourhoods or cités were these youngsters live and hang around. Moreover, our data suggests that the emergence of this new identity seems to be related to the mechanism of enregisterment (Johnstone et al. 2006).

In the present paper, we will focus on the perception of the Citétaal variety by people (youngsters and adults). By means of different techniques (a.o. matched guise, an adapted matched guise technique and focus groups) we aim at understanding (a) how the Citétaal variety (in terms of the Citétaal accent) is perceived, by people living both in Limburg as well as in other Belgian provinces and (b) to which extent youngsters and people link the Citétaal accent to a certain locality, viz. the cité or neighbourhood.

References

Bucholtz, M. & E. Skapoulli. 2009. Youth Language at the Intersection: From Migration to Globalization. Pragmatics 19:1.1-16

Cheshire, J., P. Kerswill, S. Fox & E. Torgersen. 2011. Contact, the feature pool and the speech community: The emergence of Multicultural London English. Journal of Sociolinguistics 15/2: 151–196

Jaspers, J. 2006. Stylizing Standard Dutch by Moroccan boys in Antwerp. Linguistics and education 17, n° 2: 131-156.

Johnstone, B., J. Andrus, and A.E. Danielson. 2006. Mobility, Indexicality, and the Enregisterment of “Pittsburghese.”Journal of English Linguistics 32, n° 4: 77-104.

Marzo, S. & E. Ceuleers. 2011. The Use of Citétaal among Adolescents in Limburg. The Role of Space Appropriation in Language Variation and Change. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 32, 451-460.

Nortier, J. 2009. Nederland Meertalenland. Feiten, perspectieven en meningen over meertaligheid. Amsterdam: Aksant.

Rampton, B. 1995. Crossing: Language and Ethnicity among Adolescents. London/ New York: Longman