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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 774

Part of Session 105: Language and Superdiversity (Other abstracts in this session)

“Tings a gwan”: Linguistic Superdiversity in Contemporary Minority Ethic Artistic Performances

Authors: Clark, Urszula; Asprey, Esther; Dakin, Brian; Hussain, Ajmal; Mahay, Anit; Yasmin, Samia
Submitted by: Clark, Urszula (Aston University, United Kingdom)

This paper considers patterns of language identification and identity construction conveyed in two performances given by young minority ethnic performers in the UK’s second largest city, Birmingham. The data upon which this paper draws has been gathered as part of an ongoing ESRC standard grant project entitled Language, Performance and Region: Discourse and Sociocultural Identity in the wider western Midlands. One major aim of this project is to investigate the part played by performance in creating, maintaining and challenging imagined communities; the extent to which both local and global linguistic forms are present within performance data and the ideological implications of such use.

The two performances under discussion here were recorded in 2011 at two different performance venues in Birmingham associated with the minority ethnic arts scene. They show how the performers incorporate the Black British English prevalent in use by Brummie performers claiming Afro-Caribbean heritage, whilst at the same time, drawing upon other linguistic influences, especially ones taken from more contemporary, global and musical genres. In this way, the paper argues, performers such as Andre ‘Soul’ Hesson and Deci4life can be described as mixing linguistic forms of the past and the present, and across place and space, giving rise to new linguistic forms that cannot be straightforwardly categorised as of simply ‘Black’ performers. The paper also considers what the performers have to say about the language they use in their performances, and how, if indeed at all, these register a sense of place and identity.

Through analysis of performance recordings, performer and audience member interviews, this paper identifies the ways in which these performers enregister specific features. The paper shows how they do this by drawing  upon both  the linguistic usage of earlier generations, and  linguistic features traditionally associated with the broader Brummie community. Analysis also shows that these features defy categorisation. Our performers draw on a range of contemporary music genres for their influences, whilst still incorporating Rastafarian lexis into their vocabularies. They can switch in the course of one speech segment between phonological systems which are redolent of Birmingham, and those which index American English alongside Jamaican Creole and varieties of British English, most notably London English. The performers,  Andre ‘Soul’ Hesson and Deci4life,  are highly talented linguistic players, who draw on the various influences that circulate within and beyond Birmingham’s minority ethnic communities and the musical cultures associated with these (Back 1995). In this paper, we attempt to disentangle some of the linguistic patterns which their performances and subsequent rationalisations of these performances display; thus highlighting the complexity of youth identities and language forms in contemporary super-diverse settings.

References:

Back, L (1995) X Amount of Sat Siri Akal!: Apache Indian, Reggae Music and Intermezzo Culture, in Harris, R. and Rampton, B (2003) The Language, Ethnicity and Race Reader. London. Routledge