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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 892

Part of Session 177: Field methods in multicultural megacities (Other abstracts in this session)

Contact in the City: Data and Method in the Study of Ethnolinguistic Variation

Authors: Walker, James Anthony; Hoffman, Michol Faith
Submitted by: Walker, James Anthony (York University, Canada)

Conducting sociolinguistic research entails satisfying two basic requirements: a representative sample of speakers and appropriate data (Labov 1984). In large-scale studies of urban North American speech communities, these requirements have normally been satisfied by randomly sampling speakers stratified according to a standard set of social characteristics (sex, age, social class, etc.) and by using the sociolinguistic interview to access the speakers’ vernacular (e.g. Labov 1966). However, studies of smaller communities (e.g. Meyerhoff & Walker, in press; Rickford 1987) have shown that standard social categories may be less meaningful than locally salient distinctions and that random sampling may be less effective in obtaining appropriate data, especially if the vernacular is stigmatized.

Such considerations are pertinent to the study of ethnolinguistic variation in urban speech communities. Voluntary residential segregation (‘ethnic enclaves’) means that random sampling may not garner sufficient numbers of speakers from the relevant ethnic groups. Stratifying the sample according to every ethnic group will result in an unwieldy corpus size. Moreover, since ethnically marked ways of speaking often serve to distinguish in/out-group status (Clyne et al. 2001), such features may not occur in situations where the speaker and interlocutor do not share ethnic characteristics.

‘Contact in the City’ (Hoffman & Walker 2010) is a large-scale project investigating ethnolinguistic variation in Toronto English. Rather than randomly sampling the entire speech community, we have targeted specific ethnic groups, on the basis of their demographic representation and salience in the city. To obtain appropriate data, we have employed in-group community members to record naturalistic interaction with members of their own extended social networks. In addition to eliciting detailed information about speakers’ attitudes toward and identification with their relevant ethnicity, we compare the use of linguistic features (both general and ethnically marked) across generations and ethnic groups.

References

Clyne, M., E. Eisikovits & L. Tollfree. 2001. Ethnic varieties of Australian English. In D. Blair & P. Collins (eds.), English in Australia. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 223-38.

Hoffman, M.F. & J.A. Walker. 2010. Ethnolects and the city: Ethnic orientation and linguistic variation in Toronto English. Language Variation and Change 22: 37-67.

Labov, W. 1966. The social stratification of English in New York City. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

Labov, W. 1984. Field methods of the project on linguistic change and variation. In J. Baugh & J. Sherzer (eds.), Language in Use: Readings in Sociolinguistics. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 28-54.

Meyerhoff, M. & J.A. Walker. in press. Grammatical variation in Bequia (St Vincent and the Grenadines). Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages.

Rickford, J.R. 1987. Dimensions of a creole continuum. Stanford: Stanford University Press.