English Ethnicity Essay

“Evaluate the idea that a person’s ethnicity is the biggest influence on their language use.”

Ethnicity is a concept that relates to aspects of a person’s cultural identity. It can be argued that
a person's ethnicity can influence their language use, which can be seen in examples such as
pidgins and creoles. Nationality (which is often confused with the concept of ethnicity) refers to
the more technical/legal issue of which nation you formally belong to, whereas ethnicity is more
to do with who is in your community, this includes aspects such as language, religious beliefs,
family heritage etc… .

Increasing diversity in populations such as Britain has led to increasing variation in the usage of
English as more speakers have different ethnic backgrounds, largely due to language contact
(When speakers of different languages interact, often resulting in some kind of blended
language). The basis of language contact is where the term pidgin originates from. A Pidgin is a
simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups
that do not have a language in common. Many of the world’s pidgins derive from English, Dutch,
French, and Portuguese. Pidgins often occur through certain circumstances which force
different language groups together. Reasons for this include the colonisation of countries (eg:
British Empire) or through trade (eg: the slave trade). These forced circumstances create the
need for a means of communication between the groups of people who have no common
language. Usually, the dominant language (belonging to the group with the greatest social or
economic power) becomes adapted and simplified, thus creating a pidgin. Some features often
found in pidgins include non-standard pronouns, few prepositions, and l-vocalisation. Features
such as these can be found in the Hawaiian pidgin, which is influenced by Cantonese, English
and Hawaiian, as well as originating on sugarcane plantations as a form of communication
between residents. This pidgin includes lexis such as the ‘d’ sound substituting the ‘th’ sound
(da instead the), and the ‘k’ sound substituting the ‘t’ sound in example such as ‘respek’ instead
of ‘respect’.

Pidgins generally arise out of necessity eg: for trade purposes. However, once the need for the
pidgin has ended (eg: trade ends), they can disappear. Contrasting this, if a pidgin is used more
over time and more extensively, it may lead to it becoming the first language of a new
generation of speakers. When this process occurs, the pidgin language becomes a creole.
Creolization is what has happened to Hawaiian pidgin. Although still referred to as a pidgin, it is
now spoken by children as their native language and has therefore become Hawaiian creole.
Jamaican creole is another example, and is one of the most common creole forms.
Approximately 3.2 million people are native speakers of Jamaican creole. The language first
developed the 17th century, when slaves from Africa were exposed to the dialectal forms of
English spoken by the slaveholders. Some of the features of Jamaican creole include vowel

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shifting, multiple negatives and use of superlatives (eg: baddest worstest), as well as the
omission of auxiliary verbs (eg: me not).

Attitudes towards pidgin and creole languages often vary depending on if the opinion is from a
prescriptivist or descriptivist point of view. Prescriptivists (belief that one variety of a language is
superior eg: Received Pronunciation) regard pidgins and creoles as corrupt and imperfect
varieties of other languages. They also link this imperfect view to the speaker's, believing that
they are similarly deficient, arguing that the speakers are socially, culturally, and intellectually
inferior to the speakers of the original language that the pidgin or creole is derived from.
Contrasting to this view, Descriptivists (nonjudgmental approach to language that focuses on
how it is actually spoken and written. Also embrace language change and variation) recognise
pidgins and creoles as efficient, functional systems of communication with their own internally
consistent grammatical rules and structures. They also believe that creoles are an important
symbol of group identity and solidarity. Often creole literature and reggae lyrics (in the case of
Jamaican creole) help to create and support this sense of identity. It could also be argued that
creoles are a form a covert prestige, as they are of a non-standard variety, and are
acquired/used by those who desire to belong to a group or community. They are also often
utilised by minority groups within society.

Evolved from Jamaican creole is the idea of London Jamaican, as studied by Mark Sebba. He
said that a particular variety of the Jamaican creole (labelled ‘London Jamaican’) has evolved
due to language needs of immigrant communities that have settled in England, and provided
2nd, 3rd, or further generation speakers. Sebba defines London Jamaican as a language with a
combination of phonological, lexical, and grammatical elements from Caribbean creole forms,
cockney forms, and standard English forms. As London Jamaican derives from three main
language varieties, the idea of code switching can be applied to the language. Code switching is
the ability of a speaker to switch between different language varieties in his/her language use,
often with other individuals who are able to do this and have shared experiences of several
different language forms. London Jamaican is an ideal example of this, as the speakers have
the ability to code switch between cockney, standard English, and Caribbean creole throughout
conversation.

MLE (multicultural london english) is another language variety from the UK like London
Jamaican. It was initially researched by Sue Fox, who focused on the dialect of youths from a
variety of different ethnic backgrounds across London in the 21st century. She found that MLE
is mainly used by youths in Greater London, but is spreading to other areas of the UK such as
Bristol and Birmingham, partly due to grime artists prominent use of MLE in their lyrics.
Examples of MLE include “Blud” (mate), “Peng” (good), and “Ends” (area). MLE has
connotations of family and shown through nouns such as blud and fam. Along with this, it also
creates a sense of identity and belonging for the speaker similar to Jamaican creole, leading it
to being defined as having covert prestige. As well as this, MLE’s grammar features include Th

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fronting (“fink” instead of “think”), Th stopping (“dem” instead of “them”), and non-standard
pronouns such as “mam”. Although MLE is heavily influenced by ethnicity, shown by its use
within black communities, it also has a range of other influences that could be argued to be
more influential. These include age (MLE is predominantly used by younger demographics,
which led to MLE’s alternative name “multi ethnic youth dialect”), and class (often it is the
working class communities in areas such as London and Birmingham that speak in MLE, as it
helps them gain a sense of identity and meaning that they cannot otherwise achieve from
society).

Although ethnicity is a definite factor in an individual’s language use, there are other factors that
also influence a person's language, such as contextual and social aspects eg: who we are
talking to, their class, and their social status. Language can be used to accommodate other
people in conversation and put on a performance in social situations. This idea of
accommodating our language was explored by Howard Giles (Accommodation Theory), who
suggested that we adjust our speech to accommodate the person we’re talking to. Depending
on the social status of the person, this may result in either convergence or divergence.
Convergence is the more common of the two, and decreases the social distance between two
people. It occurs when we move our speech closer to that of the other person. There are two
types of convergence, upwards (eg: someone with a working class accent eliminating stronger
aspects of their accent for an interview with a RP speaker, and downwards (eg: someone with a
RP accent toning down their accent to speak to someone with a ‘lower class’ accent). On the
other hand, divergence is where people’s speech styles move further apart, which has the effect
of emphasizing the language differences between two people, eg: supporters of rival football
teams exaggerating their regional accents in an argument, although this may be done
unconsciously. This theory shows how people may use language to perform differently to how
they would normally represent themselves. eg: eliminating regional aspects of language to
perform as a higher class in an interview. Although this may seem beneficial, it could be argued
that this is a prescriptivist viewpoint, as it appears to discriminate against alternative
forms/varieties of English, seemingly preferring standard forms of English in situations such as
interviews and regarding the use of alternative forms in these scenarios as wrong.

Josh Stephens