Month: October 2020

Keeping up with language change and social media

Elizabeth M.

As I walked in a classroom as a teacher for the first time, I had preconceived ideas as to “how a teacher should talk.” To attain this speech goal, I made a priority of creating a distance between students and myself with the use of language. My relationship between class and speech shifted to a model that unconsciously, fit the idea of borrowed prestige. My language use was assessed by my teacher-mentor and my supervisor, which enhanced my linguistic insecurity. I was very self-conscious of how my accent, expressions, and vocabulary were perceived by students, teachers, and my supervisor. I wanted to live up to my expectations of the teaching profession; thus, used more “standard”, informal to formal language to reach this goal.  Little did my students know, I not only understood their language use, but used similar slang terms with friends outside of the classroom. This allowed me to make meaningful connections and generally add to their discussions in class. That is until last year. For the first time, I was unintentionally eavesdropping on a conversation between students and could not understand nor relate to what they were saying. I am on most social media apps, so I was perplexed by the idea that I was possibly already out of the loop. I texted my colleagues to see if this was happening to them as well. Their reply was: It’s a TikTok thing! 

As social media platforms gain more and more followers, the effects of media on language change may increase accordingly. There are 3.80 billion social media users in the world, and this number is only growing. The considerable growth of social media is an example of how rapidly social behaviours, and along similar lines, how language is changing. The average person will spend more than 100 days online this year. This sheds light on the significant amount of time that is spent online and how our use of language may shift, change, and develop on these platforms. On a daily basis, an average of 3 hours is spent on social networks and messaging. We communicate differently online than we do in face-to-face interactions; thus, creating new language forms and new ways of expressing meaning. All of these statistics and statements, overwhelming as they may be, indicate a strong growth in social media use and illustrate new avenues for development related to language change. 

As we can see in the chart, younger generations use social media more than older generations. Gen Z is not in this chart, but one can only imagine their use of certain social media platforms, as they are the first group in history that has not known a world without internet. Gen Z spends significantly more time on apps like Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok than other generations. Language references like hashtag, DMs, grammable, selfie, GIF, unfriend, and photobomb emerged from the internet. Why is this important in the field of education and language teaching and learning? Understanding students and their multiple realities is crucial for teachers to be able to connect and relate to students on a deeper, more significant level. It may be valuable to examine to which extent these online communication platforms influence language change. My feeling is, although language of the mass media doesn’t often generate significant language change, online language use and its rapid growth may have more long-lasting impacts on language. As social media is becoming increasingly widespread on a global scale, the impacts generated in and through these platforms may affect all spheres of life. Social media is changing the ways in which people communicate and, as a teacher, I am looking forward to seeing these changes in the classroom and asking my fellow colleagues: “Ok, which social media app do I have to download now?”

References

Kemp. S. (2020). Digital trends 2020: Every single stat you need to know about the internet. TNW. Retrieved from https://thenextweb.com/growth-quarters/2020/01/30/digital-trends-2020-every-single-stat-you-need-to-know-about-the-internet/

Mohsin, M. (2020). 10 Social Media Statistics you need to know in 2020. Oberlo. Retrieved from https://www.oberlo.com/blog/social-media-marketing-statistics

Van Herk, G.(2018). What is sociolinguistics? (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell.

The Value of Language

by Jacqueline Mallais

This week on Instagram @TEACHFORTHECULTURE  posted “you could have ‘perfect english’ and still be ineffective in reaching and teaching the youth you are trying to reach.” Thousands responded to the post and the hashtags #CantColonizeTheseSounds! #EmbraceWhomYouAreAndTheLanguageThatComesWithThat #AAVE (African-American Vernacular English) #Patois and #theirlanguage. The discussion surrounding the post was passionate and clear that the ideas of language and power are a very real issue in education today. 

View this post on Instagram

Some a y’all ain’t ready to hear this tho!!!! lol .. unlearn!!! – This is why you will often see me switching back and forth between the way I “speak” even on this platform … ha! – I grew up speaking 3 languages, understanding the rules of all 3, and switching up between them even though I was always told to “speak properly” (which translates to speak “‘standard’ White-American English”) – I know HOWWW to speak and write “standard” with great fluency, but nothing could ever take away the LOVEEEEE I have for speaking in the languages of my cultures and the power of being able to switch between them depending on how I feel and what I am trying to communicate!! – Don’t think that just because your “standard English” is “perfect”, that you will automatically be able to communicate content effectively to our kids!!!!! (especially if you are working on a diverse school/university/setting!!!!) — *As a classroom teacher, for many years I was able to flip between my languages (which I shared with my students), and my students CONSISTENTLY OUT-PERFORMED STUDENTS OF THE SAME GRADE LEVEL ACROSS THE DISTRICT and the state! As an educator today, I still flip between languages when I am moved to, depending on context, content, and what I am trying to communicate. – It’s a gift and a privilege, that should not be downplayed or made to feel “othered” or “not enough” by people whom do not have that same privilege. – #CantColonizeTheseSounds!#EmbraceWhomYouAreAndTheLanguageThatComesWithThat #AAVE #Patois and #theirlanguage

A post shared by Teach for the Culture ® (@teachfortheculture) on

Linguistic prestige is directly related to power and all that it implies and these educators were highly aware of the consequences language-use choice had on their students. Some mentioned how their students opened up more and participated more when their teacher went “island” as they called it, because it made them feel like they were a part of a social group that valued them and the language they spoke. Some mentioned that teachers in certain districts would be fired for using “substandard” English. And still others spoke of a guilt when they accidentally code-switched in front of students. 

The language of the dominant social group clearly carries prestige. I never more clearly understood this than when I followed the thread and found myself listening to Jamila Lyiscott’s Ted Talk titled 3 Ways To Speak English.  In four minutes, she explains that the status of a language is what you can do with it and we need to not only be aware of this but change the way we think about and value different language variations and code switching.

With a snap election at play here in Canada last week, the topic of code switching brought to mind an interesting commentary on how politicians code switch. The discussion was from our last election four years ago and it was about how Jagmeet Singh was an expert at code switching and how it worked to his advantage.  He is able to authentically relate to a wide range of voters of different ages and different backgrounds. He never comes off as sounding performative. South of the border, Barrack Obama did the same. He is able to customize his word choice and register moving easily between discourse on policy and greeting basketball coaches, sounding both authentic and relatable. These politicians are able to do this so effectively because it is truly who they are. Anyone else attempting these switches just sound disingenuous. We see here just how connected the languages we speak are connected with our identities and how they wield power.    

In further following comments on the Instagram post, Dr. April Baker-Bell is mentioned along with her book Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, and Pedagogy. I am now eagerly awaiting  my Amazon package. The book has been lauded as an invaluable resource for everyone in education today.  I can’t wait to look into and put into practice more antiracist language pedagogies.  Learning about and being aware of language variations and their value is imperative for all teachers. Deciding what to do with them is the challenge. What do we do with a variation? https://clpe.org.uk/poetryline/poems/what-do-we-do-variation

Whiteness, Standard English and Racism in a Chinese ESL Context

Tianyi Long

Picture from the copyright-free photo website: upsplash.com

I had an internship in an educational recruitment company, one that helps foreign educators find teaching jobs in Chinese international schools or training centres. Usually, recruiters would categorise the foreign jobseekers through tags. Some are innocent, like the target city they prefer or the subject they’d like to teach. But there is a frequently used jargon for defining them, Mu Bai (母白, literally “native White”), short for 英语为母语的白人 (“native English-speaking White”), with which the resume of a jobseeker would be placed into a more “high-quality database” for a better job recommendation. I’d like to tell you more about the hidden logic underlying this suspiciously racist practice, and try to link it to the larger picture of language teaching and racism.

As Van Herk (2018) suggests, people often mark their ethnicity by speaking a different variety of the same language than other ethnic groups, like AAE in English. Although we are exposed to the updated academic arguments that question the definition of so-called standard English, or even the existence of a discrete, whole entity as “language” (e.g., Pennycook & Makoni, 2007), it is still the social reality that the English spoken by (maybe middle-class) American or British Whites is viewed as the Standard English. In an ESL context, learners wish to pick up Standard English for it is associated with more power and social resources, due to the superior position of Whiteness in social power relationships. Language learning, therefore, is viewed as a key to resources and decent social status, rather than a communicative tool. (Interesting fact: many Chinese students learning Standard English complain about the “bad accents” of their interlocutors speaking a minor variety of English, such as the AAE, Indian English, and even Chinese English).

Also, while linguists (like Curtis & Romney, 2006) are questioning the definition of nativeness, the education market in China defines native speakers as “citizens from native English countries” such as the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, etc. This is because the Chinese government has long promoted the belief of equating ethnicity with nationality by incorporating the 56 ethnic groups of China into one shared “Chinese” identity. (This is also why it sometimes strikes people that there’s little awareness of racial and political correctness in China. Employers can explicitly require their employees to be White without being accused of racism—because they don’t see racism is a problem.) Therefore, the political concept of nationality has become the underlying proof of their ethnic identity, and their language, despite the fact that these countries can be multilingual and their citizens are not necessarily fluent in or feel comfortable speaking English. 

Such phenomena related to Whiteness and racism appear rather explicitly in the Chinese context. They may be much more implicit since political correctness relating to racism has been a critical issue in many countries. But just as Sensoy & DiAnglo (2014) and Crump (2014) suggests, the requirements of being political correct often silence and stigmatise the discussion of racial issues, thus sustain the structural inequality of race. So, I’d like to hear from you on whether you have noticed similar beliefs in your context!

References: 

Crump, A. (2014). Introducing LangCrit: Critical Language and Race Theory. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 11(3), 207-224. doi:10.1080/15427587.2014.936243

Curtis, A., & Romney, M. (Eds.). (2006). Color, race, and English language teaching: Shades of meaning. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. 

Pennycook, A., & Makoni, S. (2007). Disinventing and Reconstituting Languages. Multilingual Matters. 

Sensoy, O., & DiAngelo, R. (2017). Is Everyone Really Equal?: An Introduction to Key Concepts in Social Justice Education (2nd ed.). Teacher’s College Press. 

Van Herk, G.(2018). What is sociolinguistics? (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell.

Education and Poverty

Sabrina Chang

Being a bilingual or even multilingual person has become a norm in Taiwan lately. Parents are eager to have their children learn English as early as they can. One of the students I tutor is only 2 years old, cannot deliver Chinese sentences properly but knows what the “Statue of Liberty” is. Her mom is very anxious about her child getting behind other children of the same age so she asked me to teach her daughter English as much as I can. On the other hand, my sixth-grade student in a local school does not even know what an “airplane” is. They only learn English for two hours per week and have little contact with this language. Their parents are not able to provide a good language learning environment for them. What led to this phenomenon?

From my point of view, it is directly related to class and poverty. Parents who are more economically available want to immerse their children in a bilingual environment. Whether it is to hire a tutor for them or send them to cram schools, parents use whatever means they can to help their children get ahead of others. On the other hand, people who are in a lower class do not have as much choice. They work from 9 to 5 every day and have no extra money for their children to go to cram schools. It is not to say that children from lower classes have lower achievements than those from higher classes, however, they must be work twice as hard to reach the same height as them.

According to my students who are studying in international schools, most of them have one-on-one tutors who guide their homework at least once a week. Parents are willing to pay high salaries to teachers who are able to help their children improve. I have also asked my students in local schools whether they have tutors. The answer is, most of them do not. If you ask me whether these two groups of students have differences in terms of academic performance, I will have to say, absolutely. However, they do not have much choice, do they? Children living in poverty may have to make money as soon as they are old enough. While other children are doing their schoolwork and holding spring fairs, those children, especially girls, must stop going to school and make money so they have food to eat.

People always say, education ends poverty. But how is education going to be fair when children start at an unfair place from the moment they are born? How can teachers help students have an appropriate language learning environment when they have difficulties maintaining their basic needs?

References:

HOW DOES EDUCATION AFFECT POVERTY? IT CAN HELP END IT.

https://www.concernusa.org/story/how-education-affects-poverty/

Understanding the Connection Between Education and Poverty

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/poverty-education-satistics-facts/

China safeguards interests of children in poverty

https://archive.shine.cn/nation/China-safeguards-interests-of-children-in-poverty/shdaily.shtml

The impact of poverty on educational outcomes for children

http://ubitaiwan.org/zh/2018/07/16/the-impact-of-poverty-on-educational-outcomes-for-children/

Internet, technology and language learning

Radon.

It is noticeable that, computer technology and its derivation — the internet has played an increasingly indispensable role in language teaching and learning (Mike, 1996). Before, they were more often regarded as supplementary tools to classroom teaching. Whereas, no one would have foreseen that, the unexpected covid-19 pandemic has catapulted the online platform and the other digital resources into the primary media for education. People use technology and the internet more than ever in educational activities at this particular moment and I am no exception. In the past few months, I have personally experienced a lot with teaching and also being taught through this virtual world, which provokes me to reconsider the impacts exerted by these online tools, specifically on language learning.

Education vector created by pikisuperstar – www.freepik.com

I believe that most of us have in a sense benefited from internet recources while learning a language. In the midst of the pandemic, internet and technology enables us to continue acquiring the knowledge that we need in a safer way and guarantees a certain intake of social interaction, despite that it takes some time to familiarize ourselves with multifarious functions. During quarantine, I appreciated that I registered in an online French course, which empowered me to learn French and converse with others. In doing so, I made good use of my time without going out. Furthermore, the internet in general is not only informative (Koua, 2013) but also quite up to date. Notably, the internet is in fact changing the way people speak and even creating new words. For instance, it has contributed to the prosperity of English Text Speak characteristics of abbreviations or acronyms and even non-standard grammar. ASAP (as soon as possible), OMG (oh my God), BTW (by the way) are some telling examples. Besides, myriads of popular words in fact originated from the internet, such as selfie, tweet, hashtags, etc. The traditional textbooks, conversely, fail to provide all these present-day and practical usages of language.

Nevertheless, the internet and technology do not solely generate positive effects. My deepest impression so far is that the cyber world is also undermining the way we internalize knowledge. Take spelling as an example: in July and August of this year, I voluntarily taught English in the House of Friendship (HoF), a charitable organization in Montreal. Again, due to the pandemic, everything had to be performed online. I observed the high accuracy of spelling in the students’ e-version assignments in Word, whereas many more spelling mistakes were discovered in their final exam on Google Forms. My assumption was that the keyboard didn’t correct their spelling automatically in Google Forms, so that students’ actual mastery of spelling was exposed. Actually, it is not merely happening to these beginner-level language learners. The proficient ones and even native speakers are also experiencing the same. Think it over: Do you turn on the “auto-correction” function in your smartphone or use any grammar-check software like “Grammarly” on your computer? Have you ever been in a dilemma where you forgot the correct spelling of a frequently used vocabulary item when you try to write it down? If yes, you might be undergoing something similar to “character amnesia” in China. Unfortunately, the overdependence of technology and internet make us so stuck in the illusion of convenience that we are unaware that our actual knowledge is “getting stolen”.

Book vector created by pch.vector – www.freepik.com

The pandemic situation gives us no choice but to teach and learn primarily through online platforms and it is admittedly the most opportune solution for now. But when it is over, will computer technology and internet remain the core educational methods? We might reconsider it.

Questions for further discussion:
Based on your experience, what’s the biggest drawback/benefit of online language learning and teaching?
As a language teacher, can you share your example of how to use the internet and computer technology to supplement your teaching in the off-line classroom?
What do you think language teaching and learning will be like when the pandemic is over?

References:

Koua, V. (2013). The internet in french language teaching and learning: positive and negative impacts. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 3(4), 564–571. https://doi.org/10.4304/tpls.3.4.564-571

Mike, D. (1996). Internet in the schools: A literacy perspective. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 40(1), 1-13.

Informal Language and Social Membership

MunPat

“Social distinctions within communities, such as prestige and power, tend to be reflected in linguistic behavior”  Gerard Van Herk (pg. 61, 2018)

As someone who did most of her schooling in French immersion, I have always been very confident in my ability to speak and write in French. However, over the years, I have learned that the way I speak French is slightly different compared to someone who went to a French school. I have also noticed that this subtle difference actually influences my status as a Quebecois. 

Attending a French immersion school meant that most of my classes took place in French. The content was delivered in French and the linguistic features I learned were specific to each subject. Once, I stepped out of the classroom, English was the language of the hallways and between friends. Hence, informal conversations always took place in English and formal conversations were reserved for French. Consequently, the way I spoke French in casual conversations was very stiff and awkward. As stated by Gerard Van Herk (2018), second language learners usually discover that their way of speaking is a formal way of speaking, which is not suited for everyday conversations. However, going to a French school meant that the only language of communication inside the school was French, whether that was inside the classroom or in the halls with friends. Therefore, those students have more opportunities to engage in casual conversations that take place in informal French, which has been coined as Joual in Quebec.  

QUEBEC

Over the years, I have learned that my informal French language skills make me sound like an outsider in my own province to other French Quebecois. One stark example of this attitude is when my friend, who went to a French school, and I went to a restaurant. I gave my order to the waiter and he was very respectful and did not engage in any further conversation. However, when my friend ordered, there was an ease and familiarity between the two of them. Their interaction was longer as he gave her suggestions and made jokes. This was definitely a moment where I experienced linguistic insecurity as defined by Van Herk (2018). I was very conscious of how my choice of language influenced my social status in the eyes of the waiter.  

My experience in Quebec has shown me that having the ability to speak in the informal language of a given community allows you to be recognized as a more legitimate member of the society. Gerard Van Herk (2018) describes this as “covert prestige”, where the non-standard language carries a  hidden positive connotation. Since informal language showcases a level of comfortableness and naturalness that is absent in formal language, I think native speakers of that language are more likely to treat you as “one of their own”.  

1.Have you ever changed the way you spoke due to experiencing linguistic insecurity?
2.Do you have any other examples of how language influences social status?

References:

Van Herk, G.(2018). What is sociolinguistics? (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell.

Becoming a Language Ethnographer

Michelle Lefebvre

I was recently reading an article about code-meshing when I came across this piece of advice: “Become a language ethnographer: Complete a neighborhood walk and document the multiple languages in your school community” (Zapata & Laman, 2016, p. 368).  

This article describes several classrooms where teachers encourage their students to use all of their languages. To do this, these teachers bring in dual language books and invite members of the community to give presentations to the class in different languages. The authors argue that this inclusive approach better reflects how students use language and that students are more engaged in literacy tasks when they are able to use language creatively in order to express themselves (Zapata & Laman, 2016). 

The authors of this article suggest that if teachers want to adopt this kind of approach, becoming a language ethnographer might be helpful. Personally, I think they’re right. Surely knowing more about the languages spoken in my community will make me a more effective, democratic teacher. 

While I’m not currently teaching in a school I do hope that one day I will be able to enact this kind of approach. Plus it’s sunny and I’ve been cooped up all day, so I’m setting off to find out which languages (besides English and French) are represented in my neighbourhood. 

Montreal street art
photo from flickr

The first thing I noticed was that this was kind of hard; there are a lot of languages in my neighbourhood and I didn’t recognize some of them. But, with the help of Google translate, here is what I found:

  1. On a Covid-19 public health information poster, I saw Filipino, Vietnamese, Chinese, Yiddish, and Persian. 
  2. I saw many signs written in Malayalam and Tamil on South Indian restaurants and grocery stores. I also saw Tamil on the signs of a jewelry store and a salon.
  3. The sign outside of a synagogue was written in Hebrew. 
  4. Inside a supermarket, I found signs and labels written in Indonesian, Filipino, Vietnamese, and Chinese. 
  5. The sign on a grocery store was written in Russian. 

I think that being more aware of the languages in my neighbourhood could be the first step in building a bridge between the community culture and the school culture. 

So, are you ready to become a language ethnographer? Do you think it provides teachers with useful information? What impact could incorporating elements of students’ cultural backgrounds in the classroom have? 


Reference

Zapata, A., & Laman, T. T. (2016). “I write to show how beautiful my languages are”: Translingual writing instruction in English-dominant classrooms. Language Arts, 93(5), 366-378.

Moving past “The Switch”

Eva

When I was growing up, I would visit my mom’s family in Montreal and les Cantons de l’Est. I have lived most of my life in California, where the prevalence of English quickly overshadowed my first language, French, and I became English dominant. Every year or so, I would visit my grandma in Montreal and be so excited to use my French in the city. Sometimes I would venture off on my own to get a haircut and proudly state “Êtes-vous disponible pour une coupe de cheveux?” My heart would sink as the hairdresser responded, “Yes, of course, have a seat right here.” The switch to English felt so discouraging. It seemed evidence that despite my heritage, I did not belong here and could not even keep up a simple dialogue in French. Back in the coziness of my grand-maman’s kitchen I would keep practicing as she prepared potage, tourtière or croustade aux pommes.

Today, I’ve made Montreal my home and thankfully my French has improved enough so I can work for extra cash as a waitress in a restaurant. There are many customers who come in and order in accented, hesitant French, but I always give them the time and a chance to practice. Groups of twenty-somethings on a long weekend from Toronto come in so excited to impress their friends with a few phrases and are eager to learn les oeufs brouillés or bacon bien cuit. After a lively brunch giggling over mistakes and clarifications, they say I was the only Montrealer who didn’t immediately switch to English on them. When someone does not want to or cannot speak in French, it is abundantly clear and I quickly switch to English when they respond in English. The point is not to force French upon anyone, but also not to discourage anyone’s efforts to learn French in Montreal. Those customers who do want to practice are so grateful and enthusiastic about it and have directly told me so. Granted this may be the language teacher in me waking up, nevertheless, anyone can slow down for a second, like holding the heavy metro door for an elderly lady.

I have discussed “the switch” with many francophones and described how, for me, it can feel disheartening and frustrating. Their idea is to be accommodating and polite, which is generous and well-intentioned. Occasionally a less-proficient English speaker just wants to practice too. Of course, not everyone switches to English right away and there are many franco-Quebeckers who are more patient and tolerant of interlanguage French. But quickly switching to English does represent the overall tendency of French-English bilinguals in Montreal.

However, if francophones want to keep French alive and strong in Quebec, and there is ample evidence they do, then why are they so quick to abandon French and switch to English? 

The monolingual bias or native-speakerism continues to be the reality we live in. The benchmark for language use is the monolingual, native speaker and we subconsciously judge anything less as insufficient. Speaking with an accent does not make someone incapable of communicating in a language. “Broken” French should be appreciated as openness to Francophone culture. Few Montrealers are truly monolingual, so we should be past using the monolingual, “native” speaker as a frame of reference.

If the monolingual bias didn’t underlie so much of our mindset, then maybe people would be more patient and accepting of learners trying to use another language. This means switching to English when requested or responded to in English. This may require a bit of patience, but then Montreal would be more inclusive while remaining proud of its French language and all of its beautiful diversity. 

What has been your experience with “the switch” in Montreal (or possibly other contexts)?

Mexican slang: What does it mean to be a “fresa”?

Silvia Nunez

During the last weeks, I have been reading, studying and learning how our environment shapes and reshapes our language everyday. Every encounter that we have with another person, the place where we live, our cultural background and even the media we are exposed to, influence the way we speak, think and communicate. Therefore, it is common to find different variations of the same language in diverse contexts. As Van Herk (2018) describes, the most studied so far, analyze the different types of Englishes around the world. But, not only the English language has varieties, there are also other languages changing in subtle ways that only people from their local communities could identify. That is the case of the fresa style in Mexico, where the Spanish language varies not only at the lexical level, but also in relation to the status a person has in society.

https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/set-4-kawaii-strawberry-with-different-happy-expressions_5685676.htm

Being a fresa (which translates to the word strawberry) means that you belong to the “privileged Mexican youth, who have an expensive lifestyle, behave pretentiously and who speak Mexican Spanish very distinctively”. (Gómez, 2014 p. 86). It is someone who is active in social media apps and loves to communicate with his friends. (In this video you can find a brief explanation about it).

One of the special tendencies of this group is to closely follow the American culture, and consequently, they can also include some English words in their everyday conversations. This feature makes it become one of the most controversy slangs in Mexico, because it has been criticized by people who think it devaluates the Spanish language. 

Here I describe 5 of the most representative linguistic features of a fresa:

  1. Mixing English and Spanish: “¡Te ves super cute!”  (‘You look super cute’): meaning that you look so good that there are not spanish words to describe it. “O sea, hello?” (‘I mean, hello?’): meaning seriously?
  2. Tendency to shortening some words: obviamente (‘obviously’) as obvi or literal (‘literal’) as lit or Whatsapp as wa
  3. Intonation: every phrase is emitted as a question
  4. Vowels are lengthened more than usual: ¿Eso es todooooooo? (‘Is that aaaaall?’)
  5. Frequent use of the words: use of güey (‘dude’) at the end of the phrases: Fui a mi casa güey, y no lo encontré güey. (‘I went to my home dude, and I couldn’t find it dude’).

So, if you ever visit Mexico and you are lucky, maybe you could recognize a fresa. Now you know that in my country, people not only speak the proper forms of the Spanish language, but there are also other types of slangs that you could find. Today we reviewed in a glance just the fresa style, but there are many other variations such as: chilango, naco or norteño that we could talk about any other day.

References:

Gomez, R. M. (2014). Language ideology in Mexico: The case of fresa style in Mexican Spanish. Texas Linguistics Forum (57) p. 86-95.

Van Herk, Gerard. (2018). What is sociolinguistics? 2e Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

Languages in Hong Kong

Li Peng

Hong Kong is a diverse city where different languages and cultures converge and sometimes conflict with each other. I would like to bring two interesting discussion points in terms of Cantonese and English in Hong Kong, which relate to the language vs. dialect debate, and British English vs. American English respectively.

A few weeks ago in our class, we took a glance at the case of mutual intelligibility between Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese. I will come straight to the point, in my opinion, Cantonese is a dialect under the Chinese subfamily (Huang & Liao, 2017). We cannot deny that people in Hong Kong and mainland China can both understand each other through writing, using the traditional characters or the simplified characters, for instance, sending an e-mail or texting with others. When Hong Kong people travel in mainland China, they can read the signs, and vice versa. Thus, based on the mutual intelligibility criteria at least in terms of the written form, Cantonese and Mandarin are different dialects of the same language, Chinese.

However, many dialects in China share this same situation: we speak and write in different ways. In other words, what we are speaking is not reflected word for word in what we actually we write down. For example, in Mandarin the writing of umbrella is “雨伞”, which is called “yǔsǎn”, while in Hong Kong the character is slightly different with the form of “(雨)傘” but with a totally different pronunciation of “(jyu5) ze1”. This is a good example of how what we write is mutually intelligible but we share no similarities in phonetics. Actually, Hong Kong people do have a word corresponding to “(jyu5) ze1”, which is “(雨)遮”, but they seldom use it as teachers are likely to teach the formal written forms rather than the actual words we speak in our daily lives. As a result, people tend to learn these characters informally, when texting with friends or by reading colloquial handouts, etc. I would be very happy to answer you if you want to discuss this further and know why.

Another interesting case in Hong Kong is the usage of British English and American English. Because of Hong Kong’s British colonial history, we (but perhaps it is just me) take it for granted that Hong Kong people speak and write in a British way. To my surprise, however, this is not always the case, and sometimes they use both British and American styles in the same place. Take a look at the picture of public signs at Austin Station of the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) system in Hong Kong. The signs “exit” and “way out” appear side by side, while the former is the American style, the latter is the British way. Also, my friend from Hong Kong told me that they were likely to pronounce in a more British way one or two decades ago, but now they tend to pronounce with a more “r-ful” sound (still not as heavy as the Americans). These are wonderful examples of people using different styles of English in Hong Kong, aren’t they?

If you can read in Chinese, you are very welcome to see the relevant article with the link https://www.orangenews.hk/features/details.jhtml?recommendId=138043. I also find that Google Translate does a fair job in translating this article, so you’re encouraged to read it as well with the translation tool. I have also attached the link of a video in which some non-native speakers of Cantonese try to pretend to be the native speakers and see whether others would be able to identify them. It is a pity that the video on YouTube does not have the English subtitles.

  1. Do people in your country or region speak and write in a different way? Can you share some examples of how the differences are?
  2. Do you know any other places using British English and American English simultaneously? You are welcome to tell your anecdotes.

References:

Huang, B. R., & Liao, X. D. (Eds.). (2017). 现代汉语 [Contemporary Chinese] (6th ed.). Higher Education Press.

Van Herk, G. (2018). What is sociolinguistics? (2nd ed.). John Wiley & Son, Inc.

Video link: 非粤语区人伪装粤语区人, 会被发现吗？Real VS Fake

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