Multicultural London English - part 2

This is me ‘I’m from Hackney’

Researchers Jenny Cheshire, Paul Kerswill, Sue Fox and Eivind Torgersen report the use of a new quotative expression to introduce reported speech in spoken discourse. Of course, speakers use a variety of forms to introduce dialogue; the verbs SAY (e.g. she said ‘let’s go to the cinema’), GO (e.g. he went ‘let’s go to the cinema’) and THINK (e.g. I thought ‘Oh no, not the cinema again’) are among the most common introducers. In recent years there has also been an explosion in English varieties around the world in the use of BE LIKE (e.g. they were like ‘Oh, we love the cinema’). However, in inner London, the researchers have also discovered the use of the expression this is + speaker such as those given in the examples below.

this is them ‘what area are you from?’ this is me ‘I’m from Hackney’

this is my mum ‘what are you doing?’

Although the new form only accounts for a small number of the quotatives found in the London data it is nevertheless used frequently enough in young people’s speech generally for it to have been noticed by non-linguists. For example, you can hear it being used in this comedy sketch from the Armstrong and Miller show. The researchers found that the expression this is + speaker is used by adolescents and also by children as young as eight years old but none of the adults in their study used it. This points to the feature as being a fairly recent innovation but in fact there is some evidence to suggest that it has existed in the ‘feature pool’ (see our previous post) for some time; Mark Sebba found three examples in his recordings of London Jamaicans made in the 1980s and there are also examples in the Corpus of London Teenage Speech (COLT) recorded in the 1990s. The researchers say that in language contact situations such as that which exists in London, features which have been in existence for some time (but have perhaps been used infrequently) may get picked up from the feature pool causing the frequency of its use to increase. This seems to be a possibility for the increase in the use of this is + speaker.

Another interesting finding is that there is a difference in the way that the different age groups use this feature. The 12-13 year-olds and the 16-19 year-olds use this is + speaker almost exclusively to introduce reported direct speech (e.g. this is her ‘that was my sister’). However, the 8-9 year-olds use it to introduce both direct speech and non-lexicalised sound and gesture (e.g. this is me <followed by an action>). This function allows the young children to ‘perform’ the actions in the way in which they actually occurred. Furthermore, the 8-9 year-olds also use this is + speaker with non-quotative functions (e.g. he’s sitting on a chair this is him like he’s drunk or something) to describe someone’s state, feeling, action, gesture or expression.

The researchers state that the use of this is + speaker is in its early stages and that, so far, it is confined to inner London. Whether it is a short-lived phenomenon or whether it will continue to increase in frequency and spread to other regions remains to be seen. Comments welcome on the use of or further development of this fascinating language feature!

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

DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9841.2011.00478.x

This summary was written by Sue Fox

Language brokering: good or bad?



 In recently arrived immigrant families, young people often act as language brokers for their parents

Eduardo the language broker

Eduardo is 14 years old. He speaks English and Portuguese. Eduardo’s mum can’t speak English, so she often asks him to help her. Eduardo is proud and pleased to help his mum but he is embarrassed when he translates for her at the doctors. Eduardo misses school some days because his mum needs him to translate for her.

It is sometimes thought that this kind of translating and interpreting activity (‘language brokering’) imposes too great a burden of responsibility on young people like Eduardo, especially as it often involves explaining cultural differences rather than simply translating word for word from one language to another. However, a recent study gives a more positive account of language brokering.

Tony Cline and his colleagues asked 37 young people aged between 15 and 18 to comment on the story vignette about Eduardo, as part of a larger study about young people’s perceptions of conflicting roles. 16 of the young people lived in monolingual white British families and 21 lived in bilingual families. 11 of the bilinguals had been involved in language brokering themselves, while the remaining 10 had no personal experience of language brokering. The main aims of the study were, firstly, to see whether young people with differing personal experiences of bilingualism had different views about language brokering and, secondly, to see what differences there might be between young people in multilingual areas in their understanding of the development of relationships between children and parents during adolescence.

The 37 young people were first asked what they thought about Eduardo as a person and about his feelings. Their views of him as a person were almost all positive. They described him, for example, as cool, noble, helpful and nice. Some of the monolinguals, especially, were impressed by his language skills. Fewer young people commented on his feelings, but when they did, they mainly focussed on the mention of embarrassment. Some empathised with him, some said there was no need to feel embarrassed, and some suggested reasons for his embarrassment. Those with no experience of language brokering thought he might feel demeaned by his mother’s lack of English, but those with experience of this kind of situation suggested more searching reasons, such as feeling awkward about invading his mother’s privacy or being embarrassed at not being able to translate complicated vocabulary.

A second question asked about Eduardo’s position within his family. Here all groups, bilingual and monolingual alike, highlighted the need for the mother to learn English and so relieve Eduardo of the burden of acting as her language broker. They also all recognised the tension he must feel between wanting to support his mother and needing to attend school. Young people who had themselves acted as language brokers were far more likely to suggest explicit strategies that could help, such as the mother going to language classes or Eduardo telling his mother what to say to the doctor rather than going with her.

Finally, the young people were asked how Eduardo’s teachers and his friends might view his actions. In all three groups, contrasting opinions were given about how teachers would react, with some children thinking teachers would be sympathetic whilst others thought teachers would see Eduardo’s behaviour as ‘wrong’. Far more children in the monolingual group thought teachers would completely disapprove of his missing school. There were marked differences between the monolingual and bilingual groups about how Eduardo’s friends might react: those with experience of language brokering thought his friends would see his behaviour as normal, whilst the other groups were more likely to say that his friends would think it ‘strange’ or view it negatively.

The researchers conclude that personal experience has an important impact on how young people perceive bilingualism. Their analysis showed that all the young people in their study accepted that during childhood and early adolescence a person’s chief responsibility should be to meet school requirements but that they should also meet family obligations. It also showed that they were aware of the tension between the developing autonomy in parent-child relationships whilst maintaining connectedness, but it highlighted different emphases in the balancing of this tension which was related to participants’ different personal experiences of bilingualism and language brokering.

For links to English Language teaching resources and for a suggested English A level language investigation related to this topic click here.

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Tony Cline, Sarah Crafter, Lindsay O’Dell and Guida de Abreu  (2011) Young people’s representations of language brokering. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 32/3: 207-220.

doi: 10.1080/01434632.2011.558901  

This summary was written by Jenny Cheshire