Derek at York University this week

Derek Denis (faculty) is giving a talk as part of the Linguistics Lecture Series at York University: "Enregisterment, resistance, and the spread of linguistic alterity in the most multicultural city in the world". This will be taking place on Wednesday, November 20, from 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM, in Ross South 552. A reception will follow in the department lounge. Everyone is welcome.

In 1988, Kotsinas spoke of the 'great migration' to Sweden that resulted in one tenth of children in Swedish schools being born outside the country. Linguists have documented that this great migration has resulted in the development of a multiethnolect: a variety of a language spoken (typically) by immigrant adolescents who themselves are native speakers of a diversity of languages. Features of these can be traced to the multilingual context of their emergence. Such multiethnolects have been documented in major European metropolises: Stockholm, Berlin, Oslo, London, Paris, and Amsterdam. While at the time a 10% immigration rate may have seemed like a great deal, today every other Torontonian was born outside of Canada and/or speaks a language other than English. In the most multicultural city in the world, we can ask: is there a Toronto multiethnolect? In this talk, I describe what I call Multicultural Toronto English (MTE) which I understand to be a multiethnolect. In particular, I focus on the enregisterment and diffusion of features of MTE, paying particular attention to the source of features: the vast majority of enregistered words are borrowings from Jamaican Patwah (e.g., wasteyute, bare, ahlie) or Somali (wallahi, bucktee) (languages of two of Toronto’s Black diaspora communities). However, their use has diffused beyond speakers of those languages. Through qualitative content analysis of media and online discourse and through a formal language attitudes questionnaire, I have observed a diversity of attitudes about the use of these borrowings by Torontonians, especially those not of Afro-Caribbean descent. On the one hand, there are strong reservations about the appropriation (and in some cases derision) of loanwords from Black communities. On the other hand, some express pride in the transcultural nature of the English spoken by young people. I grapple with this tension and the prevalent racial and linguistic ideologies that underlie it.