Linda Dridi
In this blog entry, I investigate how migration has impacted teenagers from the Western World and their manner of speaking, more specifically their vocabulary. The purpose of this blog is to show how a research on youth language should not only focus on ethnicity, due to its flexible place in the construction of youth language, but also on other factors such as the environment, age, gender, social class, or level of education. Each of these factors is closely linked with each other and plays an important role for a young person.
Keywords: youth language – young people – migration – ethnicity
1. Introduction
In today’s society, human migration is better known under the term of immigration and it consists in people, generally from developing countries moving to developed countries for different reasons such as better professional opportunities, healthcare needs, political reasons or safety. These people then build their lives in their new home and also build families. Their children are then surrounded by two or more cultures, that transmitted by their parents and that from the country they live in. They are also surrounded, from a young age, by a variety of languages and cultures, which can also have an important impact on their language.
This blog entry will focus on youth language but more specifically on how the migration of the parents have impacted the language youth, especially those of migration descent. An example of an impact of migration of language can be seen for example in youth language in France. Indeed, they have, for example, translated Arabic insults literally in French (for example, the French insult fils de chien is taken from the Arabic expression weld el kelb)These translations of insults are nowadays used by most of the Francophones, leading then the French vocabulary to broaden.
To have a better understanding of how migration plays an important role in the development of youth language, I will present studies made in France and the United Kingdom which observe the manner of speaking and linguistic production of young people, from the 2nd generation of migrant, coming from India, Turkey or North Africa in purpose to have a better understanding on how youth language is built. Thus, this blog entry will focus on language and how migration has impacted youth language and built their vocabularies.
2. Theoretical framework
Youth language is highly stereotyped as it is perceived as a “hood”, “street” or “ghetto” language, spoken by non-educated people or a broader repertoire. These stereotypes are mainly linked with racist ideologies due to the personal backgrounds of their speakers. Indeed, most of the young people speaking a “youth language” are the descendants of immigrant parents. This difference of culture led some people to consider young people and their language as poor compared to the standard language.
Besides this heritage of language and culture, the spread of globalization, which is the circulation of people, merch or services all around the world, has an important impact in youth language as it influences their manner of speaking. The spread of the Internet, for example, has allowed young people to be surrounded with even more languages and thus incorporate them into their language practices.
Young people have also presented many particular elements in their language. Indeed, some of them show a performance of identity, which consists of an act of identity, in our case the culture of their immigrated parents, by using, for example, some vocabulary from their mother tongue. This incorporation of foreign vocabulary can also be defined by the term of borrowing. Others tend to acculturate themselves, which means that they adjust themselves to the culture of the country they live in, putting aside their parents’ culture.
Thus, migration has an important repercussion on young people and their manner of speaking and it will be thus interesting to have a better understanding on its impact and how young people manage to use the languages that surround them.
3. Research related to youth language
Bucholtz and Skapoulli (2009) have explored the linguistic production of youth language through the theme of cultural mobility. The purposes of this study were firstly to understand the impact of migration, transnationalism and globalization on young people and secondly how their identities were emerging from their language. As young people from the 2nd generation of migrant are usually navigating between different cultures, their identities are influenced by them. It is thus important to take in account the sociocultural context in youth studies in general. As immigrants were usually seen as “outsiders”, ideologies usually tend to divide their culture apart from the culture of the country they live in. Therefore, young people from the 2nd generation of migrant counteract this ideology by claiming that they own multiple cultures. The impact of migration, transnationalism and globalization has been extremely important among young people, especially in their language as they are mainly known for being innovators and breakers of language rules.
Svendsen (2015) compares a range of linguistic practices among young people from linguistically and culturally diverse areas, in order to have a better understanding on how youth language works in the 21st century. She explains that the increased global mobility, but also the tourism or the technological advances have an important impact on the language. It is among young people that we can see changes in languages due to the surroundings of mixed culture and social backgrounds. Their identity is mainly linked with the linguistic form and language used, which must be taken in consideration while investing youth language.
Shankar (2011) decided to base her research on style, considering it as a linguistic and cultural notion that allows people, in the case of her study immigrant youth, to perform identity. She had focused her studies with two group of young people from Desi culture (which is the south Asian culture) who live in the United States, more precisely in California. She considers two class backgrounds from the new immigration (which refers to immigrants arriving in the States since 1965): “lower-middle class” and “upper-middle class”. This allows her to consider in her study the environment young people live in and how it could impact their language. Lower-middle class teens live in small house, close to their school and their neighborhoods were surrounded by a variety of different cultures while the upper-middle class teenagers live in bigger houses surrounded by wealthy White or Asian families. This difference of class had led the Desi teens to separate themselves into cliques: the popular Desi (upper class) and FOBs, which stands for Fresh Off the Boat, (lower class). FOB teens were closer to their mother tongue and religion and spent more time with other minority students than popular teens. Fob teens also use lunch and break time as an occasion to speak their heritage language with their fellows, while the popular Desi rarely spoke their mother tongue in school, as they considered it as not a part of everyday interaction. The purpose of her study was to point out that ethnicity and race are not something fixed in youth language, but are built with the political economy, environment, class and values. It shows also that some young people are still attached to their heritage and culture while some tend to detach themselves from their home’s culture by acculturating themselves.
Kerswill (2013) focused on the construction of youth language in London and more specifically on how language and identity are mainly linked with multiethnicity and multilingualism. His study also deals with the concepts of race, age, culture and class. He focuses his study by comparing the language of teenagers from two regions of London, Hackney, which belongs to the inner city, and Havering from the outer city. The teenagers were divided into two groups: Anglo and non-Anglo. He observes that the language of teenagers coming from inner-city has more words from foreign vocabularies than outer city. They seem to be more open to new innovations for language than Havering’s teenagers. This could be due to the importance of the number immigrant families in London’s inner city than outer city. He discovers that non-Anglo teens in Hackney and Havering highly reject a Cockney identity, which is a term used for native inhabitant of East London, although their language might be close to a traditional Cockney language. Thus, it highlights that the ethnicity has an important place for the construction of identity for young people and they do not want to be associated with a culture they do not belong.
Lytra (2015) has invested in young Turkish-descent’s belief about standard and varieties of Turkish. She chose two groups of young Turkish to compare in her study: one community is based in London while the second one is from Athens. She has chosen these two communities due to their differences in term of migration histories, education or religious background. Indeed, the Turkish-speaking community who lives in Athens is mainly from lower class than the community who belongs to London. She found out that in both communities, young people were surrounded by the two varieties: the vernacular is mainly used at their home and the standard through different types of medias. They value standard Turkish and its vernaculars, although they were taught that mastering the standard Turkish is linked with academic success. Furthermore, a majority of young Turkish in her study were showing loyalty towards the vernaculars spoken at home although they were taught in Turkish complementary schools that they should speak the standard due to its high position. This loyalty towards a variety might be explained with the link that it has with young people’s home and families while the standard is only used through medias.
Hambye and Gadet (2014) focus their research on the linguistic hybridity on youth language, also known as CUV an abbreviation that stands for contemporary urban vernacular, in France. Youth language in France is widely known for vernalization, an argot that consist of reversing the syllables of a word (louche for example becomes chelou) and multiethnolect, which is of the incorporation of foreign words, for example, Arabic words such as wAllah, starfoulah, or hmar. Also, the Arabic language is known to be the most influential language for French vernaculars. This is highlighted for example with the French youth expression sur la vie de ma mère, used as a pledge and is directly modelled from the Arabic language (wa hayat omi). Besides, some expressions are modeled from this language into French. In contemporary urban vernaculars of France, the authors observe many phenomena in youth language. Indeed, young people use a lot of slang words and omission of words. They also highlight that this manner of speaking is a way for young people to mark their identities, especially ethnic and cultural identity. Therefore, youth language should not be reduced to only a marker of identity as there are various factors that must also be taken in account. It could be for example, a manner for young people to contest the dominant culture, but it is also highly impacted by their environment and social class.
4. Discussion / Conclusion
These research allow us to have a better understanding on how migration and the parents’ language have impacted youth language. Therefore, previous studies have shown that the globalisation and transnationalism play important roles for youth language as they allow young people to innovate in their manner of speaking and break standard rules concerning standard language. The home language highly influences young people’s language. They can, for example, code-switch between their mother language and the language of the country they live in, which means they can alternate between these languages. They can also incorporate some foreign vocabulary or model some expressions from their home language into the official language of the country they live in.
This incorporation of their home language made by young people can be seen as a marker of identity. Indeed, young people are usually confronted to the culture of the country they live in, and the fusion of foreign vocabulary mean their belonging to their parents’ language. Young people were also seen to show loyalty to the vernacular languages, although they show respect to both varieties, standard and vernacular. This loyalty toward the vernacular might be due to the fact that youth language is in general seen as a poor vernacular and suffers from stereotypes. Young people might have taken in account these negative attitudes towards their manner of speaking and thus present loyalty towards other vernaculars.
Therefore, the ethnicity is not a major point to understand youth language as it is highly linked with other factors, such as the environment, gender or the social class. It is thus important in youth language’s studies, to not only consider only the parents’ language and ethnicity, but also take in account the environment in which young people live (is it, for example, mixed with other immigrant’s families or are there only a few immigrant families?), the social class (is the family from an upper or lower class?), or the gender, to have a better comprehension of how youth language is constructed. Each of these factors directly impact teenager and their manner of speaking.
However, the studies presented in this blog entry were only focusing on youth language in the Western World. The results might not be applicable to all of youth language and thus, does not allow to have a global idea on how youth language is built all over the world.
It would have been interesting, to push the studies of this blog entry further by having a direct contact with young people and ask them how and why they use, for example, slang words or code-switching. The comparison between these interviews and interactional data can lead to have a better understanding on youth language’s construction and a perception from young people.
References
Bucholtz, M. and Skapoulli, E. 2009. Youth language at the intersection: from migration to globalization. International Pragmatics Association. 19:1.1-16 Available at: https://escholarship.org/content/qt1mv7m8w8/qt1mv7m8w8_noSplash_7438b77ae7e69d0e11ec81ebd4989622.pdf?t=nukr28. Accessed on: 27/11/2020.
Hambye, P. and Gadet, F. 2014. Contact and ethnicity in “youth language” description: in search of specificity. Digital acces to librairies. Robert Nicolai; “Questioning Language Contact: Limits of Contact, Contact at its Limits”- p. 183-216 (ISBN: 9789004279049)
Kerswill, P. 2013. Identity, ethnicity and place: the construction of youth language in London. White Rose Research Online. Available at: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/75329/. Accessed on: 26/11/2020
Lytra, V. 2015. Language and language ideologies among Turkish-speaking young people in Athens and London. Language, Youth and Identity in the 21st Century. Cambridge University Press, pp.183-204 (ISBN: 9781139061896)
Shankar, S. 2012. Style and Language Use among Youth of the New Immigration: Formations of Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class in Everyday Practice. Identities Global Studies in Culture and Power. Pp. 646-671 Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1070289X.2011.672867?needAccess=true. Accessed on: 28/11/2020
Svendsen, B.A. 2015. Language, youth and identity in the 21st century: content and continuations. Language, Youth and Identity in the 21st Century. Cambridge University Press, pp.3-23 (ISBN: 9781139061896)