ArticlePDF Available

Abstract

This paper deals with Kiezdeutsch, a way of speaking that emerged among adolescents in multiethnic urban neighbourhoods of Germany. We argue for a view of Kiezdeutsch as a multiethnolect, based on: (a) A lin-guistic analysis of the lexical and grammatical characteristics that have been reported for it so far, and their interaction with information structure; and (b) A perception study that tested the acceptability and evaluation of such features by adolescents from a multiethnic and a monoethnic neighbourhood of Berlin. Our results support a view of Kiezdeutsch as a linguistic system of its own, with features that establish a distinct way of speaking that is associated with multiethnic neighbourhoods, where it cuts across ethnicities, including speakers of non-migrant background.
A preview of the PDF is not available
... A study using acceptability judgements on Kiezdeutsch samples with speakers from multilingual/multiethnic vs. a monolingual/monoethnic urban neighbourhoods supported the status of Kiezdeutsch as multiethnolect (Freywald et al. 2011). A study based on recordings of Kiezdeutsch data from short conversations among adolescents compared Kiezdeutsch with Chicano English on grammatical, lexical, and sociolinguistic levels (Du Bois 2013). ...
... Kiezdeutsch has been shown to be part of the linguistic repertoires of adolescents across different educational tracks and backgrounds (Wiese 2018). At the same time, many inhabitants in the multilingual urban neighbourhoods that constitute its core domain are socioeconomically disadvantaged (Freywald et al. 2011;Wiese 2012), and speakers from disadvantaged backgrounds have been the focus in some studies (cf. Auer 2013). ...
... Judging from the data currently available, at least today the speaker basis equally involves mono-and multilingual speakers in multiethnic urban neighbourhoods (cf. Freywald et al. 2011). ...
Chapter
Full-text available
Using the cover term "Kiezdeutsch", we discuss urban contact dialects in Germany, drawing on different lines of research with different conceptual/theoretical backgrounds. We look at the setting of Kiezdeutsch, a society whose strongly dominant monolingual habitus contrasts with its linguistically highly diverse makeup (Section 1); give pointers to pertinent corpora that are available through open access and to the different research foci for Kiezdeutsch so far (Section 2); and provide an overview of findings at grammatical, pragmatic, lexical, and prosodic levels (Section 3). Finally, we summarise sociolinguistic findings from the Kiezdeutsch corpora, including domains of usage and the attitudes and perceptions evident in the macro context (Section 4).
... Some scholars prefer to use the term 'ethnic styles' rather than 'ethnolects' focusing on the "social meaning of language variation in talk-in-interaction" (Kern 2011a, p. 7). Arguments against the term ethnolect also include intraspeaker and interspeaker variation which pose problems for varieties that assume homogeneity in those areas (Freywald et al. 2011). Madsen (2011, p. 266) even goes a step further and refers to the speech encountered in multicultural youth clubs in Copenhagen as 'late modern youth style' and argues that ethnic identity is not the most prominent function of the adolescents' speech but rather "masculinity or toughness". ...
Article
Full-text available
Ethnolects have been defined as varieties linked to particular ethnic minorities by the minorities themselves or by other ethnic communities. The present paper investigates this association between ethnic groups and language varieties in the Greek context. I seek to answer whether there is an association made (by Albanians or Greeks) between Albanian migrants in Greece and a particular variety that is not their L1, i.e., Albanian, and if so, whether this is an Albanian ethnolect of Greek. I show experimentally that, in fact, there is a variety of Greek that is linked with listeners’ perceptions of Albanian migrants. However, that criterion is not enough in itself to designate the variety as an ethnolect as the acquisition of this variety by the second or subsequent generations of migrants is not evidenced. Rather, those generations are undergoing language shift from Albanian to Greek. Therefore, the classification of Albanian Greek as an Albanian ethnolect of Greek is not possible despite the association between the variety and the particular minority in Greece. Classification as an L2 Greek variety or a Mock Albanian Greek (MAG) variety is instead argued.
Article
Full-text available
This article presents structural and interactional aspects of Strong Finals, a prosodic feature characterised by lengthening, increased volume, and non-falling intonation on word-final syllables. Interactionally, Strong Finals support five types of action: listing, projecting a description, stating conditions, asking questions, and announcing reported speech. In general, Strong Finals project that there is more to come, and this ‘more’ may in some cases be provided by either participant. Strong Finals are often found in multi-speaker settings, where they assist speakers in taking the floor or changing the topic. The article’s descriptions are based on recordings of natural spoken interaction in linguistically diverse areas in Aarhus, Denmark. Here, a new urban dialect has developed like other urban dialects that have been described in Copenhagen and other North Germanic cities. Strong Finals are a local phenomenon, however, and are not found in the Copenhagen studies.
Chapter
The Continuity of Linguistic Change presents a collection of selected papers in honour of Professor Juan Andrés Villena-Ponsoda. The essays revolve around the study of linguistic variation and the mechanisms and processes associated with linguistic change, a field to which Villena-Ponsoda has dedicated so many years of research. The authors are researchers of renowned international prestige who have made significant contributions in this field. The chapters cover a range of related topics and provide modern theoretical and methodological perspectives, addressing the structural, cognitive, historical and social factors that underlie and promote linguistic change in varieties of Dutch, German, Greek, Italian, Spanish and Swedish. The reader will find contributions that explore topics such as phonology, acoustic phonetics and processes deriving from the contact between languages or linguistic varieties, specifically levelling, koineisation, standardisation and the emergence of ethnolects.
Article
Full-text available
Adolescents, particularly those in multiethnic, multilingual communities, have become central to sociolinguistic research in the variationist tradition (Cheshire, Nortier & Adger 2015). In several studies of adolescent speech in European urban centres, the same set of Arabic-derived epistemic phrases, namely wallah , wallahi and related phrases meaning ‘swear’, appear to be in use (see, e.g., Quist 2005; Opsahl 2009; Lehtonen 2015). In this article, we document how these phrases are used in the speech of adolescents from a borough of West London and demonstrate the functional similarities between the current data and studies of adolescents in other West European contexts. Using a distributional analysis, we also draw several comparisons between our data and data collected in previous studies of adolescent speech in London. We find functional and distributional similarities and contrasts in both cases. We then discuss the consequences of these findings for the study of epistemic markers and their relevance in adolescent speech.
Chapter
Full-text available
This is the introduction to a collected volume "Urban Contact Dialects and Language Change: Insights from the Global North and South." In this introduction, we define urban contact dialects, explain our perspective on examples from countries with a strong monolingual habitus vs. those with a multilingual societal perspective, and give an overview of the contributions in the book.
Article
Urban contact dialects emerged in urban settings among locally born young people and can serve as markers of a new, multiethnic urban identity. The chapter brings together instances of such dialects from Europe and Africa, two regions where these phenomena have received a lot of attention from contact-linguistic and sociolinguistic perspectives. In both settings, local contexts for urban contact dialects are characterised by an openness to multilingual practices. In African contexts, this multilingual perspective is usually also present at the macro level of the larger society; in Europe, the societal context is generally characterized by a more monolingual (and monoethnic) habitus. The comparative perspective adopted here shows that these differences in macro context support different structural and sociolinguistic outcomes, including contact-induced and contact-facilitated change; urban contact dialects taking the form of multilingual mixed languages or new vernaculars of a national majority language; the possible spread of these dialects to become general markers of youth or modernity; and negative public perceptions involving different language-ideological patterns.
Article
Language contact - the linguistic and social outcomes of two or more languages coming into contact with each other - starts with the emergence of multilingual populations. Multilingualism involving plurilingualism can have various consequences beyond borrowing, interference, and code-mixing and -switching, including the emergence of lingua francas and new language varieties, as well as language endangerment and loss. Bringing together contributions from an international team of scholars, this Handbook - the second in a two-volume set - engages the reader with the manifold aspects of multilingualism and provides state-of-the-art research on the impact of population structure on language contact. It begins with an introduction that presents the history of the scholarship on the subject matter. The chapters then cover various processes and theoretical issues associated with multilingualism embedded in specific population structures worldwide as well as their outcomes. It is essential reading for anybody interested in how people behave linguistically in multilingual or multilectal settings.
Chapter
This volume sets out to foreground the issues of youth identity in the context of current sociolinguistic and discourse research on identity construction. Based on detailed empirical analyses, the twelve chapters offer examinations of how youth identities from late childhood up to early twenties are locally constructed in text and talk. The settings and types of social organization investigated range from private letters to graffiti, from peer group talk to video clips, from schoolyard to prison. Comparably, a wide range of languages is brought into focus, including Danish, German, Greek, Japanese, and Turkish. Drawing on various discourse analytic paradigms (e.g. Critical Discourse Analysis, Conversation Analysis), the contributions examine and question notions with currency in the field, such as young people's linguistic creativity and resistance to mainstream norms. At the same time, they demonstrate the embeddedness of constructions of youth identities in local activities and communities of practice where they interact with other social identities and factors, in particular gender and ethnicity.