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Ethnic divergence in Montreal English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 January 2016

Charles Boberg
Charles Boberg*
Affiliation:
McGill University
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Abstract

This article reports on a study of ethnic variation in the phonetics of Montreal English. The speech of 93 native speakers of Montreal English from three ethnic groups, British-Irish, Italian and Jewish, was recorded and subjected to acoustic analysis. Several statistically significant differences among the ethnic groups were identified. The present paper undertakes an apparent-time analysis of these differences, to see whether they are getting smaller over time, as might be expected under the assumption that post-immigrant generations gradually assimilate to the linguistic and cultural patterns of their adopted homelands. While Jewish Montrealers show some signs of convergence with the British-origin standard, Italians — especially young Italian men—appear to be diverging from that model. It is suggested that the unusual persistence and even intensification of ethno-phonetic variation in English-speaking Montreal reflects both the residential and social self-segregation of its ethnic communities and the local dominance of French.

Résumé

Résumé

Cet article présente les résultats d'une étude portant sur la variation ethnique dans la prononciation en anglais montréalais. Les résultats proviennent de 1'analyse acoustique d'entrevues réalisées auprès de 93 locuteurs natifs de l'anglais montréalais et d'origine britanno-irlandaise, italienne ou juive. L'analyse fait ressortir des différences statistiques significatives entre les trois groupes. L'article propose une analyse en temps apparent de ces différences, l'objectif principal étant de vérifier si ces dernières s'amenuisent avec le temps, ce qui signifierait que les immigrants des 2e et 3e générations adoptent progressivement les pratiques linguistiques et culturelles de leur société d'accueil. Alors que les Montréalais d'origine juive montrent certaines tendances à la convergence vers le standard d'origine britannique, les Montréalais d'origine italienne — et parmi eux surtout les jeunes hommes — affichent une tendance contraire. Nous attribuons ces resultats à deux facteurs, la ségrégation resi-dentielle et sociale des communautés ethniques montréalaises et la domination locale du français.

Keywords

Canadian EnglishMontreal Englishsociophoneticsethnolectsvowel shiftsanglais canadienanglais montréalaissociophonétiqueethnolecteschangements vocaliques
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 59 , Issue 1: Pratiques langagières et idèologies linguistiques en contexte urbain: Les communautès linguistiques de Montrèal | Language practices and linguistic ideologies in urban settings: Speech communities in Montreal , March 2014 , pp. 55 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association. 2015

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