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Lecture Summary - Culture and Language: North America - International Studies
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All lectures of year 1 of International Studies 2020/2021 summarized.
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NA: Culture & Language notes – Marnix van BokhorstLecture 1: Language in the US
US Languages:
- Most spoken languages in the entire US in 2010: Spanish 62.13%
- The US is one of the most multilingual countries on earth
- But, at the same time the US is predominantly English-speaking.
- As much as the US tries to collect information about the proficiency etc of languages
in the US, the conclusions are not very accurate.
History
- America has always been a multilingual contintent (also before the arrival of the
Europeans)
- Early L conctat through sailors and sea commerce
- Colonization happened in parallel by different European powers:
- Spain, Portugal, France, Britain, Dutch Republic
- The liberal tradition: not regulating language
The making of American English
1 Foundation stage: settlement in new era
2 Nativization: New local identity
3 Diversification: within the new area
1 Foundation stage
- Until 1600 CE: sporadic contacts from commerce
- From 1600 onwards, arrival and initial widespread use of English in locations where it
was not previously spoken
- Five important settlement points: Jamestown, Boston, Philly, Charleston, New
Orleans
- A great deal of language variation in the British Isles arriving in the New World: E;
Early Modern English (late 15th-18th century). Settling in different places such as
previously mentioned towns.
How did this linguistic variation affect AmE?
3 possible outcomes: uniformity, conservative, innovative
E; British settlers in NA losing the -r cause the people at home in Britain lost it (and they still
had contact with them). But other British settlers did not have contact with England (or
other regions in England) so they kept their -r
Main point: Different responses to a historical change in BrE produce regional variation
within AmE
A. Change either spread to the US producing uniformity (with respect to BrE)
, B. Change didn’t spread to the US – conservative (British English did change, American
English not -> conservative)
Changes in AmE
- Were influenced by real-world constraints: new objects/phenomena – hurricanes
- Contact with (old and new) languages. E; French, Spanish, German, Dutch E: Brooklyn
derived from Breukelen.
- Nativization. AmE developed its own characteristics, thus AmE is innovative
Nativization
Noah Webster’s project. Giving America its own identity.
- Americanization: focus on differentiating from BrE, because we are our own unique
people (identity, etc), Americans, not just Brits.
- Standardization: introducing simplified spellings (wagon; waggon)
To what extent did he succeed?
Liberal tradition: You should not be told what language to speak
Until today: the US constitution does not proclaim an official language (as one of the few
countries of the world)
After Settlement and Westward Expansion
- Age of Mass Migration 1880-1924: mainly from southern an eastern europe
- Post 1965 Wave of immigration: mainly latin America and asia
Difference between settlement and immigration
- Settlers: no pre-existing social hierarchy
- Dominant language
- Immigrants: arrive in populated land = must fit into existing social hierarchy. Fit into
dominant language. More prone to language shift.
Two types of linguistic diversity in the US today
First type
- 1) Degree and type of mono/multi-lingualism
- A. Native-born: are either monolingual or enjoy elite multilingualism
- B. Foreign-born: May be multilingual but experiencing plebeian multilingualism
leading to language loss (language loss typically over 3 generations)
Major reason affecting immigrant language loss: lack of policies supporting LOTEs!
- How does this pool of language diversity maintain itself in the US?
It gets replenished with new languages all the time, instead of the old languages
maintaining themselves
Out of the top 10 fastest-growing languages in America, seven are from South
Asia
, Meanwhile, traditional ‘immigrant’ languages such as Polish, Italian and Greek are
experiencing negative growth – they shift to English after 3 generations
2) English language use
A Native-born are diverging for ideological reasons (differences between native English
speakers) (mainly differences in sound)
- Three ongoing vowel shifts indexing cultural and political differences (North-South)
B Foreign-born dealing with English language acquisition
- L policies affecting immigrants from Latin America and Asia in different ways
Conclusion: The vast majority of US is English speaking. US is often called a linguistic
graveyard
Very multilingual, but at the same time English dominated
English language acquisition
- Post 1965, immigration from Asia and Latin America
- A two-tier reality: very good English (people who use It in their profession) vs not
very good English (people who don’t need it in their profession)
E; Europe 72% speak English very well
Latin America & Caribbean: 39% speak English very well
Immigration policies, especially since the 1990s have favoured high-skilled
immigrants, many from South Asia, who already speak English upon arrival
Language shift to English in these communities is facilitated by their overall low
numbers and English-friendly ideology (post-colonial tradition of English-language
education in South Asia)
- Lack of support for English language acquisition (e.g. bilingual education)
disproportionately affects low-skilled immigrants from Latin America
- Language shift to English is less prevalent among Spanish-speaking immigrants, due
to their high numbers, and weaker presence of English in Latin America, making
Hispanics an easy target in immigration debates.
The sense that the US has unintegrated immigrants has resulted in Official English Laws
Today 27/50 States have adopted Official English laws (on the state level)– NOTE: At the
federal level there is no official language.
- These laws by the state governenment send a signal that people should adapt to
English
, Two different problems
What causes the loss of languages other than English?
- Mistaken view that speaking another language causes reduced ability in the majority
language
- Non-availability of schooling in languages other than English
- Lack of opportunities/motivation to speak languages other than English
What hampers English language acquisition? (why do people have trouble learning
English)
- Lack of time, scheduling conflicts, childcare/distance, cost, lack of trained teachers,
cognitive maturation factors, age
- NOT: speaking a language other than English
When does language diversity become a problem?
- When it leads to discrimination
- When it translates into ‘Linguistic isolation’ (E; households where no one speaks
English very well)
- Both of these can cause limited access to resources such as:
1) Social services
2) Healthcare
3) Voting
4) Education
5) Jobs
There are a number of federal acts that mandate the government to provide the
rights above to its citizens (civil rights act, voting rights act, bilingual education
act)
The unofficial officialness of English
“American society and American law recognize the unofficial officialness of English”
Lecture 4: Native Americans
Language diversity in pre-Columbian NA
- 9 language families
- 300 languages
- Spoken by 900,000-12 mill people
Around that time in Europe (1492 CE)
- 2 language families
- Spoken by 60 mill people
So much more diverse than Europe at the time
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