1LING 202: CANADIAN ENGLISH Introduction. Dialectsofalanguagecanbedefinedasitssub-formswhicharemutually comprehensible. Speakers from different countries or regions use various accents, localized words, lexical item, pronunciations and grammatical constructions which can vary between each dialect (Nordhoff and Hammarstrom). Canadian English is one of such varieties of dialects of English present in North America, with almost 19.4 million speakers, which constitutes more than58%ofthecountry’spopulation(Boberg,‘StandardCanadianEnglish’).However, discrepancies lie within a set variety as well. In this essay, I have looked at the varieties of English spoken by people in Toronto and Ottawa, focussing specifically on the form and structure of their language usage. The demographic values that I have considered are sex, age and gender. I aim to establish that variations can exist within a sub-type of a language, based on certain demographic factors and focussing on Toronto English and Ottawa English in particular. Literature review. Owing to the colonial history of the country as well as the geographical sharing of borders with United States of America, the English spoken in Canada shares much of its similarities with both British and American English while also retaining some of the specific characteristics of Canadian English (Dollinger 25). There exists a number of literatures dealing with the varieties of English found to be spoken in Canada. Significant studies include discussion on the mainstream Canadian English (Dollinger) contrasted against the English spoken in Quebec, characterised by lexical borrowings from French owing to its cultural and political history (Boberg, ‘English as a minority language in Quebec’). Alternately, there has also been discussions regarding non – mainstream varieties of English, specifically the Maritimes English spoken in regions of Canada like Nova Scotia (Kiefte and Kay-Raining Bird). However, while
2LING 202: CANADIAN ENGLISH these are minority languages as described in the publications, the English spoken in larger cities like Toronto and Ottawa are expected to follow certain restrictions and conditions that make them different from the so called ‘ethnic varieties’. In majority of the cases, the factors affecting language use in a region influenced by cross cultural and cross linguistic contact, include language transfer. In a study on the ethnic orientation and linguistic variation of English in Toronto, done by Hoffman and walker, the authors state, “our analysis of two sociolinguistic variables shows that speakers may vary in overall rate, but linguistic conditioning remains largely constant across and within ethnic groups. Whereas there is evidence for language transfer in the first generation, differences between generations suggest that transfer does not persist” (37). This shows that irrespective of the restrictions posed by cross lingual transfers, ethnic and demographic factors play a significant role in modulating the way language is used in certain communicative situations. Methodology. For conducting this qualitative study, I recruited 10 speakers from Toronto and Ottawa. I also selected three social variables for the study – sex (Male and Female), geographical location (Toronto or Ottawa) and age (Young, middle aged or Old). Table 1 shows their distribution in terms of the variables. I tested the participants based on their choice of lexicon, phonological preference, perception of rhyme and choice of syntax. The responses were provided to them in the form of multiple choices or simple yes/no responses, and were encoded in terms of percentage of participants who responded with a specific answer. Restricting the responses to choices made it easier for me to encode them but that required knowing the exact responses that is normally found in Canadian English.
3LING 202: CANADIAN ENGLISH Sex Male4 Female6 Age Young4 Middle3 Old3 Geographic location Toronto6 Ottawa4 Table 1 Results and Discussion. The results showed that among the three variables, the most accountable variable that can signify the use of a specific English variant is the geographical location (Fig 2). For the question of whether ‘nurse, herd and bird’ sounded the same to the participants, 83.33 % of people from Toronto stated that they were same whereas only 25 % of people from Ottawa claimed that they sounded same. This signifies an important linguistic feature difference between English spoken in Toronto and Ottawa. Phonological constructions containing a schwa /ə/ between a consonant
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4LING 202: CANADIAN ENGLISH and immediately followed by a trill, are similar sounding to speakers from Toronto, but not to speakers from Ottawa. Merged/unmergedSexGeographic location 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 Distribution of speakers (percentage) across variables for phonemic similarity (Nurse/Herd/Bird) Merged/Female/TorontoUnmerged/Male/Ottawa Fig 2 I also found that for sound differences between /ʃ/ and /sk/ in the pronunciation of the word ‘schedule’, 66.66% of people from Toronto use /ʃ/ while 75% of speakers from Ottawa do the same (Fig 3).This shows that allophones of the same phoneme also have multivariate constructions and use between Toronto English and Ottawa English.
5LING 202: CANADIAN ENGLISH TorontoOttawa 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 percentage of speakers uttering /ʃ/ vs /sk/ /ʃ//sk/ Fig 3 This result indicates a level of ethnic contrasts between the English spoken in Toronto and Ottawa. While they both speak a version of general Standard Canadian English, there are minor differences in lexical or phonological properties that make them stand out from each other. At the same time, it can also suggest a correlation with the various multicultural and multilingual communities in Canada. There were two key limitations of this study. First, the number of participants for the study conducted, is too small for obtaining significant results regarding linguistic data. For properly understanding linguistic differences between different speakers, a higher number of participants is required. Second, the lack of proportion of participants across the chosen variables is a key obstacle for the data gathered. For instance, 6 participants from Toronto against 4 from Ottawa does not provide a balanced percentage of responses.
6LING 202: CANADIAN ENGLISH Conclusion. In the current qualitative study, I aimed to find out the nuances in linguistic construction between the speakers from Toronto and Ottawa contrasting against age and sex as two other variables. The results showed that there are minor differences in certain phonological features between the English spoken by the speakers in Toronto and Ottawa. This difference is crucial for understandingthelinguisticorientationofthetwovarietiesofEnglishfromanethnic perspective. Further research is required within a more specified domain and with a higher number of participants to highlight how the individual differences between the two varieties of English are realized in the two geographic locations by the speakers.
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7LING 202: CANADIAN ENGLISH Works Cited. Boberg, Charles. "English as a minority language in Quebec."World Englishes31.4 (2012): 493- 502. Boberg, Charles. "Standard Canadian English."Standards of English: Codified Varieties around the World/ed. R. Hickey(2012): 159-178. Dollinger,Stefan.New-dialectformationinCanada:EvidencefromtheEnglishmodal auxiliaries. Vol. 97. John Benjamins Publishing, 2008. Hoffman, Michol F., and James A. Walker. "Ethnolects and the city: Ethnic orientation and linguistic variation in Toronto English."Language Variation and Change22.1 (2010): 37-67. Kiefte, Michael, and Elizabeth Kay-Raining Bird. "Canadian Maritime English."The Lesser- Known Varieties of English(2010): 59-71. Nordhoff,Sebastian,andHaraldHammarström."Glottolog/Langdoc:Definingdialects, languages,andlanguagefamiliesascollectionsofresources."FirstInternational Workshop on Linked Science 2011-In conjunction with the International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2011). 2011.