LING 202 Canadian English: A Report on Toronto and Ottawa Dialects

This report analyzes the dialectal variations within Canadian English, specifically comparing the English spoken in Toronto and Ottawa. The study, conducted as part of a LING 202 course, investigates the influence of demographic factors like sex, age, and geographical location on language use. The methodology involved qualitative data collection from 10 speakers, examining their lexicon, phonological preferences, perception of rhyme, and syntactic choices. The results revealed minor differences in phonological features, particularly in how speakers from Toronto and Ottawa pronounce certain sounds. The report also discusses limitations of the study, such as the small sample size and uneven distribution of participants across variables, and suggests directions for future research with a larger participant pool to further explore the nuances of these regional dialects. The study found that geographical location was the most significant factor in differentiating the two dialects, indicating that while both cities speak a form of Standard Canadian English, there are minor differences in phonological properties that distinguish them. The study also considered the influence of the multicultural and multilingual communities in Canada on the dialects.

Running head: LING 202: CANADIAN ENGLISH
LING 202: CANADIAN ENGLISH
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1LING 202: CANADIAN ENGLISH
Introduction.
Dialects of a language can be defined as its sub-forms which are mutually
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
than 58% of the country’s population (Boberg, ‘Standard Canadian English’). 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.

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Sex
Male 4
Female 6
Age
Young 4
Middle 3
Old 3
Geographic location
Toronto 6
Ottawa 4
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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and immediately followed by a trill, are similar sounding to speakers from Toronto, but not to
speakers from Ottawa.
Merged/unmerged Sex Geographic 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/Toronto Unmerged/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.

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Toronto Ottawa
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.

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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
understanding the linguistic orientation of the two varieties of English from an ethnic
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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Works Cited.
Boberg, Charles. "English as a minority language in Quebec." World Englishes 31.4 (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-dialect formation in Canada: Evidence from the English modal
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 Change 22.1 (2010):
37-67.
Kiefte, Michael, and Elizabeth Kay-Raining Bird. "Canadian Maritime English." The Lesser-
Known Varieties of English (2010): 59-71.
Nordhoff, Sebastian, and Harald Hammarström. "Glottolog/Langdoc: Defining dialects,
languages, and language families as collections of resources." First International
Workshop on Linked Science 2011-In conjunction with the International Semantic Web
Conference (ISWC 2011). 2011.