Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T20:54:10.295Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Our heart is still in Africa’: Twice migration and its sociolinguistic consequences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 February 2016

Claudia Rathore-Nigsch  and
Daniel Schreier
Claudia Rathore-Nigsch
Affiliation:
English Department, University of ZurichPlattenstrasse 47, 8032 Zurich, [email protected]
Daniel Schreier
Affiliation:
English Department, University of ZurichPlattenstrasse 47, 8032 Zurich, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study is a sociophonetic investigation of dialect variation and change in the East African Asian community in Leicester, UK. The community differs from other strands of the British Asian diaspora because of its migration history: a two-stage journey (‘twice migration’) within a few generations, first from the Indian subcontinent to East Africa (late nineteenth century) and from there onward to Britain (early 1970s). We examine variation in the production of the foot, strut, and nurse vowels across two generations of East African Asian migrants with a focus on the usage of originally Indian English features, identity expression, changing sense of belonging, and desire to maintain the original culture from the East African homelands. Our sociolinguistic examination of the speakers’ migration history demonstrates that, despite a strong affiliation with East Africa, first-generation speakers have predominantly maintained Indian English patterns whereas second-generation subjects partake in accommodation to an (educated) variety of East Midlands English. (Twice migration, accommodation, identity, variation and change in the diaspora, foot, strut, and nurse vowels, Indian English, East African English, East Midlands English)*

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , April 2016 , pp. 163 - 191
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adank, Patti; Smits, Roel; & van Hout, Roeland (2004). A comparison of vowel normalization procedures for language variation research. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 116:3099–107.Google Scholar
Alam, Farhana, & Stuart-Smith, Jane (2011). Identity and ethnicity in /t/ in Glasgow-Pakistani high-school girls. In Lee & Zee, 216–19.Google Scholar
Baayen, R. H. (2008). Analyzing linguistic data: A practical introduction to statistics using R. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Baayen, R. H. (2011). languageR: Data sets and functions with Analyzing linguistic data: A practical introduction to statistics. R package version 1.4. Online: http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=languageR; accessed January 2, 2013.Google Scholar
Bansal, R. K. (1990). The pronunciation of English in India. In Ramsaran, Susan (ed.), Studies in the pronunciation of English: A commemorative volume in honour of A. C. Gimson, 219–30. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bates, Douglas; Martin, Maechler; & Bolker, Ben (2011). lme4: Linear mixed-effects models using S4 classes. R package version 0.999375-42. Online: http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=lme4; accessed January 2, 2013.Google Scholar
Bhachru, Parminder (1986). Twice migrants: East African Sikh settlers in Britain. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Boersma, Paul, & Weenink, David (2010). Praat: Doing phonetics by computer. Version 5.1.25. Online: http://www.praat.org/; accessed January 20, 2010.Google Scholar
Britain, David, & Trudgill, Peter (1999). Migration, new-dialect formation and sociolinguistic refunctionalisation: Reallocation as an outcome of dialect contact. Transactions of the Philological Society 97(2):245–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Judith M. (2006). Global South Asians: Introducing the modern diaspora. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chambers, Jack (2002). Dynamics of dialect convergence. Journal of Sociolinguistics 6(1):117–30.Google Scholar
Cheshire, Jenny; Kerswill, Paul; Fox, Sue; & Torgersen, Eivind (2011). Contact, the feature pool and the speech community: The emergence of multicultural London English. Journal of Sociolinguistics 15(2):151–96.Google Scholar
CIEFL (1972). The sound system of Indian English. Monograph 7. Hyderabad: Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages.Google Scholar
Docherty, Gerard J., & Foulkes, Paul (1999). Derby and Newcastle: Instrumental phonetics and variationist studies. In Foulkes, Paul & Docherty, Gerard J. (eds.), Urban voices: Accent studies in the British Isles, 47–71. London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Esman, Milton (1996). Diasporas and international relations. In Hutchinson, John & Smith, Anthony D. (eds.), Ethnicity, 316–20. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Evans, Bronwen G., & Iverson, Paul (2007). Plasticity in vowel perception and production: A study of accent change in young adults. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 121(6):3814–26.Google Scholar
Evans, Bronwen G.; Mistry, Ajay; & Moreiras, Caroline (2007). An acoustic study of first- and second-generation Gujarati immigrants in Wembley: Evidence for accent convergence? In Trouvain & Barry, 1741–44.Google Scholar
Fabricius, Anne H.; Watt;, Dominic & Johnson, Daniel Ezra (2009). A comparison of three speaker-intrinsic vowel formant frequency normalization algorithms for sociophonetics. Language Variation and Change 21(3):413–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flynn, Nicholas E. J. (2011). Comparing vowel formant normalization procedures. York Papers in Linguistics (Series 2) 11:1–28.Google Scholar
Fox, Susan (2015). The new Cockney: New ethnicities and adolescent speech in the traditional East End of London. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Gargesh, Ravinder (2008). Indian English: Phonology. In Mesthrie, Rajend (ed.), Varieties of English, vol. 4: Africa, South and Southeast Asia, 231–43. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Gregory, Robert G. (1993). South Asians in East Africa: An economic and social history, 1890–1980. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Gries, Stefan Th. (2009). Statistics for linguistics with R: A practical introduction. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Hancock, Ian F., & Angogo, Rachel (1982). English in East Africa. In Bailey, Richard W. & Görlach, Manfred (eds.), English as a world language, 306–23. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Harris, Roxy (2006). New ethnicities and language use. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Heselwood, Barry, & McChrystal, Louise (2000). Gender, accent features and voicing in Panjabi-English bilingual children. Leeds Working Papers in Linguistics and Phonetics 8:45–70.Google Scholar
Hirson, Allen, & Sohail, Nabiah (2007). Variability of rhotics in Punjabi-English bilinguals. In Trouvain & Barry, 1501–1504.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, Thomas (2011). The Black Kenyan English vowel system: An acoustic phonetic analysis. English World-Wide 32(2):147–73.Google Scholar
Hughes, Arthur; Trudgill, Peter; & Watt, Dominic (2005). English accents and dialects: An introduction to social and regional varieties of English in the British Isles. 4th edn.London: Hodder Arnold.Google Scholar
Hundt, Marianne (2014). Home is where you're born: Negotiating identity in the diaspora. Studia Neophilologica 86(2):125–37.Google Scholar
Johnson, Daniel Ezra (2009). Getting off the GoldVarb standard: Introducing Rbrul for mixed-effects variable rule analysis. Language and Linguistics Compass 3(1):359–83.Google Scholar
Johnson, Keith (2008). Quantitative methods in linguistics. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Kalra, Virinder S. (2006). United Kingdom. In Lal, Brij V., Reeves, Peter, & Rai, Rajesh (eds.), The encyclopedia of the Indian diaspora, 363–45. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.Google Scholar
Kendall, Tyler, & Thomas, Erik R. (2010). Vowels: Vowel manipulation, normalization, and plotting. R package version 1.1. Online: http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=vowels; accessed January 2, 2013.Google Scholar
Kerswill, Paul (2010). Contact and new varieties. In Hickey, Raymond (ed.), Blackwell handbook of language contact, 230–51. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Kerswill, Paul; Torgersen, Eivind; & Fox, Susan (2008). Reversing ‘drift’: Innovation and diffusion in the London diphthong system. Language Variation and Change 20(3):451–91.Google Scholar
Khan, Arfaan (2006). A sociolinguistic study of Birmingham English: Language variation and change in a multi-ethnic British community. Lancaster: Lancaster University dissertation.Google Scholar
Kirkham, Sam (2011). The acoustics of coronal stops in British Asian English. In Lee & Zee, 1102–5.Google Scholar
Landau, Jacob (1996). Diaspora and language. In Hutchinson, John & Smith, Anthony D. (eds.), Ethnicity, 221–26. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lambert, Kirsten; Alam, Farhana; & Stuart-Smith, Jane (2007). Investigating British Asian accents: Studies from Glasgow. In Trouvain & Barry, 1509–11.Google Scholar
Lehmann, Sophia (1998). In search of a mother tongue: Locating home in the diaspora. MELUS 23(4):101–118.Google Scholar
Lobanov, Boris M. (1971). Classification of Russian vowels spoken by different speakers. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 49(2):606–8.Google Scholar
MacMahon, Michael K. C. (1999). Phonology. In Romaine, Suzanne (ed.), The Cambridge history of the English language, vol. 4, 1776–1997, 373–535. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Marett, Valerie (1989). Immigrants settling in the city. London: Leicester University Press.Google Scholar
Marett, Valerie (1993). Resettlement of Ugandan Asians in Leicester. Journal of Refugee Studies 6(3):248–59.Google Scholar
Maxwell, Olga, & Fletcher, Janet (2009). Acoustic and durational properties of Indian English vowels. World Englishes 28(1):52–69.Google Scholar
McArthur, Tom (2003). English in India. The Oxford guide to World English, 311–26. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McCarthy, Kathleen; Evans, Bronwen G.; & Mahon, Merle (2011). Detailing the phonetic environment: A sociophonetic study of the London Bengali community. In Lee & Zee, 1354–57.Google Scholar
Nihalani, Paroo; Tongue, R. K.; Hosali, Priya; & Crowther, Jonathan (2004). Indian and British English: A handbook of usage and pronunciation. 2nd edn.Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nortier, Jacomine, & Dorleijn, Margreet (2013). Multi-ethnolects: Kebabnorsk, Perkerdansk, Verlan, Kanakensprache, Sztraattaal, etc. In Bakker, Peter & Matras, Yaron (eds.), Contact languages: A comprehensive guide, 229–71. Boston: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
ONS (Office for National Statistics) (2012). Census 2011. Online: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/census/2011/index.html; accessed January 2, 2013.Google Scholar
Oonk, Gijsbert (2006). East Africa. In Lal, Brij V., Reeves, Peter, & Rai, Rajesh (eds.), The encyclopedia of the Indian diaspora, 254–62. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.Google Scholar
Phillips, Deborah (1981). The social and spatial segregation of Asians in Leicester. In Jackson, Peter & Smith, Susan J. (eds.), Social interaction and ethnic segregation, 101–21. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
R Development Core Team (2011). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. Online: http://www.R-project.org/; accessed January 2, 2013.Google Scholar
Rampton, Ben (1995). Crossing: Language and ethnicity among adolescents. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Rampton, Ben (2011). From ‘multi-ethnic adolescent heteroglossia’ to ‘contemporary urban vernaculars’. Language & Communication 31(4):276–94.Google Scholar
Rathore-Nigsch, Claudia (2014). East African Indian twice migrants in Britain: Phonological variation across generations. In Hundt, Marianne & Sharma, Devyani (eds.), English in the Indian diaspora, 55–83. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Rathore-Nigsch, Claudia (2015). Dialect variation and change among twice migrants: A sociophonetic study of the East African Indian community in Leicester, UK. Zurich: University of Zurich dissertation. Online: http://opac.nebis.ch/ediss/20152376.pdf; accessed August 21, 2015.Google Scholar
Reynolds, Mike, & Verma, Mahendra (2007). Indic languages. In Britain, David (ed.), Language in the British Isles, 293–307. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Robinson, Vaughan (1993). Marching into the middle classes? The long-term resettlement of East African Asians in the UK. Journal of Refugee Studies 6(3):230–47.Google Scholar
Safran, William (1991). Diasporas in modern societies: Myths of homeland and return. Journal of Transnational Studies 1(1):83–99.Google Scholar
Sahgal, Anju, & Agnihotri, Rama Kant (1988). Indian English phonology: A sociolinguistic perspective. English World-Wide 9(1):51–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmied, Josef (2008). East African English (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania): Phonology. In Mesthrie, Rajend (ed.), Varieties of English, vol. 4: Africa, South and Southeast Asia, 150–63. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Schneider, Edgar W. (2004). Global synopsis: Phonetic and phonological variation in English world-wide. In Schneider, Edgar W., Burridge, Kate, Kortmann, Bernd, Mesthrie, Rajend, & Upton, Clive (eds.), A handbook of varieties of English, vol. 1: Phonology, 1111–37. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Schreier, Daniel (2012). The impact of migratory movements on linguistic systems: Transplanted speech communities and varieties from a historical sociolinguistic perspective. In Hernández-Campoy, Juan Manuel & Conde-Sylvestre, Juan Camilo (eds.), The handbook of historical sociolinguistics, 534–51. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sharma, Devyani (2011). Style repertoire and social change in British Asian English. Journal of Sociolinguistics 15(4):464–92.Google Scholar
Sharma, Devyani, & Sankaran, Lavanya (2011). Cognitive and social forces in dialect shift: Gradual change in London Asian speech. Language Variation and Change 23(3):399–428.Google Scholar
Simo Bobda, Augustin (2001). East and Southern African English accents. World Englishes 20(3):269–84.Google Scholar
Stuart-Smith, Jane; Timmins, Claire; & Alam, Farhana (2011). Hybridity and ethnic accents: A sociophonetic analysis of ‘Glaswasian’. In Gregersen, Frans, Parrott, Jeffrey K., & Quist, Pia (eds.), Language variation – European perspectives III: Selected papers from the 5th International Conference on Language Variation in Europe (ICLaVE 5), Copenhagen, June 2009, 43–57. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Thomas, Erik R. (2011). Sociophonetics: An introduction. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, Erik R., & Kendall, Tyler (2011). NORM: The vowel normalization and plotting suite. Online: http://ncslaap.lib.ncsu.edu/tools/norm/norm1.php; accessed January 2, 2013).Google Scholar
Torgersen, Eivind; Kerswill, Paul; & Fox, Susan (2006). Ethnicity as a source of changes in the London vowel system. In Hinskens, Frans (ed.), Language variation – European perspectives: Selected papers from the Third International Conference on Language Variation in Europe (ICLaVE 3), Amsterdam, June 2005, 249–63. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter. (1999). The dialects of England. 2nd edn.Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter, & Hannah, Jean (1994). International English: A guide to varieties of Standard English. 3rd edn.London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Twaddle, Michael (1990). East African Asians through a hundred years. In Clarke, Colin, Peach, Ceri, & Vertovec, Steven (eds.), South Asians overseas: Migration and ethnicity, 149–63. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wells, J. C. (1982). Accents of English: An introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wiltshire, Caroline R. (2005). The ‘Indian English’ of Tibeto-Burman language speakers. English World-Wide 26(3):275–300.Google Scholar
Wiltshire, Caroline R., & Harnsberger, James D. (2006). The influence of Gujarati and Tamil L1s on Indian English: A preliminary study. World Englishes 25(1):91–104.Google Scholar
Wolf, Hans-Georg (2010). East and West African Englishes: Differences and commonalities. In Kirkpatrick, Andy (ed.), The Routledge handbook of world Englishes, 197–211. London: Routledge.Google Scholar