Language and Ethnicity Book

Preface     xi
Acknowledgments     xiv
General issues in ethnicity and language
What is ethnicity?     3
Areas of agreement about ethnicity     4
Possible definitions of ethnicity     8
Possible definitions of race     9
Discussion questions     17
Suggestions for further reading     18
Language and the construction of ethnic identity     19
What linguistic resources do individuals have in constructing identity?     21
Indexing multiple identities     23
Ethnic pride or assimilation?     27
How is an individual's ethnicity co-constructed by the community?     30
Language and the construction of ethnic identity: three individual cases     33
Discussion questions     40
Suggestions for further reading     41
Linguistic features and ethnicity in specific groups
African-American groups     45
What is AAVE?     46
AAVE grammar     47
AAVE phonology     49
Variation in the use of non-standard features in AAVE     51
Attitudes towards AAVE     53
Regional variation in AAVE: is AAVE converging toward a supraregional norm?     56
Another possibility: a blendof supraregional and regional norms     60
Standard AAE and the language of middle-class African-Americans     62
AAVE in the media     66
Discussion questions     68
Suggestions for further reading     68
Latino groups     70
The complexities of identity in Latino communities     71
Repertoires: multiple codes for multiple identities     73
Attitudes, choices, and the construction of identity     75
The structure of dialects in latino communities     79
Chicano English phonology     80
Chicano English grammar     82
The structure of other Latino English dialects     84
Latino dialects of Spanish     86
The language gap: differences among generations     87
Discussion questions     87
Suggestions for further reading     88
Linguistic variation in other multiethnic settings     89
Cajuns and Creoles in Louisiana     90
South African ethnic groups     96
Maoris in New Zealand     105
Discussion questions     109
Suggestions for further reading     110
Are white people ethnic? Whiteness, dominance, and ethnicity     112
The social correlates of being white     115
The linguistic correlates of being white     117
The consequences of "sounding white"     119
Humor and the portrayal of "whiteness"     121
Discussion questions     131
Suggestions for further reading     131
Dialect contact, ethnicity, and language change     133
Dialect contact and ethnic boundaries     133
Influences of minority ethnic dialects on the dominant dialect     139
Contact among ethnic minority dialects     141
Ethnic minority group speakers and sound change     143
Discussion questions     150
Suggestions for further reading     150
The role of language use in ethnicity
Discourse features, pragmatics, and ethnicity     155
Indirectness     156
Turn-taking, silence, and backchanneling     160
Joking     164
Complimenting     166
Acquisition of language norms     168
Discussion questions     170
Suggestions for further reading     170
Interethnic communication and language prejudice     172
Tennis, anyone?     172
Interethnic communication     174
Differences in language use norms in public settings     175
Language varieties and interactional styles in the classroom     181
Teaching a standard variety to speakers of vernacular varieties     184
Accent hallucination     187
Matched guise studies and linguistic profiling     189
Discussion questions     195
Suggestions for further reading     195
Crossing: may I borrow your ethnicity?     197
Classic studies of crossing in the UK     199
Who crosses?     200
Why does a speaker cross?     202
How does an individual get access to a linguistic code other than his or her own?     204
How extensive is crossing, linguistically? What linguistic areas are individuals who cross most likely to use?     206
Does crossing lead to less racism?     209
Crossing versus passing     211
Discussion questions     214
Suggestions for further reading     215
Notes     216
Glossary of terms     218
References     228
Index     243