Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-x4r87 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T23:59:18.331Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“So cool, right?”: Canadian English Entering the 21st Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Sali A. Tagliamonte
Sali A. Tagliamonte*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A socially stratified sample—the Toronto English Corpus—together with the construct of apparent time (with speakers aged 10–90 years) reveal that certain features are declining, including future will, deontic have got to, possessive have got, intensifier very, and the sentence tag you know. On the other hand, some features are on the rise, including future going to, deontic have to, possessive have, intensifiers really and so, and sentences tags such as whatever, so, and stuff like that. The younger generation is pushing these changes forward more rapidly. While some developments date back hundreds of years in the history of English, they are not particular to Canada, and are consistent with research on other English corpora. Other changes appear to be progressing in a unique way in Canada, including deontic and possessive have. I argue that the broader socio-historical context is a critical factor: geographic and economic mobility as well as changes in communication technology may explain the rapid acceleration of certain types of linguistic change.

Résumé

Résumé

Un échantillon avec stratification sociale—le Toronto English Corpus—en combinaison avec la notion de temps apparent (avec des locuteurs âgés entre 10 et 90 ans) révèlent que certains traits sont en déclin, dont le futur will, le have got to déontique, le have got possessif, l’intensifieur very et l’expression phrastique you know. Par contre, d’autre traits sont en croissance, dont le futur going to, le déontique have to, le possessif have, les intensifieurs really et so et les expressions phrastiques whatever, so et stuff like that. La generation plus jeune pousse ces changements de l’avant plus rapidement. Alors que certains de ces développements datent de plusieurs centaines d’années dans l’histoire de l’anglais, ils ne sont pas spécifique au Canada et apparaissent dans d’autres corpus de l’anglais. D’autres changements semblent progresser de façon unique au Canada, dont le have déontique et possessif. J’argumente ici que le contexte socio-historique est un facteur décisif: une mobilité géographique et économique ainsi que des changements dans la technologie de la communication peuvent expliquer l’accélération rapide de certains types de changements linguistiques.

Type
Language Change
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 51 , Issue 2-3: Canadian English in a Global Context , November 2006 , pp. 309 - 331
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 2006

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

Aijmer, Karin. 1985. Just. In Papers on language and literaturepPresented to Alvar Ellegård and Erik Frykman, ed. Backman, Sven, and Kjellmer, Göran, 1–10.Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis.Google Scholar
Avis, Walter S. 1972. So eh? is Canadian, eh?. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique 17:89–104.Google Scholar
Baron, Naomi S. 2003. Language of the internet. In The Stanford handbook for language engineers, ed. Farghali, Ali, 1–63. Stanford: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Baron, Naomi S. 2004. See you online: Gender issues in college student use of instant messaging. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 23:397–423.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boberg, Charles. 2004a. Ethnic patterns in the phonetics of Montreal English. Journal of Sociolinguistics 8:538–568.Google Scholar
Boberg, Charles. 2004b. Real and apparent time in language change: Late adoption of changes in Montreal English. American Speech 79:250–269.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bolinger, Dwight. 1980. Language: The loaded weapon. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan L., and Pagliuca, William, 1987. The evolution of future meaning. In Papers from the 7th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, ed. Ramat, Anna Giacalone, Carruba, Onofrio, and Bernini, Giuliano, 107–122. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Chambers, J.K. 1993. “Lawless and vulgar innovations”: Victorian views of Canadian English. In Focus on Canada, ed. Clarke, Sandra, 1–26. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Chambers, J.K. 1995a. Acquisition of lexical and pronunciation variants. In Proceedings of the International Congress of Dialectologists 4, ed. Viereck, Wolfgang, 3–19. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.Google Scholar
Chambers, J.K. 1995b. The Canada-U.S. border as a vanishing isogloss: The evidence of Chesterfield. Journal of English Linguistics 23:155–166.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chambers, J.K. 1997. Mass media and literacy in language change. Paper read at University of York.Google Scholar
Chambers, J.K. 2002. Patterns of variation including change. In The handbook of language variation and change, ed. Chambers, J.K, Trudgill, Peter, and Schilling-Estes, Natalie, 349–372. Maiden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Chambers, J.K. 2003a. Sociolinguistic theory: Linguistic variation and its social significance Maiden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Chambers, J.K. 2003b. Sociolinguistics of immigration. In Social Dialectology, ed. Britain, David and Cheshire, Jenny, 97–113. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chambers, J.K. 2004a. ‘Canadian dainty’: The rise and decline of Briticisms in Canada. In Legacies of colonial English: Studies in transported dialects, ed. Hickey, Raymond, 224–241. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chambers, J.K. 2004b. Sound and sense in Victorian Toronto. Paper read at The Chancellor Jackman Program for the Arts, University of Toronto.Google Scholar
Crystal, David. 2003. English as a global language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D’Arcy, Alexandra. 2005a. Like: Syntax and development. Doctoral dissertation, University of Toronto.Google Scholar
D’Arcy, Alexandra. 2005b. Specialization of deontic modality in Canadian English. Paper read at the Canadian English in the Global Context conference, University of Toronto.Google Scholar
Dines, Elisabeth R. 1980. Variation in discourse and stuff like that. Language in Society 9:13–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dollinger, Stefan. This volume.Google Scholar
Dubois, Sylvie. 1992. Extension particles, etc. Language Variation and Change 4:163–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, Deborah J. 1977. Eight types of ‘eh’. Sociolinguistics Newsletter 8:30–31.Google Scholar
Gold, Elaine. 2005. Canadian eh?: A survey of contemporary use. In Proceedings of the 2004 Canadian Linguistic Association Annual Conference, ed. Junker, Marie-Odile, McGinnis, Martha, and Roberge, Yves, 12 pages. http://www.carleton.ca/~mojunker/ACL-CLA/pdf/Bliss-CLA-2004.pdf.Google Scholar
Gold, Elaine, and Tremblay, Mireille. This volume.Google Scholar
Howe, Neil, and Strauss, William. 1991. Generations: The history of America’s future 1584-2069. New York: William Morrow.Google Scholar
Ito, Rika, and Tagliamonte, Sali A. 2003. Well weird, right dodgy, very strange, really cool: Layering and recycling in English intensifiers. Language in Society 32:257–279.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jankowski, Bridget. 2004. A transatlantic perspective of variation and change in English deontic modality. Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics 23(2):85–113.Google Scholar
Jankowski, Bridget. 2005. “We’ve got our own little ways of doing things here”: Cross-variety variation, change and divergence in the English stative possessive. Ms., University of Toronto.Google Scholar
Johnson, Marion. 1976. Canadian eh. Ohio State University Working Papers in Linguistics 21:153–160.Google Scholar
Krug, Manfred G. 1998. Gotta-the tenth central modal in English? Social, stylistic and regional variation in the British National Corpus as evidence of ongoing grammaticalization. In The major varieties of English. Papers from MAVEN 97, ed. Lindquist, Hans, Klintborg, Staffan, Levin, Magnus, and Estling, Maria, 177–191. Växjö: Acta Wexionensia.Google Scholar
Krug, Manfred G. 2000. Emerging English modals: A corpus-based study on grammaticalization. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labov, William. 1985. Intensity. In Meaning, form and use in context: Linguistic applications, ed. Schiffrin, Deborah, 43–70. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1994. Principles of linguistic change. Vol. 1: Internal factors. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 2001. Principles of linguistic change. Vol. 2: Social factors. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Mair, Christian, Hundt, Marianne, Leech, Geoffrey N., and Smith, Nicholas. 2002. Short term diachronic shifts in part-of-speech frequencies: A comparison of the tagged LOB and F-LOB corpora. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 7:245–264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, Hans. 1994. Degree adverbs in early modern English. In Studies in Early Modern English, ed. Kastovsky, Dieter, 269–288. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Poplack, Shana, and Tagliamonte, Sali A. 1999. The grammaticalization of going to in (African American) English. Language Variation and Change 11:315–342.Google Scholar
Poplack, Shana, and Walker, James. 2002. A majority language in minority guise: The future of Quebec English. Paper read at the Canadian Linguistic Association annual meeting, Halifax.Google Scholar
Poplack, Shana, and Walker, James. 2003. An English “like no other”?: Language contact and change in Quebec. Paper read at New Ways of Analyzing Variation 31, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California.Google Scholar
Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey, and Svartvik, Jan. 1985. A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Rice, Wallace. 1932. Get and Got. American Speech 7:280–296.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schecter, Sandra. 1979. Eh? revisited: Is it or is it not Canadian? The English Quarterly 12:37–45.Google Scholar
Stenström, Anna-Brita. 1999. He was really gormless—She’s bloody crap: Girls, boys and intensifiers. In Out of corpora: Studies in honour of Stig Johansson, ed. Hasselgård, Hide, and Okesfjell, Signe, 69–78. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Stenström, Anna-Brita., 2000. It’s enough funny, man: Intensifiers in teenage talk. In Corpora galore: Analyses and techniques in describing English. Papers from the Nineteenth International Conference on English Language Research on Computerised Corpora (1CAME 1998), ed. Kirk, John, 177–190. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali A. 1996-1998. Roots of Identity: Variation and Grammaticization in Contemporary British English. Research grant # R000221842. Economic and Social Sciences Research Council (ESRC) of Great Britain.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali A. 1999-2001. Grammatical variatori and change in British English: Perspectives from York. Research Grant. Economic and Social Science Research Council (ESRC) of the Great Britain.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali A. 2002. Comparative sociolinguistics. In The handbook of language variation and change, ed. Chambers, J.K., Trudgill, Peter, and Schilling-Estes, Natalie, 729–763. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali A. 2003-2006. Linguistic changes in Canada entering the 21st century. Research Grant # 410-2003-0005. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC).Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali A. 2004. Have to, gotta, must: Grammaticalisation, variation and specialization in English deontic modality. In Corpus approaches to grammaticalization in English, ed. Lindquist, Hans and Mair, Christian, 33–55. Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali A., and D’Arcy, Alexandra. 2004. He’s like; She’s like: The quotative system in Canadian Youth. Journal of Sociolinguistics 8:493–514.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali A., and D’Arcy, Alexandra. To appear. Frequency and variation in the community grammar: Tracking a new change through the generations. Language Variation and Change.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali A., and Hudson, Rachel. 1999. Be like et al. beyond America: The quotative system in British and Canadian youth. Journal of Sociolinguistics 3:147–172.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali A., and Smith, Jennifer. To appear. Layering, change and a twist of fate: Deontic modality in dialects of English. Diachronica 23.Google Scholar