FACULTY OF ARTS
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH GUEST LECTURE

Topic
Communities of Speakers who Defy Established Sociolinguistic Norms: Subversive Behaviour or Social Fulfillment?

Speaker
Dr. Laura Rupp,Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Chairperson
Dr. Dora Edu-Buandoh

Date: Wednesday August 31st, 2011
Time: 1.pm

Venue: Faculty of Arts Confernce Room

Synopsis
In the past few decades, there have been a number of studies reporting on speakers who defy establised sociolinguistic norms. Specifically, these concern speakers whom we might expect to speak standard language varieties, such as female and middle class speakers, but who use a non-standard variety in fact. Examples of these varieties are Estuary English (Crystal 1995), Poldernederlands (Polderdutch; Stroop 1997) and Student Pidgin (Dako 2002), perhaps. The use of such non-standard varieties has been described as subversive behaviour or a deterioration of the standard language. In this talk I will contemplate that these variaties help construct the social identities of newly emerging communities of speakers. I will suggest that these varieties aren’t random selections of linguistic features but have particularfeatures that convey social meanings that matter to these communities.

Dako, K. “Student Pidgin (SP): the language of the educated elite.” Institute of African Studies: Research Review 18: 53-62.
Crystal, D. 1995. “EstuaryEnglish”. Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language, Cambridge University Press: 327.
Stroop, J. 1997. “Wordt het Poldernederlands model”, Taal en Tongval 10, p. 10-29.