Canadian English

LING 202, Fall 2007Dr. Tony Pi

Week 2 - Canadianisms

Is Canadian English ‘Safe’?• Claim 1: Canadian English is and always will be

distinct from American English– Canadians will resist the influence of American

English

• Claim 2: A Continental Standard is inevitable– Canadian English is becoming more like American

English

• Which view is correct? One, both, or neither?

Canadian English vs. American• Reverend Geikie - 1857 address

• adolescent from Edinburgh and followed in his father’s footsteps to become a Presbyterian minister

– American ‘lawless and vulgar innovations’• donation; to loan; posted-up; first-class (person);

locate/location; considerable; conclude/resolve; territory/region/district; rendition

• hung; dove• rooster; lightning bug; buggy• pants; skin-tights• guess = think• some; quite; down-town; boss; span; loafer; ticket; caucus;

fixed; fixings; dickered; stump-orator; chiselling; log-rolling; sloped; made tracks; betterments; lots; yorker (coin)

Lexical Variants

• Types– proper nouns for regions– loanwords from other languages

• French, Inuit, Native– regional variants– historical– slang

• Examples (p. 34, 35)

Canadian Dainty

• conviction of the superiority of things British lasted more than a century, from the 1850s to the 1950s

• including schedule with SH• tomato with AH• student with YOO• whale with WH• rather with AH, and many others

The Anglo-Canadian– A higher-class manifestation of the same cultural

strain was the phenomenon of the “Anglo-Canadian.” In the first half of the 20th century, many Canadian-born military officers, diplomats, professors, CBC newscasters, actors, and other members of the self-styled cultural élite affected British speech and manners. Some of them had spent a term or two at Sandhurst, the British military academy, or at Cambridge or Oxford, but others had not. All of them had accents that, in the words of the satirist Irving Layton, made “even Englishmen wince, and feel unspeakably colonial” (Scott and Smith 1967)

Decline of Briticisms

– pronunciation of leisure– the phonological change of yod-dropping in

news and student– serviette/napkin– mom/mum– sofa/couch/chesterfield– where, which, whine

No Public Awareness of Change

– The decline and imminent disappearance of Briticisms are taking place with little or no public awareness. One reason for this is sociolinguistic. Although the changes are extensive linguistically, they are not abrupt or overwhelming socially.

– Cultural: The ethnically diverse immigrations of this century diluted the Anglo-Celtic hegemony to the point where Canadians of English and Scottish ancestry are now a minority. Equally important, they are removed from the old sod by no fewer than two generations and as many as six.

Canadian English Spelling

• British– axe, catalogue, centre, colour, cheque,

mediaeval, plough, skilful, woollen• US

– connection, curb, jail, net, recognize, tire, wagon

Spelling Conventions

• Tables 1 & 2, p. 37-38• Table 3 & Figure 1, p. 41

• Afterword– axe (B), catalogue (B), cheque (B),

encyclopedia (A), grey (B), jewellery (B), manoeuvre (B), pyjamas (B), woollen (B),-our (B), -re (B), -lled (B), licence/practice [N] (B), license/practise [V] (B), judgment (A), -ize/-yze (A)

Eh?

• What is Eh, eh?– interrogative particle– informal speaking style– friendliness, not uncertainty; group solidarity

• felicitous performance – every speech act has conditions that have to

be met– what are some examples of such conditions?

The Felicitous Uses of Eh– ‘eh’ gives the addressee the option to comply with the

request• not compatible with a command (imperative)

– ‘eh’ indicates that the situational assumptions of the speech act are ‘weak’

• e.g., a command requires a strong position of power• weak compliance that won’t require a more formal tone of

conversation– ‘eh’ indicates an offer, not a promise– ‘eh’ with questions allows option of not answering– not compatible with direct compliments, insults,

accusations• all strong forms of assertions

More Uses of Eh?

– ‘eh’ can indicate personal opinion• requires addressee to be able to form own opinion

– ‘eh’ can be used to confirm facts and opinions• deferring to superior knowledge of someone else• confirmation of a shared belief

– friendliness comes from adopting a position of shared belief rather than ‘informing’ someone