How does an ethnolect represent culture and identity?
Does religion play a part in identity?
Not sure what I can talk about
any help will be appreciated
cheers
Hi there!
An ethnolect is a morphological blend for the phrase 'ethnic dialect'. It's a version of Australian English used by many migrant members in our community. It functions much like an in-group recognition device, in that it can socially include those of the same cultural background, while excluding outsiders. Think of it like slang and how slang serves similar functions.
A good article on ethnolects can be found here:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/its-our-own-strain-of-strine-habib-20090308-8sgx.html An excellent quote that can sum up the purpose of an ethnolect can be found in Bruce Moore's quote: An ethnolect, a variety of a language spoken by an ethnic subgroup, "is used consciously to separate the speakers from Anglo-Australian values, and at its extreme also to separate the speakers from some parts of their own culture".
Of course, religion would also play a vital role in the construction of a cultural identity, however, remember this is linguistics and not religious studies! You need to look at the LANGUAGE used by the ethnolect speaker reflects cultural identity.
Ethnic varieties can become potent markers of a group’s identity, especially in the face of language attrition (erosion).
Speakers start to value ethnic features in their English, therefore accentuating ethnic differentiation
Linguistic features (often from the first language) function much like ‘clique’ or in-group recognition devices.
Many second-generation and later generations of non-English backgrounds employ two different varieties of Australian English – a mainstream variety when they are speaking to most interlocutors and an ethnolect when they are speaking to their parents, people of similar background or sometimes to all members in society.
Ethnolects are marked variously by lexical, grammatical, phonological and or prosodic features.
Well, that should be enough to get you started!