Example of an Ethnolect Based Essay

The speech of an soulfulness is a lingual map of their identicalness and an quality of how they would like to be perceived. Migrants who come to Australia already be possessed of the linguistic structures of their mother tongue, and these will affect the sort they speak incline, forming an ethnolect. Consequently, a persons verbiage is a clear indicator of their past ethnic origins, and the position they opt to speak will excessively indicate how they would like others to perceive them. This latter is true for everyone, as we all vary our language check to context.Bill is a young Chinese student who has come to Australia two years ago from chinaw be to further his education. His lexical field is wide and varied, he is able to use complex syntactic structures and his underline and prosodic features video display a good familiarity with standard Australian English. However, it is belt up possible to find linguistic features which demonstrates that he is from a Chinese b ackground, that he is male, that he has travelled, can appreciate humour, and that he would like to be perceived as an educated person with further academic goals.The phonological features of a persons speech are the most obvious signposts to his or her origins or mother tongue. For sheath, Bill pronounces the not in not really, correct, just and want by ending with a glottal point (/?/), rather than the voiceless consonant (/t/). This occurs as final consonants are much less normal in Mandarin than in English and thus they are normally dropped or replaced by a glottal stop. This could give linguists a clue on his origins or mother tongue.Bill similarly determine the Australian accent, but there are in any case traces of American English in his speech, notably his orthoepy of currently, with the sound ker (American) rather than kar (Australian). This shows the subtle ways that every experience can affect a persons identity as Bill has stayed in America for a short stoppage o f time, making his English slightly different from another Chinese student that has not had that experience. Local idioms and foreign borrowed words are likewise utilise in a non standard way by Bill.An example would be the way he pronounces gourmet, by analogy he assumes that all letters are pronounced in English. However, since this word is of French origin, its finalt should not be pronounced. Through the way a subject speaks, we could pinpoint his ethnic group. Although Bill has a wide and varied lexical field, he does not use m either idiomatic Australian expressions. This could mean that he is either still a newcomer and has not become familiar with colloquial language, or he may not note value these expressions (such as Aussie, veggie, mateetc) as he might view them as low status words.This could show that he wants to be perceived as an educated, cultured person, instead of a rough Aussie. Even though English is not the subjects mother tongue, he still has a fairy vaingl orious lexicon, using lexemes such as lucrative, environment and gourmet, this could show that he has been exposed to English even before he migrated to Australia. Bill also uses the word reckon and heaps which shows that he has essay to fit into his peer group and that he has a good grasp of the type of language used by the people around him.A subjects syntactic structures are another indication of his ethnic origins. The use of modal verbs is sometimes difficult for Chinese learners as there arent any tenses in Mandarin, and this is evident in Bills speech. For example, in his sentence Basically, I can choose from a lot of country/ The lack of plural is evident here ( country/countries), but also the verb can is used in a non-standard way, it is used in its base form rather than the to a greater extent accepted past tense, as in I could choose from a lot of countries.Leaving verbs in their base form is a feature of many Mandarin speakers, as in Mandarin, tenses are indicated by o ther means. Another syntactic feature is the plural, which is sometimes not formed as shown before. For example, my family fellow member, at those stage, a lot of country and different background. Such non-standard usage also pinpoints Bills identity as a Chinese speaker as there are no plurals for nouns in Mandarin. Bills word order too is sometimes non standard, especially when expressing much complex ideas.For example, aging universe of discourse faces in Japan rather than Japan too faces an aging population. All these syntactic features contribute to his identity as a young Chinese student still in the process of mastering the English language. A subjects attitude can also show what kind of speaker he or she would like to be perceived. For example, Bill states that he prefers the Australian accent over the Singaporean accent. This would show that he puts a high value on the Australian English and would like to be perceived as a English speakerFrom this, it can be seen that ma ny features contribute to a persons ethnolect, and from it we can deduce the subjects identity and the way he or she wants to be perceived. Furthermore, migrants who come to Australia know that they must learn English, as nothing unites a country more than its common language. (John Howard). However, each migrant, such as Bill, brings his own variation of English which is linked to his first mother tongue (in this case Mandarin). In this way, each person contributes to the rich arras of sounds, words and syntactic structures which make up Australias history, culture and identity.