New York City English

193 Pages·2014·1.434 MB·English

by  Michael Newman

Michael Newman
New York City English
Dialects of English
Editors
Joan C. Beal
Karen P. Corrigan
Bernd Kortmann
Volume 10
Michael Newman
New York City
English
ISBN 978-1-61451-289-9
e-ISBN (PDF) 978-1-61451-212-7
e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-1-5015-0060-2
ISSN 2164-7445
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailed bibliographic data are available on the internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.
© 2014 Walter de Gruyter, Inc., Boston/Berlin
Cover image: Michael Newman
Typesetting: PTP-Berlin Protago-TEX-Production GmbH, Berlin
Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck
♾ Printed on acid-free paper
Printed in Germany
www.degruyter.com
This book is dedicated to my parents for bringing me to New York before I was
born and to Paco for ending up here with me so many years later.
I also want to thank Dan Silverman for suggesting my name to the original
editors of the Dialects of English Series; John Singler, a true mensch, for giving
me ideas and letting me sit in on his New York City English Seminar at NYU in
addition to the students attending the seminar; Miki Makihara for co-organizing
our Voices of New York class, and the various students in that class who have
contributed to book including Angela Wu, Lisa Fogelman, Kyle Khachadurian,
and Andrew Crocker; the members of the BQ-16 and the teachers and adminis-
tration of the “Urban Arts Academy,” who must remain anonymous. Finally, I
want to thank Emily Farrell, who balances support and advice in an ideal way as
editor.

Contents
1 Introduction | 1
1.1 N ew York City English and the approach taken in this book | 1
1.2 The data used | 3
1.3 What non-specialists need to know | 7
1.3.1 V ariationist studies | 7
1.3.2 A ppreciating NYCE | 9
1.3.3 C omprehending NYCE | 10
2 G eography demography and cultural factors | 13
2.1 T he New York City Dialect Region | 13
2.2 Social Class and Prestige | 19
2.3 A City of Immigrants | 21
2.4 Racial and Ethnic Identities | 24
2.4.1 R acial nomenclature | 25
2.4.2 D efining race | 26
2.4.3 H ow New Yorkers define race | 28
2.4.4 Sociolinguistic treatments of race and ethnicity | 33
2.4.5 New Yorkers’ associations of race and variation | 35
2.4.6 Racial Segregation and Dialect Development and
Preservation | 41
3 Phonetics and Phonology | 45
3.1 I coulda been a contenda | 45
3.2 (r): the fourth floor | 46
3.3 V owels | 51
3.3.1 The short-A split | 53
3.3.2 The low-back system: “Send a Salami to Your Boy in the
Army” | 62
3.3.3 Two Diphthongs or Three? | 71
3.3.4 Back and Front Upgliding Vowels | 75
3.3.5 Other conditioned patterns | 76
3.4 Consonants | 78
3.4.1 Dis and dat: (dh) and (th) | 78
3.4.2 Other Racially Differentiated Consonants | 82
3.4.3 H ubbell’s inventory | 86
3.4.4 C onsonant clusters | 86
3.5 Suprasegmental Factors | 87
3.6 Conclusion | 88
viii       Contents
4 Morphology and Syntax | 89
4.1 Background | 89
4.2 Regional NYCE features | 90
4.2.1 Morphology | 90
4.2.2 S yntax | 92
4.3 I nternal Ethnic-based Variation | 94
4.3.1 African American English | 94
4.3.2 Spanish calques: No longer devil-owned | 96
4.3.3 Goyim can’t say that: Jewish English | 99
4.4 Summary: Contact and Future Research | 101
5 D iscourse Factors | 102
5.1 Background | 102
5.2 New York Jewish Conversational Style | 103
5.3 Research on African American Communicative Genres | 106
5.4 Bilingual Repertoires: Language Contact in New York | 109
5.5 Further Research | 111
6 L exicon | 113
6.1 Background | 113
6.2 Immigrant Contributions | 114
6.2.1 Y iddishisms | 114
6.2.2 Lexical contributions from other languages | 116
6.3 Words Original to NYCE | 119
6.4 R acial Factors | 126
6.4.1 Racial Variation | 126
6.4.2 T he N-word | 127
6.4.3 The city divided | 129
6.5 G local Words in New York and beyond | 130
7 The History and Study of NYCE | 132
7.1 E arly NYCE | 132
7.1.1 Origins | 132
7.1.2 Early Evolution of NYCE | 135
7.2 Research on NYCE and Recent Developments | 144
7.2.1 L abov’s Social Stratification of English in New York City | 145
7.2.2 R esearch since SSENYC | 148
Contents       ix
8 Conclusion | 151
8.1 New York City English and Prominence of Race | 151
8.2 The Sociolinguistics of Diversity and Superdiversity | 154
9 Appendix A: Short Biographical Descriptions of the BQ-16 | 159
10 Appendix B: Transcriptions of NYCE Speakers | 162
10.1 R ashid Lewis | 162
10.2 Gay Latinos: Kicked Out of Victoria’s Secret | 163
10.3 Andy Sullivan and Laura Feldman | 163
10.4 Johan Aranda | 165
References | 166
Index | 178