32.1865, Review: English; Sociolinguistics: Honkanen (2020)
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LINGUIST List: Vol-32-1865. Fri May 28 2021. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.
Subject: 32.1865, Review: English; Sociolinguistics: Honkanen (2020)
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Date: Fri, 28 May 2021 13:01:09
From: Yuqi Gao [yuqi at uni-bremen.de]
Subject: World Englishes on the Web
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=36680777
Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/31/31-3019.html
AUTHOR: Mirka Honkanen
TITLE: World Englishes on the Web
SUBTITLE: The Nigerian diaspora in the USA
SERIES TITLE: Varieties of English Around the World G63
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2020
REVIEWER: Yuqi Gao, University of Bremen
SUMMARY
“World Englishes on the Web. The Nigerian diaspora in the USA” by Mirka
Honkanen focuses on linguistic practices in the context of migration,
integration and immigration. It investigates the language repertoires of
Nigerians in the United States and provides a unique look at Nigerians’
negotiation of language use and identity. The book captures one of the
outstanding studies in the VEAW (Varieties of English Around the World) series
devoted to sociolinguistic analyses and descriptive surveys in the field of
World Englishes. The study partially proposes a solution to examine the
post-colonialism Englishes in the times of globalization and digitalization.
Right from Chapter 1 “Introduction”, the author offers us a brief overview of
the motivation of, and innovation in conducting such an empirical corpus-based
computer-mediated communication (henceforth CMC) study of Nigerians’ use of
African-American Vernacular English (henceforth AAVE) on a non-thematic web
forum with the socially situated approach (Androutsopoulos, 2006). Also, in
this introductory chapter, the author makes terminological distinctions for
some concepts (e.g., “Black” and “White” as identities, “Nigerian”, “U.S.-
Nigerians”) as well as the critical constructs in this study (e.g.,
“repertoire”, “authenticity”). After the justification, a glimpse of this
study comprising the key research topic, the background, the theoretical
framework, data and methods, key findings and implications, is presented.
Chapter 2 “The sociolinguistics of the Nigerian diaspora” provides background
information concerning “the demographics of Nigeria”, “English in Nigeria”,
“the status of Nigerian Pidgin”(NigP, or the grassroots English), and “the
educated Nigerian linguistic repertoire”. The author then briefly introduces
the sociolinguistic profile of the target population - the highly educated
Nigerian immigrants in the United States. The novelty of this chapter is the
author’s justification and adoption of the better-educated and better-off
Nigerian linguistic repertoire as a reference point for the later analysis and
discussions.
In Chapter 3 “Resources, repertoires, and authenticity in times of
globalization”, Blommaert’s (2010) “sociolinguistics of globalization”
approach is introduced in detail and being critically evaluated before
applying it to this study. As Blommaert (2010: 42) summarizes,
“sociolinguistic phenomena in a globalization context need to be understood as
developing at several different scale-levels, where different orders of
indexicality dominate, resulting in a polycentric ‘context’ where
communicative behaviour is simultaneously pushed and pulled in various
directions”. This means, in this CMC study, there are also some norms about
communicative behaviors of social actors (‘user’ or ‘account’) in a shared
virtual space, i.e., Nairaland in this case. More importantly, some
established concepts of sociolinguistics and multilingualism, e.g., Rampton’s
(1995, 2000) “crossing”, Benor’s (2010) “ethnolinguistic repertoire”,
Coupland’s (2001) “sociolinguistic authenticities” are also being cautiously
examined to set the stage for the empirical part of this study. In addition,
research questions and the research gap to be addressed are proposed in this
chapter.
As the chapter heading indicates, data collection and methodology are
introduced in Chapter 4 “Data and Methods”. This chapter describes the “web as
corpus” approach, then introduces Nairaland, a Nigerian web forum broadly used
by “U.S.-Nigerians” where data were collected, cleaned and partially manually
tagged for location (“geotagging”). A subset of the data, stemming from
selected diasporic individuals, acts as the primary Nigerian data that the
author focuses on, that is, the core 50 subcorpus. This corpus’ searching
function is enabled by the Net Corpora Administration Tool, which was
developed during the “World languages - digital languages” project at the
University of Freiburg. Besides, GloWbE (Davies 2013) is used as a secondary
data set to find out which AAVE-related resources have already spread to
Nigeria and to complement these when investigating items that characterize
language use in Nigeria. The methods of analysis, i.e., corpus-based,
ethnographically informed qualitative discourse analysis of CMC, are discussed
in this chapter, along with limitations of this methodology and foreseeable
challenges. The legal and ethical issues are emphasized at the end of the
chapter.
The subsequent four chapters, i.e., Chapter 5 “African Americans and their
vernacular English”, Chapter 6 “African-American linguistic resources in
diasporic Nigerian repertoires”, Chapter 7 “Nigerian linguistic resources in
diasporic Nigerian repertoires”, and Chapter 8 “Discussion” consist of the
most significant aspects, that is, key findings and relevant discussions of
this study. All the findings are demonstrated chapter by chapter in a
progressive deepening process. Firstly, Chapter 5 offers background
information about African Americans and their vernacular English, articulating
the relations between U.S.-Nigerians and African Americans, and Nigerians’
attitude towards African Americans and AAVE backed up with the qualitative
analysis of posted comments in the Nairaland 2 corpus. Additionally, the
linguistic features of AAVE are concluded for further exploration of the
corpus on the basis of three main sources: Green’s (2002) monograph which
includes detailed discussions of verbal markers of AAVE; the electronic World
Atlas of Varieties of English (eWAVE) (Kortmann, Lunkenheimer & Ehret 2020);
and Wolfram’s (2004) description of urban AAVE. All the findings in the first
two sub-chapters are based on the author’s investigation of and observation
about metalinguistics in Nairaland 2 corpus. Meanwhile, the hermeneutical
approach in the last sub-chapter helps restrict the further investigation to a
closed list of linguistic features of AAVE. Chapter 6 then discusses the usage
of AAVE by U.S.-Nigerians, describing AAVE linguistic features along with
wider trends and practices in detail. The qualitative analyses mainly focus on
the users in the core 50 subcorpus. Nevertheless, the author sometimes
cautiously generalizes the analysis to the entire Nairaland 2 corpus. After
the classification of user types (i.e., “consistent experts”, “inconsistent
experts”, “occasional users”, “minimal users”, and “non-users”) based on the
individual’s quantity and quality of AAVE usage, the readers are able to
obtain an understanding of AAVE features and practices. Additionally, they can
also develop an understanding of authentication of cultural identities by
studying advanced AAVE users’ metalanguage, identity statements and users’
reactions towards their identity/linguistic performances in a bigger picture,
stylistic variation in U.S.-Nigerians’ AAVE usage, verbal markers, lexical and
orthographic AAVE features, and the practices of minimal usage and some other
prevalent features. This chapter vividly depicts AAVE features and practices
with full and accurate data as well as clear visualizations, which merits
close reading. Chapter 7 concentrates on other significant languages and
varieties in most of the examples discussed in Chapter 6, addressing the role
of Nigerian Pidgin, ethnic Nigerian languages and Nigerian English in
diasporic Nigerians’ repertoires. The perspectives of immigrant identities,
language attitudes, and authentication are being adopted through the lens of
sociolinguistics. A discussion section as a chapter follows. In Chapter 8,
discussions are sparked on the functions of AAVE as well as the role of
Nigerian Pidgin (NigP), ethnic Nigerian languages and Nigerian English (NigE)
in U.S.-Nigerians’ online communication.
Chapter 9 “Conclusion” summarizes this study’s key findings and suggests
directions for future research.
EVALUATION
Herring (1996: 1) defines computer-mediated communication (CMC) as
“communication that takes place between human beings via the instrumentality
of computers.” Communication occurring within a computer-mediated format,
e.g., instant messaging, email, online forums, and social network services,
impacts many different aspects of the interaction of social actors, and this
arouses the interest of researchers worldwide. Mirka Honkanen’s brilliance and
innovation shines in new and unexpected ways with this study, which sets the
example of how to investigate emerging linguistic practices and the study of
CMC within the World Englishes framework. All in all, “World Englishes on the
Web. The Nigerian diaspora in the USA” goes well beyond the topic of AAVE
features and practices on Nairaland, and it could well form a basic
understanding of Nigerian linguistic resources in diasporic Nigerian
repertoires. Arguably, the book is an excellent resource to researchers,
educators, students and linguistic enthusiasts - especially those interested
in sociolinguistics, corpus linguistics, dialectology, and World Englishes.
The construction of the book meshes well with its organization and lends
itself successfully to the study of the core 50 corpus under the research
project of “World languages - digital languages” at the University of
Freiburg, Germany. Each chapter of the book consists of several subchapters
and provides a detailed account of WHY, WHAT, and HOW as well as the results
and discussions of this study. A panorama of the AAVE features and practices
in diasporic Nigerian repertoires is gradually but logically presented, even
including Nigerian linguistic resources in diasporic Nigerian repertoires. The
book’s orderliness conforms to the academic requirement while the writing
style attracts the readers to unconsciously read with a strong interest, for
example, the metaphorical use of language, the coherence between the chapters,
and the vivid but careful wording and phrasing. One fine highlight of this
study is the innovation reflected in the research design, in particular, the
quantitative data collection and qualitative analyses on individual
repertoires. Besides, the author’s profound insights into CMC, language use on
the new media platforms, pidgins and creoles, and World Englishes probably
contributed to this excellent work. Another noteworthy point in terms of
research content is the rigorous data analysis. Nearly in every chapter, the
author shows an exploring spirit as well as a cautious attitude towards the
forthcoming reasoning. In this sense, the reliability of this study is
enhanced. However, while each chapter creates a neatly parceled package, an
Appendix section seems to be necessary for providing the coding scheme before
the qualitative analysis, including the translation of some basic ethnic
Nigerian languages (if possible), and displaying the image of Nairaland 2
corpus and core 50 subcorpus, for those readers who are interested in this
aspect. Given that this book is part of the VEAW series, consistent editing or
publication requirements may apply here to keep it coherent and concise.
The book narrates a detailed story of African-American linguistic resources in
diasporic Nigerian repertoires in a readable and inspiring style. The main
section, “discussion and results” makes use of tables and figures to classify
and analyze every linguistic feature of AAVE drawn from the firsthand data on
Nairaland. It is made clear that the U.S.- Nigerians’ linguistic repertoire
and authentication of identities in the times of globalization shown in their
digital communication is something more than what we had already known. The
author presents a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of various aspects of
AAVE, furnishing a panoramic sketch of the language situation in Nigeria as a
reference point; this sketch contains unique insights into the thinking behind
much of the contemporary linguistic phenomena. Its publication does build up
the possibility of investigating linguistic practices at the intersection of
social media and international immigration within the framework of World
Englishes. This may attract linguists and other social scientists whose
research interests include the sociolinguistics of globalization and CMC,
corpus linguistics, World Englishes, and pidgin and creole languages.
Linguistics majors will also probably benefit a lot from the research design
and appropriate application of the tools like eWAVE (Kortmann, Lunkenheimer &
Ehret, 2020) in this study.
REFERENCES
Androutsopoulos, J. K. 2006. Introduction: Sociolinguistics and
computer-mediated communication. Journal of Sociolinguistics 10(4): 419-438.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9841.2006.00286.x
Benor, S. B. 2010. Ethnolinguistic repertoire: Shifting the analytic focus in
language and ethnicity. Journal of Sociolinguistics 14(2): 159-183.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9841.2010.00440.x
Blommaert, J. 2010. The Sociolinguistics of Globalization. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511845307
Coupland, N. 2001. Stylization, authenticity and TV news review. Discourse
Studies 3(4): 413-442. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445601003004006
Davies, M. 2013. Corpus of Global Web-Based English: 1.9 billion words from
speakers in 20 countries.
Green, L. J. 2002. African American English: A Linguistic Introduction.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511800306
Herring, S. C. (ed.). 1996. Computer-mediated communication: Linguistic,
social, and cross-cultural perspectives (Vol. 39). John Benjamins Publishing.
Kortmann, Bernd & Lunkenheimer, Kerstin & Ehret, Katharina (eds.) 2020. The
Electronic World Atlas of Varieties of English. Zenodo. DOI:
10.5281/zenodo.3712132 (Available online at http://ewave-atlas.org, Accessed
on 2021-03-07.)
Rampton, B. 1995. Crossing: Language and Ethnicity among Adolescents. London:
Longman.
Rampton, B. 2000. Crossing. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 9(1-2): 54-56.
https://doi.org/10.1525/jlin.1999.9.1-2.54
Wolfram, W. 2004. The grammar of Urban African American Vernacular English. In
Handbook of Varieties of English, B. Kortmann & E. W. Schneider (eds),
111-132. Berlin: De Gruyter.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Yuqi GAO is a master student specialized in linguistics at the University of
Bremen, Germany. Her current research interests are World Englishes, corpus
linguistics, language testing, translation and intercultural communication.She
is a former linguist (editor/translator/English teacher) respectively in
ASIAL(TEN)N Pte., Ltd and Beijing New Oriental Vision Overseas Consulting Co.,
Ltd in Singapore and P. R. China. She is also a CATTI Translation Test
Examiner as well as a certified member of TAC and IATIS.
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