Canadian English

БОЛЬШАЯ ЛЕНИНГРАДСКАЯ БИБЛИОТЕКА - РЕФЕРАТЫ - Canadian English

Canadian English

English is the second most widely spoken language in the world. It is

the official language of The United Kingdom, Ireland, The United States,

Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand and it is widely

spoken in India. It is the language of international business and science,

of aviation and shipping. As so many people speak English in so many

countries, there are many different "Englishes". The best form of English

is called Standard English and is the language of educated English

speakers. The government, The BBC, The Universities, uses it and it is

often called Queen’s English. American English is the variety of the

English spoken in the United States. It is different from English in

pronunciation, intonation, spelling, vocabulary and sometimes – even

grammar! An Englishman goes to the town center to see a film while an

American goes downtown to see a movie. If an Englishman needs a pen he

would ask you: "Have you got a pen, please?" but the American would say:"

Do you have a pen?" Australian and New Zealand English, also called

Australian English, are very similar. Especially in pronunciation they are

also similar to British English, but there are differences in vocabulary

and slang. Many terms, such as kangaroo, dingo, wombat and boomerang, come

from the Aboriginal language and many others from the Cockney dialect

spoken by the first settlers, The Londoners. Canadian English is different

both from American and from British English.

Herbert Agar wrote in his article in 1931:

“The English should try to cope with their philological ignorance.

They should train themselves to realize that it is neither absurd nor

vulgar that a language, which was once, the same should in course of

centuries develop differently in different parts of the world. Just as

French and Italian may be described as divergent forms of modern Latin, so

it would be helpful to think of the language of Oxford and the language of

Harvard as divergent forms of modern English. It is perhaps a pity, from

the point of view of international good feelings, that the two forms have

not diverged a little further. At any rate, when an Englishman can learn to

think of American as a language, and not merely as a ludicrously

unsuccessful attempt to speak as he himself speaks, when he can learn to

have for American only the normal intolerance of the provincial mind for

all foreign tongues, then there will come a great improvement in Anglo-

American relations. For even though Americans realize absurdity of the

English attitude toward their language, nevertheless they remain deeply

annoyed by it. This is natural, for a man’s language is his very soul, it

is his thoughts and almost all his consciousness. Laugh at a man’s language

and you have laughed at the man himself in the most inclusive sense…” This

statement may refer to any of “Englishes” mentioned above.

Another American linguist – John Algeo states in his essay “A

Meditation on the Varieties of English”, that “all linguistic varieties are

fictions. A language system, such as English, is a great abstraction, a

fiction, analyzable into large areal varieties – American, Australian,

British, Canadian, Northern Irish, Scots, Welsh, and so on. But each of

those is in turn an abstraction, a fiction”. The point, Algeo argues, is

that even though these terms – American, Australian, Canadian English –

describe the reality that is in fact not there, they are nonetheless useful

fictions.

“Useful” is the key term in Algeo’s argument, but unfortunately he

fails to adequately define in what way these fictions are useful. The only

definition of usefulness he offers is this: “without such fictions there

can be no linguistics, nor any science. To describe, to explain, and to

predict requires that we suppose there are stable things behind our

discourse”. This explanation hardly seems to clarify the situation. The

claim that the fictions of national Englishes are useful because they are

the foundation for linguistics is a tautology that serves more to undermine

linguistics than to justify those fictions. Further, Algeo’s point that all

science is based on certain necessary fictions is perhaps true, though

usually science attempt to resolve known fictions into more stable, at

least less fictional truths. Finally, the role of predicting language

change hardly seems an essential component of linguistics.

Algeo returns to the term “useful” in his conclusion. He suggests that

the common practice of equating “English” with UK English, and the English

of England in particular, is one of these useful fictions. How or in what

way he never makes clear.

The suggestion that national boundaries are convenient regional

groupings for studying a linguistic community is valid, and perhaps there

is some “usefulness” in studying that linguistic community as such provided

there is indeed a unique or binding set of linguistic features shared by

that group. But by emphasizing Algeo’s remark that “all linguistic

varieties are fictions”, we may argue that in certain circumstances,

“Canadian English” being one, the “usefulness” of the fiction is so

limited, that not only is it almost purposeless but it can and does result

in negative social and political effects.

Unique nation, unique language?

The fundamental political problem is that a language, or a variety of

a language, is too often equated with a nation. Lйandre Bergeron emphasizes

this in his Charte de la Langue Quйbйcoise by selecting as an epigraph this

sentence by Michelet: “La langue es le signe principal d’une nationalitй”

[Tr.: “Language is a principle symbol of nationality”]. The association

between a unique language group and a unique political nation is not

necessarily incorrect or worthless. Our oldest political boundaries are

clearly a representation of the fact that a common language at one time was

one of the crucial determining factors in how a group of people delimited

their community. In England they speak English, in France French and so on.

But in Canada they do not speak Canadian, nor do they speak “Canadian

English”, for there is hardly such a thing. Historically, the geographic

isolation of these nation states must have contributed to the development

of unique languages. The political reality of this century is that the

existence of a language, or a unique variety of a language, cannot

necessarily be equated with the existence of a unique political nation. To

point to the problem more directly: a group of individuals speaking a

shared language that is different from that of the majority of the people

outside of that community, does not constitute a nation.

Thus, the desire to create a term such as “Canadian English” is born

from a reversing of the process. There is a nation Canada. Therefore there

must be a unique language to complement it. The assertion of a national

language is an assertion of political existence, as Lйandre Bergeron makes

very clear in his introduction to The Quebecois Dictionary (1982). And

while many writers on the subject are clear to point out that they are not

discussing a Canadian Language, but a “variety of English”, emphasis is

placed on the uniqueness of that variety and its geographical integrity,

essentially using, or allowing the terms to be used interchangeably.

The role of dictionaries and lexicography in this assertion of a

national language and thus nationhood is interesting, and as old as Johnson

and his desire to enter into “contest with united academies” of France and

Italy and permit English to rival those “more polished languages” (Plan of

an English Dictionary, 1747).

English in Canada

The term “Canadian English” has a pedigree dating back to 1857, at

which time the Reverend A. C. Geikie referred to it as “a corrupt dialect

growing up amongst our population”. Geikie’s preference was obviously for

the British English spoken ‘at home’. In the 1950s and 1960s an awareness

of, and a concomitant amount of scholarship, developed that was dedicated

to the subject. In 1962 Gage Publishing of Canada began its Dictionary of

Canadian English series with The Beginning Dictionary in 1962, followed by

The Intermediate Dictionary, and The Senior Dictionary in 1967. The

Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles (DCHP), also published

by Gage, appeared in the same year. As was to be expected, the primary

justification made for preparing Canadian Dictionaries was a lexical one.

As Walter Avis states in his introductory essay to The Senior Dictionary

(1967), “That part of Canadian English which is neither British nor

American is best illustrated by the Vocabulary, for there are hundreds of

words which are native to Canada or which have meanings peculiar to

Canada”. He goes on to elaborate that much of this new vocabulary is the

result of the unique Canadian landscape, flora, fauna, weather, etc.

M. H. Scargill, writing a decade later, structures his book, A Short

History of Canadian English, around essentially the same idea: that the

defining feature of Canadian English is its unique lexicon. He does add a

brief chapter on grammar, but as he states the unique vocabulary is “the

most obvious and major item to answer the question ‘What is Canadian

English?’»

It is impossible to object to most of the words Scargill presents as

“Canadian” on grounds that they are not truly so. The problem of defining a

“Canadianism” is one that DCHP comments upon, citing a great difficulty in

distinguishing between a “Canadianism”, an “Americanism”, and a “North

Americanism”. Nonetheless, they do in the end manage to come to a

conclusion. One possible objection to Scargill’s word list is that it for

the most part contains specific technical words or proper names, very

limited regional words, or words that are either rare, obsolete or

obsolescent. This method of attempting to establish the periphery of Canada

as its center is one of the seemingly inevitable tendencies of discussions

of “Canadian English”. In a review of Scargill’s work by the American

linguist Raven I. McDavid, Jr., opposition to Scargill’s “Canadianisms” is

founded on the observation that Scargill seems consciously “to ignore the

existence of the United States”. He argues that in fact “many words cited

by Scargill are well known in various parts of the United States”. McDavid

provides a list of several specific examples from Scargill’s text. It seems

disputable how many of the lexical claims made by Scargill are indeed

incontrovertible.

According to McDavid, this tendency to over-exaggerate difference vis-

а-vis Americans is evident in Scargill’s discussion of pronunciation as

well. To cite only one example: he argues that “the phonemic coalescence of

such pairs as ‘cot’ and ‘caught’ is not a peculiarly Canadian phenomenon:

it occurs in northeastern New England, the Pittsburgh area, much of the

Rocky Mountain and Pacific Coast”.

Language, nation, and dictionary

There have been a great number of accounts recently which question

exactly what or whose history is reflected in language change. Literacy was

the province of the few, and historical texts represent the writing of a

certain exclusive segment of the society. Yet each of the Canadian

dictionaries preface their work with a history of the settlement of English

Canada, and then proceed to a generalization explicitly or implicitly

equating the history of the language and the history of the nation. Here

are few examples:

. “Foreword”, DCHP, 1967:

By its history a people is set apart, differentiated from the rest of

humanity… That separateness of experience, in the bludgeoning of the

Atlantic waves, the forest overburden of the St. Lawrence valley, the

long waterways to the West, the silence of the Arctic wastes, the

lonesome horizons of the prairie, the vast imprisonment of the

Cordilleras, the trade and commerce with the original Canadians – all

this is recorded in our language.

. “Introduction”, Gage Canadian Dictionary, 1983,1997:

The Gage Canadian Dictionary is thus a catalogue if the things

relevant to the lives of Canadians at a certain point in history. It

contains, therefore, some clues to the true nature of our Canadian

Identity.

. J. K. Chambers, “Canadian English: 250 Years in the Making”,

Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 1998:

In the living language there is a reflection of where we have been and

where we are likely to go next, and what we have considered important

on the way. It is the codification of our common understanding.

These accounts conflate political history and the history of the

language, and in doing so leave out significant events and aspects of

Canadian political reality. Not the least of these is the omission of the

issues surrounding Quebec and Canadian French, which for twenty years have

dominated Canada’s political landscape. Further, as in so many of the

features of Canadian English and its study, these histories gloss over

certain very real distinctions in order to accentuate others. In their mini-

histories of the settlement of Canada as read through the language, the

exchange between Aboriginals and Europeans, and between French and English

is made to seem flawlessly smooth and equitable. Sample token Aboriginal

words are often cited as examples of this harmonious interaction and

implicit assimilation of Native and French words and people into the

dominant “Canadian English”. Such a method of reading history through

language is a mode of propagating a myth that serves to heighten underlying

tensions in Canadian society, and interfere with the process of mutual

understanding and tolerance.

Separate from this more philosophical problem encountered with the

historical implications and assumptions of these Canadian dictionaries,

there are other reasons to question their intention and use value. The

first is the circumstance of their publishing. Many of the Canadian

dictionaries embrace the fact that they are overtly political acts. The

firs wave of dictionary publishing came in the late 1960’s, with a push for

the DCHP and the Gage Senior Dictionary to be published in time for the

Centenary in 1967. Both dictionaries refer to this event. At the conclusion

of the Foreword to the DCHP, W. R. Wees states: “The publishers hope that,

as a contribution to Centennial thinking, the Dictionary of Canadianisms

will assist in the identification, not only of Canadianisms but of whatever

it is that we may call ‘Canadianism’”. Elsewhere in the Introduction it is

essentially revealed that the work was rushed to print, not wholly error-

free, in order to be published in 1967. The Senior Dictionary likewise

acknowledges this event: because a dictionary is a “catalogue if the things

relevant to the lives of Canadians”, the editor suggests “it is therefore

fitting that this book should be first published in the year of Canada’s

Centenary”.

The second wave of dictionary publishing comes in the early 1980’s,

with Gage refurbishing its Senior Dictionary as the Gage Canadian

Dictionary. 1980 marked the height of Quebec nationalist fervour

(publication of Bergeron’s overtly political Dictionnaire de la Langue

Quйbйcoise) and, with the inaugural Referendum on Sovereignty, the first

real threat to Canada’s political integrity since 1812. Perhaps this is the

reason for the passage acknowledging the inclusion of “regionalisms” in the

1983 edition of the Gage Canadian Dictionary, as well as a striking change

from a mention of the Centenary to a reassuring comment on Canada’s fragile

“identity”. This era marks the rise to national consciousness of Canada’s

“identity crisis”, a rise fuelled by both an anxiety over differentiation

from the United States and the fear of internal disintegration. The final

passage remains unchanged in the most recent version of the Gage Canadian

Dictionary (1997), but the passage on regionalisms has changed, to include

among other things a reference to “tourtiere” and, instead of borrowing

from a Native Language, the term “residential school”.

The current period of the late 1990’s, in which we are witnessing a

renewed outburst of dictionary production, is also a period of supposed

national identity crisis. Canada narrowly survived politically intact from

yet another Quebec referendum in 1995 and increasingly the “Aboriginal

question” has risen to the political forefront. Does the inclusion of

“residential school” reveal a rising political awareness and shifting

consideration of the treatment of the First Nations of Canada? We may

suggest that the pressures and desires to create a National Dictionary

arise from more than linguistic sources. These dictionaries, consciously

unconsciously, carefully present a picture of a Canada that is relatively

free of division and strife by presenting a coherent account of a “Canadian

English” that serves to ease anxieties about the fragility of the political

nation.

Consistently inconsistent

Speaking reductively, though not necessarily erroneously, the primary

use of dictionaries is for consultation in a question of the definition or

spelling of a word. It is obvious, from the special mention given in the

prefatory material to the dictionaries, that the more famous thorns of

Canadian orthography such as the colour/color debate remain unresolved, and

no effort is made to do so by the dictionary makers. As a litmus test,

then, we may choose a less controversial, though equally unresolved

spelling dilemma of Canadian English: do we analyze or analyse?

The following descriptions are given in the Gage Canadian Dictionary

(1997), the ITP Nelson Canadian Dictionary of the English Language (1997)

and the Canadian Oxford Dictionary (1998). Gage lists the both under the

headline “analyse”, citing them as entirely neutral equivalents. Under the

headword “analyze” are the instructions “see ‘analyse’”. Nelson provides no

headword for “analyse” but does list the s-spelling under the headword for

“analyze” – the reverse of Gage. The Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines

“analyse” as “a variant of analyze”. Under the headword for “analyze”, the

variant spelling is repeated in parentheses. Each of these dictionaries

appears to pronounce neutrally on the subject of the ‘correct’ spelling, by

choosing to list the definition under one or the other headword

preferences. It is interesting that not at all three stress the same

headword. It is perhaps surprising that Nelson is not the odd case,

considering it is one of those dictionaries put out by an American

publisher with token Canadian content often deplored by purists (although

its complete omission of a headword for “analyse” is perhaps indicative of

this American bias).

This example illustrates two things. The first is that in a desire for

clarification on usage the Canadian dictionaries provide no overt guidance;

only through the suggestion of definition placement do they advocate one

spelling over another. Thus either version is “correct”. Further it reveals

that there is not even consistency between the dictionaries on which

spelling is stressed.

So is there in fact any pragmatic value in a Canadian Dictionary?

Dictionaries are designed to be consulted, and we still long in Canada to

be able to go to “The Dictionary” and know once and for all how to spell

the generic name for red, white, etc. The search for a standard is

precisely what dictionary making is about, but this arbitrary cross-section

of Canadian Dictionaries yields no consensus.

The result of the realization of the highly variant nature of

“Canadian English” and the inability to appeal to any convenient authority

to resolve conflicts is that ideal conceptions of Canadian dictionaries

become impossible – unrealizable projects.

Canadian slang

Canadian slang as a variation of substandard speech is obvious

nowadays. The lexical constituent of Anglo-Canadian slang is very

dissimilar. There can be singled out the following units:

. Units that are common for American and Canadian Languages, North-

Americanisms;

. Units, that appeared and are used in USA, but that gradually get

into Canadian language;

. Units that appeared and are used in Canada, but can be met in

American language;

. Units that appeared and are used exceptionally in Canada.

1. North-Americanisms:

These units appeared in the slang in XIX-XX centuries. They are

different in their origin but are gut assimilated by Canadian and American

languages.

1.1. Units that were registered first in USA and then in Canada:

- Nouns denoting living beings:

buff (enthusiast) AE 1930; CdnE 1940; floozie (prostitute) AE 1935,

CdnE 1940; ripstaker (a conceited person)AE, CdnE 1833

- Nouns denoting inanimate objects:

jitney (a cheap taxi) AE 1915, CdnE 1924; beanie (a freshman's cloth

cap) AE 1945, CdnE 1946; dump (a pub, a bar) AE 1903, CdnE 1904.

- Nouns denoting process:

bend (outdoor party, feast) AE 1903, CdnE 1904; shellacking (defeat)

AE 1919, CdnE 1938

- Nouns of material:

lightning (cheap whisky) AE 1858, CdnE 1959; weeno (wine).

- Collective Nouns:

bull (idle talk) AE 1915, CndE 1916; guff (nonsense, lies) AE 1888,

CdnE 1890.

1.2. Units that were first registered in Canada and then in USA:

- Nouns denoting living beings:

boomer (seasonal worker) CndE 1910, AE 1926; flannel-mouth (smb who is

fond of backbiting) CdnE 1910, AE 1912.

- Nouns denoting inanimate objects:

bug (a small automobile) CdnE 1919, AE 1920; jolt (a mouthful of

alcohol drink) CdnE 1900, AE 1920.

- Nouns denoting process:

hush-hush (confidential talk) CdnE 1940, AE 1950; fakery(insincere

behavior) CdnE 1912, AE 1925.

- Collective Nouns:

bushwa(h) (nonsense, rubbish) CdnE 1916, AE 1924.

It should be mentioned that the nouns with expressive meaning are

easier borrowed from American into Canadian and vice versa:

gunsel (murderer) CdnE 1950, AE 1951; split (sharing of the profit) AE

1917, CdnE 1919.

2. Units that appeared and are used in USA, but that gradually get

into Canadian language:

- Nouns denoting living beings:

eager-beaver (boarder) AE, the beginning of the XX cent; CdnE 1950;

fink (unpleasant person) AE 1925; CdnE 1965.

- Nouns denoting inanimate objects:

Doodad (a thing for reminding about smth) AE 1900; CdnE 1931.

3. Units that appeared and are used in Canada, but can be met in

American language:

These units were not well spread, because:

a) there were American equivalents for the Canadian words:

noodle, CdnE: nut, AE (head);

b) this word appeared in the language later, than its equivalent:

fink (strike-breaker, blackleg) AE, CdnE 1925.

In this part of lexis a great influence of American on Canadian

language, but not vice versa, is evident. Canadian units are often of the

regional nature, so they are twice called in question before getting into

the American variant.

4. Units that appeared and are used exceptionally in Canada.

The common Canadian slang can be subdivided into two groups: the

common slang that is described in the previous points and the professional

slang of the following professions:

- railway men’s slang: pig (locomotive), plug(a small train);

- musicians' slang: canary (a female singer), to blow(to play);

- military slang: Joe boy (a recruit) , moldy(torpedo);

- sport slang: rink-rat (a boy, cleaning the rink),arena rat(fan,

supporter);

- criminal argot: pod (cigarette with narcotic), skokum house

(prison).

So, we can say that Canadian slang is a very complicated system that

unites chronologically different layers of the American and Canadian

slang. And in the whole it is a new and quite original system that doesn't

copy either American or British system. This system appeared due to the co-

operation of all these systems and the national tendencies.

In conclusion we could mention with the statement of Walter Avis who wrote

in his essay “Canadian English” which introduces the Gage dictionaries,

that “unfortunately, a great deal of nonsense is taken for granted by many

Canadians” when it comes to language issues. And into that category of

nonsense we may add a notion that there is such a thing as “Canadian

English”, and that this fiction has any value linguistically,

pragmatically, s

1. Putiatina E, Bystrova P. English on Linguistics and crosscultural

communication. Surgut, 2001, 334pp.

2. John Agleo. The myth of Canadian English. English Today 62, Volume 16,

Number 2, April 2000, pp.3-9.

3. М.В. Бондаренко. Системные характеристики вокабуляра англоканадского

сленга (на материале имен существительных).

ocially, or politically.