Chapter published in:
The Dynamics of English in Namibia: Perspectives on an emerging varietyEdited by Anne Schröder
[Varieties of English Around the World G65] 2021
► pp. 135–168
Chapter 7Broadcasting your variety
Namibian English(es) on YouTube
Frederic Zähres | Bielefeld University
This chapter investigates the viability of
YouTube data for the World Englishes research context by introducing
a Namibian YouTuber community and presenting challenges and
opportunities of this mostly uncharted medium. An acoustic phonetic
case study of Namibian English is conducted with a small sample
corpus of YouTube data from 2018, in which vowels relevant to the
Southern African context (e.g. nurse, kit, dress, trap) of
two groups of content creators are analyzed. While researchers face
methodological challenges on YouTube during data collection and
analysis, the results of the acoustic analyses presented show that
the formal and informal speech styles found on YouTube constitute an
accessible and rich type of data that can reaffirm and complement
findings based on traditional approaches.
Keywords: YouTube, digital ethnography, phonetics, phonology, vowels
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.YouTube and World Englishes
- 2.1Digital perspectives in World Englishes research
- 2.2YouTube and World Englishes
- 3.Navigating YouTube for linguistic research
- 4.Namibia on YouTube
- 4.1YouTube in Namibia and Namibian YouTubers
- 4.2A sample corpus of Namibian YouTuber data
- 5.Case study: Acoustic analysis of Namibian YouTube data
- 5.1Data collection
- 5.2Methodology
- 5.3Results
- 5.3.1Speaker NAM1
- 5.3.2Speaker NAM2
- 5.3.3Speaker NAM3
- 5.3.4Speaker NAM4
- 5.3.5Summary of results of NAM data
- 5.3.6NBC reporters
- 5.4Discussion of acoustic analyses
- 6.Discussion and conclusion
- 6.1Discussing YouTube and World Englishes
- 6.2Conclusions for the Namibian context
- 6.3Outlook
-
Notes -
References
Published online: 10 September 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/veaw.g65.07zah
https://doi.org/10.1075/veaw.g65.07zah
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