Chapter 7
“… allyuh know how to parteeeeeeeeeeee. lawd!”
Linguistic choices and membership construction in the Trinidad & Tobago Possee Livin California forum
The association between language use and speaker identity/identification has long been recognised in sociolinguistics (cf. Coulmas 2005, Tabouret-Keller 1997). In diaspora communities one can observe the desire to either linguistically signal one’s membership in the group that connects the speaker with the ancestral community or to obscure such a belonging and blend in with the majority community. This membership negotiation is also part of a complex interplay between language maintenance and language shift, which involves a number of dynamic processes of accommodation, code-switching and linguistic acts of self-assertion (Mühleisen 2002, Mühleisen & Schröder 2017). While linguistic performances of multiple forms of identity are made unconsciously in face-to-face conversations and are well researched (cf. Tabouret-Keller 1997), written forms of communication have rarely been investigated with regard to their value as acts of identification. With an increasing use of written communication online, orthographic flexibility and the use of non-standard features in writing have become highly common (cf. Hinrichs 2006, Moll 2017, Honkanen 2020).
This chapter investigates markers of Trinidadian English Creole employed in a particular community of practice, i.e. the internet forum Trinidad & Tobago Possee Livin California (2000–2008) by Trinidadian users who reside in California. The purpose of the internet forum was to connect Trinidadian diaspora members and to exchange information about events, contacts, etc. Due to the mediated form of communication, where physical markers, tone of voice, etc. arguably cannot be employed to establish one’s right to membership in this community of practice, special linguistic features with a high value of marking “Trinidadian-ness” are used extensively. In this chapter I will explore the use of orthographic markers as well as the use of “allyuh” (Trinidadian) versus “y’all” (US Southern) and “you guys” (US general) as 2nd person plural pronouns.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction: Diaspora communities past and present
- 2.Language and identity in blogs and forums
- 3.Non-standard orthography and identity: Creole in writing
- 4.Trinidad & Tobago Possee Livin California: Notes on an online diaspora forum
- 4.1Indexing Trinidadian identity
- 4.1.1Establishing Trinidadian identities: Phonological, grammatical and lexical features
- 4.1.2Establishing Trinidadian identities: Token phrases
- 4.1.3Asserting Trinidadian identities: Manifestations of membership
- 4.2Negotiation between heritage/home and host variety: Allyuh, yall and you guys
- 5.Diasporic citizenship and the future of Cyber-Creole
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Notes