Characterizing Urban Youth Speech Styles in Utrecht and on the Internet

Abstract

In the past decade there is a growing interest in Urban Youth Speech Styles (uyss). In this article Dutchuyssis the focus of attention. The basic question to be addressed is whether the identifying characteristics and functions of spokenuysscan be used and recognized in written form on the Internet as well.There is no standardized form ofuyssand the use of it is restricted to members of specific subcultures, not necessarily linked to specific ethnic groups. First, linguistic and functional characteristics ofuyssas they are used in the Netherlands will be described. Linguistically, a distinction is made between lexical, grammatical and phonetic/prosodic aspects. Furthermore, a closer look will be taken at the use ofuysson the Internet (mostly through rap) and examples of the use ofuyssin written comments on the rap videos will be presented and compared to the spoken varieties. It will be shown how written clues are used for identification purposes that are usually non-linguistic in oral encounters (i.e. classification of speech partners on the basis of what they look like, how they sound, etc.). Most of the analysis is based on a rap video by Relschoppers, a group of young Utrecht based Moroccan- and Turkish-Dutch rappers, and the comments on their video. In a separate section some attention is paid to Flemish participants in the Internet-discussions. They seem to useuyssin a way that differs from their Dutch peers.Finally a short conclusion and outlook is given, showing that the question asked in the beginning can be answered affirmative: identifying characteristics and functions ofuysscan be used and recognized in written form on the Internet as well.

Language and identity practices among multilingual Western European youths

“…In UYSS, when /s/ is followed by /x/, it is pronounced as [ʃ] instead of [s] as in standard Dutch, see (1). The same is true for /s/ followed by /l/ as in (2); Nortier, ) …”

“…Although there is no research—to my knowledge—about the richness of written texts when it comes to background clues, there are indications that this is indeed the case. In Nortier (), the question was addressed whether written UYSS Internet data can replace oral data. The conclusion was that data from the Internet is linguistically rich and seems to add information that would otherwise be given through non‐linguistic hints.…”

“…More recent publications have made use of digital data in their analyses (Nortier, , ; Dorleijn et al, ). One of the main findings is that in Internet encounters, people don't necessarily know each other in person.…”

“…In urban communities of young people in major cities—but in virtual communities as well—pronunciation is a highly salient feature with a strong indexical value (Nortier, , ). In the examples discussed below, German and Dutch pronunciations differ from the standard norms through the use of characteristics associated with the heritage languages spoken by migrants.…”

“…Following Dorleijn, Mous, and Nortier () and Nortier (), the term UYSS's (Urban Youth Speech Styles) will be used throughout this paper. Other terms that have been proposed in the literature include (multi‐) ethnolect (for a discussion, see Eckert, and Quist, ), Multicultural London English (MLE; Cheshire, Kerswill, Fox, & Torgersen, ), and contemporary urban vernaculars (Rampton, ).…”