Variation, Language Ideologies and Stereotypes: Orientations towards like and youse in Western and Northern Sydney

Abstract

This study analyzes the language ideologies of young people from two geographically and socially distinct regions of Sydney: Western Sydney and the Northern Beaches. It takes a qualitative approach to examine these speakers’ indexical orientations towards two variable linguistic features that occur in Australian English (like and youse). Although they have different histories in Australian English, like and youse are ideal for the study of language ideologies as both have been subjected to substantial negative social commentary in Australia and other parts of the world. As language ideologies are difficult to measure quantitatively, this study uses the model of indexical fields. Speakers’ indexical orientations are found to differ according to where they are situated within Sydney's socio-regional space, leading to inversed self-evaluations of usage across the two regions. A majority of Western Sydney speakers claim to use youse while a majority of those from Northern Beaches claim to not, and vice versa for like. Interestingly, this does not fully correspond with their actual usage of these features. The construction of indexical fields based on participants’ meta-pragmatic commentary on these features ultimately demonstrates that language features can be re-evaluated and assigned local meaning(s), and contribute to stereotypes.

Keywords:

• Australian English
• Language Ideologies
• Stereotypes
• Indexicality
• Youse
• Like
• Meta-pragmatic Commentary

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study may be made available to researchers upon request, with the presentation of a valid research proposal. Data will be made available within the terms of the project's ethics approval.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The term ‘bogan’ is generally understood to refer to a sub-category of the Australian white working class that is characterized by an aesthetic and taste which is viewed as inferior to those of the middle class (Pini et al. 2012: 145–146). It can be used with disdain, contempt, pride or affection depending on the context (Bartolo 2008: 11; Rossiter 2013: 90).

2 A ‘dole-bludger’ is ‘one who exploits the system of unemployment benefits by avoiding gainful employment’ (Australian National Dictionary 2019b).

3 The study by Cox and Palethorpe (1998) also included North Sydney.

4 When this speaker is excluded from the analysis, and the word count adjusted accordingly, the rate per 10,000 words for male Northern Beaches speakers is still the lowest, though it becomes closer to the rates for other groups (313/10,000 words).

5 This example includes the discursive and quotative forms; no participant made any commentary to suggest that they noticed a difference or considered the two forms to be distinct.

6 The proportion of Northern Beaches inhabitants born in Australia (65.8%) is similar to the rest of NSW (65.5%), however the region does have a disproportionate proportion of inhabitants born in England, New Zealand, South Africa and the US, which are four of the five most common countries of birth. There is also a higher proportion of households where English only is spoken at home (79.8% compared to 68.5% in NSW) (ABS 2016).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elena Sheard

Elena Sheard is a PhD student in Linguistics at the Australian National University. She is working on a sociolinguistic study of language change across the lifespan as part of the Sydney Speaks project, funded by the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamic of Language. This article derives from her Honours thesis completed at the University of Sydney. Email: [email protected]