Abstract
This paper aims to examine one of the most productive linguistic resources Moroccan teenagers use widely to create novel lexical and phrasal items–borrowing. Of particular interest to us are the varied aspects of their borrowings’ innovativeness, which has often been reported to be one of the main features of youngspeak. The examples are taken from recorded dyadic and triadic conversations mainly between six female high school mates and relaxed group interviews involving four of the latter and two female others from the same school. The results reveal first that Moroccan teenagers are ‘linguistic doers’ capable of creating, through borrowing, novel words and expressions to talk about their concerns, interests, and attitudes. Second, they corroborate findings of previous research that teenagers are highly innovative. To achieve innovativeness, they employ various linguistic and rhetorical devices and break the linguistic norms of both the source and recipient languages. The product is thus a distinct language that is colourful, vivid, and expressive, which scholars largely agree teenagers use to express their autonomy and affiliation to their peers.
Highlights
Teenagers’ talk has recently been widely researched (Eckert, 2003; Martinez, 2011; Lopez, 2009; Zimmerman, 2009; Stenström, Anderson, & Hasund, 2002), and has often been reported to be innovative
In Morocco, a linguistically diverse community where six main varieties–two mother tongues, Moroccan Arabic (MA) and Amazigh, Standard Arabic (SA), French, English, and Spanish, which are learnt at school– co-exist, academic research on the issue remains scarce; this paper aims to fill some of the gap focusing on Moroccan teenagers’ borrowings
First we provide a review of some relevant literature on the topic–mainly Haugen’s (1950) widely adopted classification of borrowings in terms of loanwords, loan blends, and loan shifts, and Drange’s (2009) study of anglicisms in Chilean and Norwegian adolescents’ informal speech in terms of Halliday’s (1978) functional approach
Summary
Teenagers’ talk has recently been widely researched (Eckert, 2003; Martinez, 2011; Lopez, 2009; Zimmerman, 2009; Stenström, Anderson, & Hasund, 2002), and has often been reported to be innovative. In a study of intensifiers in Madrid’s teenage talk, for example, noticed that it presents a “breakdown of the conventional language” Uncovering some aspects of youngspeak may, at least partially, help us understand how teenagers perceive themselves and others outside their group, and enable us to comprehend partially at least how language develops. First we provide a review of some relevant literature on the topic–mainly Haugen’s (1950) widely adopted classification of borrowings in terms of loanwords, loan blends, and loan shifts, and Drange’s (2009) study of anglicisms in Chilean and Norwegian adolescents’ informal speech in terms of Halliday’s (1978) functional approach. We describe the methodology we adopted, analyse the data, and attempt to account for it
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