Abstract
Global English, local English and youth identities in England and Europe
Highlights
The way we use our language reveals our sense of 'who we are' our personal and social identities
Young people can symbolise their allegiance to this culture through their choices about what they eat, drink and wear and, through their language
Young people in Europe are learning English at school, but they are adapting it and incorporating it into their own languages by borrowings and codes switching, as in the example from the basket ball game in Switzerland, and using it in their leisure time activities. They do this in much the same way that young people in England are making an emotional response to the consonant features originating in London, or the Californian features they hear in the broadcast media
Summary
The way we use our language reveals our sense of 'who we are' our personal and social identities. We are many things though: we have multiple identities, so our language can be expected to be variable, in order to allow us to construct these different aspects of our identities as we speak. My focus here will be the language of young people, since older people are more likely to have reached 'where they are going' in life. My focus is on the English of young people: first on the English of monolingual speakers in England, and on the English that is used by bilingual or multilingual speakers of English in continental Europe
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