Sherzer's Discourse‐Centered Approach Applied to Cultural Change Across Generations of Speakers

Abstract

This paper considers Sherzer's Discourse‐Centered Approach with respect to language and cultural change within Arab immigrant‐heritage communities in France. Using data pertaining to an Arabic politeness formula, I apply Sherzer's model to situations of grammatical creativity across generations of speakers. I argue that Sherzer's model can enhance our understandings of how speakers living in diaspora transform “traditional” or codified linguistic forms to create reflexive cultural meanings that link and distinguish generations of speakers. Specifically, French‐born, French‐speaking adolescents transform the Arabic speech act Hashek, that their immigration parents use as a term of “formal politeness,” into a means of facilitating face‐threatening acts for their peer group. In so doing, they actively negotiate a set of shifting stances that involves their complicated positioning between teenaged irreverence and cultural continuity. The grammatical creativity of such speech play illustrates the applicability of Sherzer's model for discourse as the nexus of language and culture to contexts of social change.