The social and pragmatic function of English in weak contact situations: Ingroup and outgroup marking in the Dutch reality TV show Expeditie Robinson

Abstract

The world-wide spread of English is one of the most visible symptoms of globalization. In weak contact settings such as Western Europe, where contact with English is usually indirect, remote and asymmetrical, a paradigm shift has occurred. Where, previously, Anglicism research has mainly adopted a structuralist perspective, inventorying the number of English loanwords found according to the degree of morphological and phonological adaptation to the receptor language, the focus has recently been shifted to the pragmatic and social function of Anglicisms in discourse. This article aims to add to this new perspective by means of an interactional analysis of the use of English insertions in one season of the Dutch reality TV show Expeditie Robinson. Specifically, we focus on the three participants that use English most frequently on the island. It is shown how two of these participants form an ingroup with its own discursive norms, including the regular use of English items. Next, the analysis focuses on an interesting opposite: another participant who also uses English frequently, but who does not attain any notable social prestige on the island. The two contrasting cases illustrate the locally emergent and highly fluid nature of the social meaning of English elements in the spontaneous conversations of these Dutch-speaking interlocutors.