Social class across borders: Transnational elites in British ideological space

Abstract

Studies of generational dialect change in diaspora communities have tended to find that local forces outweigh transnational ones: parent varieties are rejected as too saliently foreign, and transnational effects fade in later generations. Examining the speech of second-generation British Asians, I document this initial shift away from the low status of Indian English, but also unexpected long-distance adoption of Indian English more recently, in both ideology and routine use. Why choose a stigmatized variety 50 years on? To answer this, I revise the classic triangular class hierarchy of British dialects and model diasporic language-ideological space as a meeting of two such systems. Young British Asians selectively adopt features of educated Indian English, a variety with increasing global status, at the apex of an Indian hierarchy. For some British Asians, this new exogenous form of symbolic capital is an alternative to the struggle for class mobility within the British system. These new cross-border acts of affiliation empower formerly subordinated speakers, but also reinforce new hierarchies. In closing, I discuss current and historical parallels where a diasporic imaginary can feed local language change.