Variation, Language Ideologies and Stereotypes: Orientations towards like and youse in Western and Northern Sydney

Abstract

This study analyzes the language ideologies of young people from two geographically and socially distinct regions of Sydney: Western Sydney and the Northern Beaches. It takes a qualitative approach to examine these speakers’ indexical orientations towards two variable linguistic features that occur in Australian English (like and youse). Although they have different histories in Australian English, like and youse are ideal for the study of language ideologies as both have been subjected to substantial negative social commentary in Australia and other parts of the world. As language ideologies are difficult to measure quantitatively, this study uses the model of indexical fields. Speakers’ indexical orientations are found to differ according to where they are situated within Sydney's socio-regional space, leading to inversed self-evaluations of usage across the two regions. A majority of Western Sydney speakers claim to use youse while a majority of those from Northern Beaches claim to not, and vice versa for like. Interestingly, this does not fully correspond with their actual usage of these features. The construction of indexical fields based on participants’ meta-pragmatic commentary on these features ultimately demonstrates that language features can be re-evaluated and assigned local meaning(s), and contribute to stereotypes.