Urban youth speech styles in multilingual settings

This chapter provides an overview of the study of multi-ethnolects and a discussion of the various labels under which these linguistic practices occur in studies of the phenomenon. It is proposed that two types of mechanism are at work in youth languages. The first type is a stylization of one (or more) L2 varieties of the dominant language, characterized by its specific phonetics, and some morphological and syntactic simplifications. The second type is characterized by lexical insertions of – mostly – referential words. These insertions are often adopted from one or more (heritage) languages in the community, but may also be new formations based on existing words.