How Canadian was eh? A baseline investigation of usage and ideology

Abstract

for a lexicographical history of eh. 3 These early works tend to contextualize the Canadian-ness of eh to particular uses, primarily in variation with pardon. However, its standalone use as a Peircean index of Canada in popular headlines and titles, such as Orkin's (1973) humour book Canajan, Eh? (see also Gold and Tremblay 2006: 260 and Dollinger and Fee's 2017 entry for eh, sense 5) and in the commodification of the lexeme on mugs, t-shirts, and magnets since at least the 1990s (Denis 2013) suggest that from a non-linguist's perspective, the locus of this stereotype was (and is) not within eh in discourse context, but rather within the lexeme. Indeed, even early popular metadiscourse discusses eh outside of the 'pardon' function, such as in Moore's (1967) review of the Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles: "both the English and the Americans can spot a Canadian from his 'eh?' at the end of a sentence: 'It's hot, eh?"' (cited in Avis 1972: 89). Indeed, Wiltschko et al. (2018) argue that the different 'discourse functions' of eh that have been described in the literature are reducible to a core confirmational function of the lexeme.

Deconstructing variation in pragmatic function: A transdisciplinary case study

“…Canadian eh presents an ideal test case for our proposal. Within Canada, eh has an array of sociolinguistic and ideological associations, including as a shibboleth of the variety (Denis 2013). The literature contains a rich description of putative functions in interaction.…”

“…In the SCVE, its use is even more marginal, 0.47% (N = 2551). Given the variety of contextually derived functions we have shown to be associated with eh , it is perhaps surprising that its use is not more widespread in these datasets, particularly given its status as a quintessential Canadian shibboleth and an important marker of Canadian identity (Allen 1959; Avis 1972; Love 1973; Johnson 1976; Gibson 1977; Schecter 1979; Denis 2013). This raises two interrelated questions.…”

“…Just as eh is used in a variety of contexts that impact its interpretation, it also occurs in tandem with social contexts, where it indexes multiple social constructs (Denis 2013). Indeed, eh projects an indexical field of potential social meanings—social types, qualities, and stances—and differences across social contexts (e.g.…”

“…Without going into great detail about the (complex) mapping of social contexts to aspects of the socio-indexical field, we briefly mention two sets of social associations identified by Denis (2013), noting that they are but a subset of possibilities 16 . The 1980s American-Canadian sketch comedy show SCTV had a recurring sketch called ‘The great white north’ that featured two Canadian brothers, Bob and Doug McKenzie.…”

“…These encompass markers of hegemonic masculinity but also link to Canadian identity more generally, including its oppositional sense of self as ‘not American’. Indeed, Denis (2013:8) suggested that Canadians reappropriated eh as the linguistic equivalent of a backpack flag pin—a linguistic device that declares I am Canadian. Denis (2013) discusses accounts of Canadians travelling abroad who claim to use eh far more away than at home in order to identify themselves as ‘not American’.…”