We're Canadian, eh?

Abstract

This paper, still in process, is a considerably expanded and revised version of a talk given several years ago. It was once a featured paper at the Spanish 22nd Aedean International Conference for English and Philology, Universitat de Lleida. It retains a flavour of that occasion in its orality and in its awareness of a Spanish audience. The statement ranges in its attentions and proceeds in a somewhat ruminative style. It considers the prominence of silence and inarticulateness in Canadian writing—basically the unspoken—and speculates on the significance of the Canadian propensity for using “eh” at the ends of sentences.