Pasifika English in New Zealand

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Pasifika English in New Zealand
Allan Bell Andy Gibson Institute of Culture,
Discourse and Communication, AUT
University, Auckland, NZ
NWAV, Philadelphia, USA October 2007
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Background to Pasifika Englishes

• History of New Zealand English
• dialect contact
• language contact with Maori
• gt Maori ethnolect
• Southwest Pacific
• exploration and annexation, 18th-19th century
• colonial and postcolonial history
• creation of creoles

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(No Transcript)
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English - Pasifika contact in NZ

• Pasifika peoples immigration to New Zealand
• from Samoa, Cook Islands, Tonga, Niue
• from 1950s
• Sociopolitical/linguistic situation
• G1 Gastarbeiter status, under-class
• English language for G2 advancement
• diglossic relation Pasifika language/English
• shift to English in 2nd and 3rd generations
• distinguishable ethnolect of English

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Theoretical approaches to language contact

• Contact linguistics
• Thomason 2001, Winford 2003
• imperfect learning
• Second Language Acquisition strategies
• gt interlanguage
• individual
• gt group
• substratum/adstratum L1 influence/transfer

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Schneider 2007 Dynamic Model of evolution of
colonial Englishes

• 5 historical phases
• 1 Foundation
• c1840-80 in New Zealand
• 2 Exonormative stabilization
• 1870-1940
• 3 Nativization
• 1900-80
• 4 Endonormative stabilization
• 1970 - present
• 5 Differentiation
• 1950 - present
• Edgar W Schneider, 2007.
• Postcolonial English Varieties around the World.
• Cambridge Cambridge University Press.

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The linguistic features

• DH as in Variants stop d
• the, their, that affricate ddh
• fricative dh
• Linguistic factors
• preceding phonetic environment
• stress
• lexical item
• TH as in
• three, both, month Variants stop t
• affricate tth
• fronting f
• fricative th
• Environments
• preceding and following phonetics
• stress
• not in Pasifika substrate lexical item

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Previous research

• Affrication of DH and TH in Maori English
• (Bell 2000)
• TH fronting to f in young Pakeha English
• (Campbell Gordon 1996 Wood 2003)
• NZ Pasifika English
• Infrequent DH stopping (5) (reading passage)
• Frequent TH fronting (40)
• (Starks and Reffell 2006 Starks, Christie
  Thompson 2007)
• Performed Pasifika English (broTown)
• - DH stopping 80 for L2 speaker, 8 and 50 for
  L1 speakers
• - TH fronting 95 for L2 speaker, 55 and 85 for
  L1 speakers
• (Gibson Bell 2006)

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The study

• 120 interviews with 4 ethnic groups in Manukau,
  Auckland
• Samoan, Tongan, Niuean, Cook Islands
• 27-page questionnaire on
• language maintenance and shift
• Detailed data elicited on demographics, family,
  upbringing, language proficiency, usage,
  attitudes
• Formal information-oriented interviews
• Original Team
• Donna Starks, Melenaite Taumoefolau, Karen
  Davis, Allan Bell
• Plus large team of interviewers, analysts,
  elders, advisors

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The data

• Interviews conducted in language of informants
  choice
• 30 English-language interviews,
• mostly younger speakers (age 15-25)
• Interviews averaged 1 -1½ hours long
• Analyzed half-hour excerpts from
• 5 young Samoans and 5 young Niueans
• Andy Gibson co-coded, quantified

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Excerpt 1 Tai

• Theres something in their accent that - that
  you know that um theyre like Pacif Pacif oh
  Pacific Islanders. Yeah, I dont know, oh just
  ... Yeah, oh I know the difference between a -
  like a English person, oh like a palagi person
  just talking to me in English and a Pacific
  Island person thats talking to me in English, I
  can tell the difference.

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DH Overall results
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DH Linguistic factorspercentage of stopping (d
ddh)
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DH Preceding environment x stress
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DH Ethnicity and Sex
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TH Overall results
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TH Syllable position
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TH - Ethnicity
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Case Study Tai

• 18-year-old NZ-born man
• Samoan L1, largely fluent
• - full comprehension
• - slightly lower speaking ability
• English L2 fully fluent
• - started speaking English age 4
• Household has always been Samoan
• Samoan and English used equally at home
• Mixes with Samoans elsewhere every day
• Attends Samoan church 3 times a week

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Tai DH, TH and R variables

• Post-pausal DH
• 17/18 tokens stopped
• TH fronting or stopping
• 3/3 fronted in syllable codas
• 6/21 stopped in onsets
• Postvocalic R
• 5/17 tokens of r (after NURSE vowel)
• Absence of Linking R
• 20/21 tokens zero

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Excerpt 2 (dh and th bolded)

• That was like for both my parents, like speak
  only Samoan to both my parents. But then um, um
  then my Mum, then my Mum, then we started
  speaking Engl- when we got older, this was when
  we were young, we were allow- only allowed to
  speak Samoan when we were young but when we got
  older, like they understood, my Mum understood,
  we can speak um, like we can speak English and
  Samoan to her, she will understand. But not to
  the Dad, not to the old man. Only Samoan to the
  old man.

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Clustering of ethnolectal forms

• 9/10 tokens of DH stopped (fully)
• 2/2 tokens of TH fronted
• Rising tones
• Syllable timing
• Reduction of medial R (parents)
• Vocalisation of L
• In earlier excerpt
• - fronted, rounded GOAT vowel (know)
• - postvocalic R (person)
• - sandhi absence (a English person)

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Conclusions 1 - Linguistic

• Adstrate forms of DH and TH prevalent for some
  speakers
• question of relation to general vernacular
  presence
• Promoted by phonology of Polynesian languages
• Parallels to earlier research on Pasifika and
  Maori Englishes
• Quantitatively high levels of particular adstrate
  variables
• gt cluster qualitatively in certain stretches of
  talk
• gt co-occur with other ethnolectal variables

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Conclusions 2 - Processes

• Pasifika Englishes define Schneiders
  Differentiation stage
• for NZE, and its four phases
• The acquisition of native speakers by a dialect
• Role of Thomasons imperfect learning
• Process from SLA forms for individuals
• to group interlanguage
• to ethnolect
• Generational differences G1 vs G2
• indicated by broTown animated comedy analysis
• Issue of input from pre-immigration Englishes in
  home islands

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Conclusions 3 - Implications

• Importance of Pasifika Englishes in development
  of NZ English
• especially youth language
• International parallels of minority gt majority
  youth language
• hiphop link
• Relationship of ethnolect development
• to L1 language loss
• Use interview data from this study
• to tease out relation of ethnolect to contact
  issues for L1
• demographics, attitudes, identity value

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References

• Bell, Allan. 2000. Maori and Pakeha English a
  case study. In Bell and Kuiper (eds) New Zealand
  English 221-248 Wellington Victoria University
  Press. Amsterdam Benjamins.
• Campbell, Elizabeth and Elizabeth Gordon. 1996.
  What do you fink? Is New Zealand English losing
  its th? New Zealand English Journal 10 40-46.
• Foulkes, Paul. 1997. Rule inversion in a British
  English dialect - a sociolinguistic investigation
  of r-sandhi in Newcastle upon the Tyne.
  University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in
  Linguistics 4(1) - A Selection of Papers from
  NWAVE 25. 259-270.
• Gibson, Andy Allan Bell, 2006. Talking Pasifika
  in New Zealand the case of broTown. Paper
  presented to NWAV Conference, Cleveland, Ohio.
• Hay, Jennifer and Andrea Sudbury (2005).    How
  rhoticity became /r/-sandhi.  In Language 81.4,
  pp 799-823.
• Holmes, Janet. 1997. Maori and Pakeha English
  some New Zealand social dialect data. Language in
  Society 26(1) 65-101
• Kennedy, Marianna. 2006. Variation in the
  Pronunciation of English by New Zealand School
  Children. MA Thesis. Victoria University of
  Wellington.
• Schneider, Edgar W, 2003. The dynamics of New
  Englishes from identity construction to dialect
  birth. Language 79/2 233-81.
• Schneider, Edgar W, 2007. Postcolonial English
  Varieties around World. Cambridge Cambridge
  University Press.
• Starks, Donna, Jane Christie and Laura Thompson,
  2007 . Niuean English initial insights into an
  emerging variety. English World-Wide 28/2
  133-46.
• Starks, Donna and Hayley Reffell. 2005.
  Pronouncing your Rs in New Zealand English A
  study of Pasifika and Maori students. New
  Zealand English Journal 19 36-48.
• Starks, Donna and Hayley Reffell. 2006. Reading
  TH Vernacular variants in Pasifika Englishes
  in South Auckland. Journal of Sociolinguistics
  10(3) 382-392.
• Thomason, Sarah G, 2001. Language Contact An
  Introduction. Edinburgh Edinburgh University
  Press.
• Thomason, Sarah Grey and Terence Kaufmann, 1988.
  Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic
  Linguistics. Berkeley and Los Angeles,
  California California University Press.
• Winford, Donald, 2003. An Introduction to Contact
  Linguistics. Malden, Mass. and Oxford Blackwell
  Publishing.

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Addresses

• allan.bell_at_aut.ac.nz
• andy.gibson_at_aut.ac.nz
• www.aut.ac.nz/research/research_institutes/icdc