Pasifika English in New Zealand

Allan Bell & Andy Gibson

Institute of Culture, Discourse and Communication, AUT University, Auckland, NZ

NWAV, Philadelphia, USAOctober 2007

Background to Pasifika Englishes

History of New Zealand Englishdialect contactlanguage contact with Maori

> Maori ethnolect

Southwest Pacificexploration and annexation, 18th-19th centurycolonial and postcolonial historycreation of creoles

English - Pasifika contact in NZ

Pasifika peoples’ immigration to New Zealand from Samoa, Cook Islands, Tonga, Niuefrom 1950s

Sociopolitical/linguistic situationG1 ‘Gastarbeiter’ status, under-classEnglish language for G2 advancementdiglossic relation Pasifika language/Englishshift to English in 2nd and 3rd generationsdistinguishable ethnolect of English

Theoretical approaches to language contact

Contact linguistics

Thomason 2001, Winford 2003

‘imperfect learning’

Second Language Acquisition strategies

> interlanguage

individual

> group

‘substratum/adstratum’ L1 influence/transfer

Schneider 2007: ‘Dynamic Model’ of evolution of colonial Englishes

5 historical phases:

1 Foundationc1840-80 in New Zealand

2 Exonormative stabilization1870-1940

3 Nativization` 1900-80

4 Endonormative stabilization1970 - present

5 Differentiation1950 - present

Edgar W Schneider, 2007. Postcolonial English: Varieties around the World.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

The linguistic features

DH as in Variants: stop d * the, their, that affricate ddh *

fricative dh *

Linguistic factors:preceding phonetic environmentstresslexical item

TH as in three, both, month Variants: stop t

affricate tth * fronting ffricative th *

Environments:preceding and following phoneticsstress

* = not in Pasifika substrate lexical item

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 (bro’Town)- 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)

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 BellPlus large team of interviewers, analysts, elders, advisors

The data

Interviews conducted in language of informant’s 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

Excerpt 1 – ‘Tai’

There’s something in their accent that - that you know that um … they’re like Pacif– Pacif– oh Pacific Islanders. Yeah, I don’t 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 that’s talking to me in English, I can tell the difference.

DH – Overall results

d

ddh

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

d dh

(N=207) (N=215)

%

DH – Linguistic factorspercentage of stopping (d + ddh)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

V C # 1 2

(N=112) (N=78) (N=89) (N=87) (N=191)

Preceding Environment Stress

% S

topp

ed

DH – Preceding environment x stress

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

V C #

(N=112) (N=78) (N=89)

Preceding Environment

% S

top

pe

d

Unstressed

Stressed

DH – Ethnicity and Sex

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Niuean Samoan Male Female

(N=247) (N=175) (N=206) (N=216)

Ethnicity Sex

% S

topp

ed

TH – Overall results

ttth

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

f t th

(N=44) (N=36) (N=133)

%

TH – Syllable position

f

f

t

t

th

th

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Onset Coda

(N=135) (N=78)

Syllable Position

%

TH - Ethnicity

f

ft

t

th th

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Niuean Samoan

(N=125) (N=88)

%

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

Tai – DH, TH and R variables

Post-pausal DH17/18 tokens stopped

TH fronting or stopping 3/3 fronted in syllable codas6/21 stopped in onsets

Postvocalic R 5/17 tokens of r (after NURSE vowel)

Absence of Linking R20/21 tokens zero

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.

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)

Conclusions 1 - Linguistic

Adstrate forms of DH and TH prevalent for some speakersquestion 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> cluster qualitatively in certain stretches of talk> co-occur with other ethnolectal variables

Conclusions 2 - Processes

Pasifika Englishes define Schneider’s ‘Differentiation’ stage for NZE, and its four phases

‘The acquisition of native speakers by a dialect’ Role of Thomason’s ‘imperfect learning’ Process from SLA forms for individuals

to group interlanguageto ethnolect

Generational differences G1 vs G2 indicated by bro’Town animated comedy analysis

Issue of input from pre-immigration Englishes in home islands

Conclusions 3 - Implications

Importance of Pasifika Englishes in development of NZ Englishespecially youth language

International parallels of minority > majority youth languagehiphop link

Relationship of ethnolect development to L1 language loss

Use interview data from this studyto tease out relation of ethnolect to contact issues for L1:

demographics, attitudes, identity value

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 bro’Town. 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.

Addresses

allan.bell@aut.ac.nz

andy.gibson@aut.ac.nz

www.aut.ac.nz/research/research_institutes/icdc