Pasifika English in New Zealand The Case of

Pasifika English in New Zealand: The Case of bro’Town Andy Gibson & Allan Bell Institute of Culture, Discourse and Communication, AUT University, Auckland, NZ NWAV, Columbus Ohio, USA November 2006

bro’Town l Adventures of 5 fourteen year-old boys in inner-city Auckland (4 Pasifika, 1 Maori) l Conceived of and voiced by a Samoan comedy group, the Naked Samoans l This presentation covers an analysis of three of the characters. These three characters are all Samoan and each is played by a different actor – – – Pepelo Valea Vale father son, 14

Why bro’Town? l Interest in performed varieties of language l Interest in the aspects of pronunciation used to mark NZ Pasifika identities – Little prior research on Pasifika varieties of NZE

NZ-born vs. Samoa-born l Wave of immigration to NZ from Pacific Islands in 1970 s As at 2001: l NZ-born Samoans in NZ: – l 40% over 15 years old Samoa-born Samoans in NZ: – 89% over 15 years old (Statistics New Zealand)

Aims of Study l Investigate consonantal variables in the NZ-born characters (Valea, Vale) which may be associated with NZ Pasifika Youth Culture English and in the Samoan-born character (Pepelo) which may be affected by having Samoan as his first language. l Investigate instances of ‘double voicing’ (Performance from within already performed voice)

The Characters Pepelo Sound 1

Valea Sound 2

Vale Sound 3

The Variables l /p/ aspiration - pub, precious l (DH) - these, their, them, their l (TH) - something, thanks, three l Linking /r/

/p/ aspiration l Stops unaspirated in Samoan l Non-aspiration of /t/ has been noted as a feature of Maori English, though less so in younger speakers (Holmes, 1997; Bell, 2000) l Starks et al (fc. ) found unaspiration of /p t k/ in Niuean NZE

/p/ aspiration l All /p/s in syllable-initial position in stressed syllables were analysed l Length of aspiration was measured, from release burst to onset of second formant

/p/ aspiration Sound 4

/p/ aspiration l Pepelo has much less aspiration of /p/ than the boys l This may be a substratal effect from Samoan, Pepelo’s portrayed 1 st language l Non-aspiration of /p/ does not seem to have been taken up as part of the youth ethnolect

/p/ aspiration – Double Voicing Sound 5

(DH) & (TH) l No dental fricatives in Samoan l (DH) and (TH) affrication in Maori English (Bell, 2000) l TH-fronting in young Pakeha NZE (Campbell & Gordon, l NZ Pasifika English: 1996) – – – DH-stopping (DH /d/) TH-fronting (TH /f/) TH-fronting more common in word-final position (Starks and Reffell, 2006)

(DH) l All word-initial instances of (DH) analysed l Auditory analysis l Coded as dh (for dental fricative) or d (for alveolar stop) l d category also includes a few dental affricates

(DH) Sound 6

(TH) l All instances of TH (in all word positions) were analysed l Most tokens realised as either [th], [f] or [v] l 5 tokens (out of 79) realised as stops (removed from analysis below)

(TH) Sound 7

(TH) – Double voicing Sound 8

(TH) Realisations of TH by character /th/ /f/ /v/ Total Pepelo Valea 1 7 18 7 7 24 9 0 1 17 14 43 Total 26 38 10 74 6 of 10 [v] occurrences are in the word (with)

(TH) Realisations of TH by word position Word Initial Word Medial Word Final Total /th/ 19 1 6 26 /f/ and /v/ 15 14 19 48 Total 34 15 25 74

(DH) & (TH) l Pepelo has very high rates of both DH-stopping and TH-fronting - again, probably a substratal effect. l Valea uses high rates of both DH-stopping and TH-fronting, though not as much as Pepelo l Vale uses low rates of DH-stopping and moderates of THfronting

Linking /r/ - Background Hay and Sudbury (2005): Study tracks decline of rhoticity in NZE. Linking /r/ continues to appear at high rates. Starks and Reffell (2005): Low rates of linking /r/ in reading passages by Pasifika youth.

Linking /r/ - Methodology l All potential linking /r/s across word boundaries analyzed l Tokens at intonation phrase boundaries excluded, also excluded if hesitation between words Coded as r or 0 l

Linking /r/ - Results Sound 9

Linking /r/ - Results Linking /r/ by phonetic environment Linking /r/ No Glottal Stop Consonant Total Pepelo 6 0 4 10 Valea 6 11 7 24 Vale 9 10 0 19 Total 21 21 11 53

Where do these variants come from? l Substratal influence? l But some of these are also common in other vernacular varieties of English… l Influence of hip-hop?

A question of ethnicity? l How to define this style of speech in terms of social factors? l This is not just NZ Samoan English l This variety of NZ English is associated with being young, Polynesian, interested in hiphop culture, living in South-Auckland… ? ? ?

Conclusions l Very high levels of /p/ non-aspiration, DH-stopping and TH-fronting in Samoa-born NZ Samoan English. Some of these features may be caused by a substratal influence l DH-stopping, TH-fronting and low rates of linking /r/ in NZ-born NZ Samoan English l These features are not just ethnic identity markers, they are related to an emerging sub-culture which needs to be defined through more detailed ethnographic study. l The use of these features is manipulated to project different personas from within already performed voices

References l l l l Bell, Allan. 1990. Audience and referee design in New Zealand media language. In Bell and Holmes (eds): 165 -194. Bell, Allan. 1992. Hit and miss: referee design in the dialects of New Zealand television advertisements. Language and Communication 12. 3 -4: 1 -14. 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. Coupland, Nikolas. 1985. 'Hark, hark, the Lark': Social Motivations for Phonological Style-Shifting. Language & Communication 5(3): 151 -171. Foulkes, Paul. 1997. Rule inversion in a British English dialect - a sociolinguistic investigation of [r]-sandhi in Newcastle upon Tyne. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 4(1) - A Selection of Papers from NWAVE 25. 259 -270. 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 Lippi-Green, R. 1997. Language, ideology, and discrimination in the United States. London: Routledge. Starks, Donna and Hayley Reffell. 2006. Reading ‘TH’: Vernacular variants in Pasifika Englishes in South Auckland. Journal of Sociolinguistics 10(3): 382 -392. 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, Jane Christie and Laura Thompson (in press). Niuean English: initial insights into an emerging variety. To appear in English Worldwide. http: //www. stats. govt. nz/analytical-reports/pacific-profiles/samoan/population. htm. Retrieved on 1/11/06