University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics

Volume 4 Issue 1 A selection of papers from NWAVE 25 Article 10

1997

Dialect contact, focusing and phonological rule complexity: the Koineisation of Fenland English

David Britain

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Dialect Contact, Focusing and Phonological Rule Kerswill quite rightly states (1994a:70-7l), most research on dialect contact has consisted of "post-hoc observation of Complexity: the Koineisation of Fenland English completed changes, forthe most part three or more generations after the migration took place." He has been one of the few, in his David Britain research on the new dialect of Milton Keynes in southern England, to concentrate on the process of koine formation, as spoken 1. Introduction through the mouths of young children of that city. In this article, I look at koineisation in a dialect contact scenario which began over 300 years ago, in the Fens of eastern Research on koineisation, the linguistic processes provoked by England. A comparison of a range of data sources, from Ellis dialect contact, has been busying sociolinguists for quite a (1889) right through to a recently collected corpus (Britain 1991), considerable period of time. Back in 1959, Ferguson suggested demonstrates that the koineisation process, for some variables at that the precursor of modem Arabic was a koine resulting from least, is barely complete, yet for others appears to have led to the contact between speakers of diverse Arabic dialects. Blanc (1968) emergence of a stable form over 200 years ago. Despite the long proposed a parallel origin for Israeli Hebrew. There havebeen an period of time over which koineisation has been underway, increasing number of studies which have, for example, considered therefore, we are still able to see the crystallisation of some dialect koineisation as the key process leading both to the emergence of features in progress, and hence begin to assess the constraints on overseas Hindi and Bhojpuri-based varieties spoken by indented new dialect development. Why, then, do some linguistic forms labourers and their descendants in Fiji (Siegel 1987), Mauritius focus quickly, while others do so much more slowly? We will look (Domingue 1971), South Africa (Mesthrie 1991) and Trinidad to social, but particularly linguistic explanations in our attempt to (Mohan 1971, Bhatia 1988), as well as to the developmentof post- answer this question. In the next section, I will discuss the rather colonial English varieties in North America and Australasia special nature of the dialect contact in the Fenland speech (Bernard 1969, Dillard 1975, Trudgill 1985,1986). community, as well as evidence that it is a koineised variety. In TrudgilPs (1986) book Dialects in Contact, an account of Section 3,1 briefly describe the data sources used in the analysis. the role linguistic accommodation plays in new dialect formation, The following two sections present evidence of two variables, one as well as an analysts of koine development in a number of contact which has been koineised for atleast 200 years, another which is scenarios around the world, has triggered more recent research on still focusing today. Section 6 attempts to address why there is the topic, particularly on new town dialects (Kerswill 1994a, such a time difference in the emergence of the koineised forms. 1994b,1996; Kerswilt and Williams 1992; Simpson, forthcoming), We finally conclude in Section 7. and the dialects of newly settled reclaimed areas (Britain 1991, 1997; Scholtmeijer 1990, 1992). We now have a much fuller understanding of the likely outcomes of koineisation, namely 2. Dialect Contact in the Fens simplification (the increase in grammatical regularity and decrease in formal complexity); levelling (the eradication of marked The Fens (see Figure 1) are a low-lying area of eastern England variants in the dialect mix); reallocation (the refunctionalisation of situated about 75 miles directly north of London, and 50 miles east input variants); and the creation of interdialect (linguistically of Norwich. Compared with the rest of Southern England it is a intermediate) forms. rather sparsely populated region, many parts of which have a We know much less, however, about the intermediate population density less than a fifth of that of England as a whole. stages of the koineisation process itself. This is because, as The area has a rather unique geomorphological and demographic

142 U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics, Volume 4.1, 1997 U.PennWorkingPapersinLinguisticsVolume4.1(1997) DialectContact.FocusingandRuleComplexity Britain

Figure1:Thelocationof theFens

TheFens .Norwich

••"•••■•^ pKMBCMf UMWUI0

Fisnre2:TheFcalaadin1650

143 144 Volume4.1(1997) U.PennWorkingPapersinLinguistics DialectContact,FocusingandRuleComplexity Britain

throughtheFenland(Orton& Tilling1969).Inaddition,atamore history.Figure2 showstheFenlandintheearlyseventeenth

locallevel,theareaactsasanimportantboundarybetweenEast century.Thenortherncoastlineupto12 laymilesfurthersouth

AnglianandMidlanddialects.Followingreclamation,however, thanatpresent.MostoftheFenlandpopulationatthattimelived

thedistincteasternandwesternvarietiesspokenbythein- onafewislandsofhighergroundandinsmallcommunitieson

migrantsofthe17thand18thcenturieswouldbesubjecttothe thisnortherncoastline.Thesoutherntwo-thirdsoftheFenland

processesofkoineisationdiscussedinSection1 above.An consistedofundrainedmarshlandwhichwassubjecttotidal

analysisbothoftheSurveyofEnglishDialectsdataforthisarea floodinginsummer,morecontinuousfloodinginwinterandwas

(Orton& Tilling1969)andofmyown81-speakercorpusofdata hencetoounstableforpermanentsettlement.Theoverall

collectedinthelate1980suncoveredanumberofexamples, livelihoodofmanysmallFenlandcommunitieswasdirectly

demonstratingnotonlythatthevarietyspokenintheFens relatedtothesuccessofeffortstoholdthewaterback.Eventhe

straddlesamajortransitionzone,butthatitisalsoinmanyways northerncoastlinesettlements,themoststableandrelatively

typicalofthekoineisedlinguisticvarietiesdescribedbyTrudgill heavilypopulated,witnessedmajorfloodingin1439, 1550, 1570,

(1986).Someofthetransitionsinclude: 1607and1613(Darby1974).

Themid-17thcenturyprovedtobeamajorturningpoint

• Thepresenceorabsenceof/h/:absenttothe west, present inthehistoryoftheFenswhenDutchengineerswere

totheeast. commissionedtobeginworkonFenlanddrainage.Muchofthe

Therealisationof/au/:[e:]tothewest,[eu]the toeast. majorworkwascompletedbythelate17thcentury,butinsome

• Therealisationofvowelsinunstressedsyllables:past areasdrainageandreclamationwerenotcompleteuntiltheearly

tense'-ed'formsand'-ing'formsarerealisedwith[i]to partofthiscentury.A previouslybarelypassablemarshland

thewest,but[a]totheeast. evolvedintofertilearableland.Theimpactofthereclamationon

theFenland'sdemographicstructurewasconsiderable.Subsequent

Asfaraskoineisationisconcerned,we canobserve, todrainage,theFenssawquiterapiddemographicgrowth,

firstly,thelevellingofmarkedfeaturesfromtheimmigrant particularlyinthosecentralFenlandareaswhichhadpreviously

varieties.Absentthe fromcentralFenlandvariety,buttypicalof beenlessaccessibleandmostsusceptibletoflooding.Theinflux

dialectstotheeastare: camefrombotheast(Norfolk)andwest(Peterboroughand

Lincolnshire),thoughthedemographicevidencesuggeststhat

• Thepreservationofa 'nose'[nuuz]/'knows'[iiauz] relativelyfewcamefromfurtherafieldthanthesurrounding

distinction. counties(seeBritain1997:19-20formoredetailabout

• Thepresenceof'do'conjunctions,asin'don'tstroke the demographicgrowthandsettlerorigins).Themixtureofvarieties

catdohe'llbiteyou',where,asTrudgill(1995)explains, broughtintotheFensinthelate17thand18thcenturiessuggestsa

theconjunctionderivesfromthegrammaticisationofa dialectcontactscenariosimilartothatseenmuchlaterinthe

shortenedformof'becauseifyoudo'. polderlandsoftheNetherlands(Scholtmeijer1990,1992).

• Theabsenceofthirdpersonpresent-s tense(Trudgill Thelackofintercommunicationbetweeneasternand

1974:96). westernsidesoftheFensbeforereclamationisreflectedinthefact

thattheFenstodayarethesiteofonethe ofmostimportantdialect

Presentinnorthernandwesternvarieties,butusual notinthe transitionzonesinBritishEnglish.Probablythetwomostoften

centralFensare: citedisoglossesarethe/u-a/('cup','butter')andthe/a-a:/

('castle','last')boundaries,whichrunnorth-easttosouth-west

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• [e] forms of/ei/ in words such as 'take' and 'make'. presumably since the levelling process had eradicated marked The use of 'while' meaning 'until': 'don't come while regional features present in neighbouring or immigrant dialects (cf. four o'clock'. Read 1933, Bernard 1969, Dillard 1975, Gordon 1983, Trudgill 1986). Ellis cites the data gatherer from the central Fenland town In addition, we can see examples of the reallocation of input of Wisbech, a Mr Little, who claimed that the town had 'very little variants to serve new social or contextual functions (see Trudgill dialect proper' (1889:253) and that 'the fen country generally is 1986), or in the cases described below, new lexical or allophonic the home of pure speech, by which I mean, of language but little differing from the ordinary literary English' (1889:254). Similar positions: sentiments were expressed by Miller and Skertchly (1878). • The reallocation of north-western and south-eastern forms All of the above features differentiate east from west, of ME a in words such as 'bath' and 'plant' into lexical emphasising both the role the iradrained Fens played in hindering sets matching neither input variety. Whereas varieties to east-west communication, and the quite radical linguistic the north-west of the Fens would have a short [a] vowel differences which existed (and still exist) to either side.1 in these words, and south-eastern varieties would For the rest of this paper, I wish to look in more detail at consistently have a longer (although in this region still two of these koineised features: the reallocated [3iH<»l forms of quite front) [a:], in the central Fens speakers use [a] in /ai/ and the interdialectal [y] form of/a/. As we will see, despite some words and [a:] in others, though it is often the case the fact that both involve ongoing changes that were underway in that each interdialect speaker has a different lexical set in English long before Fenland draining, all evidence suggests that each class. the dialect contact which followed reclamation focused one new • The central Fenland has an allophonic distribution of /ai/ dialect form very quickly, while the other was much slower in similar to that found in Canada and many parts of the crystallising a distinct koineised form. I firstly present the evidence northern US. Centralised [ai] onsets are found before which demonstrates this differential rate of focusing, and secondly voiceless consonants and open ones [ai] before voiced ask why we should expect such a difference. In doing so, I draw consonants, hi iind morpheme boundaries. This parallels between variable rates of focusing of new dialects in distribution, I have claimed (Britain 1997), is the result of contact situations on the one hand, with the variable acquisition of the reallocation of western open onsets of/ai/ and eastern second dialects on the other (Payne 1980, Chambers 1992, central onsets to different phonological environments in Kerswill 1996). the central Fenland. 3. Sources of Data Finally it has interdialect features, features which are phonetically intermediate forms of the input variants: In order to assess the extent to which Fenland Raising and interdialectal [y] have focused in the central Fens, we are able to • It has, for example, an intermediate [y] for /a/: the draw upon a number of sources, some written, others in the form varieties to the north and west have [u], and to the east of oral recordings, some traditional dialectological, others analysed and south [a].

Like many varieties subject to koineisation, Fenland English was lMore recent changes, however, have come largely from the south, from once considered by folk linguists to be relatively standard-like, London, including N vocalisation, labio-dental approximant [u] forms of /r/, and the merger of III and IQf, and non-initial /3/ and /v/.

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within a more modern variationist framework. They give us a picture, albeit patchy in the case of the earlier and traditional data sources, of the past 170 years of Fenland English. By comparing the development of/ai/ and /a/ in these data sets we will be able to chart the progress of koineisation in this variety. The earliest source we have at our disposal is Ellis (1889). This is a dialect survey of the traditional type, based on information from over 1100 locations in Great Britain. Data in the form of spontaneous transcriptions of reading passages and word lists were sent to Ellis by a combination of trained dialect enthusiasts, (such as Thomas Hallam) or interested locals. The reliability of the data is therefore open to considerable question, but in some locations (luckily including the Fenland for some variable features) Hallam was sent to check the validity of the local data collectors' work and investigate some features more thoroughly. Secondly we have the data from the Fenland localities set out in the Basic Materials of the Survey of English Dialects [SED] (Orton and Tilling 1969), a traditional dialectological survey of 311 largely rural localities, two of which, Outwell in Norfolk and Warboys in Cambridgeshire are in the central Fenland. The SED data from these sites can be compared with localities surveyed to the east of the Fens, such as Little Downham in Cambridgeshire, and to the west, such as Crow land in Lincolnshire. Finally we have 3 corpora of contemporary recordings. Between 1987 and 1990, I collected a corpus of recordings of 81 working class Fenlanders of two broad age groups: old (45-66) and young (16-30) (Britain 1991). Most recordings consist of 60 to 90 minutes of informal conversation with second-order network links across the Fens, from Spalding and Warboys in the west to West Figure 3: Principal Fenland urban centres and other Winch and Soham in the east (see Figure 3). In addition to my own locations mentioned in the text. data, I was fortunate enough to find two corpora which I could analyse in the same way as my own recordings. The King's Lynn Corpus, housed in that town's local library, was recorded as part of a Manpower Services Commission Local History Project carried out in the mid 1980s. All of the 10 speakers were over 55 years old and most in their 70s. The Chatteris corpus in the town's museum is a collection of 11 individual recordings made over a number of

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yearsbetween1974and1985bythecurator.Tenofthese Figure4:Onsetsof/ai/usedbyaspeakerfromEmnethinthecentral recordingsareofworkingclassresidentsofChatteris.Mostwere Fens atleast70yearsold.TheotherrecordingwasofaformerOlympic ice-skater,alsoinhis70s,fromOutwell,nearWisbech(see

Figure3).

4. 'FenlandRaising'of/ai/

Inmostinstances,/ai/derivesfromMiddleEnglish1Itshistorical developmentislinkedtoalarge-scalesetofphonologicalchanges

commonlyknownastheGreatVowelShift(GVS).TheGVSis

IflNMMMWNMN hi # believedtohavebegunsometimeinthe15thcentury(Wells M N

1982a:184)andpossiblycompletedinthesouth-eastofEngland followingphonologicalenvironment

byaround(1982a: 1600185),althoughinsomepartsoftheUK,

suchasthenorth-east,theGVShas notcompletedtothisday.As Figure5:onsetsof/ai/usedbyspeakerfromWayheadintheEastern

partoftheGVS,ME1andubecamediphthongsandsubsequently Fens

theonsetsofthesediphthongisedformsbecamegraduallymore

openandcentralbeforereachingthemoreadvancedcontemporary

forms(Lass1987,Wells1982a).

InthecentralFens,speakersofallagegroupsconsistently

retainanallophonicdistinctionsimilartoCanadianRaising:

centralised[ai]onsetsbeforevoicelessconsonants,andopen

onsets,[ai],orevenopenmonophthongs,[a:],beforevoiced

consonants,/a/andmorphemeboundaries.Invarietiesspokento

thewestoftheFenswefindopenonsetsinallenvironments, hi # m iu ni /k/M tptM HI M whereastotheeastcentralisedonsetsarefoundinmost followingphonologicalenvironment

environments.Figures4,5and6showtherealisationsof/ai/

accordingtofollowingsegmentfoundinthespeechofthree

speakersfrommycorpus:typical(Emneth: centralseeFigure3), openonsetsandeasternraisedonsetstodifferentphonological

eastern(Wayhead)andwestern(Peterborough)speakers environments.

respectively.2Bearinginmindthedemographichistoryofthe Wehavegoodevidencetosuggestthat'FenlandRaising

Fens,andthephonologicalnaturalnessofsuchallophony,Ihave hasbeenpresentinthecentralFensforalmost200years.InEllis

argued(Britain1997)thatthe'FenlandRaising'demonstrated (1889)thereislittleevidencetoenableustojudgetheprogressof

herebytheEmnethspeaker,buttypicalthroughoutthecentral /ai/whichwasnotoneofthesoundsElliswasparticularly

Fens,isadialectcontactphenomenon,areallocationofwestern interestedin.ThereisnoreliabledatafromthecentralFenland

townofWisbech,forexample.

2Indexscores:l=[ai], O=[a:J,2=foi],4=[vi], 3=[ai],5=[ui].

151 152 Volume 4.1(1997) Dialect Contact, Focusing and Rule Complexity Britain U. Perm Working Papers in Linguistics

Figure 7: onsets of/ai/ used in the King's Lynn and Chatteris corpora Figure 6: onsets of/al/ used by speaker from Peterborough in the Western Fens

S 4.5 4..

it

hi # Is! A/ If! N /pi MM W M A"/ following phonological environment fodowEng phonological environment Figure 8: onsets of/ai/ used by four central Fenland speakers from However, an allophonic split is found in the central Fenland Wisbech community of Wryde near Thorney, where Hallam reports [nait] but [toim] (Ellis 1889: 254). In the Survey of English Dialects data, the central Fenland locations of Warboys (infonnants born between 1883 and 1889) and Outwell (born between 1874-1889) show the allophonic distinction, with [ay - Ai] in 'night* and 'ice*, and [ai - oi] in 'time' and 'sky*. Locations to the east and west do not show such an allophonic distinction. The Chatteris Museum data from the Chatteris men and Outwell ice-skater, bom in the early years of this century, also show very clear allophony. Compare their realisations in Figure 7, with those found in the eastern Fenland King's Lynn corpus, where the use of centralised forms is not limited simply to before voiceless consonants. My own data from the central Fens shows very little age grading, with /ai/ allophony present in the speech of young and old alike. Figure 8 shows the index scores for four speakers. Harry, the

oldest, was born in 1922, Wayne, the youngest, in 1972. Hiny(Myn) Tcm(Myi»» D*w(30yH> W«ync(l7yn) The apparent time data clearly show that there has been speaker and age little change in the status of Fenland Raising between the oldest and youngest generations. If anything, the distinction has become greater as monophthongal forms become more prevalent before voiced consonants, hi and morpheme boundaries.

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t y - a - a - b] used by speakers across the speech community. 5. Interdialectal [v] Forms of/a/ Furthermore, the interdialectal form has only focused among the young living in and around the central Fenland town of Wisbech, The origins of present-day ItJ in Southern British English are and not in other central Fenland locations, which remain largely complex. The largest source of this lexical set is Middle English if diffuse.3 Our real time data sources demonstrate both the long term occurring in words such as 'butcher', 'cushion', 'luck' and 'up'. diffuseness of the realisations of /a/, as well as the more recent Around London in the 16th century, certain but not all of the interdialect focusing. words in this class underwent unrounding and lowering (and more Ellis considers the /u - /J split to be one of the more recently fronting) from [u] to [a] (and in some varieties, such as important dialect distinctions in his research (1889:15-17) and his Cockney, [a]). In addition, a few /a/ class words have their origins data provide evidence of thorough and detailed analysts of in ME 5 such as 'blood' and 'flood*, and others ('among', ME realisations in towns and villages along the isogloss. We therefore ang/ong, for example) have alternative sources. Furthermore, a have quantitatively more, and, because of the checking and number of borrowings have joined the StJ class: bungalow, yuppie rechecking of data sources by his main fieldworker Hallam, better (see Britain, in preparation). information about this variable than any other in the area under The changes which led to the development of ItJ from investigation. He notes that the town of Wisbech is mixed with ME a and 6 were resisted in vernacular varieties of Northern interdialectal forms [u - y - a - 3]4 used by young and old: he cites England which retain [u] in ME fi and have either [u] or [u:] in the forms from a 13 year old boy and a 39 year old man as well as ME 6 set and [d] or [u] in 'among', for example. Borrowings with older residents of the town. Other central Fenland locations he [a] in southern varieties typically have [u] in the north, hence labels 'mixed' or 'transitional' include: north Cambridgeshire [burjgoteu] and [jupi:]. The dialect transition between the Northern (1889:249), March (252) and Chatteris (253). Ivl area and the southern area with both /u/ and I/J straddles the Despite the impression one might gain from looking at Fens (see, for example, Chambers and Trudgill 1980:128). some published maps derived from its data, the Survey of English The contact between Northern and Southern forms which Dialects (Orton and Tilling 1969) also provides evidence both of arose following reclamation could potentially have had a number the existence of interdialectal forms, and the unfocussed nature of of linguistic outcomes. One possibility would be a lexically those interdialectal realisations. Whereas the 'northem'-type SED determined real location of Northern and Southern forms in the locations of Crowland and Lutton have [u] in words such as new intermediate dialect. This is what appears to have developed in the case of the /a - a:/ transition in words such as 'plant' and 'after' discussed earlier in this article. Alternatively, since the 3The search for phonological and lexical constraints on variant choice is change to /a/ is an innovation, we could perhaps have expected the still underway (see Britain in preparation), but so far no significant southern, possibly more prestigious form to 'win' the dialect tendencies have been found. conflict and lead to the further gradual diffusion of lid north and 4Ellis does not use IPA. Based on his 'Table of Dialectal Palaeotype' (1889: 76-88) and other detailed discussions of the intermediate forms westwards. Neither of these possibilities appear to have (e.g.t p290-292), I have established the following transcription materialised. Instead, the data suggest that a phonetically equivalents: Ellis (u) = [u], (u) = [u], («;) = [u], (y)= [y - v], (3) =» [a - a]. intermediate form between [a] and [u], namely [y], has emerged as He claims that *I mean...merely to imply by the use of (q) that through this the norm in the central Fenland. region generally the sound is transitional between (3) and («)...It cannot Unlike in the case of/ai/, however, the evidence suggests be supposed that in such an extensive region this peculiar transitional that this interdialectal form in the central Fenland has only very sound (p) remains absolutely the samc.or that it is formed always by the recently focused from a broad and diffuse range of variants [u - y - same precise action of the organs of speech-' (1889: 292)

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ThedatafromtheChatterisandKing'sLynnarchives

furtherillustratetheunfocussednatureoftheinterdialectform.

corpus TheresultsoftheanalysisofthesecorporaareinFigures9,10and

Finally,myowndatacorpus,collectedinthelate1980s,

demonstratesthegradualfocusingofthecentralintermediate

Figure10:reafisanoEofItlintheOutweflofthe speatarChatteris

corpus

[u]

'money','thunder'and'guzzle',realisationssuchas[y-a]are

citedforthecentrallocationofOutwelland[u-y-a-a]forthe

centraleasternvillageofLittleDownham.5ChambersandTrudgill

(1980)reanalysetheSEDdata,anddemonstratethetransitional [u]

natureofthisdialect'boundary'.Theycategorisedifferentlectsin

theFens(andotherpartsofEasternEnglandandtheMidlands)as

havingeither'fudged'forms(phoneticallyor intermediate) Ffpire11:realisationsofI/JintheKingsl$nncorpus 'mixed'forms(thevariableuseofboththeingredientforms).6

5jtappearsthatthereissomefieldworkerinconsistencyinthe

transcriptionofphoneticformsbetween[u]and[a].Thefieldworkerfor

LittleDownham,Warboys,LuttonandCrowland,StanleyEllis,defines2

intermediatevariants[y]and[a];NelsonFrancis,thefieldworkerfor

Outwell,onlyusesone[v].Althoughitispossiblethatthisdifferencewas

deliberate,toreflecttheproductionofdifferentformsindifferent

locations,myowndatasuggestthatthisisunlikely(seeBritain1991,in

preparation).Albeita minordifference,ithasconsequencesfor

subsequentreinterpretationsofthisdata,suchasthatcarriedoutby

ChambersandTrudgill(1980:129-137).

6Ifoundnomixedlects(variableuseofbothingredientforms[o]and[a], [u]

butnointermediate[v]forms)inmyconversationaldata.Theirpresence

inChambersandTrudgill'sanalysisresults,however,fromthefield-

workerinconsistenciesmentionedinthepreviousfootnote.

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6. NewDialectAcquisition:Explaining

Figure12:theuseofI/JbyfourcentralFenlandspeakersfrom VariableRatesofFocusing Wisbech

Thequestionwhichtheremainderofthisarticleattemptsto

addressiswhycertainforms(inthiscase'FenlandRaising')focus

morequicklyduringthekoineisationprocessthanothers

(interdialectal[y],forinstance).Intryingtoanswerthe question,

we candrawonbothsocial-psychologicalandlinguistic

explanations(Trudgill1986,Chambers1992,Kerswill1996).

Firstlywecanlooktothesalienceoftheforms.FenlandRaisingis

Hurry(«yr»)Tom(S2yn)Dare<30>r«)W»jneI7jT») a'marker'(Labov1972),withspeakersacrosstheFensshowing

greatawarenessofregionalandsocial variationof/ai/.Itwas

regularlymentionedaslocallysignificant-manyinformantsin

myownsampleclaimedtobeabletospotWisbechspeakersby

Figure13:use theorIt!bjfourcentralFenlandspeakennon- from theiruseof/ai/(butweren'tabletoaccuratelypinpointwhatitwas

WUbeehcentralFenhndlocations about/ai/thatdistinguishedWisbechfromelsewhere)(seeBritain

1997)./a/,ontheotherhandwasaveryunsalientsoundaltogether.

Nobodyinmysurveymentioneditasbeingafeaturewhich

showedregionalvariation,despitethehugephoneticdifferencein

therangeofvariantsusedintheFens.Trudgill(1986:51) has

§ 10 notedalackofsaliencyofthisfeaturemoregenerallyinEast

* 10 Anglia,andEllismadeasimilardiscoveryoveracenturybefore.

Hewrites'awomanofMiddleton[seeFigure3]marriedamanof

Narborough.Thewomancalledcup(k3p)(=[lap](DB)),theman Brian(48jn) TeTyp8yr»)Sh»tm(l«3")

(k{ip)(=[kyp-kYp](DB))andtheyhadnevernoticedthatthey

spokedifferently,sothatTH(ThomasHallam)hadthegreatest

difficultyinmakingthewomanrecognisethedistinction'

(1889:261).lid,althoughsalientforlinguistsanddialectologists,

clearlyisn'tforspeakerslivinginthetransitionzone.Itispossible,

therefore,thatthesalienceofFenlandRaisingsupportsandisitself variant[y]inandaroundWisbech.Figure12showstherelation enhancedbyitsuseasalocalidentitymarkerinthecentralFens, shipbetweenageandvariantuseforthefourspeakerswhose distinguishingtheareafrombotheastandwest,/a/,ontheother

consistentuseof'FenlandRaising'wesawearlier.Itisonly hand,lackssalienceandisnotusedin thisway.However,the amongtheyoungertwospeakers,particularlyWayne,thatthe[y] evidenceoffocusingof aninterdialectalformamongyoungstersin formhasfocused.OlderspeakersandthoseoutsideWisbechand

Wisbechforwhomltdisstillunsalientsuggestsweneedtolook itssuburbsremaindiffuse.Figure13,forexample,showsthe

elsewhereforafullexplanation. variantscoresoffourspeakersfromotherpartsofthecentral Inadditionto socialreasons,linguistshavealsosought Fenland. linguisticexplanationsforvariableratesofdialectacquisition

159 160 Volume4.1(1997) Britain U.PermWorkingPapersinLinguistics DialectContact,FocusingandRuleComplexity

RobertLePage,inwhoseworkwithAndreeTabouret- (Payne1975,Trudgill 1980,1986,Chambers1992,Kerswill

Kellerthenotionsof'focused'and'diffuse'intheirsociolinguistic 1996).Payne's(1975,1980)pioneeringresearchontheacquisition senseoriginate(LePage1978,LePageandTabouret-Keller ofPhiladelphiaEnglishbyin-migrantsfound,forexample,that 1985),claimsthatourchoiceofsocio-linguisticvariantsrepresents whilethein-migrantsrathersuccessfullyacquiredthefrontingof

anactofidentity.Theindividual,hemaintains,'createsfor theonsetsand of/u://au/andtheraisingoftheonsetofhi/,none

himselfthepatternsofhislinguisticbehavioursoastoresemble accuratelyacquiredthetensingandraisingofled.Inasynthesis thoseofthegrouporgroupswithwhichfromtimetotimehe andextensionoftheworkonseconddialectacquisition,Chambers wishestobeidentified'(LePageandTabouret-Keller1985:181). (1992:682-687)accountsforthisfindingintermsofrule

Ourabilitytodosoisconstrainedbytheextenttowhichwecan complexity.Heclaimsthatinseconddialectacquisitionscenarios,

identifythosegroups,haveadequateaccesstothemandtheability simplephonologicalrulesprogressfasterthanmorecomplexones.

toanalysetheirlinguisticbehaviour,havesufficientmotivationto InPhiladelphia,Payne'sresultsdemonstratethatthe

jointhosegroups,gainfeedbackfromthem,andhavetheabilityto successfullyacquiredformswereallrelativelystraightforward,

modifyour behaviourtobecomemorelikethatofthetargetgroup. categoricalphoneticwhereas changes,therulegoverningthe

Initially,inanewdialectscenariosuchasthatintheFens, tensingandraisingofshortltdisextremelycomplex(Payne1975,

orinothersuchsettingswheretherewasno(oronlyaverysmall) Chambers1992,Labov1989).Chambersprovidesfurtherexam nativepopulationspeakingthesamelanguage,thesetargetgroups plesfromhisownresearchofCanadianchildrenacquiringthe

towhichonemayfocuseitherdonotexist,becausenewgroups southernBritishEnglishofOxfordshire.Hefindsthatwhilethey haveyettoforminthenewspeechcommunity,orareabsent, arerelativelysuccessfulatdevoicinghi—asimplerule—theyare

becausethein-migrantgroupsleftthembehind,usually muchlesssuccessfulatacquiring'vowelbacking',i.e.,the/a-o.:/ permanently,intheiroriginalspeechcommunities.Suchnew splitofsouthernEngland. dialectcommunitiesmustthereforecreatethegroupsanddevelop Iwouldliketoclaimthatwecanlooktothesame

afreshthestrongernetworkties(L.Milroy1980,J.Milroy1992) sociolinguisticprinciple,thatsimplerulesprogressfasterthan

whichcanactasfocalpoints.Ihavediscussedelsewhere(Britain complexones,toexplainwhyFenlandRaisingfocusedmore 1997)someofthepotentialmotivationsforjoiningsuchgroups. quicklyintheFensthaninterdialectal[y].Firstwemustjustifyour Theabilityofthekoineisingdialectspeakerstoanalysethe applicationoftheprinciplesofseconddialectacquisition linguisticbehaviouroftheirpeersmustbeconstrainedbythewide suggestedonthebasisofspeakers'relativelyshort-termcontact mixtureofvarietiesundercontact,andfeedbackfromother withthetargetvariety,tonewdialectfocusingwherethecontactis speakers,althoughaccommodatory,islikelytobelinguis-tically ultimatelymuchlongerterm.Bothseconddialectacquisitionand distinctanddiffuse.Childreninsuchscenariosareinapositionof newdialectfocusing,ofcourse,involvedialectcontact.However, havingtofocusanewnormfromadiffusetargetvarietyspokenin

inthecaseofthelatterthefocusingisbeingconductednotonlyby a speechcommunityonlybeginningtodevelopnewsocial adults,butalsobychildrenacquiringtheirfirstvariety.Roberts groupings,identitiesanddistinctions.Thefactthis thatprocessin andLabov(1995)reportthatchildrennativetoPhiladelphiaare thesparselypopulatedFensbeganwellbeforeeducationwas mostlysuccessfulinacquiringtheverycomplex,lexicallydiffused universal(noschoolenvironment,therefore,encouragethe to Ixltensing/raisingrule.Thereare,however,someimportant developmentofwiderpeergroupnorms)furtherimpedesfocused factorsinnewdialectformation,particularlyofthesortwitnessed koinedevelopment.Insuchanenvironment,principlesofsecond intheFens,whichmakethekoineisationprocessinsuch dialectacquisitionandthoseofnewdialectformationseem conditionsrathermorecomplexthanintheacquisitionofvarieties comparable,notwithstandingthetimedifferencesinvolved.

whereacleartarget dialectispredominant.

161 162 Volume4.1(1997) U.PermWorkingPapersinLinguistics DialectContact,FocusingandRuleComplexity Britain

havinglulinboth'pus'and'puss',forexample.Because FenlandRaising,aswe sawearlier,anddespitethe

thisisaruralschool area,catchmentandtravel-to-work inhibitingfactorsoutlinedabove,focusedquitequicklyinthe

areasarelargeanditispossibleforsomespeakersfrom Fens.If,asourevidencesuggests,itwaspresentintheareaaround

areaswithsouthernvariantstogotoschoolorworkin 1800,thenitmusthavefocusedtowardsthetimeatwhichmostof

placeswithnoltdandviceversa.Anymovementbeyond themajorreclamationworkwasnearingcompletion.Itis,

thelocalitywillinvolvecontactwithspeakerswith moreover,arelatively7simplerule,theallocationofraisedonsets

differentproportionsofthedifferentvariants. toapositionofphoneticnaturalnessbeforevoicelessconsonantsin

Thepresenceofvariantsof/a/whichoverlapwiththose thesamesyllable,andopenonsetstopositionsbeforevoiced

ofthelulclass:eventhosespeakerswhohave/a/ (in consonants,morphemeboundariesandschwa.

somephonemicsense,thoughnotnecessarilymatching Interdialectal[y],ontheotherhand,isonlynowbeing

RPorothermoresouthernvarietiesofEnglishEnglish) focusedbytheyoungestspeakersinoneurbancentreofthecentral

maywellinsomesituationshavevariantsoflidrealised Fens.Thereasonsforthisare,Isuggest,at leastpartdue intoa

as[u],whileonotheroccasionshaving[a]or[v]orsome numberoflinguisticfactorswhichcombinetomakethefocusing

othervariantinthesameword. ofonevariantextremelycomplex:

Thewidephoneticrangeofvariantspresentinthe

community:asmentionedpreviously,variantsnotedin Thecomplexityoithe/u- tJsplit:thereis little

mydatarangefrom[u]to[e]. phonologicalconditioningofthissplit,andevenwhere

Thepresenceofongoingchangein/a/inneigh-bouring theretendencies, are therearealwaysexceptions.For

regions:IfJcontinuestoopenandfrontinsouthern example:

BritishEnglish-Cockneyhasreached[a].Speakersare ManyoftheM classwordshavepreceding

thereforeexposedtovariantswhichcontinueto bilabials/labiodentals(e.g.bush,full,put,woman,

phoneticallydiverge. pudding,bosom),yettherearemanyexceptions

Thelackofphonologicalorlexicalconditioningof (buck,fund,pump,won,punch,bucket).

variantchoice:initialanalysessuggestthatthereislittle ManyoftheM classarefollowedby///orN (e.g.

ornosignificantphonologicalorlexicalconditioningof bush, push,wool,full),butagainthereareexceptions

thevariantsintheltdclassinthisspeechcommunity.8 (rush,gush,lush,dull,gull,hull).

Ifthevowelprecedes/g/orl&tj,itisusuallyl/J(e.g.

Together,thesehaveseverelyinhibitedthefocusingof mug,bug,rug,budge,fudge,sludge);theprincipal

oneparticularvariant,theintermediate[v],suchthatitisonly exceptionis'sugar'.

recentlythatonehasemerged.Whyithasemergednowis TheproximityoftheareawithnoIiJ:thenorth-westof

puzzling.Onepossibilityisthatitislinkedtoachangeunderway theFensislinguistically'northern'inEnglishterms,

insouthernBritishEnglishwhichisunroundingandbeginningto

lowerthevowelinclass /u/words.However,Laver(1995),ina

'isay'relatively',becausenon-nativeswhoarriveinthecentralFensas

adultsdonotacquireit.Chambershada similarfindingforMr J,

8Researchiscontinuingtotryandfindsome.Havinginitiallytreatedthe originallyfromNewYorkState,attemptingtoacquiretheCanadian

/a/classasoneset,thenextstageistoseparateoutthewordsofdifferent Raisingof/au/(Chambers1992689).FormostEnglishpeople,acquiring

origins(i.e.,ME 6fromME flfromborrowingsandwordsother of FenlandRaisingasanadultwouldequatetohavingalearnadistinction

origins)andrunfurther a analysisforeffects theofconditioning. (albeitaphoneticallynaturalone).

163 164 U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics Volume 4.1 (1997) Dialect Contact, Focusing and Rule Complexity Britain

the crystallisation of [y] a slow and laborious sociolinguistic small pilot study, found that this change was being led by a considerable margin by middle class girls in the sample of process. More detailed investigations of a range of different secondary school children he studied, whereas my Fenland sample speech communities in the process of focusing new linguistic comprises only working class speakers An analysis of hi will be norms at all levels are clearly required if we are to explain the presented in Britain (in preparation). outcomes of contact and koineisation. A more fruitful and extensive dialogue with other areas of language contact research 7* Conclusion (e.g., pidginisation and language death) will doubtless move this endeavour forward. The constraints on the phonological focusing We have been able to track koineisation-in-progress in the Fens, of Fenland English provide one small clue as to the direction in despite the fact that the original contact began over 300 years ago. which we must look. Some linguistic norms of the new variety crystallised quite quickly. We have seen evidence, for example, of Fenland Raising in even our very early dialectological sources. Other features such References as interdialectal [y] are only now showing evidence that a focused norm has evolved. Barz, R. K. and J. Siegel, eds., (1988). Language transplanted: the The goal of this article has been to demonstrate that this development ofoverseas Hindi. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. differential rate of koineisation is due, at least in part, to Bernard, J. R- (1969). "On the uniformity of spoken Australian English". differences in phonological rule complexity. Just as Chambers Orbis 18:63-73. (1992) and Payne (1975, 1980) have shown that second dialect Bhatia, T. (1988). 'Trinidad Hindi: its genesis and general profile," in R. acquirers successfully adopt simple rules of the new target variety K. Barz. and J. Siegel., eds., (1988). Language transplanted: the development of overseas Hindi. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. much more quickly than complex ones, so it has been 179-196. demonstrated that, exposed to diverse, diffuse and mixed target Blanc, H. (1968). 'The Israeli koine as an emergent national standard," in varieties, speakers in the Fens more readily focus koineised forms J. Fishman, J Das Gupta and C Ferguson, eds.. Language with simple phonological rules than those with complex rules, problems in developing nations. New York: Wiley. 237-251. irregular, lexically determined outputs and new phonemic Britain, D. (1991). Dialect and space: a geolinguistic study of speech distinctions. Fenland Raising is a relatively simple and variables in the Fens. PhD. dissertation. University of Essex, phonologically predictable rule with no exceptions. Much more Colchester. complex, however, is the rule which produced lid - it is a Britain, D (1997) "Dialect contact and phonological reallocation: phonologically unpredictable, lexically determined rule originating 'Canadian Raising' in the English Fens". Language in Society from the incomplete merger of ME 5 and 8 which took place as the 26:15-46. Britain, D. (in preparation). 'The /u-a/ transition zone: empirical evidence latter was undergoing a split which led to the development of a from the East Anglian Fens." new phoneme. The complexity is made more extreme in the Chambers, J. K. (1973). "Canadian Raising". Canadian Journal of Fenland speech community by contact with lects with a wide range Linguistics 18:113-135. of variants, including some which do/did not have ItJ at all. It is Chambers, J. K. (1989). "Canadian Raising: blocking, fronting, etc" apparent that, in this case, the nature, location and timing of the American Speech 64:75-88. contact, and the complexity of this linguistic feature have Chambers, J. K. (1992). "Dialect acquisition". Language 68:673-705. conspired against those creating a new dialect in the Fens to make Chambers, J. K. and P. J. Trudgill (1980). Dialectology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Darby, H. (1974). The medieval Fenland. Newton Abbott: David and Le Page, R. B. and A. Tabouret-Keller (1985). Acts of identity: creole- based approaches to language and ethnicity. Cambridge: Charles. Dillard, J. (1975). "General introduction: Perspectives on Black English," Cambridge University Press. Mesthrie, R. (1991). Language in indenture: a sociolinguistic history of in J. Dillard, ed., Perspectives on Black English. 9-32. Domingue, N. (1971). Bhojpuri and Creole in Mauritius. PhD Bhojpuri-Hindi in South Africa. London: Routledge. Miller, S. H. and S. B. J. Skertchly (1878). The Fenland: past and Dissertation. University of Texas, Austin. Ellis, A. (1889) On early English pronunciation: Part V. London: present. Wisbech. Milroy, J. (1992). Linguistic Variation and Change. Oxford: Blackwell. Truebner and Co. Ferguson, C. (1959). "The Arabic koine" Language 35:616-630. Milroy, L. (1980). Language and Social Networks. Oxford: Blackwell. Gordon, E. (1983) "New Zealand English pronunciation: an investigation Mohan, P. (1978). Trinidad Bhojpuri: a morphological study. PhD into some early written records". Te Reo: Journal of the Linguistic dissertation. University of Michigan. Orton, H. and P. M. Tilling (1969). Survey ofEnglish Dialects: Volume 3: Society ofNew Zealand 26:29-42. Kerswill, P. (1994a). "Babel in Buckinghamshire? Pre-school children East Midlands and East Anglia. Leeds: Edward Arnold. acquiring accent features in the New Town of Milton Keynes," in Payne, A. (1975). "The reorganisation of linguistic rules: a preliminary report". Pennsylvania Working Papers on Linguistic Change and G. Melchers and N-L. Johannesson, eds., Non-standard varieties oflanguage. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. 64-83. Variation 1:1-35. Payne, A. (1980). "Factors controlling the acquisition of the Philadelphia Kerswill, P. (1994b). Dialects converging: rural speech in urban Norway. ' dialect by out-of-state children," in W. Labov, ed., Locating Oxford: Clarendon Press. Language in Time and Space. New York: Academic Press. 143- Kerswill, P. (1996). "Children, adolescents and language change". Language Variation and Change 8:177-202. 178. Read, A. (1933). "British recognition of American speech in the 18th Kerswill, P. & A. Williams (1992). "Some principles of dialect contact: evidence from the New Town of Milton Keynes," in I. Philippaki- century" Dialect Notes 6:313-34. Roberts, J. and W. Labov (1995). "Learning to talk Philadelphian: Warburton and R. Ingham, eds., Working Papers 1992. Reading: acquisition of short a by pre-school children" Language Department of Linguistic Science, University of Reading. 68-90. Labov, W. (1989). "Exact description of the speech community: short a in Variation and Change 7:101-112. Scholtmeijer, H. (1990). "De uitspraak van het Nederlands in de Philadelphia," in R Fasold and D Schiffrin, eds., Language Usselmeerpolders". Leuvense Bijdragen 79:385-425. Change and Variation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 1-57. Scholtmeijer, H. (1992). Het Nederlands van de Usselmeerpolders. Labov, W. (1994). Principles of linguistic change: internal factors. Kampen: Mondiss. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Siegel, J. (1985). "Koines and koineizatton". Language in Society 14:357- Lass, R. (1987). The shape of English: structure and history. London: 378. Dent Siegel, J. (1987). Language contact in a plantation environment: a Lass, R. (1990). "Where do extraterritorial Englishes come from? Dialect sociolinguistic history of Fiji. Cambridge: Cambridge University input and recodification in transported Englishes," in S. Adamson, V. Law, N. Vincent and S. Wright, eds., Papers from the 5th Press. Siegel, J. (1993). "Dialect contact and koineization". International International Conference on English Historical Linguistics. Journal ofthe Sociology ofLanguage 99:105-121. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 245-280. Simpson, S. (forthcoming). "Dialect contact in Telford new town". Laver, M. (1995). "A study into the use of the variable (u) among pupils Unpublished research project. University of Essex, Colchester. from different schools in Hampshire and Suffolk". Unpublished Taeldeman, J. (1987). "Oud en nieuw, eigen en vreemd in Vlaamse research project, University of Essex, Colchester. overgangsdialecten". Handelingen van het 39. Nederlands Le Page, R. B. (1978). "Projection, focusing, diffusion". Society for Filologencongres. 423-434. Caribbean Linguistics Occasional Papers 9: 9-32. Taeldeman, J. (1989). "A typology of dialect transitions in Flanders," in M. E. H. Schouten and P. Th. Van Reenen, eds., New methods in

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dialectology: proceedings of a workshop held at the Free The University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics University ofAmsterdam, December 7-10, 1987. Dordrecht: Foris. (PWPL) is an occasional series produced by the Penn Linguistics Club, the graduate student organization of the Linguistics 155-63. Trudgill, P. J. (1974). The social differentiation of English in Norwich. Department of the University of Pennsylvania. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. TrudgilL P. J. (1986). Dialects in contact. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Publication in this volume does not preclude submission of papers Trudgill, P. J. (1985). "New dialect formation and the analysis of colonial elsewhere; all copyright is retained by the authors of the individual dialects: the case of Canadian Raising," in H. J. Warkentyne, ed., papers. Papers from the 5th International Conference on Methods in Volumes of the Working Papers are available for $12, prepaid. Dialectology, Victoria: University of Victoria. 34-45. Please see our web page for additional information. Trudgill, P. J. (1995). "Grammaticalization and social structure: nonstandard conjunction-formation in East Anglian English," in F Palmer, ed., Grammar and Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 135-47. The PWPL Series Editors Trudgill, P. J. (1996). "Third-person singular zero: AAVE, East Anglian dialects, and Spanish persecution in the Low Countries,"in E H Alexis Dimitriadis Jahr, ed., Historical sociolinguistics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Laura Siegel Wells, J. C. (1982). Accents of English 1: an introduction. Cambridge: Clarissa Surek-Clark Cambridge University Press. Alexander Williams

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