A Study of Māori English with Special Reference
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I A STUDY OF MAORI ENGLISH WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO SYLLABLE TIMING: A COMPARISON OF THE SPOKEN LANGUAGE OF A REPRESENTETIVE SAMPLE OF MAORI AND PAKEHA RECORDED IN CHRISTCHURCH A Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Masters of Arts in Linguistics in the University of Canterbury by Anne Hardman University of Canterbury 1997 III Acknowledgements I wish to thank Elizabeth Gordon of the Linguistics Department, University of Canterbury, for her invaluable help and support during this project. Thank you Frank Ladd of the Statistics Department, and Gillian Lewis of the Linguistics Department, University of Canterbury for your valuable time. Special thanks to the four informants who have all passed away in 1996 and 1997, one of whom was my mother. During the latter stages of this project my mother, who had been eag~rly awaiting the completion of this work, became ill and passed away one month before it was completed. I thank very sincerely my two sons and daughter for your patience, support; understanding and practical help during this time. I wish to thank my sister, Mary, who is always a source of great strength, comfort and very wise words. Many thanks also to the Assistant Principal of Aranui High School and the H.O.D. English at Hillmorton High School for their permission to collect the data at their schools. Finally, and by no means least, thanks so much to all the people who so generously gave their time to participate in this project. Without your input there would have been no output. To all these gracious, willing and generous people thank you very much. CONTENTS IV Page Number TITLE PAGE I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS II CONTENTS IV ABSTRACT v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS VII LIST OFT ABLES AND GRAPHS VIII 1 INTRODUCTION Z".:REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE RELEVANT TO MAORI ENGLISH 5 3- METHODOLOGY 29 4 RESULTS 47 5 ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF RESULTS: 5.1 MAORI /PAKEHA COMPARISON 84 5.2 MAORI/PAKEHA AGE AND SEX COMPARISONS 1 02 6 CONCLUSION 121 BIBLIOGRAPHY APPENDICES v ABSTRACT This Thesis examined features of Maori English, and in particular, those which relate to syllable timing. The focus of the project is on the speech of a representative group of Maori and Pakeha recorded in Christchurch in 1993 and 1994. The project is chiefly interested in the speech of adolescents, but a group of Maori and Pakeha adults were also recorded so that comparisons relating to age and sex could be made. This research shows that grammatical forms which are u_sually unstressed in Pakeha English were often more likely to be stressed in the speech of Maori informants contributing to syllable timed rhythm. Other features, including non-standard usages such as elisions and omissions, liaison, use of Maori texis and the voicing of initial consonants all contribute to the variety designated Maori English. This Thesis argues that some of the features of Maori English can be traced back to te reo Maori or can be accounted for by the influence of te reo Maori. VI List of Tables & Graphs Page Number Table 1: Composition of subjects in the original sample group 32 Table 2: Composition of extra 39 subjects later omitted from the research project 32 Table3: Composition of 54 subjects in final sample group 32 Table4: Degree of Competency and Fluency in te reo Maori among the Participants 37 Table 5: Breakdown of Corpus 41 Table 6: Distribution of /io/ Variants used with full forms of the vowel- Maori & Pakeha 49 Table?: Distribution of full forms of of - Maori and Pakeha 50 Table 8: Distribution of You +contracted forms of verbs used with full forms of the vowel- Maori and Pakeha 51 Table 9: Indefinite article preceding a word beginning with a Vowel -Maori and Pakeha 65 Table 10: Summary of occurrences of grammatical words using full form- Maori/Pakeha 66 Table 11: Summary of omissions of verbs following certain Pronouns- Maori and Pakeha 7 5 Table 1 2: Summary of Verbs omitted in other environments- Maori & Pakeha 7 6 Table 13: Summary of Non-standardTense- Maori & Pakeha 77 Table 14: Liaison- Maori and Pakeha 7 9 Table 15: The articles preceding words beginning with consonants- Maori/Pakeha 9 8 Table 16: The use of the full forms of vowels for liaison- Maori & Pakeha, Age & Sex Comparisons 11 2 Table17: The articles .e.& the- Maori & Pakeha Age& Sex Comparisons 114 Graph 1: Overall Results 47 Graph 2: Occurrences with Full realizations of the vowels. Maori & Pakeha 66 VII List of Abbreviations The abbreviations used for the different groups are in this project are: MT Maori teenagers FMT female Maori teenagers MMT male Maori teenagers M'A Maori adults FMA female Maori adults MMA male Pakeha adults PT Pakeha teenagers FPT female Pakeh~ teenagers MPT male Pakeha teenagers PA Pakeha adults FPA female Pakeha adults MPA male Pakeha adults ME Maori English PE Pakeha English SE Samoan English NZE New Zealand English 1 1 . INTRODUCTION This project is based on material collected at various times during 1993 and 1994 in Christchurch. The aim is to compare aspects of the speech of a representative group of Maori and Pakeha adolescents, who were born in New Zealand and who have lived most of their lives in Christchurch, to determine if there is a difference in the way both groups speak which can be explained in terms ofethnicity. Adult Maori bilingual speakers (of Maori and English) were sought in order to compare their English speech to the English speech of the younger Maori teenage participants. Adult Pakeha are included to compare their speech to that of the younger Pakeha participants and, in addition to these two contrasts, a further four way comparison will be made comparing age and sex differences. This project is interested in the language backgrounds of the speakers. Ethnicity and language background are important considerations when examining linguistic variables as familiarity with another language and identification with that language group can have quite marked effects on the speech of many speakers. While many think of ethnicity in terms of skin colour, the defining factor in this project will be self identification with cultural background. Most of the contributors to this project are family and friends of mine and friends of members of my family. I grew up in a bi-cultural milieu since childhood and have many close family relations who have Maori ancestry. I have learned te reo Maori and taught it for five years in a local high school. I have attended countless hui for various reasons, primarily ta~i, and I have heard only one Maori person speaking English during the formal speech making part of marae procedure in the last decade, and that was this year at the ta!si of the upoko of ~ai Tahu. At these ta!si I have heard adults holding a prolonged conversation in te reo Maori, I have heard groups of people chatting with one another in te reo Maori and I have heard adults explaining things to children and children questioning and clarifying points in te reo Maori. As well as that, at the last two hui I encountered 2 many young children of pre-school and early school a ge, some of whom have attended K hak Reo, who are speakers of Maori English (henceforth ME). 0 _a Interest in the area of ME is of importance for all New Zealanders. It is important to understand the symbolic nature of this variety of New Zealand English (henceforth NZE) and the reasons which underlie its existence. While many Maori speak a variety of English indistinguishable from Pakeha English (henceforth PE), others show markedly ME features in their speech in all situations, including formaL Noticeable features of ME are also present in the speech of some Pakeha who have not grown up speaking ME as their first language. For these speakers the political nature of ME is an important factor and is clearly tied up with identity. The ME variety of NZE is an exciting but, until recently, under-explored area of study. During the 1960's developments in the study of black and non-standard dialects of English were occurring in America, Britain, Australia, etc prompted, in many cases, by concerns for the educational underachievements of children from these language groups. Important descriptions of black and non-standard varieties of English resulted. At the same time educationalists in New Zealand had the same concerns for Maori children and two important projects with fairly comprehensive descriptions of features of ME resulted. Unfortunately, attitudes towards black and non-standard speech were (and continue to be) primarily negative, as in the later of the two projects on ME mentioned above. The infamous 1971 Department of Education publication, 'Maori Children and the Teacher' reflects this, "This distinctive element, (i.e. the non-standard usages derived from the Maori language as listed by Benton in his 1966 project] ... can distract the teacher's attention from the basis of the dialect, which is a very restricted form of the English language." (1971 :21) The current project attempts to describe certain features of ME and totally rejects the view that it is in any way an inadequate or inferior variety of NZE. In so saying it is clear that its existence is also totally accepted as a valid and valuable variety of NZE. It is not my contention that all the features of ME derive from te reo Maori but that some do. If some of these features have an explanation inte Reo Maori I suggest that te Reo Maori has had a significant influence on ME.