Zurich Open Repository and Archive University of Zurich Main Library Strickhofstrasse 39 CH-8057 Zurich www.zora.uzh.ch Year: 2015 Rhodesian English in London Ulzega, Lenka Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-204517 Dissertation Published Version Originally published at: Ulzega, Lenka. Rhodesian English in London. 2015, University of Zurich, Faculty of Arts. Rhodesian English in London Thesis presented to the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of the University of Zurich for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Lenka Ulzega Accepted in the fall semester 2015 on the recommendation of the doctoral committee: Prof. Dr. Daniel Schreier, main advisor Prof. Dr. Marianne Hundt Zürich, 2015 “The pattern of settlement in Rhodesia is reminiscent of waves washing over the foreshore. Each successive wave blurred or erased some of the old imprints and left new impressions.” (Campbell, 1965: 182) Abstract This thesis focuses on Rhodesian English, an L1 English variety that emerged as a result of colonialism in the territory of today’s Zimbabwe. Firstly, this thesis seeks to offer a reconstruction of the linguistic history of Rhodesian English and to assess the role of exogenous and endogenous factors in its formation. As Rhodesian English is a result of dialect contact, its evolution is viewed in the light of the theoretical frameworks proposed for the emergence of new English varieties in colonial contexts (Trudgill 2004; Schneider 2007). The study investigates to what extent dialect contact processes described as universal may be applied to Rhodesian English. The analysis confirms that when investigating dialect contact processes attention needs to be paid to the specificity of the locality in which they emerge. Further focus is on one of the sub-varieties of Rhodesian English, namely, the Rhodesian English spoken by the expatriate community of white ex-Rhodesians in London. Due to the changes in the socio-political situation following Independence in 1980, Zimbabwe has lost the majority of the white population that had been present in the territory since 1890. The white ex-Rhodesians have resettled in various, especially Anglophone, countries such as the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia or New Zealand. As a result, Rhodesian English is nowadays spoken mostly in the diaspora. The thesis presents data from an acoustic analysis of the vowel system of Rhodesian English in London. The data used in this research come from sociolinguistic interviews carried out with white ex-Rhodesians living in London. The analysis is primarily descriptive and, to a lesser degree, comparative as the results yielded by the acoustic analysis are viewed against data available from previous impressionistic analysis of Rhodesian English. The small size of the corpus does not allow for broad generalisations; rather, the aim is to provide a first insight into the vowel system of Rhodesian English in London spoken by ex-Rhodesians who emigrated after Independence. i Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the contributions and help of a number of people who made this work possible. First and foremost I would like to thank my supervisor Professor Dani Schreier for providing initial ideas, guidance and comments throughout the course of this project. Further, I would like to extend my thanks to Professor Stephan Schmid and Professor Volker Dellwo, who kindly assisted me with issues connected with the acoustic analysis and to Professor Marianne Hundt for her valuable comments. I am also indebted to Dr Claudia Rathore for her help with the analysis of the acoustic data. Further, I extend my thanks to Margaret Ling from the Britain Zimbabwe Society, who helped me with the initial contact with the interviewees. I am thankful to the interviewees who took part in this study and willingly sacrificed their time for my benefit. Most importantly, I offer my gratitude to my immediate family for the support, patience and understanding they showed throughout this seemingly endless project. ii Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................................... i Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................................ii Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................... iii Acronyms ................................................................................................................................................. v List of Tables ........................................................................................................................................... vi List of Figures ........................................................................................................................................ vii 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Background of the study ....................................................................................................... 1 1.2. Aims of the research .............................................................................................................. 4 1.3. Organisation of the study ...................................................................................................... 5 2. Theoretical framework ............................................................................................................. 8 2.0. Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 8 2.1. The Spread of English ........................................................................................................... 8 2.1.1. Categorising World Englishes ........................................................................................ 12 2.2. Colonial Englishes and their origins .................................................................................. 15 2.2.1. Language restructuring in contact situations ............................................................... 17 2.2.2. Schneider’s Dynamic Model of New Englishes ............................................................. 22 2.2.3. Trudgill’s new-dialect formation model ........................................................................ 31 2.2.4. Linguistic and social forces in the development of new English varieties .................. 42 2.3. Diaspora and language change ........................................................................................... 49 2.4. English in southern and eastern Africa ............................................................................. 56 2.4.1. Rhodesian English vowels ............................................................................................... 60 2.5. Summary .............................................................................................................................. 62 3. Methodology ............................................................................................................................. 64 3.0. Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 64 3.1. Informants ............................................................................................................................ 64 3.2. Interviews ............................................................................................................................. 66 3.3. Data measurements ............................................................................................................. 67 3.4. Normalisation and plotting ................................................................................................. 68 3.5. Data from relevant English accents ................................................................................... 70 iii 3.6. Vowel description ................................................................................................................ 71 3.7. Summary .............................................................................................................................. 72 4. Rhodesia / Zimbabwe .............................................................................................................. 73 4.0. Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 73 4.1. Geography and topography ................................................................................................ 74 4.2. Linguistic situation in Zimbabwe ....................................................................................... 76 4.3. Social history and demographics ....................................................................................... 78 4.3.1. The frontier era 1890-1900 ............................................................................................. 78 4.3.2. From BSAC rule to a self-governing colony: 1900-1953 .............................................. 88 4.3.3. From Federation to Independence 1953-1980 ............................................................. 100 4.3.4. Post-Independence ........................................................................................................