DIALECT DEVELOPMENT IN NAIN, NUNATSIAVUT: EMERGING ENGLISH IN A CANADIAN ABORIGINAL COMMUNITY by © Jennifer Thorburn A thesis submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Linguistics Memorial University May 2014 St. John's Newfoundland Table of contents Abstract v Acknowledgements vii List of tables ix List of figures xii 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Indigenous English 3 1.1.1 The development of Indigenous English 6 1.1.2 Previous research on Indigenous English 8 1.1.3 Characteristics of Indigenous English 11 1.1.4 Perceptions of Indigenous English 15 1.2 English in Labrador 18 1.3 Newfoundland English 20 1.4 Theoretical framework 23 1.4.1 Variationist sociolinguistics 24 1.4.2 Language contact 26 1.4.2.1 New dialect formation 30 1.5 Research questions 38 1.6 Organization 40 2 Description of the speech community 41 2.1 The history of Nain 41 2.2 Nain today 53 2.2.1 Attitudes to Newfoundland 58 2.3 A brief sketch of Inuktitut 63 2.3.1 A phonemic inventory of Inuttitut 66 2.3.2 The linguistic vitality of Inuttitut 67 2.4 Summary 71 3 Data collection and analysis 73 3.1 Permission to research and ethics 73 3.2 Data collection 76 ii 3.3 The sample 81 3.4 Data analysis 84 4 Interdental fricatives 86 4.1 Previous research on interdental fricatives 87 4.1.1 Interdental fricatives in Indigenous English 87 4.1.2 Interdental fricatives in Newfoundland English 90 4.1.3 Interdental fricatives in other varieties of English 96 4.1.4 Interdental fricatives in Inuktitut and second language acquisition 98 4.2 Methodology 100 4.2.1 Linguistic constraints on interdental stopping 101 4.2.2 Social constraints on interdental stopping 102 4.2.3 Extraction and coding of tokens 108 4.3 Results 110 4.3.1 Eth 110 4.3.1.1 Social factors 112 4.3.1.2 Linguistic factors 114 4.3.2 Theta 119 4.3.2.1 Social factors 121 4.3.2.2 Linguistic factors 124 4.3.3 Transfer effects 129 4.4 Discussion 132 5 Verbal -s 135 5.1 Previous research on verbal -s 137 5.1.1 General findings on verbal -s in English 137 5.1.2 Present temporal reference in Indigenous English 142 5.1.3 Verbal -s in Newfoundland English 145 5.1.4 Verbal -s and language acquisition 154 5.1.5 Temporal reference in Inuktitut 155 5.1.6 Summary 156 5.2 Data extraction and coding 157 5.2.1 Circumscribing the variable context 157 iii 5.2.2 Coding 160 5.3 Results 167 5.3.1 Investigating the Northern Subject Rule 183 5.3.2 Considering transitivity 186 5.4 Discussion 189 6 Adjectival intensification 193 6.1 Previous research on adjectival intensification 194 6.1.1 Intensifiers in English-speaking communities 194 6.1.2 Intensifiers in Newfoundland English 206 6.1.3 Intensification and second language acquisition 209 6.1.4 Intensification in Inuktitut 211 6.2 Methodology 212 6.2.1 Circumscribing the variable context 212 6.2.2 Coding 215 6.3 Results 219 6.3.1 Distributional analysis 219 6.3.2 Social factors 224 6.3.3 Linguistic factors 231 6.4 Discussion 235 7 Co-variation 242 7.1 Previous research 243 7.2 Methodology 247 7.3 Results 249 7.3.1 The linguistic individual 258 7.4 Discussion 260 8 Conclusion 264 References 274 Appendix A: Certificate of informed consent 315 iv Abstract This dissertation is a case study of the English spoken in Nain, Nunatsiavut (Labrador), an Inuit community in northern Canada. Conducted within a variationist sociolinguistic framework, it offers a quantitative analysis of a majority language as spoken in an Aboriginal community, an understudied area of research. Nain is an ideal location for this type of study because Labrador Inuit are experiencing rapid language shift as the population becomes predominantly English speaking, with few people learning Inuttitut as their native language, creating an opportunity to examine an emerging variety of English. In this dissertation, I contrast Nain Inuit English with the variety spoken in Newfoundland, the English-speaking region with which residents have historically had contact. I survey three sociolinguistic variables that typify Indigenous English and/or Newfoundland English—one phonological (the realization of interdental fricatives, e.g., this thing pronounced as dis ting), one morphosyntactic (verbal -s, e.g., I loves it), and one discourse (adjectival intensification, e.g., very happy vs. really happy vs. so happy)— to test notions of diffusion and transmission while also looking for evidence of transfer from Inuttitut. I also consider theories of new dialect formation and models of postcolonial English and how they apply to Nain. Complicating this comparison is the fact that some interviewees overtly self-identify as not being Newfoundlanders, raising the possibility that they may try to avoid Newfoundland English variants. Results indicate that Nain Inuit English shares some traits with the English spoken in the rest of the province but has also developed in different ways, though few of these v differences can be attributed to influence from Inuttittut. This study also contributes to the growing body of work on majority languages in indigenous communities, in addition to deepening our understanding of English in Labrador. vi Acknowledgements The completion of this dissertation has not been a solitary pursuit; I am grateful to so many people that it is hard to know where to begin. First and foremost, I would like to extend my gratitude and appreciation to the people of Nain, who welcomed me and embraced my research. My time in Nain was a wonderful experience and I look forward to visiting again soon. I would particularly like to acknowledge all of my participants, as well as Catharyn Andersen, Christine Ford, Annie Solomon, Toni White, and Jennie Williams for their assistance. I must also thank the Nain Inuit Community Government for providing me with office space and contacts, and the Nunatsiavut Government for permission to research in Nain, with special recognition to John Lampe for answering all of my inquiries with patience. I would also like to thank my dissertation committee for all of their guidance throughout the research and writing process. In particular, I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Gerard Van Herk for the support, direction, and frankness he has shown me over the years. He has inspired me in so many ways, from his strong commitment to his students to his teaching practices, and I am unendingly grateful for all he has taught me. I would also like to thank the other members of my committee, Dr. Paul De Decker and Dr. Douglas Wharram, for their insightful feedback on my drafts and research process, as well as my examiners, who also provided useful critiques of my work. To everyone (else) in the Department of Linguistics at Memorial University, thanks for everything. I have been learned so much from my professors and classmates, past and present, and I appreciate all of the kindness and encouragement I have been vii shown in my years at Memorial. I would particularly like to thank Dr. Sandra Clarke for inspiring me to study sociolinguistics, and Dr. Marguerite MacKenzie for her ceaseless support with all of my academic pursuits. It would be remiss of me not to mention my fellow labbies from the Memorial University Sociolinguistics Laboratory—especially James Bulgin, Matt Hunt Gardner, Evan Hazenberg, Bridget Henley, and Suzanne Power—and to say how much I appreciate all of the discussions, commiseration, and fun. I would like to acknowledge the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Institute of Social and Economic Research at Memorial University. Without funding, this research would not have been possible. Finally, to my friends and family, I extend my heartfelt gratitude. Finishing this dissertation has been a journey and your support and encouragement have made all the difference. viii List of tables Table 1.1. “Problems” for IndE speakers as described by Fletcher (1983). 13 Table 1.2. Features of IndE listed in Heit and Blair (1993). 14 Table 1.3. Contrastive properties of Indigenous English and Standard Canadian English in British Columbia (Fadden and LaFrance 2010:145, Table 1 (modified)). 15 Table 1.4. Trudgill’s stages of new dialect formation (Kerswill 2010:234, Table 11.1). 32 Table 1.5. The evolutionary cycle of postcolonial Englishes: Parameters of the development phases (Schneider 2007:56). 35 Table 4.1. Final linguistic factor groups for interdental stopping. 109 Table 4.2. Distribution of results for (ð). 110 Table 4.3. Social factors selected as significant in the selection of the stopped variant [d] over the standard realization [ð]. 113 Table 4.4. Social factors (revised) selected as significant in the selection of the stopped variant [d] over the standard realization [ð]. 114 Table 4.5. Linguistic factors selected as significant in the selection of the stopped variant [d] over the standard realization [ð]. 116 Table 4.6. Linguistic factors (revised) selected as significant in the selection of the stopped variant [d] over the standard realization [ð]. 116 Table 4.7. Factors selected as significant in the selection of the stopped variant [d] over the standard realization [ð] for each generation (separate runs). 117 Table 4.8. Separate multivariate analyses for factors conditioning the selection of the stopped variant [d] over the standard realization [ð] for speakers’ first language. 118 Table 4.9.