2009/05/21

Trudgill, P. (1998) New-dialect formation and Southern Hemisphere English: New Zealand short front vowels. Journal of Sociolinguistics. 2(1), 35–51.

Presentation: Chris

Summary: Sarah

This study provided explanations for the formation of New Zealand English as a new dialect, using the realizations of short front vowels as an example. In New Zealand English, it was generally observed that short front vowels all have closer realizations, in which /æ/ is realized as [ɛ], /ɛ/ as [e], /e/ as [ɪ], and /ɪ/ as [ə]. Two theories had been proposed. The innovative view, taken by Bauer (1979, 1992), suggested that this is a “push chain” process that is newly created in New Zealand English. However, Trudgill (1986), taking the conservative view, considered that New Zealand English actually preserves the Old English characteristic of having close realizations of short front vowels. To further investigate such a phenomenon, the author examined the audio data of New Zealand English speakers from different generations in this paper. Results showed that the closer realizations of short front vowels were found in the speech of New Zealand speakers from all generations. However, among the younger generation, there was a tendency to pronounce the two short front vowels /æ/ and /ɛ/ even closer; in addition, the vowel /ɪ/ became even more central as [ɨ]. The findings in this study therefore suggested that both innovative and conservative theories were correct and wrong to certain extent. Specifically, New Zealand English indeed patterned similarly to other dialects in the South Hemisphere such as Australian English and South African English, in which the realizations of short front vowels are more conservative. On the other hand, New Zealand English was also innovative, in that closing and centralizing of short front vowels, as resulting from a chain shift, are ongoing processes.