Daniel Schreier

Reversing the trajectory of language change: Subject-verb agreement with be in New Zealand English

This article examines the historical evolution of subject–verb concord in New Zealand English. We investigate the usage of the singular form of be with plural NP subjects (existentials and nonexistentials) over the past 150 years. The results demonstrate that the New Zealand English subject–verb concord system has undergone considerable reorganization during this time. Singular concord in nonexistentials occurred in early New Zealand English, but is now largely absent. In existentials, it steadily declined during the late 19th century, and then reversed this trajectory to become a well established feature of modern New Zealand English. Singular concord in New Zealand English existentials is now conditioned by a range of social and linguistic factors, and largely resembles other varieties in this respect. We are indebted to the ONZE team, particularly Elizabeth Gordon, Margaret Maclagan, and everyone involved in the collection and transcription of the corpora over the years. Thanks also to the students of Ling 203 2002 for their preliminary analysis of the data and lively discussion. Helpful feedback on this paper has been provided by David Britain, Elizabeth Gordon, Margaret Maclagan, Andrea Sudbury, Peter Trudgill, Heidi Quinn, the audience at the New Zealand Linguistic Society conference, and three anonymous referees. The authors are listed in alphabetical order.

Corpora: Pragmatics and Discourse

This volume presents current state-of-the-art discussions in corpus-based linguistic research of the English language. The papers deal with Present-day English, worldwide varieties of English and the history of the English language. A special focus of the volume are studies in the broad field of corpus pragmatics and corpus-based discourse analysis. It includes corpus-based studies of speech acts, conversational routines, referential expressions and thought styles, as well as studies on the lexis, grammar and semantics of English. And it also includes several studies on technical aspects of corpus compilation, fieldwork and parsing.

The Lesser-Known Varieties of English: An Introduction

1. Introduction Daniel Schreier, Peter Trudgill, Edgar W. Schneider and Jeffrey Williams Part I. The British Isles: 2. Shetlands and Orkney Gunnel Melchers and Peter Sundkvist 3. Channel Islands Mari C. Jones Part II. The Americas and the Caribbean: 4. Canadian maritimes Michael Kiefte 5. Newfoundland and Labrador Sandra Clarke 6. Honduras/Bay Islands Ross Graham 7. White Caribbean Jeffrey P. Williams 8. Bahamas Jeff Reaser, 9. Dominican Kokoy Michael Aceto 10. Anglo-Argentinian English Julian Jefferies Part III. South Atlantic Ocean: 11. Falkland Islands David Britain and Andrea Sudbury 12. St Helena Daniel Schreier 13. Tristan da Cunha Daniel Schreier Part IV. Africa: 14. White Zimbabwean English Susan Fitzmaurice 15. White Kenyan English Thomas Hoffmann Part V. Australasia and Pacific: 16. Eurasian English in Singapore Lionel Wee 17. Peranakans English in Malaysia and Singapore Lisa Lim 18. Norfolk Island and Pitcairn Peter Muhlhausler.

Language in Isolation, and Its Implications for Variation and Change

This article discusses some approaches to the conceptualization of isolation in sociolinguistic research. It argues that isolation is a multifaceted phenomenon with geographic, social and attitudinal implications. Based on evidence from geographically isolated speech communities (mostly islands) and socially isolated ones (so-called Sprachinseln) from around the world, it discusses their potential for variation and change studies, both in terms of synchrony (contact phenomena, language obsolescence or revival and intensification, language and identity, etc.) and diachrony, because they provide showcase scenarios to look into and reconstruct mechanisms of contact linguistics (e.g. new-dialect formation), founder effects, colonial lag, etc.

The Segmental Phonology of Nineteenth-century Tristan da Cunha English: convergence and local innovation

This article looks into convergence processes that involve distinct phonological systems in dialect contact situations, exemplified by the variety of English that developed on Tristan da Cunha, an island in the South Atlantic Ocean. Based on a discussion of the communitys social history and an auditory analysis of the segmental phonology of late nineteenth-century Tristan da Cunha English, this article reconstructs the early contact scenario and looks into both phonological convergence and independent innovative mechanisms that accompany new-dialect formation. The data presented here show that dialect contact gives rise to mixing of several inputs (so that ‘new’ dialects draw features from several ancestral varieties), that the interaction of transplanted dialects may also trigger independent, variety-specific mechanisms, and that the interplay of feature retention, input mixing, and local innovation lead to distinctive and (on occasion) endemic varieties of English.

Letter writing and language change

1. Setting the scene, letters, standards and historical sociolinguistics Richard J. Watts 2. Assessing variability and change in early English letters Juan Manuel Hernandez-Campoy and Juan Camilo Conde-Silvestre 3. Private letters as a source for an alternative history of Middle New High German Stephan Elspass 4. Language in print and handwriting Tony Fairman 5. Heterogeneity vs homogeneity Marianne Hundt 6. Emerging standards in the colonies, variation and the Canadian letter writer Stefan Dollinger 7. Linguistic fingerprints of authors and scribes Alexander Bergs 8. Stylistic variation Anita Auer 9. English aristocratic letters Susan Fitzmaurice 10. Early nineteenth-century pauper letters Mikko Laitinen 11. A non-standard standard? Exploring the evidence from nineteenth-century vernacular letters and diaries Barbara Allen 12. Archaism and dialect in Irish emigrant letters Lukas Pietsch 13. Assessing heterogeneity Lucia Siebers 14. Hypercorrection and the persistence of local dialect features in writing Daniel Schreier 15. Epilogue: where next? Anita Auer, Daniel Schreier and Richard J. Watts References Index.

Insularity and linguistic endemicity

Insularity can play a crucial role in the development (or adoption) of endemic dialect structures. This claim is based on an analysis of the co-occurrence of preterit forms with the quasi-modal used to, as in we used to went there all the time, in the dialect of English spoken on the South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha. The author argues that useta went structures most likely originated in second-language (L2) forms of English since some of the Tristan da Cunha settlers had nonnative competence of English. Two crucial stages need to be considered for an explanation of the emergence and development of such structures: an origination phase, which depends on nonnative influence and admixture with interlanguage forms, and a consolidation phase, which depends on the nonlinguistic conditioning of the community. The analysis is contextualized with reference to language acquisition and language-learning processes elsewhere.

‘Our heart is still in Africa’: Twice migration and its sociolinguistic consequences

This study is a sociophonetic investigation of dialect variation and change in the East African Asian community in Leicester, UK. The community differs from other strands of the British Asian diaspora because of its migration history: a two-stage journey (‘twice migration’) within a few generations, first from the Indian subcontinent to East Africa (late nineteenth century) and from there onward to Britain (early 1970s). We examine variation in the production of the foot, strut, and nurse vowels across two generations of East African Asian migrants with a focus on the usage of originally Indian English features, identity expression, changing sense of belonging, and desire to maintain the original culture from the East African homelands. Our sociolinguistic examination of the speakers’ migration history demonstrates that, despite a strong affiliation with East Africa, first-generation speakers have predominantly maintained Indian English patterns whereas second-generation subjects partake in accommodation to an (educated) variety of East Midlands English. (Twice migration, accommodation, identity, variation and change in the diaspora, foot, strut, and nurse vowels, Indian English, East African English, East Midlands English)*

The backyard as a dialect boundary : Individuation, linguistic heterogeneity, and sociolinguistic eccentricity in a small speech community

This article shows that individuals in groups with tight-knit and dense social networks display considerable variation, despite the fact that they share a set of common social characteristics. Drawing on case studies from Tristan da Cunha English, spoken on a South Atlantic island, interindividual variation is traced in two members of the same family, who have identical social backgrounds and are in frequent face-to-face contact with each other. Results from a quantitative analysis of four selected variables and the evaluation of a perceptual dialectology study are interpreted in terms of their relevance for accommodation theory, social network theory, and mobility-related effects on language change. The study thus examines the role of individual variation and seeks to provide explanations for individuation (i.e., unexpected patterns of language usage on a micro level in single speakers), outlining its general relevance for sociolinguistic theory.

Assessing the status of lesser-known varieties of English

The study of lesser-known varieties of English is opening up new research. Over the last twenty years or so, the role(s) and function(s) of English around the world have received a great deal of interest from linguists concerned with research on topics as diverse as sociolinguistics, variation and change, contact linguistics, language typology, genetic linguistics, etc. Kachrus work (The Inner Circle, the Outer Circle, and the Expanding Circle) inspired others and alternative models were put forward by McArthur (1987) and Gorlach (1990). Though they differ on how the varieties should be classified (varying in criteria such as geographic distribution, usage and function, development history, etc.), they share the idea that varieties of English can be grouped in first- (or native-), second- and foreign-speaker groups.