New-dialect Formation: The Inevitability of Colonial EnglishesThis book presents a new and controversial theory about dialect contact and the formation of new colonial dialects. It examines the genesis of Latin American Spanish, Canadian French and North American English, but concentrates on Australian and South African English, with a particular emphasis on the development of the newest major variety of the language, New Zealand English. Peter Trudgill argues that the linguistic growth of these new varieties of English was essentially deterministic, in the sense that their phonologies are the predictable outcome of the mixture of dialects taken from the British Isles to the Southern Hemisphere in the 19th century. These varieties are similar to one another, not because of historical connections between them, but because they were formed out of similar mixtures according to the same principles. A key argument is that social factors such as social status, prestige and stigma played no role in the early years of colonial dialect development, and that the 'work' of colonial new-dialect formation was carried out by children over a period of two generations. The book also uses insights derived from the study of early forms of these colonial dialects to shed light back on the nature of 19th-century English in the British Isles.Features:*Written by a leading and influential scholar in the field*The book raises controversial new issues in the study of dialect formation*Introduces the main processes involved in the development of colonial varieties. |
Contents
Colonial dialects as mixed dialects I | 1 |
Colonial lag and Southern Hemisphere evidence | 31 |
The long vowels of nineteenthcentury English | 49 |
Copyright | |
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accents accommodation allophones American Spanish argued Australian English Beniak Britain British Isles Cambridge University Press Canadian Raising century Chapter colonial Englishes colonial varieties dialect contact dialect mixture Diphthong Shift distinct DRESS vowel East Anglian Ellis English English English speakers example fact Falkland Islands English français French front Glide Weakening H Dropping HAPPY Tensing immigrants interdialect Ireland Irish English language contact lexical set linguistic change London merger Mobile Unit modern New Zealand monophthongal Mougeon new-dialect formation process nineteenth-century non-rhotic north of England northern occurred ONZE Corpus ONZE Project informants origins phonetic phonological prestige pronunciation Quebec French regional result rhotic role Scotland Scots Scottish English similar social sociolinguistic South African English southeast Southern Hemisphere Englishes Southern Hemisphere evidence Southern Hemisphere varieties speech STRUT suggest survive Traditional-dialect TRAP vowel Tristan da Cunha Tristanian Trudgill 1986a variability variants varieties of English Zealand English