Conscious separateness, unanticipated convergence: World Englishes

New York University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

Work in creole studies tends to focus on the relationship of a pidgin/creole to its lexifier language and to concentrate on morphosyntax to the exclusion of other components of the grammar. The present study broadens creole studies/contact linguistics by examining the relationship of two vernaculars to each other rather than to their lexifier and by bringing phonetics/phonology into the picture. In the context of research on variation and change in contact languages, this study is innovative in its two comparisons: language use of two co-existing contact varieties are compared to each other, and recorded data from an earlier time period are compared to current speech patterns. This project contributes to the documentation of under-studied varieties of English. It has the potential to link to research on World Englishes and their diachronic development. This research project takes place in Liberia. Kolokwa (< colloquial) is the pidginized vernacular of the indigenous majority; it is a modern descendant of West African Pidgin English. Liberian Settler English (LSE) is the other; it came to Liberia as nineteenth-century African American English, The two varieties have been in close contact for almost two centuries, but the vexed, often antagonistic, relationship of the speakers has promoted the separateness of the two varieties. Even with recent political upheaval, the country's linguistic ideology has remained largely intact, particularly in its stigmatization of Kolokwa. The researcher, Dr. John Singler, compiled parallel corpora of sociolinguistic interviews in 1988-1989, just before civil war broke out in Liberia: one was with LSE speakers, the other with Kolokwa speakers. In terms of morphosyntactic features, while each variety has taken from the other, by and large features from the language of the powerful group, LSE, have spread to the language of the disenfranchised, Kolokwa. For phonetics/phonology, the direction appears to be reversed. A pilot study based on part of each corpus makes the case that Kolokwa had a seven-vowel system and that LSE has gone from the twelve-vowel system of nineteenth-century African American English to Kolokwa's seven-vowel system. Dr. Singler will expand the study to include all the speakers (24 Kolokwa, 16 LSE) and further to look at variable coda-consonant deletion. Moreover, because the LSE corpus comes from an atypical Settler community, a new LSE corpus from a more representative settlement will be generated. Entree into this LSE community will be achieved through interaction with its quilting group. While carrying out his collection of the new corpus, Dr. Singler will discuss the relationship of Kolokwa and LSE in the media and in public forums, in particular to demonstrate the ways in which the two ostensibly distinct varieties have each given features to the other, producing a distinctively Liberian result. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.