Speech style variation in an endangered language
-
Nala H. Lee
Abstract
Baba Malay encodes a coarse-refined contrast in speech styles, with the vowel [ɛ] being traditionally restricted to the use of refined word forms. Coarse forms ending with [al], [aɾ], and [as] contrast with refined forms that end with [ɛ], which are used when the speaker wants to be perceived as being particularly refined. A comparison of natural conversational speech with careful performative speech supports the claim that speakers of endangered languages are not “monostylistic”. Production data from eight speakers across different age groups show that the [ɛ] forms more commonly occur in the careful performative speech of younger speakers, as compared to when they converse more informally. No such trend is established for older speakers. The production data is considered together with the findings of a previously-executed matched-guise experiment, which shows that younger speakers in particular are reanalyzing the refined forms as being emblematic of community identity. In this study, younger speakers appear to be using [ɛ] to index an ideal speaker of Baba Malay in their careful performative speech. The research highlights that speakers of endangered languages, and even members of the younger generation, do have access to multiple styles.
Funding source: Ministry of Education Singapore AcRF Tier 1
Award Identifier / Grant number: R-103-000-150-133
-
Ethical approval: The study was approved by the National University of Singapore Institutional Review Board, including a waiver of informed consent as it was determined that the research presents no more than minimal risk to subjects and a waiver of informed consent would not adversely affect the rights and welfare of subjects.
-
Research funding: This research was funded by Ministry of Education Singapore AcRF Tier 1 (Award Number: R-103-000-150-133).
References
Andersen, Roger W. 1982. Determining the linguistic attributes of language attrition. In Richard Lambert & Barbara Freed (eds.), The loss of language skills, 83–118. Rowley, MA: Newbury House Publishing.Search in Google Scholar
Ansaldo, Umberto & Stephen Matthews. 1999. The Minnan substrate and creolization in Baba Malay. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 27(1). 38–68.Search in Google Scholar
Ansaldo, Umberto, Lisa Lim & Salikoko S. Mufwene. 2007. The sociolinguistic history of the Peranakans: What it tells us about “creolization”. In Umberto Ansaldo, Stephen Matthews & Lisa Lim (eds.), Deconstructing Creole (Typological studies in language 73), 203–226. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/tsl.73.11ansSearch in Google Scholar
Babel, Molly. 2008. The phonetic and phonological effects of moribundity. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 14(2). 24–34.Search in Google Scholar
Campbell, Lyle & Martha C. Muntzel. 1989. The structural consequences of language death. In Nancy Dorian (ed.), Investigating obsolescence: Studies in language contraction and death, 181–196. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511620997.016Search in Google Scholar
Chambers, Jack K., Trudgill Peter & Natalie Schilling-Estes. 2002. The handbook of language variation and change. Oxford: Blackwell.10.1111/b.9781405116923.2003.00026.xSearch in Google Scholar
Dorian, Nancy C. 1977. The problem of the semi-speaker in language death. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 12. 23–32. https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl.1977.12.23.Search in Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope. 2000. Linguistic variation as social practice: The linguistic construction of identity at Belten High. Oxford: Blackwell.Search in Google Scholar
Kasstan, Jonathan R. 2019. Emergent sociolinguistic variation in severe language endangerment. Language in Society 48(5). 685–720. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0047404519000472.Search in Google Scholar
Klingler, Thomas A. & Amanda LaFleur. 2007. L’enquête PFC en Louisiane. In Sylvain Detey & Dominique Nouveau (eds.), Bulletin PFC N. 7, PFC: Enjeux descriptifs, théoriques et didactiques 2007, 331–340. Toulouse: Université de Toulouse II.Search in Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1963. The social motivation of a sound change. WORD 19. 273–309. https://doi.org/10.1080/00437956.1963.11659799.Search in Google Scholar
Labov, William. 2001. Principles of linguistic change, Volume 2: Social factors. Malden: Blackwell Publishers.Search in Google Scholar
Lee, Nala H. 2014. A grammar of Baba Malay with sociophonetic considerations. Manoa: University of Hawai’i PhD Dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Lee, Nala H. 2018. Baba Malay: Diverging trends in two ecologies. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 33(1). 136–173. https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.00004.lee.Search in Google Scholar
Lee, Nala H. 2020. Utilizing the matched-guise as a method of examining perceptual change in an endangered creole. Applied Linguistics 42(2). 207–229. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amaa011.Search in Google Scholar
Lim, Lisa. 2016. The art of losing: Beyond java, patois and postvernacular vitality – Repositioning the periphery in global Asian ecologies. In Luna Filipović & Pütz Martin (eds.), Endangered languages and languages in danger: Issues of documentation, policy, and language rights, 283–312. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/impact.42.12limSearch in Google Scholar
Mansfield, John & James Stanford. 2017. Documenting sociolinguistic variation in lesser-studied indigenous communities: Challenges and practical solutions. Language Documentation & Conservation 13. 116–136.Search in Google Scholar
Margetts, Anna & Andrew Margetts. 2012. Audio and video recording techniques for linguistic research. In Nicholas Thieberger (ed.), The Oxford handbook of linguistic fieldwork, 13–53. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571888.013.0002Search in Google Scholar
Meyerhoff, Miriam. 2015. Keeping a foot in the door: Variation and language documentation. Paper presented at the conference New Ways of Analyzing Variation, 22–25 October. University of Toronto.Search in Google Scholar
Meyerhoff, Miriam. 2019. Unnatural bedfellows? The sociolinguistic analysis of variation and language documentation. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 49(2). 229–241. https://doi.org/10.1080/03036758.2019.1619599.Search in Google Scholar
Nagy, Naomi. 2009. The challenges of less commonly studied languages: Writing a sociogrammar of Faetar. In James N. Stanford & Dennis R. Preston (eds.), Variation in indigenous minority languages, 397–417. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/impact.25.20nagSearch in Google Scholar
Pakir, Anne. 1994. Educational linguistics: Looking to the East. In Alatis James (eds.), Georgetown University round table on languages and linguistics, 370–383. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Schilling-Estes, Natalie. 1998. Investigating ‘self-conscious’ speech: The performative register in Ocracoke English. Language in Society 27. 53–83. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0047404500019722.Search in Google Scholar
Tan, Chee Beng. 1988. The Baba of Melaka: Culture and identity of a Chinese Peranakan community in Malaysia. Petaling Jaya: Pelanduk Publications.Search in Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter. 1974. The social differentiation of English in Norwich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Wee, Peter. 2013. Memories relieved. Talk presented at In Conversation: All things Peranakan. Singapore: Asian Civilizations Museum.Search in Google Scholar
Wolfram, Walt. 2002. Language death and dying. In Jack K. Chambers, Trudgill Peter & Natalie Schilling-Estes (eds.), Handbook of language change and variation, 764–787. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.10.1002/9780470756591.ch29Search in Google Scholar
© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Introduction to sound change in endangered or small speech communities
- Where have all the sound changes gone? Phonological stability and mechanisms of sound change
- Where have all the sound changes gone? Examining the scarcity of evidence for regular sound change in Australian languages
- Cross-dialectal synchronic variation of a diachronic conditioned merger in Tlingit
- Vowel harmony in Laz Turkish: a case study in language contact and language change
- The evolution of tonally conditioned allomorphy in Triqui: evidence from spontaneous speech corpora
- Sound change and gender-based differences in isolated regions: acoustic analysis of intervocalic phonemic stops by Bora-Spanish bilinguals
- Place uniformity and drift in the Suzhounese fricative and apical vowels
- Flexibility and evolution of cue weighting after a tonal split: an experimental field study on Tamang
- The emergence of bunched vowels from retroflex approximants in endangered Dardic languages
- The expanding influence of Thai and its effects on cue redistribution in Kuy
- Speech style variation in an endangered language
- Sound change in Aboriginal Australia: word-initial engma deletion in Kunwok
- The dental-alveolar contrast in Mapudungun: loss, preservation, and extension
- Sound change or community change? The speech community in sound change studies: a case study of Scottish Gaelic
- Phonetic transfer in Diné Bizaad (Navajo)
- The evolution of flap-nasalization in Hoocąk
- Sound change and tonogenesis in Sylheti
- Exploring variation and change in a small-scale Indigenous society: the case of (s) in Pirahã
- Rhotics, /uː/, and diphthongization in New Braunfels German
- Generational differences in the low tones of Black Lahu
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Introduction to sound change in endangered or small speech communities
- Where have all the sound changes gone? Phonological stability and mechanisms of sound change
- Where have all the sound changes gone? Examining the scarcity of evidence for regular sound change in Australian languages
- Cross-dialectal synchronic variation of a diachronic conditioned merger in Tlingit
- Vowel harmony in Laz Turkish: a case study in language contact and language change
- The evolution of tonally conditioned allomorphy in Triqui: evidence from spontaneous speech corpora
- Sound change and gender-based differences in isolated regions: acoustic analysis of intervocalic phonemic stops by Bora-Spanish bilinguals
- Place uniformity and drift in the Suzhounese fricative and apical vowels
- Flexibility and evolution of cue weighting after a tonal split: an experimental field study on Tamang
- The emergence of bunched vowels from retroflex approximants in endangered Dardic languages
- The expanding influence of Thai and its effects on cue redistribution in Kuy
- Speech style variation in an endangered language
- Sound change in Aboriginal Australia: word-initial engma deletion in Kunwok
- The dental-alveolar contrast in Mapudungun: loss, preservation, and extension
- Sound change or community change? The speech community in sound change studies: a case study of Scottish Gaelic
- Phonetic transfer in Diné Bizaad (Navajo)
- The evolution of flap-nasalization in Hoocąk
- Sound change and tonogenesis in Sylheti
- Exploring variation and change in a small-scale Indigenous society: the case of (s) in Pirahã
- Rhotics, /uː/, and diphthongization in New Braunfels German
- Generational differences in the low tones of Black Lahu
