Pidgins & Creoles, African American English, Canadian English, Australian & New Zealand English

Question 1

Pidgins and Creoles

Answer 1

= New lges that develop when speakers of different lges come into contact and have the need to
communicate with each other (esp. in colonial contexts)

Question 2

Pidgins

Answer 2

• arise when there is the need of
  functional communication (e.g. in
  situations of slavery)
• No native speakers
• „easy“ vocabulary and grammar
• In colonial context: colonizers lge is dominant over local lges, to be able to communicate, Natives need to learn colonizers lge → simple vocabulary from CL + simplified grammar of NL

Question 3

Creoles

Answer 3

• native speakers
• “Proper” lge
• Usually start out as Pidgins, but are passed down and used as children’s native lge
• In colonial/ slavery context:
  → Groups of slaves with different native lges have to work and live together but share no linguistic repertoire → Out of the need to communicate, a pidgin arises which quickly covers all areas of life in that
  specific community → Children growing up in that environment learn the creole as their mother tongue
• Expansion of domains → not just functional anymore
• Jamaican Patois (English), Haitian Creole (French)

Question 4

Canadian English - Features

Answer 4

• contains most of the features of North American English, such as rhoticity

distinctly Canadian feature:
- Canadian Raising out, south, about: /au/ in GenAm /ʊə/ in CanEn

Question 5

Canadian English - Canadianism

Answer 5

Canadianism: lexical item that is native to or distinctively characteristic of CanEn even if not exclusive to CanE

7 Types of Canadianisms: e.g.
- Canadian origin: form and meaning created in CAN (toque, eavestroughs)
- Non-canadian: once thought to be Can, but evidence is lacking (icing sugar)

Question 6

AusEn & NZEn - characteristic features

Answer 6

• AusEn & NZEn share some characteristic features:
  → Raised short front vowels in TRAP, DRESS, KIT
  But: different realization → ‘fish and chips’: AUS = feesh and cheeps, NZ: fush and chups
• debate: are the accents essentially
  transported (e.g. East Anglia, Irish)?
  → most linguists agree: some
  features can be detected, but
  entire transportation is
  unlikely – accents rather
  emerged from dialect mixing in
  the respective areas

Question 7

AusEn & NZEn - Lexical Variation

Answer 7

• Borrowings from aboriginal lges, esp. in place names, flora & fauna
• Esp in AusEng: hypocoristics/diminutives

Question 8

Australian English - Social Variation

Answer 8

AusEn divided into three types:

Broad: spoken by ~30% of the population, associated with working class, most marked features (“typical Australian”, least prestigious)

General: spoken by majority, less marked features, most prominent accent in media & television

Educated: spoken by ~10%, least marked features, similarities to RP, highest prestige