Riassunto personale derivato dallo studio integrato del libro consigliato "Postcolonial English"

SIMPLIFICATION.

-the five short vowels without lenght distinctions in East African English (while in RP

includes six short and six long stressed and two unstressed vowels).

However there's also a downside to this: this can lead to a higher probability of

homophony and misunderstanding.

REGULARITY. Single rule over-applied throughout a paradigm: for example:

- -"s" plural marker applied to mass nouns or uncountable nouns ("staffs, accomodations,

furnitures").

LOSS:

-Bahamian English omits the possessive "-s",

-australian Aboriginal English lacks past-tense marking,

-no gender distinction in 3th singular person pronouns (which is alway "em").

REGULARIZATION: irregular features turned into regular by the usage of regular rules or

morphemes: "knew->knowed", "mice->mouses".

ANALOGY:the transfer of a pattern to another domain/construction because shows some

similarities:

- the tag "isn't it in Cameroonian English extended to all tagged clauses irrespective of

polarity: "he didn't do the work, isn't it?";

-"sneaked->snuck" (in Canada) following the rule of certain verbs in their past tense and

past participle form (stuck, begun, drunk, sung).

REDUCTION OF MARKEDNESS. Generally speaking, the unmarked forms are natural,

frequent and regular and simplify the system:

-the pardigm of "to be" reduction of markedness from its old form (beom, bist, bid, etc.) to

the current (be, am, is, are, etc.).

RESTRUCTURING:

The rearrangement of constituents and sequences:

-inversion in indirect questions (in Pakistani English): "I asked him where is he?"

-associative plural (like in FIji, Montgomery, Appalachian): the use of "and them" meaning

only those conventionally associated: "John and them" means John and his relatives or

close friends; sometimes it's "them" only: Sara dem (in Gullah); in Jamaican, "them" is

used as plural marker: "member them" means members".

SPLIT. It's the split of a feature: for example in Singaporean English, some words are

pronounced with relatively closed vowels (egg, bed, dead) while others with a relatively

open vowel (peg, fed, bread).

GRAMMATICALIZATION. Lexical items turning into grammatical markers:

-"know" used as a discourse particle (in Singapore) probably deriving from the English

"you know": "The coffee very hot, know": the reason could be that in Singaporean English

discourse particles are all monosyllabic and occur clause-finally.

-"it->thing", "she->fella": as in "the thing took time", "fella wake up".

EXAPTATION.

items starting to adopt a different role, which can be functional or sociostylistic (social

class variant):

-"been" used as remote past marker;

-"fit" used for a polite request (Cameroon): "we fit go cinema this night?"

Contact

Contact results in the transition of linguistic material from a source language to a recipient

language through the borrowing of lexis, grammatical morphemes and items. Heavy

borrowing of extended patterns leads to code-switching or language mixing.

It's interesting the process of calquing or grammaticl replication: equivalent material

transferred from a "model language" to a "replica language": speakers choose among

patterns in replica language the ones that corresponds most closely to the model.

Dialect contact.

Dialect contact is similar but with a few differences and it is important in the process of

koneization.

Trudgill lists six different mechanins involved in new-dialect formation:

-mixing: mixing together speakers of different dialects of the same language in a location,

-levelling: the loss of minority variants,

-unmarking: the tendency for unmarked forms to survive,

-interdialect development: the emrgence of new forms which were not present in any of the

former dialects,

-reallocations and focusing: the process through which the new variety acquires norms

and stability.

Furthermore, he also posits three chronological stages in the new dialect formation

process, which almost correspond to three successive generations of speakers:

-rudimentary leveling and interdialect formation,

-variability,

-determinism: the survival of majority forms.

Innovations: choosing a path: factors in diffusion and selection

Innovations are rarely new, rather, they are restricted to small user groups and begin to be

spreading till become regular choices.

The nature of human language is a complex adaptive system in constant recreation and

which transmits across generations (imperfect replication). The goals of human languages

are efficiency and clarity, and linguistic economy.

A set of factors determines which forms survive while others vanish:

-demography: forms used by a majority of speakers have a greater chance of survival,

-frequency: forms which occur frequently in communication tend to survive,

-historical depth: norms established by earliest settlers and founders, will tend to survive,

-markedness: unmarked forms, which come more naturally, are more likely to be selected,

-salience: salient forms, have a greater chance of survival,

-transparency and regularity: regular and transparent patterns are preferred,

-status of speakers: forms used by high-status speakers will tend to spread and survive,

-identity: most used forms because speakers can project with them an identity image of

themselves,

-similarity: similar or identical forms will tend to reinforce each other.

Schneider also lists other factors:

-contact with non-Anglophone settlers and non-native varities of English,

-restricted formal education and absence of norms supported by language authorities,

-limited out-migration and interaction with other communities.

Australia: phase 1

Australia constitutes a case of ENL or Inner Circle country in which stl has prevailed and

idg has undergone an almost complete shift: by now country has reached phase 5.

-After sightings and landfalls by Dutch and British navigators including James Cook, phase

I began when the First Fleet landed at Botany Bay in 1788 establishing the penal colony

of New South Wales, where the transportation of convicts continued till the middle of the

nineteenth century, when they were replaced by free settlers. Many convicts stayed after

having served their sentence (in most cases for seven years) and were assigned lands by

the goverment. The settlement expanded including south-eastern, western and northern

Australia.

-Settlers and convicts were especially from south-eastern England, like London, and Irish.

-The indigenous population had a totally different culture and religion. Early contacts

tended to be peaceful but restricted (the local people preferred to peep with their own

kind), while with the increasing of Europeans contact grew and aboriginals were driven off

their traditional lands and decimated by violence, epidemic diseases and the abuse of

alcohol introduced by the Europeans.

Some aboriginals learned English and assumed a role in trading and negotiation, serving

as interpreters. The most familiar case is the tragic story of Bennelong, the Aboriginal

man commemorated by Bennelong Point in Sydney, captured by the British, he acquired

the English language and European culture after that he was brought to England for a few

years, and when he returned he was alienated from his own people.

There were only marginal attempts by Europeans to learn Aboriginal languages but

remained exceptions.

-During 1820 and 1830 in Stl occured dialect mixture and koineization especially on the

phonological level and in toponomy, as one third of Australian place names are strongly

indigenous: Wagga Wagga, Wodonga, Mundabullangana, Mungallala, Youangarra.

Australia: Phase 2

-There is no clear cut-off date between phase 1 and 2 because English continued to

expand and root regionally, but it can be traced with the number of free immigrants over

prisoners about 1850, together with regional autonomy and the gold rush.

-Settlers were still considered people linving on foreing soil. In addition, there are signs

of distancing as well, like the "Eureka Stockade",a miner's rebellion in Victoria in 1854

against the unjustified British authority; Aboriginals received a cruel treatment and

indifference, while their tradition and life was disrupted and became

increasingly dependent upon the settlers, working for them for food and basic

commodities. The Aboriginal identity survival situation got harder with Christian missions

and European schools.

-We find the lexical borrowing for fauna and flora: kurrajong and waratah (kind of trees),

coolibah, kangaroo, dingo, koala, wallaby, wobegong (animals) and elements of the

indigenous culture like kylie (boomerang).

Australia: phase 3

-(1901). The first relevant sign of nativization and independence of Australia can be dated

to 1901, when, after a short period of republicanism, colonies were federated to form

the Commonwealth of Australia. The determinant event though, was the World War

I experience and the New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC), causing a feeling of nationhood

separating the identity of Australians.

-Idg marginalization continued, but many served in the military and became accepted as

citizens.

-Stl and Idg had a normal and regular contact, creating bilingualism especially among

idg, and many of them shifted toward English leading to the extinction of many aboriginal

languages.

-1)Stl acquired many idg features of pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar, but

especially changes concerning the grammar and lexis crossroad like a preference for

"different to", the use of "less" rather than "fewer" with plural, and a dispreference for

"shall".

2)Aboriginal English developed as a new ethnolect, with some peculiar features of

phonology, grammar and lexis, but preserving its cognitive principles of kinship,

spirituality, environment, hunting. etc.

3)Idg varieties started to be characterized by a regional differentiation especially

between dialects from Western Australia and New South Wales.

Australia: phase 4

-(1942). During World War II, Australia was left unprotected against the threat of

a Japanese attack: this event made it clear to the population that Australia had been

dispelled from the myth that the mother country would defend her son/colony, and this

resulted in political independence.

-The new Australian policy accepted a large amount of new immigrants predominantly

from Asia and nowadays Australia is seen as a young independent nation increasingly

accepting a multicultural population.

-Beginning from 1970 Aboriginal people fought back against their oppression with white

men's weapon, the legal and judicial system, resulting in the Aboriginal Land Rights

Act (1976), the institution of a Nation Sorry Day and language and cultural aboriginal

rivitalizat