Modelling loanword success – a sociolinguistic quantitative study of Māori loanwords in New Zealand English

Abstract

Loanword use has dominated the literature on language contact and its salient nature continues to draw interest from linguists and non-linguists. Traditionally, loanwords were investigated by means of raw frequencies, which are at best uninformative and at worst misleading. Following a new wave of studies which look at loans from a quantitatively more informed standpoint, modelling "success" by taking into account frequency of the counterparts available in the language adopting the loanwords, we propose a similar model of loan-use and demonstrate its benefits in a case study of loanwords from Māori into (New Zealand) English. Our model contributes to previous work in this area by combining both the success measure mentioned above with a rich range of linguistic characteristics of the loanwords (such as loan length and word class), as well as a similarly detailed group of sociolinguistic characteristics of the speakers using them (gender, age and ethnicity of both, speakers and addresses). Our model is unique in bringing together of all these factors at the same time. The findings presented here illustrate the benefit of a quantitatively balanced approach to modelling loanword use. Furthermore, they illustrate the complex interaction between linguistic and sociolinguistic factors in such language contact scenarios.

Hybrid Hashtags: #YouKnowYoureAKiwiWhen Your Tweet Contains Māori and English

“…There was lots of incorporation of #tereo [the Māori language] and tikanga [customs] into everyday activities, set me on path to wanting to live in bicultural aotearoa #letssharegoodtereostories [ID 959155122289823744] The language contact situation between the indigenous Austronesian language of te reo Māori and (New Zealand) English presents a unique opportunity to study the flow of words from an endangered, minority-status language (te reo Māori) into a dominant, global lingua franca (English). The direction of lexical transfer, especially on the scale of that observed in New Zealand English is, to our knowledge, not comparable to any other language situation previously described (for a detailed description of the nature of the contact situation between Māori and English in New Zealand, see section 3 in Levendis and Calude, 2019 and section 3.1 in Calude et al, 2017).…”

“…Moreover, while European settlers initially borrowed flora and fauna words to refer to the new species they encountered upon arriving in New Zealand (e.g., kiwi, rimu , and kauri ), over time, as the new variety of English began to emerge, it started to adopt more material and social culture words (e.g., marae, tangi , and powhiri ; see Macalister, 2006 ). Secondly, the use of Māori loanwords is driven by Māori women and is largely associated with Māori-related discourse topics (Kennedy and Yamazaki, 1999 ; de Bres, 2006 ; Degani, 2010 ; Calude et al, 2017 ). Calude et al ( 2017 ) further found that certain loanwords appear to be “more successful” compared to others.…”

“…Secondly, the use of Māori loanwords is driven by Māori women and is largely associated with Māori-related discourse topics (Kennedy and Yamazaki, 1999 ; de Bres, 2006 ; Degani, 2010 ; Calude et al, 2017 ). Calude et al ( 2017 ) further found that certain loanwords appear to be “more successful” compared to others. Loanword success is defined as the chance of a loanword being used within a receiving language, compared to an existing lexical alternative word native to the receiving language, controlling for the number of opportunities that speakers of the receiving language have to use the concept denoted by the loanword.…”

Challenges in detecting evolutionary forces in language change using diachronic corpora

“…For example, it has been observed that, all other things being equal, speakers prefer shorter forms that take less effort to utter (Zipf 1949;Kanwal et al 2017) and limited iconicity can be advantageous (Dingemanse et al 2015). Various usage and acquisition properties have been shown to be predictors of success (Kershaw, Rowe & Stacey 2016;Calude, Miller & Pagel 2017;Grieve, Nini & Guo 2018;Monaghan & Roberts 2019). There is also evidence that certain phonetic changes are more likely than others, due to the articulatory and acoustic properties of human speech sounds (Ohala 1983;Baxter et al 2006).…”

Sociolinguistic effects on loanword phonology: Topic in speech and cultural image

“…Some common nouns such as kumara 'sweet potato' and whānau 'family' are commonly used in NZE speech. Therefore, New Zealanders are exposed to Māori loanwords every day, and they know a large number of Māori words (see Macalister, 2005;Calude, Miller, & Pagal, 2017), although most of them are not able to speak te reo Māori (Te Puni Kōkiri, 2006).…”