Identifying Maori English: A Study of Ethnic Identification, Attitudes, and Phonetic Features

Abstract

Thirty Wellington bus-drivers were played tapes of six speakers of New Zealand English, to determine whether they could identify the ethnicity of the speakers, and to elicit the listeners' evaluations of the speakers for five characteristics, including three solidarity-based traits (acceptability, likeability of accent, and sense of humour) and two status-based traits (education and occupation). The speakers included three Maori and three Pakeha women, aged 20-29 and 40-49. A "Maori-sounding" Pakeha speaker, and a "Pakeha-sounding" Maori speaker were included to test the hypothesis that not all Maori speak Maori English and not only Maori speak Maori English. Extracts of conversation and reading passage style were used for all but one speaker, giving a total of eleven tape samples. The results of this study reveal noticeably higher levels of accuracy in identifying two of the Maori speakers than do previous studies. The results show some support for the hypothesis that Maori English is a style or register used by speakers for expressing solidarity or ethnic identity, and is more likely to be obvious in less formal styles such as conversation than more formal styles such as reading passage. Speakers were found to be more often identified as Pakeha in reading passage than in conversational style. Ethnicity of the listener has some effect on patterns of speaker identification. Although some differences were observed, age and gender of the listener showed little effect. This study confirms earlier studies (Bayard 1990a, 1991a, 1991b; Huygens 1979) which show that speakers who are identified as Maori are rated lower than other speakers, particularly for status traits. As in earlier studies, the most "conservative" speaker is rated most positively on most variables. There is some evidence that Maori speakers are rated more positively on solidarity traits, especially sense of humour. There is also an effect of style on the ratings of the speakers, depending in part on their perceived ethnicity, with speakers perceived as Maori receiving higher ratings in conversational than in reading passage style, and the reverse pattern emerging for speakers perceived as Pakeha. There are some differences in evaluation of the speakers by the listener variables ethnicity, age-group and gender. Network analysis proved to be a useful tool in this study, as it revealed a higher degree of accuracy in identifying Maori speakers by those listeners with a high level of integration into the Maori community. High-scoring Maori listeners rated one Maori speaker higher than any other group for solidarity variables. There did not seem to be any other significant or consistent pattern for evaluative ratings by listeners' Maori network integration scores. Tape samples were analysed phonetically for seven features. Unaspirated stops , devoiced /z/, syllable-timing, and HRT use correlated with identification as Maori. A slower speech rate correlated with identification as Maori in reading passage, but not in conversational style, where the reverse pattern occurs. Monophthongisation of the vowel in GOAT, and non-standard pronunciation of the dental fricatives did not occur in the speech samples. This study found some evidence to support the existence of Maori English. Some methodological considerations for future studies into this variety of NZE were identified.