An end of egalitarianism? Social evaluations of language difference in New Zealand

Abstract

Abstract New Zealand has traditionally prided itself on an ethos of casual egalitarianism – a value system with positive and negative implications. The well-known linguistic homogeneity of the islands and general lack of regional dialect differences (Trudgill, Peter. 2004. New-dialect formation: The inevitability of colonial Englishes. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press) is consistent with this ethos but also clearly reflects the cultural homogeneity of New Zealand’s more recent settlers. This assessment of linguistic homogeneity requires reappraisal now for two reasons: (1) many New Zealanders claim there are speech markers that identify where a New Zealander comes from, and (2) recent significant changes in the demographics of the country mean that new ethnic varieties are plausibly emerging. The very few pronunciation and lexical stereotypes that are associated with particular regions cannot explain all the claims we hear about (1), and as long-standing shibboleths, they say nothing about awareness of recent demographic changes. Our paper highlights how comments about ethnicity, social class, and rural/urbanness emerge as salient factors in aesthetic evaluations, and may point to specific features that merit detailed and linguistically informed analysis (Niedzielski, Nancy A. & Dennis R. Preston. 2000. Folk linguistics. Berlin and New York, NY: Mouton de Gruyter).