How do dialects get the features they have? On the process of new dialect formation

Abstract

Introduction The concern of the present chapter is to look at a particular type of situation found historically in the anglophone world outside England and to consider the forces which have been instrumental in determining what features the varieties at this location evince. The location in question is New Zealand for what can be termed a new dialect formation scenario (Trudgill et al. 2000a). The present chapter is intended to make explicit the assumptions which lie behind the discussion of new dialect formation and so hopefully clarify the many issues of theoretical importance raised by the recent innovative work on this process by Elizabeth Gordon, Peter Trudgill and their associates. Before beginning, it is important to stress that the examination of this scenario rests on a significant premise, necessary for the discussion to be found below: speakers are unconsciously aware of features in their own variety and those which they are continually in contact with. If this premise is not accepted in principle then the arguments below will be vacuous. With regard to new dialect formation, I am in broad agreement with the statement by Trudgill et al. that ‘we conclude that the shape of New Zealand English, a fascinating laboratory for the study of linguistic change, can be accounted for in terms of the mixing together of different dialects of English from the British Isles’ (Trudgill et al. 2000a: 316).