Styling the other to define the self: A study in New Zealand identity making

Abstract

In the Audience Design framework, the initiative dimension of language style encompasses the performance of a language or variety other than one's own. The concept of Referee Design complements the responsive, audience‐designed dimension of style. I argue that the responsive/initiative distinction is an instance of the structure/agency duality recognized in social theory. I examine a series of New Zealand television advertisements which make an overtly nationalistic appeal to the majority Pakeha (Anglo) group, associating their product through referee design with core cultural stereotypes. One such advertisement presents four different renditions of a Māori song—performed by a Māori opera singer with native‐like pronunciation, by a group in an Irish pub, by an African American using recognizably AAVE features, and by a young Pakeha man using anglicized pronunciation. The phonology of the performances is examined through a three‐level approach combining qualitative, quantitative and co‐occurrence analysis. The pronunciation of the three non‐native performances works together with the visual and musical tracks to constitute the singers' identities and their relation to New Zealand. The findings illustrate the blend of responsive and initiative style in performance, and the ambivalence of a Pakeha identity that uses the forms of a disadvantaged national minority to constitute itself.