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Rhythm in the Kingdom: a variationist analysis of speech rhythm in Tongan English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2024

DANIELLE TOD Open the ORCID record for DANIELLE TOD [Opens in a new window]
DANIELLE TOD*
Affiliation:
Department of English University of Bern Unitobler Länggassstr. 49 3012 Bern Switzerland danielle.tod@unibe.ch
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Abstract

This article presents an analysis of speech rhythm in Tongan English, an emergent variety spoken in the Kingdom of Tonga. The normalised Pairwise Variability Index (nPVI-V) is used to classify the variety and determine the social and stylistic constraints on variation in a corpus of conversational and reading passage data with 48 speakers. Findings reveal a greater tendency towards stress-timing in speakers of the emergent local elite, characterised by white-collar professions and high levels of education, and those with a high index of English use. Variation is discussed as a consequence of proficiency, language contact and L1 transfer. An acoustic analysis of vowels in unstressed syllables of eight speakers confirms that lack of vowel centralisation (higher F1) is an underlying linguistic mechanism leading to more syllable-timed speech. Stark interspeaker variation was identified, highlighting the need to proceed with caution when classifying L2 Englishes based on speech rhythm.

Keywords

World Englishesspeech rhythmvariationL2 Englishesindexicality
Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , First View , pp. 1 - 23
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

The current project was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. I wish to extend my gratitude to the Tongan community including all of the informants who I interviewed and spoke to in the current study.

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