The (ING) Variation in Hawai‘i English of O’ahu and Big Island Speakers Noella Handley M.A. Student in Linguistics *Special Thanks to Dr. Katie Drager

Introduction [ɪŋ] [ɪn] “standard” Examples: going speaking anything “non-standard” Examples: goin’ speakin’ anythin’ Realization of the ending differs

(ING) as a Sociolinguistic Variable Highly studied variable Seen across English Speaking world: Australia New Zealand Canada Scotland England United States Ireland

(ING) as a Sociolinguistic Variable Labov (1966) Famous study of social variation in New York City Alveolar variant associated with lower class speakers, and informal speech Velar variant associated with higher class speakers, and formal speech Trudgill (1974) Norwich, England Even higher class people use the alveolar variant some of the time Studied as an indicator of social and geographic difference This is not an exhaustive list – just some examples and highlights

(ING) as a Sociolinguistic Variable Labov (2001) Southern States English, Northern England English, and Scots English unique because alveolar variant used almost exclusively, even in formal speech Hazen (2006), (2008) Use of alveolar variant in Appalachian English, especially West Virginia Campbell-Kibler (2010) Listeners sensitive to at least some of this variation during perception This is not an exhaustive list – just some examples and highlights

A Historical View of (ING) Long history of diachronic change Lass (1992): Began as two different suffixes in Old English -[ɪŋ] – Verbal-Noun Suffix -[ende] – present participle -[ende]: final [e] reduced to a schwa through sound changes, then nd cluster simplified to produce -[ɪn] by the fifteenth century Anne Houston argues that the variation continues from these different forms

A Historical View of (ING) Houston (1985): Geographic split between the different variants -[ɪŋ] in the South of England -[ɪn]in the North of England Hazen (2008): Both endings became orthographically merged due to orthographic standards being developed by printing houses in London in southern England. Speakers may have begun to “correct” their pronunciation of the present participle based on orthographic standards

Source: Labov 1989

A Historical View: Vowels Houston (1985) and Woods (1978) Variation in vowel before the nasal – [ɪ], to schwa, even a high tense [i] A preceding vowel before the coronal nasal in –[-ind] may have allowed it to be heard more as a velar

Research Question Is this variation present in Hawai‘i English? If so, what is the distribution? Is there a difference between speakers from O‘ahu and the Big Island (Hawai‘i)?

Hawai‘i English Variety of English used in Hawai‘i NOT the same as Pidgin – Pidgin is a creole language in Hawai‘i, it is a distinct language This study looks at Hawai‘i English, not Pidgin

Data Collection Sociolinguistic interviews from the SOLIS Corpus of Hawai‘i English Pseudonym Age Gender Island Gare 21 M Big Island (Hawai’i) Jimmy Lambert 34 Big Island (Hawaiʻi) Fiatuina 22 F MsWaimea 20 Abcde O'ahu Rachel LanceBaptiste 24 Edward All listed Hawaiian as main ethnicity (all listed multiple ethnicities), all are born and from Hawaii

Coding 573 tokens were extracted from the sociolinguistic interviews. Data was coded for: Realization of the nasal: velar or alveolar Word class Preceding and following sound Position in sentence Preceding and following stress Social factors (age, gender, ethnicity, Hawaii Born, Island)

Excluded Tokens Words with cut off endings Extremely phonetically reduced tokens Example: gonna from going to Words with cut off endings One syllable nouns such as thing that do not vary in realization 47 tokens removed 526 tokens analyzed

Analysis Word Class and Island (O‘ahu versus the Big Island (Hawai‘i)) Percentages of the velar and the alveolar these were the important factors

Word Class Because the distinction between /ing/ and /in/ has roots in suffixes marking two different word classes, verbal-noun and present participle, it follows that word class may be grammatically conditioning. This study follows Hazen (2008) in using the word classes of Progressive, Gerund-Participle, Adjective, Gerund, and Noun, and adds the categories of Adverb and Preposition to account for words phonetically ending in (ING) falling in those categories.

Results

Word Class Consistent with Hazen (2008) – progressive and gerund-participle are words classes with highest rates of alveolar variant. Adverbs specifically have alveolar variants a third of the time – specifically the phrase growing up

Island Speakers from O’ahu had a higher rate of the alveolar variant than speakers from the Big Island

Island Large variation among the different speakers from the same island of use of the alveolar variant. However: O’ahu had only one speaker with use at or under 10% of the time, while the Big Island had 3

Discussion Evidence of phonetic variation in (ING) in Hawai‘i English. Similar to the variation observed in the English of other regions. Why does O‘ahu have a higher rate of usage? Economic and social hub of the islands, probably influence from other dialects. Geographic distance of Big Island

References Campbell-Kibler, Kathryn. (2010). The Effect of Speaker Information on Attitudes Toward (ING). Journal of Language and Psychology, 29(2), 214-223. Hazen, Kirk. (2006). IN/ING Variable. In Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.). (Vol 5. pp. 581-584). Boston: Elsevier. Hazen, Kirk. (2008). (ING): A Vernacular Baseline for English in Appalachia. American Speech, 83(2), 116-140. Labov, William. (1989). The child as linguistic historian. Language Variation and Change, 1, 85-97. Labov, William. (1966). The Social Stratification of English in New York City. Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics. Trudgill, Peter. (1995). Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to Language and Society (3rd ed.) New York: Penguin Books.