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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
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.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press
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.