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 | | English language | Study and teaching | Oceania, English language | Oceania | Usage
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|  | Pacific english : what is it, why is it and its implications
Author: Green, Barbara Gillian
Institution: University of the South Pacific.
Award: Ph.D.
Subject: English language | Study and teaching | Oceania, English language | Oceania | Usage
Date: 2012
Call No.: Pac PE 1068 .O3 G74 2012
BRN: 1189873
Copyright:Under 10% of this thesis may be copied without the authors written permission
Abstract: This research grew from experience with the Academic English programme in the Faculty of Arts and Laws at the University of the South Pacific beginning in 2005 and from interest in why the English used by so many hundreds of students from at least 12 different nationalities and hundreds of differing languages presented with so many similarities of usage. Using examination essays completed at the end of two teaching semesters in 2006, all written under identical conditions, it examines the possibility that the English being used in the Pacific can now clearly be regarded as a unique variant of the standard form of British English. The research identifies and exemplifies distinctive characteristics which appear in the writing of these young, acrolectal users of English in the Pacific, offering explanations for such use, and compares the Pacific features with those which have been found in other postexploitation British colonies. The research concludes that while English in the Pacific is developing strongly individual features, the largely exonormative stance of the countries involved means that the widespread variations in usage are, as yet, unlikely to be perceived as formally acceptable within the region. The work then considers both the reasons why such variations have begun to appear in the English of the Pacific as they have in other British colonies in Asia and Africa, and the implications these linguistic innovations have for educational authorities in the countries of the region and in New Zealand, home to so many Pasifika migrants.
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