Gender, mobility and contact

We examine variation in a rural variety of Acehnese spoken in Aceh Province, to better understand the impact of long-term contact with Indonesian and increasing urbanization. The Great Aceh variety is characterized by variable realization of word-final (t) as a dental vs. glottal stop. Analyses of over 2,000 tokens of this variable from a corpus of spontaneous speech from 35 speakers indicate that the variability is relatively stable among men, and among women of high mobility, measured in terms of education, occupation, and time spent outside Great Aceh. Women with low mobility produce the lowest rates of [t̪], and in this group we observe a higher rate of [t̪] by younger than older women, suggesting change over time. We thus find both stability – among those who have long enjoyed high levels of mobility – and change – among those most affected by recent social changes, namely low-mobility women.

Jakarta Indonesian first-person singular pronouns

Jakarta Indonesian is a colloquial variety of Indonesian spoken primarily in Indonesia’s capital, where it was originally a contact variety between Betawi, the local variety of Malay, and Standard Indonesian. Like other varieties of Indonesian, Jakarta Indonesian is a language with a relatively open system of pronominal reference and multiple forms for self-reference. In this paper we focus on variation in the use of first-person pronouns in Jakarta Indonesian, using two corpora of spoken data collected three decades apart. We employ both quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the form, function and social meaning of 1sg pronouns in Jakarta Indonesian, investigating both inter- and intra-speaker variation over time.

Variation in Ampenan Sasak pronominal forms

This study investigates the variation of pronominal forms in Sasak, an Austronesian language spoken in eastern Indonesia. The study marks the first variationist sociolinguistic work on Sasak. Using data from eight conversations between 15 non-noble speakers, pronominal forms were coded for whether they were realized as a free pronoun or a clitic. Further, the discourse was examined to identify the referents and to observe the pragmatic effect of the forms used. The results show clitics dominate the distribution. Further, the results demonstrate that a higher percentage of clitics are preferred with the basic form for first person referents, but speakers apply a different strategy for second person referents; speakers use first person plural and third person singular forms to address their interlocutor when triggered by a Face Threatening Act (see Brown & Levinson, 1987).

Variation and contact-induced change in Javanese phonology among multilingual children in Indonesia

As Indonesian becomes more dominant in Indonesia, regional heritage languages, such as Javanese, may be increasingly influenced by phonological transfer. The extent of these effects may depend upon a speaker’s region and social background, as well as age of acquisition and proficiency in various languages. This study investigates the impact of these factors on the Javanese production among multilingual children in East Java. Specifically, we analyze the distinction between dental and retroflex coronal stops (/t̪/ /d̪̥ /, /ʈ/, /ɖ̥/), which phonemically contrast in Javanese, but not in Indonesian. The data were elicited from 95 children in Malang, a large urban center, and Blitar, a smaller city. The findings indicate that Javanese is shifting to a two-way contrast comparable to that of Indonesian; female and Malang speakers lead in this change. These findings highlight the significance of social factors in children’s language acquisition, and illustrate ongoing changes in Javanese.

Voice onset time and vowel quality in Madurese

Madurese exhibits a three-way laryngeal contrast in its plosive inventory, distinguishing voiced, voiceless unaspirated, and voiceless aspirated plosives. Previous studies have investigated some acoustic characteristics of the contrast but have not examined possible dialectal variation in this contrast. The present study aims to discuss the contrast by examining Voice Onset Time (VOT) and vowel quality (F1). Twenty participants (10 Western Madurese speakers and 10 Eastern Madurese speakers) were recruited and instructed to read 150 Madurese words containing plosives. The results showed that an interaction of dialect and gender were significantly correlated with VOT: male Western Madurese speakers produced shorter VOT for voiced and voiceless aspirated plosives than their Eastern counterparts. There was also variation in F1 between gender across dialects: male Western Madurese speakers produced [ə] with a lower F1 than their Eastern counterparts. It was suggested that the variation was possibly due to language contact with Javanese.

Variable realisation of verb-final /n/ in Idi

The present study reports on verb-final variable realisation of the alveolar nasal /n/ in the Papuan language Idi. Elision of /n/ is correlated with both linguistic and social factors: present tense, a following consonant, and speakers over 60 show significantly greater rates of /n/ elision. Data from a 1988 grammar sketch indicate that for the present tense, variable realisation of verb-final /n/ is a case of stable, and perhaps age-graded, variation. Conversely, spread of n-less-ness into the other tenses may be a case of a change-in-progress, but at present this cannot clearly be confirmed. The older generation (speakers over 60) consistently show the highest rates of /n/ elision in all tenses. Elderly people are seen as the most proficient Idi speakers, and their position in society perhaps allows them to be more variable in their language use.

New Zealand English in Auckland

This study acoustically analyses the vowel space of adult New Zealand English speakers from a predominantly Pasifika suburb in Auckland (Papatoetoe). These speakers (n = 13) are compared to two equivalent groups from non-Pasifika Auckland suburbs, Mount Roskill (n = 14) and Titirangi (n = 6). All participants are New Zealand English speakers aged 16–25. There were equal numbers of male and female participants. For the acoustic analysis vowels with sentence stress were identified and extracted and formant values were calculated at the vowel target. This study looks at over 8000 monophthongs and 4000 diphthongs. The study found minimal differences between speakers from different suburbs, but all groups had notable differences from the traditional New Zealand English (NZE) vowel space. These differences align with previous comments regarding the vowels of Pasifika New Zealand English. The paper concludes by contemplating what these results say about Pasifika New Zealand English and New Zealand English in Auckland.