This research project will examine three previously undescribed varieties of English spoken in three different islands of Micronesia – Saipan, Kosrae and Kiribati – each with a distinct colonial past, a distinct post-colonial present and distinct indigenous substrate languages. All three varieties have developed relatively recently but in different historical and sociolinguistic circumstances. In general, few postcolonial Englishes that have resulted from US (Kosrae and Saipan) rather than British (Kiribati) colonial rule have been extensively examined dialectologically. One aim of this project is to chart the sociolinguistic histories and linguistic structures of these emerging varieties. In the theoretical literature on ‘World Englishes’, there is debate on how new varieties emerge – the process of nativisation. Our study will enable us to examine nativisation in progress, given the recency in Micronesia of the widespread adoption of English as a community language. Finally, we will be able to compare the results of analyses of these varieties with the English of another Micronesian island, Palau.
Apart from the work on Palauan English (by Prof. Dr. Kazuko Matsumoto, University of Tokyo), there has been no research at all on the emergent Englishes of Micronesia, and current models of how new Englishes form in postcolonial contexts are almost entirely based, with very few exceptions, on the outcomes of British colonial history. This project aims to address these gaps in our understanding of the breadth and formation of new Englishes.
For more information see the project website.
