THE ROLE OF THE BRITISH DIALECT SUBSTRATUM IN NEW ZEALAND ENGLISH DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

The article analyses some aspects of the English language geographical dispersion in the southern hemisphere, which led to the evolution of its distinctive varieties – the Southern Hemisphere Englishes, including the variety spoken in New Zealand. It is demonstrated that numerous dialects transported from Britain interacted in the New Zealand environment without geographical or social boundaries between dialectal groups. Such dialect contacts differed from the typical interactions within a dialectal continuum as they formed wide isoglosses diffused throughout the entire New Zealand. The homogeneousation of various regional and social dialects spoken by immigrants from the metropolia accelerated the English language development towards enriched koineization of the transported speech.The contact occurred in the dialectal subcultures treating their speech deviations from the 19th century British standard as a matter of cultural loyalty and prestige. Permanent contacts of dialects in various interactional situations and spheres resulted in the genesis of the basic form of communication with its gradual development into New Zealand Standard English integrating the transported dialectal substratum. At the lexical level substrate elements proved resistant to modifications. Most units preserved their original shapes, some became involved into affixation, transposition, composition, reverse and other word-formation processes. Being dynamic in contemporary New Zealand English, the British dialect substratum is active in usage, word-formation, and expressivisation of vocabulary. The study of historical and sociocultural changes, their correlation with evolutionary processes in language challenges the monogenetic descent of New Zealand English from either Australian English or a single British dialect. More evidence is found to support the pivotal influence of different varieties of English. Findings about the evolution of English into a pluricentric language showed the importance of the periphery varieties for language-internal variation.