Language contact: The case of Japanese in Australia and New Zealand

Abstract

This thesis attempts to examine language contact phenomena in the speech of first-generation Japanese adults in Australia and New Zealand through the analysis of interview and other spoken data. The main objectives of the thesis are: (i) to describe and analyse the types of transference and integration phenomena identified in the corpus; (ii) to identify and analyse the types of strategies employed by first-generation Japanese speakers in Japanese-Australian/New Zealand English contact; (iii) to investigate the types of lexical transfers (i.e., loanwords) peculiar to the Australian/New Zealand environment; (iv) to investigate the factors affecting lexical transference. The basic assumption underlying the thesis is that there are principles which we may call strategies at work behind language contact phenomena and that these strategies (i.e., processing, monitoring, and social) affect contact processes such as transference and integration. These three types of strategies op~rate concurrently and generate rules for transference and integration under the influence of certain more general principles (i.e., maxims and determinants) prevailing in a given contact setting. In this thesis evidence is presented to show that interdialectal differences in the types of lexical transfers are attributable to differences in rules, strategies, maxims, and determinants operating in different bilingual communities. Various factors are involved in transference. It is observed that according to length of stay and type of stay, Japanese speakers employ different contact strategies. In the interview situation with a newcomer from Japan, migrants tend to suppress lexical transference while sojourners are likely to adopt it. The choice of contact strategies depends primarily on whether the speaker and the interlocutor share the same communicative norm. In a dynamic type of bilingual situation such as that found in the Japanese communities in Australia! New Zealand, the communicative norm is in a state of flux, and therefore the Japanese speakers in these communities employ a set of contact strategies which allow them to explore an ad hoc norm for communication with respect to lexical transference.