The Sociolinguistics of HCE
HCE: Hawaii English Creole, Pidgin.
AE: American English
The most popularized form of Pidgin (HCE) is, naturally, the basilect (lowest class, usually viewed as low class speech in society) form of it, with a vocabulary and accent that dates easily into the 1970's. What isn't mentioned much is the mesolect form (middle class), which seems to blend both aspects of HCE and AE into it.
While its origins and form are best staed by the book Pidgin Grammar: An Introduction to the Creole Language of Hawai'i, not much is really stated about the sociology behind the language. In essence, the sociolinguistics. This is not surprising, since there the language itself is a large undertaking of study to begin with, with already one book studying the forms and use of the present tense(s).
If one is to speak of the sociology, almost nothing comes up but questions. I will go into the questions I came up with and the reasons why they would be huge studies to make, with perhaps even inconclusive results.
How is HCE used as a basilect? How does the codeswitching between HCE and AE work? Is it used as a level of politeness/intimacy? And if that is so, what form does it take? That is, does it follow the pattern of the Western (English, in this case) usage of polite language or does it follow that of another? In polite language, Japanese is known to use a relative scale, while languages like Korean use an absolute scale.
However, if one were to conduct a study on this, there are other things to consider. First off, does the cultural heritage of the speaker affect his/her social usage of the language? If that were so, then a third generation Japanese might prohibit the use HCE in different situations from that of a third generation Chinese. This of course, makes it more difficult to tell when most of the population is of mixed ethnicty. After all, what kind of usage would a Portuguese-Japanese-Filipino person be likely to use? Perhaps it is from this common occurence that a "standard" social habit came to be. If that is so, then what cultures dominated?
If one goes by the current history and government of Hawaii, the answer is indeed a complicated one. For instance, the most obvious influence (or perhaps unobvious, given how invisible it seems sometimes) is on both government and home is that from Japanese. However, there's a historical basis for the Hawaiian, Portuguese, and Chinese (Cantonese) influence in the culture, as shown in the language of HCE itself. Then again, the standard from 1900 with territory-hood has been the culture in AE. (The large Filipino community of today would probably have to be counted as a more modern phenomena, with a separate study conducted on it.)
There is also a thought that because the contrary nature between the Eastern and Western cultures that perhaps this codeswitching, polite usage rules, and acutal usage might be infinitely more dynamic than any of the cultures by itself. For instance, when one is giving a speech or teaching a class, one could 1) keep it formeal English (giving an air of impressive), 2) go for something more conversational, but still in pure English, or 3) use Pidgin and connect more directly with your speakers. Which would be the most proper or correct, according to this thought? All three.
However, there are more difficult questions that one would ask to deterimine codeswitching.
1. When speaking to one's aunties and uncles, what is the form of the language used?
2. When spoken to in HCE, what is the proper response?
3. If the same situations as 1&2 happened in different atmospheres, such as during a formal occasion or a get-together with close friends or coworkers, what is the proper response?
4. How does one speak to elderly speakers of HCE? Younger speakers?
5. What kind of speech does one use when shopping/talking to store clerks?
6. What kind of speech does one use when speaking to friends? Narrating an event to friends?
And even with these kinds of questions, a study much like one conducted on a smaller scale (the study can only be found in the UHM Hamilton Special Collection, so...) might reveal albeit (and yet again) complicated answers. Such as: Perhaps certain parts of discourse words might be deleted in certain types of speech ("No..." "Hooo~" "Eh" "Nah"), while other words [specifically, words found both in AE and HCE] gain in frequency ("cannot" "never" "though" "and"), and still other words are avoided altogether ("stay" "get"). Still, all that is speculation.
It should be mentioned that in the study, it was found out that, perhaps due to the rank or atmosphere (and maybe not educational) difference between two people, the usage of some parts of speech became less or more prevalent.
Of course, "form of language" is an incredibly broad statement, ranging from the tempo of speech, range of tone, enunciation, discourse particles, sentence ending words or beginning words, the way something is said, tense, to narration style, and anything else that I forgot to mention. After all, there are many ways to say the same exact thing, and perhaps even more so in a bilingual atmosphere.
Examples.
"Nah... I wen forget fo do my homework, dass why." [General HCE basilect]
"No... I wen forget to do my homework, daess why." [General HCE basilect, variant.]
"Nah... Is'cause I forgot t'do my homework." [Grammar is English except for the first particle.]
"No... I forgot to do my homework, 'ss why." [Grammar is HCE but enunciation may be just as clear or clearer than above.]
"No, I forgot'to do my homework, thass'why." [The most clipped, mixed grammar.]
Okay, less academic is this. My parents speak one kind of Pidgin. The younger people's Pidgin is different. What's the difference, anyway? (I don't really know, since I'm not one to deal with it.) Is Pidgin becoming more of a dialect than a creole?
I find it hard to drop the Pidgin grammar that litters my speech when speaking to my classmates. It would feel too weird and stiff without it. ("No, the teacher never wen cover that today.") The more I feel like I would use casual English to, I have a harder time keeping myself from using Pidgin. When explaining things like math or sciences, it becomes harder to use Pidgin. But with social sciences, it gets easier to switch.
Codeswitching between English and Japanese is enough of a headtrip sometimes, but codeswitching between Pidgin and Japanese is even more so... which I hear whenever older people talk on the Japanese radio station.
When I end up doing talking to parents or interested adults/teens for Manga Bento, I tend to keep certain minor aspects of my grammar and intonation (The "no..."s are still there), but most of the time it's just an accent.
...And I'd better quit this while I'm ahead.
AE: American English
The most popularized form of Pidgin (HCE) is, naturally, the basilect (lowest class, usually viewed as low class speech in society) form of it, with a vocabulary and accent that dates easily into the 1970's. What isn't mentioned much is the mesolect form (middle class), which seems to blend both aspects of HCE and AE into it.
While its origins and form are best staed by the book Pidgin Grammar: An Introduction to the Creole Language of Hawai'i, not much is really stated about the sociology behind the language. In essence, the sociolinguistics. This is not surprising, since there the language itself is a large undertaking of study to begin with, with already one book studying the forms and use of the present tense(s).
If one is to speak of the sociology, almost nothing comes up but questions. I will go into the questions I came up with and the reasons why they would be huge studies to make, with perhaps even inconclusive results.
How is HCE used as a basilect? How does the codeswitching between HCE and AE work? Is it used as a level of politeness/intimacy? And if that is so, what form does it take? That is, does it follow the pattern of the Western (English, in this case) usage of polite language or does it follow that of another? In polite language, Japanese is known to use a relative scale, while languages like Korean use an absolute scale.
However, if one were to conduct a study on this, there are other things to consider. First off, does the cultural heritage of the speaker affect his/her social usage of the language? If that were so, then a third generation Japanese might prohibit the use HCE in different situations from that of a third generation Chinese. This of course, makes it more difficult to tell when most of the population is of mixed ethnicty. After all, what kind of usage would a Portuguese-Japanese-Filipino person be likely to use? Perhaps it is from this common occurence that a "standard" social habit came to be. If that is so, then what cultures dominated?
If one goes by the current history and government of Hawaii, the answer is indeed a complicated one. For instance, the most obvious influence (or perhaps unobvious, given how invisible it seems sometimes) is on both government and home is that from Japanese. However, there's a historical basis for the Hawaiian, Portuguese, and Chinese (Cantonese) influence in the culture, as shown in the language of HCE itself. Then again, the standard from 1900 with territory-hood has been the culture in AE. (The large Filipino community of today would probably have to be counted as a more modern phenomena, with a separate study conducted on it.)
There is also a thought that because the contrary nature between the Eastern and Western cultures that perhaps this codeswitching, polite usage rules, and acutal usage might be infinitely more dynamic than any of the cultures by itself. For instance, when one is giving a speech or teaching a class, one could 1) keep it formeal English (giving an air of impressive), 2) go for something more conversational, but still in pure English, or 3) use Pidgin and connect more directly with your speakers. Which would be the most proper or correct, according to this thought? All three.
However, there are more difficult questions that one would ask to deterimine codeswitching.
1. When speaking to one's aunties and uncles, what is the form of the language used?
2. When spoken to in HCE, what is the proper response?
3. If the same situations as 1&2 happened in different atmospheres, such as during a formal occasion or a get-together with close friends or coworkers, what is the proper response?
4. How does one speak to elderly speakers of HCE? Younger speakers?
5. What kind of speech does one use when shopping/talking to store clerks?
6. What kind of speech does one use when speaking to friends? Narrating an event to friends?
And even with these kinds of questions, a study much like one conducted on a smaller scale (the study can only be found in the UHM Hamilton Special Collection, so...) might reveal albeit (and yet again) complicated answers. Such as: Perhaps certain parts of discourse words might be deleted in certain types of speech ("No..." "Hooo~" "Eh" "Nah"), while other words [specifically, words found both in AE and HCE] gain in frequency ("cannot" "never" "though" "and"), and still other words are avoided altogether ("stay" "get"). Still, all that is speculation.
It should be mentioned that in the study, it was found out that, perhaps due to the rank or atmosphere (and maybe not educational) difference between two people, the usage of some parts of speech became less or more prevalent.
Of course, "form of language" is an incredibly broad statement, ranging from the tempo of speech, range of tone, enunciation, discourse particles, sentence ending words or beginning words, the way something is said, tense, to narration style, and anything else that I forgot to mention. After all, there are many ways to say the same exact thing, and perhaps even more so in a bilingual atmosphere.
Examples.
"Nah... I wen forget fo do my homework, dass why." [General HCE basilect]
"No... I wen forget to do my homework, daess why." [General HCE basilect, variant.]
"Nah... Is'cause I forgot t'do my homework." [Grammar is English except for the first particle.]
"No... I forgot to do my homework, 'ss why." [Grammar is HCE but enunciation may be just as clear or clearer than above.]
"No, I forgot'to do my homework, thass'why." [The most clipped, mixed grammar.]
Okay, less academic is this. My parents speak one kind of Pidgin. The younger people's Pidgin is different. What's the difference, anyway? (I don't really know, since I'm not one to deal with it.) Is Pidgin becoming more of a dialect than a creole?
I find it hard to drop the Pidgin grammar that litters my speech when speaking to my classmates. It would feel too weird and stiff without it. ("No, the teacher never wen cover that today.") The more I feel like I would use casual English to, I have a harder time keeping myself from using Pidgin. When explaining things like math or sciences, it becomes harder to use Pidgin. But with social sciences, it gets easier to switch.
Codeswitching between English and Japanese is enough of a headtrip sometimes, but codeswitching between Pidgin and Japanese is even more so... which I hear whenever older people talk on the Japanese radio station.
When I end up doing talking to parents or interested adults/teens for Manga Bento, I tend to keep certain minor aspects of my grammar and intonation (The "no..."s are still there), but most of the time it's just an accent.
...And I'd better quit this while I'm ahead.