Language, Humour and Ethnic Identity Marking in New Zealand English
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Abstract
Members of groups who are ‘out of power’ make use of a wide variety of linguistic and pragmatic strategies to signal and assert their group identity, and to subvert the pervasive influence of the dominant group. These range from standard phonological and lexical variables, through to discursive strategies such as code-mixing, code-switching, narrative and humour. This essay focuses, first, on three salient linguistic features which systematically serve to index Maori ethnicity: namely, the distinctive prosodic pattern usually referred to as a syllable-timed rhythm, the use of the interactional pragmatic particle eh, and the incorporation of Maori lexical items in predominantly English discourse. The essay then provides some more detailed qualitative analyses of instances of a pragmatic strategy which occurred exclusively, in the samples analysed, in interactions among Maori New Zealanders: namely, the use of humour as a strategy for marking the ethnic boundary between Maori and Pakeha New Zealanders. The data-base for the analysis is drawn from the Wellington Spoken Corpus of New Zealand English and the Wellington Language in the Workplace Project Corpus. The analysis supports the claim that linguistic and discursive strategies for marking group boundaries are particularly apparent in the interactions of minority or subordinate groups.