The Southland variety of NZE

The Southland variety of NZE has been commented on for many years but has only recently been the subject of systematic research. In the 1990s Chris Bartlett carried out interviews in Invercargill and rural districts of eastern and central Southland with speakers from three age groups: 15–19 years, 40–49 years and 65 years and over. He found that while the majority of the phonological features of Southland English (SldE) appear to fall within the normal range of variation for NZE there were also some distinctive features. The primary consonantal feature of SldE is the presence of rhotic forms, which has always been the salient diagnostic feature of the variety. Bartlett indicates that the realization of postvocalic /r/ in SldE is approximal rather than rolled or flapped. He found considerable variation in the degrees of rhoticity ranging from nearly fully-rhotic speakers (especially older males from rural areas) to non-rhotic speakers. However, partially rhotic speakers were in the majority with extremes being rare. Bartlett’s research has shown that phonological context is highly significant in the mechanism of /r/ maintenance (or loss). In words like first term (the standard lexical set NURSE) the /r/ is more consistently maintained than in any other context, though in this context it is realised as an r-coloured vowel. Younger speakers produce more tokens of /r/ in this context than do older speakers. The /r/ in word final position (e.g. in car) or a syllabic /r/ (e.g. in letter) is maintained to widely varying degrees. Preconsonantal /r/ (e.g. card, fort) is less likely to be maintained by a partially rhotic speaker. Bartlett’s research found that rural speakers over the age of 65 were more likely to be rhotic; those aged 40–49 were variably rhotic and those 20–29 were likely to maintain the /r/ only on the NURSE vowel. Examples of speakers from these three age groups are given on the accompanying audio clip.

Bartlett found two other less marked phonological characteristics in his study of Southland. It is often noted that Southland speakers use the TRAP vowel in the BATH lexical set. This usage is declining rapidly, though older Southland speakers still use TRAP in the word castle and also in dance and chance. In younger speakers, TRAP is being replaced by the standard NZE BATH.

He also found that older speakers retained a contrast between /M/and /w/ as in which and witch. There was a correlation between the age of the speaker and the extent of /M/ retention, with older speakers retaining /M/ in a greater variety of words. All speakers were more likely to retain it in lexical words than in grammatical words. Bauer and Warren (this volume) note that the /M/ ~ /w/ distinction is disappearing in NZE. It appears to be being retained for a slightly longer time in Southland.

The three Southland speakers in the attached audio clip illustrate the gradual loss of rhoticity in Southland speakers over time. Arthur, aged 77 (the oldest speaker), is rhotic on almost every opportunity. He is rhotic on THOUGHT, START, MOUTH and NEAR as well as NURSE and lettER. The only potential site for rhoticity that is not realized is in board. Paul, aged 44 (the middle aged speaker), is considerably more variable. Never and farm are sometimes pronounced with rhotic vowels and sometimes without. He has two examples of rhotic START (farm and car), but most of the rhotic vowels are NURSE and lettER. Jim, aged 16 (the youngest speaker), uses a rhotic vowel for all the tokens of NURSE, but not for lettER or for any other vowels. There are no examples of possible voiceless /M/ in content words for any of the speakers. Arthur, however, uses a voiceless /M/ for whether, but not on any other function word. Neither Paul nor Jim use /M/ on function words. There are no examples of chance words in these recordings.