Dialect contact in Hawai'i: The use of Japanese by plantation immigrants.

摘要

This research investigates the use of Japanese dialects brought to Hawaii by sugar plantation immigrants between 1885 and 1924. Using both qualitative and quantitative sociolinguistic methods, it analyzes adult Japanese immigrants' recorded speech in Hawai'i. The analyses focus on what kind of changes took place in the adult immigrants' dialect use in light of three different frameworks---second dialect acquisition (SDA), koineization, and speech accommodation theory. The results show that Japanese dialects undergo processes similar to those of other languages in dialect contact situations and that Japanese spoken by plantation immigrants did not go beyond the first stage of koineization. Focusing on a language that is currently under-researched in the area of dialect contact and change, this dissertation sheds new light on adult speakers' acquisition of phonological and morpholexical features.