Dorothy – 14/1/00
An interview with Bernadette Kernick.
Senior English Senior English can involve interactive study? Language study can relate to the way New Zealanders use English innovatively. When senior school students tell us that they are doing Bursary English in their final year at a New Zealand secondary school how many of us know what that now involves?
Bernadette Kernick talked to me about about the prescription for the University Entrance, Bursaries and Scholarships English examination and some of the aspects studied. The curriculum statement, circulated through the Ministry of Education 1994, provides a framework for the teaching of English in New Zealand. Courses of study follow the aims in English in the New Zealand Curriculum , published by the Ministry of Education, Wellington, New Zealand 1994. While aspects of the curriculum can be assessed in the written examination, courses of study in each school reflect the whole curriculum.
The syllabus Candidates are assessed against the following functions and processes taken from the Written Language strand at level 8 of the English in the New Zealand Curriculum statement: Close Reading; Exploring Language; Transactional Writing and Thinking Critically.
Variations in New Zealand English Bernadette talked to me about what had been discovered by her students with the focus this year on exploring Variations in New Zealand English , where each student undertook a research project on word choice and usage. The focus on the disappearance of existing words and the formation of new words provided insight into loan-words and borrowings as well as obsolete terms.
One objective was to find out how these vocabulary changes were contrasted by word choice as demonstrated by senior citizens and teenagers.
Research Projects Questionnaires were circulated to a number of adults aged between 50 and 93 years, both male and female, young adults aged 18, other adults aged up to 35, and other students, aged 16.
Language differences based on age “The research was difficult for the students to grapple with, but those who persisted with it certainly got the message that all we say gives a picture”, says Bernadette. “The findings are convincing in highlighting the differences based on the chronological age of the interviewee.”
A sense of history was gained through the responses of older New Zealanders compared with those given by youth. The politeness of the elderly was in marked contrast to the freshness, sometimes brashness, often deliberate, of the young, seen even in their responses to the questionnaire.
The language of greetings Variations occurred not only between young and old, male and female, but also between styles of greetings in face-to-face encounters and on the telephone, and through email or formal letters sent by post.
The student who studied greetings found that the language use differed between male and female respondents when answering the door. Some boys surprisingly said nothing and just waited for the caller to begin the conversation, possibly because of lack of confidence in dealing with strangers. Similarly in answering the telephone they might use a phrase from a television programme which would be unintelligible to an older person who was unfamiliar with that programme. These colloquialisms were most popular among young males.
The study showed the students that choices in lifestyle decided what language people knew and used. They became more attuned to awareness of which words were used by women and men, young and old, and different social classes, and of how the situations to which we are exposed determine the language we have available for use.
Obsolescence in the area of food Obsolescence is common in the vocabulary covering food, where certain dishes lose their appeal as tastes and fashion trends change. The word pottage once used by the early settlers of Scots origin appears to have been replaced first by stew and later by casserole . However, the original definition of a porridge-like dish of vegetables and/or meat still fits all three labels.
Research into the language of food and drink and the hospitality industry – well-known to students working part-time in the industry – demonstrated clearly how words are dying and being born all the time.
Words change their meaning Sometimes a word remains, but both its meaning and part of speech change. Older respondents to the questionnaire identified tinny as an aluminium and iron boat. However, teenagers spoke of tinny as a portion of cannabis. Our proximity to Australia accounts for our recognising tinny as a can of beer. So the change in meaning has come about as a loan-word. Borrowing involves loan-words sometimes undergoing changes when they are adopted by New Zealanders.
Conversion is the process that switches words into a different word class. Some respondents converted tinny into an adjective and gave its meaning as successful or lucky . The other adjectival meaning of the word was superficially well-made but being actually of little substance.
Bach or crib or holiday home In its first usage the noun bach was an abbreviation for bachelor. Both New Zealanders and Australians have the habit of shortening words. Later bach was converted into a verb meaning to live alone . Early in the twentieth century the word reverted to a noun to describe a family holiday home. When questioned, older New Zealanders still used this term, whereas teenagers spoke of their holiday home, except for students from the south of the South Island, who chose crib .
A question of age Teenagers regarded smoko, cobber, and cow-cocky as dated language. Although they were familiar with sheila meaning girl, girlfriend or woman, the students, without exception chose guys, regarding this word as being non-gender specific.
Pee-wee tennis for the very young, and snail mail for letters posted in preference to being sent by email emphasised a further distinction in word choice based on age.
English in New Zealand The research which can be undertaken in order to meet the language component of the Bursary syllabus convinces researchers that English, as written and spoken in New Zealand, is a living and evolving language. Old words become linguistic fossils as new words replace them in response to events and developments in a rapidly changing world. Fashion in word choice is as unpredictable as fashion in food and clothes.
