Asia-Pacific Language Variation - Volume 10, Issue 2, 2024

This study reports on variation in final [‑a] ~ [‑e] in Jakarta Indonesian (JI), a new urban variety of Indonesian that emerged from contact between Standard Indonesian (SI) and Betawi, a variety of Malay spoken in the capital of Indonesia. The study incorporates both apparent- and real-time approaches to examining change in this variable, using two large-scale naturalistic speech corpora from three generations of speakers. In the examination of this variable over time, we find that the standard SI form is now predominant in colloquial JI, a change that was led by women and speakers with higher educational backgrounds. The study provides insight into the development of a new language variety within a multilingual environment.

In this study, we investigate an apparent discourse-based alternation between monosyllabic and disyllabic word-forms in Moklen, an Austronesian language spoken in Thailand. We explore whether factors of information structure condition the variable elision of the first syllable of certain disyllabic lexemes. Data was obtained through the implementation of a picture-based field stimulus to elicit a range of lexical material within narrow discourse contexts. Our results reveal that no single information status category (e.g., “given” or “new”) accounted for use of monosyllabic alternants overall. Applying a “bottom-up” approach to the study of information structure (Matić, 2022; Ozerov, 2018), we propose a shift to “topics” — information conveyed as mutual knowledge (Masia, 2022) — as one possible account for the observed changes in Moklen word-form. More generally, our study shows how information structure processes have the potential to contribute to contextual alternation between monosyllabic and disyllabic word-forms, a matter with implications for broader historical changes in word-form.

Sociolinguists have grappled with how speakers of different genders use linguistic variables differentially to constitute their identities. Two seemingly-conflicting generalisations have emerged, referred to as the gender paradox. Women at once maintain standard forms which are overtly-discussed and positively-evaluated; yet lead change in non-standard forms which are below the level of consciousness. These trends are relatively robust in cases of language-internal change in Western societies but less so in non-Western societies and situations of language contact. This paper examines the role of gender in a north Australian Indigenous community where there is a shift underway from Gurindji to Kriol. The dataset consists of 185 variables used by 78 speakers across three generations. Here we examine the results of the application of the BayesVarbrul to the dataset which suggest that women tend to be more conservative than men in retaining Gurindji variants, despite a more general shift to Kriol.