THE PASSIONATE SKEPTIC

AUSTRALIAN LINGUISTICS SOCIETY CONFERENCE, 1990

LANGUAGE IN SUVA
Language Use and Literacy in an Urban Pacific Community

Thor May , September 1990
(c) Thor May 1990 all rights reserved

Note 1: This paper was first delivered in its present form to a conference of the Australian Linguistics Society at Macquarie University in Sydney, NSW, 1990.

Note 2: The material for the study was gathered in a pilot survey in Suva, Fiji, while the writer was a lecturer in Linguistics at the University of the South Pacific.

Note 3: The project would not have been possible without the enthusiastic co-operation of Linguistics students at the University of the South Pacific. They had the social access as well as the multilingual skills to question respondents in a way that no outsider could hope to emulate. If there is material of value in this paper, then the credit is theirs.

Note 4: Generous advice on the demographic planning of the survey came from Martinus Bakker of the Population Studies Programme at USP, and from the Government of Fiji Census Office.

Note 5: Clerical assistance was funded from a grant by the Research Committee in the School of Humanities, University of the South Pacific.

Home Page //go to Technical Stuff [go to end]

LANGUAGE IN SUVA

Table of Contents

introduction // demography // interview subjects // interviewers // the data // languages spoken at work/school and at home (Q6 & Q7) // table A: Suva language domains // languages across the generations (Q8 & Q9) // table B: languages across the generations in Suva // qualitative measures : language skill levels // table C: number of speakers at skill levels as a percentage of the total sample // table D: language levels of unskilled manual workers // table E: language levels of skilled service workers //respondent age distribution correlated with language skill levels // gender and language skills // table F: male language skills // table G: female language skills // table H: languages of literacy in Suva // the number of letters written in Suva per year // table I: frequency distribution for letter writing in Suva // table J: languages of letter writing in Suva // references // // appendix A : questionnaire for the residents of Suva City, Fiji // questions // [go to end]

To e-mail Thor May, please click here

*** Links *** *** Home Page *** go to Technical Stuff*** [go to end]

LANGUAGE IN SUVA
Language use and Literacy in an Urban Pacific Community

Thor May
September 1990

Introduction

This is a preliminary report on a sociolinguistic survey. It records the beliefs which 834 permanent residents of Suva, Fiji have about their own language and literacy skills.

The survey is not an objective measure of language abilities. To that extent the survey is more sociological than linguistic. The study was considered worthwhile for a number of reasons :

1. Beliefs about language are critical in shaping behaviour in personal, social, political and educational environments.

2. By acquiring some kind of "map" of a community's beliefs about its own language activities we can find the realistic limits of language policy and language planning, if that is our purpose.

3. Reported language use by different age, gender, occupational and educational groups can help to confirm hypotheses about language change, or even predict where change is likely to occur.

4. We can get ideas for the detailed objective analysis of particular linguistic features.

5. In the USP case, involvement in the research by linguistics students brought the subject alive for them and gave it a local relevance which had often been lacking. Hopefully, some will be led to graduate research in the area.

Demography

Suva city is the largest urban centre between Auckland and Honolulu. It has an official population of around 70,000, but the conurbation extending out to Nasinu increases that considerably. Like most cities in the developing world, it is a magnet for the poor and the ambitious. It has parallel economies for different economic/cultural groups, and accommodates an amazing variety of sub-cultures in a ferment of change.

Interview Subjects

The interview subjects were selected from five census enumeration districts with populations ranging from 430 to 1200, and chosen for having a roughly equal ethnic composition of Fijians and Indo-Fijians. Such a residential balance is not typical, so the measures of bilingualism in the sample could conceivably be slanted. (However, each urban enumeration district comprises only two or three streets). One census district was comprised almost entirely of a squatter camp, while the others reflected different levels of local affluence.

The aim of interviewers was to obtain the most representative possible coverage in each area. It was felt that the selection of restricted districts in this manner would make replication of and comparisons with the study much more reliable.

Interviewers were asked to aim for a rough balance of males and females, and a good spread of age groups. They were also asked to select subjects in an approximate proportion of 4 ethnic Fijian, 4 Indo-Fijian and 2 (or fewer) "other" per ten questionnaires : that is, about the national population balance. There was no actual question about race, since I preferred to let cultural affinities emerge from the linguistic information.

Interviewers

The interviewers were linguistics students at the University of the South Pacific. All of them, bar about five out of ninety-eight individuals, were at least bilingual. They were able to make contact in a way which I as a "European" foreigner simply could not have done. Each student was asked to conduct ten structured interviews, using a provided questionnaire. They were coached intensively in the pitfalls of interview technique. Pacific islanders have considerable sophistication in interpersonal situations, and these individuals seem to take to the task with more elan than I would have expected from a comparable group of Australian students.

The Data

The rest of this paper is a barrage of statistics. I want you to remember that the apparent precision of the numbers is illusory. They represent broad patterns only. For example, we talk about languages such as English, Fijian and Hindi in a pretty crude way, taking no account of dialect divisions, although many respondents were quite clear in specifying, say, Nadronga dialect as opposed to standard Fijian. These differences are very important within the linguistic community. We also ignore the more less diglossic situation which exists between standard Hindi and Fiji baat (the local Hindi dialect). The respondents themselves talk in a blanket manner about their skill in English, whereas a visiting linguist might be apt to perceive a dialect continuum of "Englishes". Further, little qualitative investigation is attempted of the actual degree to which the various languages are used in their domains. Our aims then are quite modest.

Languages spoken at work/school and at home (Q6 & Q7)

About 20% of the sample were primary, secondary or tertiary students. 65% of respondents were in some kind of paid employment, and the balance of 15% were housewives, unemployed or retired.

As you can see from Table A, the vast majority of individuals (85%) use some kind of English at work, but only 33% take it home with them. Still, for 33% of a population to take a (mostly) second language back into their home environment indicates a significant level of bilingualism.

LANGUAGE	WORK/ SCHOOL 708/ 834 people	HOME 834 people
SOME ENGLISH	85% 602/708	33% 278/834
SOME FIJIAN	44% 31	48% 401
SOME HINDI	36% 256	43% 362
ONLY ENGLISH	28% 198	7.5% 34
ONLY FIJIAN	7.5% 54	34.5% 289
ONLY HINDI	7% 48	28.5% 239
AT LEAST 2 Ls	57% 402	29% 244
AT LEAST 3 Ls	12% 83	2.8% 23

Table A: SUVA LANGUAGE DOMAINS

When we look at the mother tongues, Fijian and Hindi, there is not a very significant difference by our crude measure here between language use at school/work and at home, although there seems to be some slight indication there that Fijians are a bit less willing to use English in a public situation than the Hindi speakers.

It is pertinent to make two or three observations here. Firstly remember that the population balance in Fiji is roughly 50/50 ethnic Fijian and ethnic Indian, with a minority of other ethnic groups of around 10%. These figures at least show that not many Fijians or Indo-Fijians have entirely abandoned their ancestral languages - yet.

The second comment, a sociological one, is that there is no prohibition in Fijian culture on speaking Fijian, even if some other members of the group you are talking to do not speak the language. In some cultures of course, this is extremely bad manners, and the custom evokes a deal of resentment at USP from students who come from other countries in the region. As a force for language maintenance, that linguistic aggression might be reflected in the figures before us.

A third comment is that some Western Fijians have told me that in formal, public situations they actually prefer English, which puts them on a social level with Eastern colleagues, rather than suffering the discrimination which their Western accent invites.

When we look at the exclusive use of particular languages in different domains, the picture changes fairly dramatically. 28% of people say that they use English exclusively at work, probably because their particular occupation demands it. Only 7.5% use English exclusively at home. That can't be much more than the monolingual English population.

Remember that monolingual English speakers are not necessarily Caucasian. Some are upwardly mobile individuals from various groups who want to forget their roots. The contemptuous colloquial term for them is "want-to-be's". There is a smallish but economically powerful mixed-race minority who use English both from choice and necessity. (I am referring to race because the concept permeates the Fiji community amongst all cultural groups. Almost everybody believes in the immutability of "racial" distinctions, and this assumption sets the social agenda).

When we look at Fiji and Hindi in the workplace we see that there are not many occupations where either language can be used exclusively. I suspect a good percentage of the 14% of occupational monolinguals would be housegirls working in homes where their first language happens to be spoken. Perhaps what is more interesting is that 29% of all households are at least bilingual, and a handful trilingual.

In Fiji everyone refers to English as "the link language". From the numbers just discussed you can see why. The bilingual cross-over between Fijian and Hindi in the urban school or workplace is less than 12%. In the wake of the coups (post 1987) there has been a certain amount of linguistic chauvinism, particularly in the civil service, but there is little real sign of English vacating its role as the language of public communication. English/MT bilingualism in Fiji crosses all class and cultural boundaries, a situation quite different to, say, continental India.

Other languages : In the whole survey over twenty different languages were identified, but outside of Fijian, Hindi and English, they make only a token contribution of a few percent to the sample. Rotuman as the most prominent minor language.

Languages across the generations (Q8 & Q9)

When we turn to the languages spoken by the parents and children of respondents (Table B), some really interesting patterns begin to emerge.

LANGUAGE	PARENTS of S 793	RESPONDENTS 834	CHILDREN of S 471
SOME ENGLISH	18% 145/793	33% 278/834	48% 226/471
SOME FIJIAN	47.5% 377	48% 401	47% 221
SOME HINDI	42.5% 337	43% 362	44.5% 209
ONLY ENGLISH	8% 66	7.5% 34	8% 38
ONLY FIJIAN	41.5% 328	34.5% 289	30.5% 143
ONLY HINDI	35% 276	28.5% 239	20.5% 96
AT LEAST 2 Ls	15.5% 123	29% 244	41% 194
AT LEAST 3 LS	1.9% 15	2.8% 23	3.2% 15

Table B: LANGUAGES ACROSS THE GENERATIONS in Suva

Recall that 33% of respondents claimed to speak some English at home. They say that only 18% of their parents speak some English at home, but that 48% of their children do so. If these figures are reflected in actual usage, we have here a very significant language shift across generations.

At that rate of change English could be spoken in every urban Fiji home within three generations. Of course, such changes never follow an entirely linear pattern. The process will certainly accelerate for Indo-Fijians because many powerful forces are pushing them away from their cultural origins. They now have the added incentive of aiming for immigration to English speaking countries like Australia and Canada.

The pattern with ethnic Fijians is more difficult to predict. Language shift will be influenced by rural-urban migration, nationalism, education, and the media. Videos in English and Hindi are already widespread. Television is about to hit the country. I can't see that Fiji has the resources to promote full Fijian language television programming (unlike radio), so the medium could become an enormous influence for promoting the value and prestige of English at home.

If we look at the other languages, Fijian and Hindi, and for that matter, monolingual English, you can see that in gross terms their situation is virtually static across the generations. In other words, here is a population which is apparently becoming progressively more bilingual on the surface, rather than simply dispensing with one language and adopting another.

However the measures we have in this survey are scarcely qualitative. There is no way of knowing from the data how much English, Fijian or Hindi is used, and with what competence across the generations. As linguists we know that when one language starts to claim part of the domain of another one, then the linguistic repertoire of the first language may very well decline. In fact, in another part of this survey their is some indirect evidence for such a loss of L1 competence amongst Fijian and Hindi speakers.

The other figures in Table B confirm the evidence for growing bilingualism that we have already perceived. Thus 41.5% of parents speak only Fijian at home, while 34.5% of respondents, and 30.5% of their children do so. The pattern of declining monolingualism is similar with Hindi, but even more marked.

As a lecturer in linguistics at USP I was sometimes asked by anxious parents whether their children would have a better life chance if they spoke to them only in English at home. In other words, would an artificially created monolingual environment be beneficial ? There is a widespread perception that advanced English competence is the path to secure employment and social advancement. The "want-to-be's" are ridiculed in public, but copied in private. Bilingualism then may not always be seen as an ideal (of the kind rather wistfully promoted in Australia), but as a way-station in the search for a more marketable primary language.

Qualitative Measures : language skill levels

The most complex query in this survey was question 18, where I tried to get at some qualitative aspects of language competence by asking respondents what they thought that their level of competence was in different languages.

In Q.18 I have tried to convey the concept of four different levels of language competence. This is a hard enough thing to do with, say, professional teachers. To ask the general public to make that kind of judgment is an extremely tricky exercise for a number of reasons. Firstly, getting hold of the idea itself is difficult for many people. Secondly individuals vary tremendously in the criteria they apply to self-evaluation, for reasons of personality, life-experience and enculturation. There is some suggestion, for example, that women in Fiji may have a lower level of self-esteem than men when they consider their own language competence.

Life experience is critical in language self-evaluation. Your judgment of linguistic competence has to be influenced by the demands which have been made upon your language in the past. Thus, when we look at the students who come to USP, at first arrival they are the creme de la creme of the secondary system. They have a very high opinion of their competence in English. Many then discover to their horror that their language is suddenly "primitive" in this new environment.

However, even taking into account all of these limiting factors, I believe that some interesting patterns emerged out of the data. They are patterns that are worth investigating further because a sample size of 864 is large enough for many of the idiosyncratic effects to cancel out. We can get an idea of the balance of competence which people feels exists in the community

	Level 4	Level 3	Level 2	Level 1	Sum All Levels	Level 1+2	Level 3+4
English	53.5	29.9	9.0	6.0	98.3	15.0	83.3
Fijian	42.9	18.6	10.1	15.2	86.8	25.3	61.5
Hindi	37.2	12.8	8.9	15.3	74.2	24.2	50.0
Urdu	1.9	1.0	1.3	4.4	8.6	5.8	2.9
Rotuman	2.0	2.2	1.2	7.9	13.3	9.1	4.2
Kiribati	0.5	0.1	0.2	0.4	1.2	0.6	0.6
Samoan	0.7	0.1	0.1	1.0	1.9	1.1	0.8
Mandarin	0.5	0.2	0.6	1.0	2.3	1.6	0.7
Arabic	0.1	0.4	0.5	0.5	1.4	1.0	0.5
French	0.0	0.4	0.7	0.8	1.9	1.6	0.4
minor languages	2.2	1.6	0.8	3.0	7.6	3.8	3.7

Table C: Number of Speakers at Skill Levels
as a percentage of the total sample (834)

In Table C the top of the stack represents what I call level 4, this being the point at which a speaker feels competent to handle any required social or profession demand in a language. In fact a majority of users in all three major languages felt themselves competent to level 4 (an evaluation which could evoke some black humour from language teachers in Fiji). A substantial part of the remaining respondents in each case considered themselves to be at least at level 3, which is where the individual does not have optimal competence, but is functional in many practical situations.

We have to be a bit careful in interpreting the overall competence between the three languages here. Remember the Fijian and Hindi speakers are in most cases fairly competent in English (boosting the English-level stack) but not very mutually competent in Hindi or Fijian. Where the cross-over effect exists it would be largely embraced by levels 1 and 2. A few MT speakers by the way identified themselves as operating at level 3 in that MT, which shows pretty low self-esteem.

Well, this kind of data becomes much more interesting when you correlate it with major sociological categories like age, sex and occupation. For our purposes here I have selected out two occupational groups : unskilled manual workers and skilled service workers, which embraces the range of aspiration for most ordinary people in Fiji.

	Level 4	Level 3	Level 2	Level 1	Sum All Levels	Level 1+2	Level 3+4
English	36.2	37.1	12.4	11.4	97.1	23.8	73.3
Fijian	52.4	10.5	8.6	13.3	84.8	21.9	62.9
Hindi	36.2	13.3	9.5	13.3	72.4	22.9	49.5
Urdu	1.9	1.0	1.9	2.9	7.6	4.8	2.9
Rotuman	1.0	1.0	0.0	3.8	5.7	3.8	1.9
Kiribati	0.0	0.0	0.0	1.0	1.0	1.0	0.0
Samoan	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Mandarin	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Arabic	1.0	0.0	1.0	0.0	1.9	1.0	1.0
French	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
minor languages	2.9	2.9	0.0	1.9	7.6	1.9	5.7

Table D: Language Levels of Unskilled Manual Workers:
105 subjects (12.6% of total sample)

	Level 4	Level 3	Level 2	Level 1	Sum All Levels	Level 1+2	Level 3+4
English	79.6	16.8	2.7	1.8	100.9	4.4	96.5
Fijian	43.4	24.8	9.7	15.0	92.9	24.8	68.1
Hindi	30.1	21.2	9.7	17.7	78.8	27.4	51.3
Urdu	0.9	0.0	1.8	4.4	7.1	6.2	0.9
Rotuman	3.5	4.4	3.5	9.7	21.2	13.3	8.0
Kiribati	0.0	0.9	0.0	0.0	0.9	0.0	0.9
Samoan	1.8	0.0	0.0	0.9	2.7	0.9	1.8
Mandarin	0.0	0.9	0.0	0.9	1.8	0.9	0.9
Arabic	0.0	0.9	0.9	2.7	4.4	3.5	0.9
French	0.0	1.8	0.9	1.8	4.4	2.7	1.8
minor languages	1.8	1.8	3.5	2.7	9.7	6.2	3.5

Table E: Language Levels of Skilled Service Workers:
113 subjects (14% of Sample)

You will see from the two stack graphs that their are some striking differences between these occupational groups. It is not so much in the claimed aggregate of language knowledge. Almost every occupational respondent claimed to make some use of English. However, the confidence that the skilled service workers have in their own English skills is much higher than that of the unskilled manual workers. Perhaps this is what you would expect. After all, skilled service works are usually required to demonstrate advanced English competence as a job requirement, particularly if they deal directly with the general public. Note however that an English requirement does exist even in unskilled occupations. The interviewers were struck by the regard which squatter camp dwellers had for multilingualism as one of the few saleable assets which they could hope to acquire.

An unexpected outcome for occupational language skills is found in the relative competence of each group in Fijian and Hindi. The unskilled workers claimed higher competence in Fijian and Hindi than the skilled service workers. How well these beliefs are reflected in objective competence needs to be investigated, but it is fairly clear that people feel their advancing competence in English is being made at some sacrifice to their competence in the mother tongue. That sort of belief, as it snow-balls, can be quite significant as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Individuals become less and less confident in using the MT, especially in semi-formal situations, and feel perhaps more confident in using English as a substitute. This is accentuated with the diglossic Hindi situation. There is a marked reluctance amongst many Indo-Fijians to use standard Hindi in anything which looks like a formal situation, even where the cultural loading is very high (such as at a wedding).

Respondent age distribution correlated with language skill levels

We have already seen that the respondents have quite definite views about the change in language skills across generations (Table B). It is therefore interesting to look at self-judgments of their own language competence according to age. The interview subjects ranged from six to ninety-two with a mean of around twenty-nine. What I have done is to break the data into six age categories : 6-11, 12-17, 18-30, 31-45, 46-60 and 61-92.

With the English language data there is quite a significant change across generations, especially at the highest skill level (level 4). One would expect that sort of change from childhood to language maturity. For English speakers in the sample, who are largely L2 speakers of English, the skill level seems to peak around 18-30, and then steadily decline with increasing age.

A whole range of factors will be impacting upon these generational perceptions of language skill. We are not dealing with a static society. The older respondents here have gone through traumatic changes in their social, cultural and occupational environments. Suva has moved from being a very racially stratified colonial society through political independence, into an emerging urban industrial community. Education has spread from the primary level teaching of literacy to a few lucky natives, to something approaching a universal secondary system with a significant cap of tertiary level training too. Skilled occupations have shifted from being the prerogative of colonial expatriates to being the normal aspiration of able individuals in the local community.

You could argue that the 18-30 age group represent the first fruits of the post-colonial situation where, ironically, the rewards for mastery of the colonial language become maximised.

The picture with Fijian and Hindi skill levels is much harder to interpret. There is far less variation, in fact an apparently static situation. With Fijian there seem to be a slight retreat in skills in the 18-30 age group. Remember this was the cohort where English ability was maximised. We noticed earlier that people seem to feel that advancement in one language costs them in other languages. It is possible that the more vigorous teaching of Fijian in schools has benefited younger speakers in a way that was missed by the immediate post-colonial 18-30 group, whereas the older age cohorts perhaps found their optimum competence in a more strictly stratified community. However, the differences shown by our crude survey are fairly marginal. With the Hindi speakers the situations appears to be even more static across the generations.

Gender and Language Skills

Almost 100% of both sexes claim to use some English, but in all three major languages there is a smallish yet quite consistent difference between genders. Men rate themselves more highly. The difference is difficult to interpret. I don't know whether we are seeing a culturally induced expression of lower self-esteem by the women, or whether it reflects their more restricted linguistic opportunities. I doubt the second suggestion. Even if their English speaking opportunities were more restricted (and I am not persuaded of that) their exposure to Hindi or Fijian is not in question. Besides, language is one skill at which women are supposed to be better than men. There is a clear need here for objective investigation.

	Level 4	Level 3	Level 2	Level 1	Sum All Levels	Level 1+2	Level 3+4
English	59.9	28.5	7.1	1.3	96.7	8.3	88.4
Fijian	45.3	20.9	10.8	12.1	89.2	22.9	66.2
Hindi	39.5	12.6	19.4	13.1	84.6	32.5	52.1
Urdu	2.0	1.3	1.8	4.0	9.1	5.8	3.3
Rotuman	2.3	1.8	1.5	9.8	15.4	11.3	4.0
Kiribati	1.0	0.3	0.3	0.3	1.8	0.5	1.3
Samoan	0.8	0.3	0.3	0.5	1.8	0.8	1.0
Mandarin	0.3	0.0	0.5	1.0	1.8	1.5	0.3
Arabic	1.0	0.8	0.8	0.8	3.3	1.5	1.8
French	0.0	0.5	1.5	0.8	2.8	2.3	0.5
minor languages	1.8	1.8	1.3	3.5	8.3	4.8	3.5

Table F: Male Language Skills
Number of Speakers at Skill Levels as a Percentage of the Male Sample
(397 Subjects)

	Level 4	Level 3	Level 2	Level 1	Sum All Levels	Level 1+2	Level 3+4
English	47.4	31.1	10.8	8.0	97.3	10.8	78.5
Fijian	40.7	16.5	9.4	17.8	84.4	9.4	57.2
Hindi	35.0	10.8	8.5	17.4	71.6	8.5	45.8
Urdu	2.1	0.7	0.9	4.8	8.5	0.9	2.7
Rotuman	2.3	2.5	0.9	6.2	11.9	0.9	4.8
Kiribati	0.2	0.0	0.2	0.2	0.7	0.2	0.2
Samoan	0.7	0.0	0.0	1.1	1.8	0.0	0.7
Mandarin	0.5	0.5	0.7	0.9	2.5	0.9	0.9
Arabic	0.0	0.0	0.2	0.2	0.5	0.2	0.0
French	0.0	0.2	0.2	0.9	1.4	0.2	0.2
minor languages	2.5	1.1	0.5	2.5	6.6	0.9	3.7

Table G: Female Language Skills
Number of Speakers at Skill Levels as a Percentage of the Female Sample
(437 Subjects)

Languages of Literacy in Suva
(807/834 Respondents)

Language	Language Code	Number of Users
not literate	0	27
English	1	125
Fijian	2	36
Hindi	3	28
	1+2	321
	1+3	207
	1+2+3	26
+ Rotuman	1+2+8	11
	1+8	9
Other		44

Table H: Languages of Literacy in Suva

The Number of Letters Written in Suva per Year

Fijian language radio is used extensively for the communication of personal messages in rural areas. A villager's business is his community's business. It is a characteristic of urban living that communications become more private, partly as a matter of facility, and partly as a matter of culture.

Note that only 73/202 non letter writers had an entry recorded for this question. The survey recorded the following self-reported evidence of letter writing:

Total number of Letters	13901
Total number of Writers	632	76%
Total number of non-Writers	202	24%

Frequency Distribution for Letter Writing in Suva

Number of Letters per Year	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	10	12	15	20	24	25	30	40	50	100	200	other
Number of Writers	202	14	48	53	31	46	29	68	35	21	45	27	14	26	15	21	24	10	112

Table I: Frequency Distribution for Letter Writing in Suva

Languages of Letter Writing in Suva
(648/834 Respondents)

Language	Language Code	Number of Writers	Percentage of 648 total
English	1	311	48%
Fijian	2	104	16%
Hindi	3	24	3.7%
Gujurati	6	2
Rotuman	8	3
Tongan	11	1
Chinese	16	2
English + Fijian	102	136	21%
English + Hindi	103	41	6.3%
English + Rotuman	108	9	1.4%
English + other L2	120	8	1.2%
English + L3	130	3	0.5%

Table J: Languages of Letter Writing in Suva

References

Bills G.D. (1988) "The U.S. Census of 1980 and Spanish in the South West", International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 79, 11-78

Downes W (1984) Language and Society, pub. Fontana

Dunaj B (1989) "Research into the Social Stratification of Polish in Cracow : Methods and Results", International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 78, 29-42

Extra G & T. Vallen (1988) "Language and Ethnic Minorities in the Netherlands", International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 73, 85-110

Fashold R (1984) The Sociolinguistics of Society, pub. Basil Blackwell

Garter D (1987) "Surveys of the Frisian Language Situation : Some Considerations of Research Methods on Language Maintenance and Language Shift", International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 68, 41-56

Hatch E & Farhady H (1982) Research Design and Statistics for Applied Linguistics, pub. Newbury House, Mass.

Herdan G (1964) Quantitative Linguistics, pub. Butterworths, London

Hout R. van & H. Munstermann (1988) "The Multidimensionality of Domain Configurations", International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 74, 107-124

Labov W (1972) Language in the Inner City, pub. U. Pennsylvania Press

Lavondes H (1974) "Language Policy, Language Engineering and Literacy in French Polynesia", pp. 255-278, in Fishman J (ed) Advances in Language Planning, pub. Mouton

Milroy L (1987) Language and Social Networks, pub. Basil Blackwell, London

Mohan R (1989) "Language Planning and Language Conflict in the Case of Kashmiri", International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 75, 73-88

Moskovich W (1987) "Demographic and Institutional Indicators of Yiddish Language Maintenance in the Soviet Union", International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 67, 1354- 144

Mulhauser P (1988) "Towards an Atlas of Pidgins and Creoles in the Pacific Area", International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 71, 37-49

O'Raigain P (1988) "Bilingualism in Ireland 1973-1983 : an Overview of National Sociolinguistic Surveys", International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 70, 29-51

Trumper J (1989) "Observations on the Social Behaviour of Two Italian Regions", International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 76, 31-62

Valdman A (1988) "Diglossia and Language Conflict in Haiti", International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 71, 67-80

Appendix A : Questionnaire for the residents of Suva City, Fiji

UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE & LANGUAGE

LANGUAGES IN THE PACIFIC, 1990

Instructions:

1. We are trying to learn what languages ordinary people know and use in the South Pacific. True information about this can help communities to plan education and activities which people really want.

2. Please say what you actually think. Don't just try to please the questioner !

3. Please try to answer every question, even if the answer is "nothing" or "nil".

Thank you for your help,

Thor May, Lecturer

QUESTIONS

Have you answered this question sheet before? -> Yes/No

A. PERSONAL

1. Age (approx.):....
2. Sex :....
3. Years of Schooling :.....
4. Job:.......................
5. Nationality :.................

B. WHAT LANGUAGE WHERE ?

6. What language(s) do you use at work or school?................
7. What language do you speak at home ? ........................
8. What language do your parents speak at home ?................
9. What language do your children (if any) speak at home ?.............

C. WRITING (It is OK to say "none" for any of these questions)

10. How many letters a year do you write (guess)? ...............
11. What language(s) do you write the letters in? ...............
12. What else do you write? .....................................

D. READING (It is OK to say "none" for any of these questions)

13. What languages can you read & write in ? .................
14. How many newspapers do you read a week ? .................
15. What languages are the papers written in ? ...............
16. What magazines do you read ? (please name):...............
17. What else do you read ?...................................

E. SPEAKING

18. What can you do with these languages ? --> (tick the highest level for each)

	Nil	LEVEL 1 exchange greetings	LEVEL 2 buy goods in a shop	LEVEL 3 talk about family, friends etc.	LEVEL 4 discuss difficult ideas like, religion, politics, technology etc.
English	x	x	x	X	x
Fijian	x	x	x	X	x
Rotumans	x	x	x	x	x
Hindi	x	x	x	x	x
Urdu	x	x	x	x	x
Other Languages (please name)	x	x	x	x	x

19. How did you learn these languages ? --> (tick both columns if you wish)

	English	Fijian	Rotuman	Hindi	Urdu	Others (please name)
by talking to people	x	x	x	x	x	x
by school or study (number of years?)	x	x	x	x	x	x

20. What languages (if any) would you like to improve in ? .............................................
21. What new languages (if any) would you like to learn ?................................................

Thank you again for your help

To e-mail Thor May, please click here

*** Links *** *** Home Page *** go to Technical Stuff*** [top of page]

end