Tiwi today : a study of language change in a contact situation
Creators: name: Lee, Jennifer R
Publisher: name: The Australian National University
Year: 1983
Subjects: subject: Languages in contact Australia Melville Island (N.T.)
subject: Tiwi language (Australia)

description: This thesis is a study of the changes which have taken place in the Tiwi language of Bathurst and Melville Islands. These changes, apparent in the speech of young people and children, are due mainly to language and/or culture contact. Chapter 1 gives an overview of the general historical background and the present situation , with particular reference to the school system. This is followed by a discussion of the present language situation in terms of the verbal repertoire of the Tiwi speech community. The characteristics of the "languages" used are briefly dis­cussed. In Chapters 2 to 6, two varieties of Tiwi are compared and the changes considered. These varieties are: Traditional Tiwi (TT), spoken by older people, and Modern Tiwi (MT) , spoken by young people . Where relevant mention is also made of two sub-varieties: Less Traditional Tiwi, an "imperfectly learned " TT, and Children's Tiwi (CT), a developmental stage of MT. Chapter 2 gives a brief description of TT Phonology, the changes found in MT, the influence of English on MT phonology and a description of the overall MT phonology. Chapter 3 gives a description of the word classes of TT and MT and the changes within these classes. In Chapter 4 the changes in the verbal constructions are considered, comparing, in turn, the inflected verb in TT and MT (showing the loss of complexity) and the verbal complex (consisting of a free form verb and an inflected auxiliary which may be omitted in MT). It is the almost exclusive use of this latter type of construction, often with an English loan verb as the free form verb, which is the main defining characteristic of MT. Chapter 5 looks at the structures of phrases in both TT and MT. IV Chapter 6 is a description of the clauses and simple sentences giving a comparison of the different clause types and the clause constituents. In particular , the ways in which the nominal arguments of the verb are indi­cated in MT and TT are compared (i.e. the different syntactical devices used). These constitute the basic change in the structure of the language. In this chapter there is also a brief look at more complex sentences with subordinate clauses in the three varieties. Chapter 7 gives a summary of the changes and their interrelationship. In Chapter 8 language contact phenomena in general are considered and the different types found in the wider Australian scene briefly discussed. The Tiwi contact situation is considered and how the different language contact phenomena apply to it: with particular reference to bilingualism, language "death", pidginization and creolization. Because of the drastic changes in Tiwi, particularly in the verbal morphology (compared to changes found in a language which is simply being replaced by another) , it is believed that MT is not just an imperfectly learned version of the traditional language but is a new code, "creolized" Tiwi. Whether this new code lives or dies is still an open question.