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Article published In:
Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages
Vol. 33:1 (2018) ► pp.1–47

Folk perception of variation in Cavite Chabacano

| University of Bremen, Germany

Cavite Chabacano, an endangered creole language spoken in Cavite City, Philippines, has dialectal variation that can be traced to the settlement patterns established by the Spanish during the colonial era. This study focuses on Cavite Chabacano speakers’ metalinguistic awareness of dialectal variation, what their attitudes are toward it, and how they believe the different dialects are influenced by the superstrate Spanish or the substrate Tagalog. Participants’ comments during a map-labeling task show where Chabacano is still believed to be spoken and reveal that they have high metalinguistic awareness of variation in the vowel system and in second person pronoun usage. The Chabacano spoken in the San Roque district is perceived to have the closest relationship to Spanish, despite having more substrate influence in the vowel system. This study demonstrates the usefulness of perceptual dialectology for endangered language documentation and for studying variation and language attitudes in small communities and creole or other multilingual settings.

Keywords: Chabacano, creoles, perceptual dialectology, folk perception, metalinguistic awareness, language attitudes, language documentation, language endangerment
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Sociohistorical background
  • 3.Previous literature
    • 3.1Metalinguistic awareness and language attitudes in creole and endangered contexts
    • 3.2Linguistic variation in Cavite Chabacano
  • 4.Methods
    • 4.1Participants
    • 4.2Elicitation methods
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Chabacano-speaking areas of Cavite City
    • 5.2Metalinguistic commentary on variation in Cavite Chabacano
      • 5.2.1Variation in the vowel system
      • 5.2.2 ‘Intonation’, punto, tono, and ‘accent’
      • 5.2.3Other phonological differences
      • 5.2.4Second person pronouns
      • 5.2.5Lexical variation
    • 5.3Social evaluations of perceived linguistic variation
  • 6.Discussion
    • 6.1Folk perception of linguistic features and observed production
    • 6.2Linguistic variation and identity in the sociohistorical context of Cavite
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 7 May 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.00001.les
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