Abstract This study investigates tone mergers in the Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong, Macao, and Zhuhai. From these three cities, 150 native Cantonese speakers were recruited, stratified by gender and age. Acoustic analyses show that Hong Kong Cantonese and Macao Cantonese are actively merging T2[25] and T5[23], T3[33] and T6[22], thus becoming similar to Zhuhai Cantonese in tonal inventory. The social motivations of the changes are attributed to contact among these Cantonese-speaking communities as well as their contact with Putonghua. Responses to a questionnaire on language use in different domains shows the spread of Putonghua in Hong Kong and Macao and seems to correlate with the advance of the tone mergers. More specifically, the spread of Putonghua in Hong Kong seems to be rolling back the effects of Cantonese standardization, as shown by the tone mergers in the youngest generation in Hong Kong.

Abstract This paper presents a qualitative case study of a Chinese Australian family’s multilingual experiences in Melbourne. Couched in the framework of family language policy, I examine language shift patterns and mother tongue attitudes and analyse reasons and consequences. The findings show that the first generation uses Mandarin for general family communication, while relegating regional Chinese to functions that are, typically, private and familial and for use with older generations. The second generation uses English the most. While their Mandarin use is enhanced through community-based schooling and can be activated depending on the communicative environment, regional Chinese does not play an active role. This nested, hierarchical ecology of language shift with two dominant language constellations causes parental confusion about the children’s mother tongue and problematises grandparent-grandchild communication with a possible decrease of family intimacy.

Abstract As part of a Chinese government project to document and protect the country’s language resources, this research examines variation in Cantonese spoken in the city of Guangzhou. Over 100 speakers were recorded and the 44 hours of natural discourse were searched for occurrences of code-switching (CS) between Cantonese and Mandarin (C-M) or English (C-E). This paper describes the differences between age-groups in terms of the distribution of different types of CS and its communicative functions. More frequent CS is observed among younger people due to increasing degrees of language contact with Mandarin and English, challenging the maintenance of Cantonese in younger generations.

Abstract This is the first variationist study of clan intermarriage and intergenerational change in Nagaland (India). The study investigates clan as a sociolinguistic variable by drawing data from the Angami (belonging to the Kuki-Chin-Naga sub-group of Tibeto-Burman languages) community of Kohima village in Nagaland. The linguistic variables examined include two alveolar fricatives and three affricates showing variable palatalization. Like many other clan-based communities (cf. Stanford, 2007, 2008, 2009), Angamis practice exogamy. Women settle down in their husband’s clans in the same village after marriage, but continue to maintain their original clanlects despite being in contact with their husband’s clanlects for many years. Exogamy practices are however weakening in Kohima, resulting in intra-clan marriages. The study examines the linguistic implications of the inter-clan and intra-clan marriages, illustrating the patterns that young learners acquire under such circumstances and the way they respond to the new changes. Labov finds evidence for an “outward orientation of the language learning faculty” (2012, 2014). The Nagaland results build on this notion but provide a new perspective: In Nagaland, children’s language learning is inwardly oriented with respect to stable variation and outwardly oriented in the case of change in progress.

This paper uses variationist methods to attack a descriptive problem: by looking at the distribution of a typologically unusual subject prefix (tem-in realis andt-in irrealis) in a set of narrative texts recorded in Nkep, the language of Hog Harbour (Vanuatu), it explores the extent to which the goals of language documentation and variationist sociolinguistics can be pursued simultaneously. It concludes that a dual focus can benefit both enterprises. We find out considerably more about the nature of subject-verb prefixes in Nkep and about the ways in which the Nkep language handles grammatical properties such as the realis/irrealis distinction. The paper also notes that studies of variation in endangered language contexts can provide a positive framework for the local community to evaluate synchronic variation and change.