[Mihalic] New PhD thesis - Jana Harvey's Tok pisin and the internet

[Robin Hide]

Martin,
my apologies re lack of details concerning this US PhD thesis.
As I expect you know, US PhD theses are not "published"  in the same way as 
German ones usually are. However, copies of most can be purchased in a 
variety of formats (hard copy photocopy, pdf files etc) from Proquest 
Dissertations (for details of this thesis, see
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=0&did=1372009091&SrchMode=1&sid=1&Fmt=2&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1193734989&clientId=20870
or generally (but I think subscription to database needed for searches)
  http://www.proquest.com/products_umi/dissertations/
A few US universities do not participate in this scheme and their 
dissertations are unavailable by this means (including I think still Harvard).

Another route would be a direct approach to the author.

Incidentally, across the Atlantic copies of many UK theses are obtainable 
by libraries requesting a copy from the British Library which then 
organises a copy from the originating University Library (rather than a 
direct copy request to the originating university library or department). 
I'm not sure if this works for all UK universities. In Australia, different 
universities have different systems...

Robin Hide

At 09:58 PM 30/10/2007, mjaeschke25 at aol.com wrote:
>Hi Robin,
>
>This is Martin Jaeschke from Germany writing to suggest that for those of 
>us who are interested in the promotion and usage of TP it would be 
>appreciated to know where this dissertation has been published and how one 
>can purchase it. It has been one of my personal concerns as to the future 
>of this lingua franca and I would like to find out if anyone out there has 
>any updated information as to what is going on, apart from the revision of 
>the Mihalic dictionary. So I would appreciate any comments and infos. Thanks.
>
>Martin
>e-mail: <mailto:MJaeschke25 at aol.com>MJaeschke25 at aol.com
>
>
>-----Ursprüngliche Mitteilung-----
>Von: Robin Hide <rhide at coombs.anu.edu.au>
>An: mihalic at anu.edu.au
>Verschickt: Di., 30. Okt. 2007, 11:12
>Thema: [Mihalic] New PhD thesis - Jana Harvey's Tok pisin and the internet
>
>This looks interesting-
>Robin
>
>Tok Pisin on the Internet
>by Harvey, Jana R., Ph.D., Ball State University, 2007, 170 pages;
>Abstract
>Internet message boards are a medium by which educated Papua New Guineans 
>who are living outside of Papua New Guinea (PNG) maintain ties to one 
>another and to their home country. One of the languages that they use on 
>these message boards is Tok Pisin (TP), an English-based creole spoken in 
>PNG that has changed rapidly in the approximately 120 years since its 
>creation as a pidgin.
>
>Romaine (1992) suggests that decreolization by means of new changes toward 
>English is occurring in the TP language. Smith (2002) disagrees and claims 
>that there is no evidence for decreolization. This study shows that there 
>is evidence in favor of decreolization, in particular a Matrix Language 
>(ML) turnover (Myers-Scotton 2002), in the TP used on seven Internet 
>message boards. This conclusion is also derived through the study of 139 
>letters to the editor in the TP weekly newspaper Wantok written during 
>2003 and 2006.
>
>In looking for English 'late system morphemes,' whose existence in 
>bilingual complementizer phrases that have TP as the ML would indicate the 
>beginning of a ML turnover (Myers-Scotton 2002), this study counts 
>deletion of the TP particle i as a late system morpheme.
>
>Results show that on Internet message boards, the particle i only marks 
>the predicate in 33% of the locations where it would occur in Standard TP. 
>In Wantok letters to the editor, i occurs 95% of the time. Internet users 
>are more likely to be influenced by English and have less access to 
>Standard TP.
>
>Although TP is still valued by highly educated Papua New Guineans in the 
>English domain of the Internet to discuss personal topics and show 
>solidarity with one another, it is not their first choice of language, and 
>the loss of the particle i shows evidence for a ML turnover having begun 
>in the language. One conclusion that may be drawn from this study is that 
>planning for the future of TP by the leaders of PNG is essential to 
>maintain TP as a community language.
>
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