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Martin, <br>
my apologies re lack of details concerning this US PhD thesis. <br>
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 <br>
<a href="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" eudora="autourl">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<br>
</a>or generally (but I think subscription to database needed for
searches)<br>
<a href="http://www.proquest.com/products_umi/dissertations/" eudora="autourl">http://www.proquest.com/products_umi/dissertations/</a><br>
A few US universities do not participate in this scheme and their
dissertations are unavailable by this means (including I think still
Harvard).<br><br>
Another route would be a direct approach to the author.<br><br>
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...<br><br>
Robin Hide <br><br>
At 09:58 PM 30/10/2007, mjaeschke25@aol.com wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Hi Robin,<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
Martin <br>
e-mail:
<a href="mailto:MJaeschke25@aol.com">MJaeschke25@aol.com</a><br><br>
<br>
-----Ursprüngliche Mitteilung----- <br>
Von: Robin Hide <rhide@coombs.anu.edu.au><br>
An: mihalic@anu.edu.au<br>
Verschickt: Di., 30. Okt. 2007, 11:12<br>
Thema: [Mihalic] New PhD thesis - Jana Harvey's Tok pisin and the
internet<br><br>
This looks interesting-<br>
Robin<br><br>
<b><a name="citation"></a>Tok Pisin on the Internet<br>
</b>by <i>Harvey, Jana R.</i>, Ph.D., Ball State University, 2007, 170
pages;<br>
<b><a name="summary"></a>Abstract <br>
</b>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.<br><br>
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 <i>Wantok
</i>written during 2003 and 2006.<br><br>
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>i </i>as a late system morpheme.<br><br>
Results show that on Internet message boards, the particle <i>i </i>only
marks the predicate in 33% of the locations where it would occur in
Standard TP. In <i>Wantok </i>letters to the editor, <i>i </i>occurs 95%
of the time. Internet users are more likely to be influenced by English
and have less access to Standard TP.<br><br>
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>i </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.<br><br>
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