Perception and flagging of loanwords – A diachronic case-study of Māori loanwords in New Zealand English

Abstract

This paper combines a quantitative and qualitative analysis of a diachronic corpus of New Zealand newspapers built to analyse the use of Māori loanwords in New Zealand English. We report findings in relation to flagging (marking of loanwords as being foreign material in a given language) and show that it is (weakly) predicated by frequency-of-use and by semantic category of the loanword (core loans are flagged more than cultural ones), but not by listedness. Alongside this trend, we note that perceptions of writers using the words vary enormously in regard to which loans are integrated and familiar, matching neither listedness nor frequency-of-use patterns. This indicates that in NZE, loanword use remains strongly tied up with socio-political identity and language ideology, rather than rooted in linguistic factors (such as, bilingualism or filling in lexical gaps).