Are New Zealanders “rhotic”?

2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-304
Author(s):  
Sharon Marsden

Abstract Rhoticity is highly variable across English varieties. Traditionally, descriptions of English have distinguished between “rhotic” and “non-rhotic” varieties. However, Harris’s (2013) recent description of three core rhotic systems (R1, R2 and R3) demonstrates that this dichotomy is overly simplistic. The literature describes New Zealand English (NZE) as “non-rhotic”, with partial rhoticity in the lower South Island. This paper reports on data collected in two semi-rural towns in the North Island where young New Zealanders employ a “mixed” distribution of rhoticity. Alongside /r/ use which is traditionally associated with “non-rhotic” varieties (Harris’s R2 and R3), speakers also exhibit /r/ use which is associated with “rhotic” varieties (Harris’s R1). The findings suggest that dynamic rhoticity in NZE, which also persists historically in Englishes world-wide, can be represented more effectively by dispensing with the notions “rhotic” and “non-rhotic”, and by treating rhoticity as a continuum of /r/ use.

Author(s):  
R.J. Lancaster
Keyword(s):  

IN 1958, there was available commercially in Britain and Australia a vacuum silage kit which was expensive and useless. It had one redeeming feature, however. It inspired Jean Doutr-e to work on the vacuum idea, and, in collaboration with George Jowsey, to develop the technique which has captured world-wide interest. It is' relatively inexpensive for this approach to silage making and is practical. It has the great merit that it can be built into the existing New Zealand silage-making procedures without any modifications to those procedures.


Author(s):  
Peter Hoar

Kia ora and welcome to the second issue of BackStory. The members of the Backstory Editorial Team were gratified by the encouraging response to the first issue of the journal. We hope that our currentreaders enjoy our new issue and that it will bring others to share our interest in and enjoyment of the surprisingly varied backstories of New Zealand’s art, media, and design history. This issue takes in a wide variety of topics. Imogen Van Pierce explores the controversy around the Hundertwasser Art Centre and Wairau Māori Art Gallery to be developed in Whangarei. This project has generated debate about the role of the arts and civic architecture at both the local and national levels. This is about how much New Zealanders are prepared to invest in the arts. The value of the artist in New Zealand is also examined by Mark Stocker in his article about the sculptor Margaret Butler and the local reception of her work during the late 1930s. The cultural cringe has a long genealogy. New Zealand has been photographed since the 1840s. Alan Cocker analyses the many roles that photography played in the development of local tourism during the nineteenth century. These images challenged notions of the ‘real’ and the ‘artificial’ and how new technologies mediated the world of lived experience. Recorded sound was another such technology that changed how humans experienced the world. The rise of recorded sound from the 1890s affected lives in many ways and Lewis Tennant’s contribution captures a significant tipping point in this medium’s history in New Zealand as the transition from analogue to digital sound transformed social, commercial and acoustic worlds. The New Zealand Woman’s Weekly celebrates its 85th anniversary this year but when it was launched in 1932 it seemed tohave very little chance of success. Its rival, the Mirror, had dominated the local market since its launch in 1922. Gavin Ellis investigates the Depression-era context of the Woman’s Weekly and how its founders identified a gap in the market that the Mirror was failing to fill. The work of the photographer Marti Friedlander (1908-2016) is familiar to most New Zealanders. Friedlander’s 50 year career and huge range of subjects defy easy summary. She captured New Zealanders, their lives, and their surroundings across all social and cultural borders. In the journal’s profile commentary Linda Yang celebrates Freidlander’s remarkable life and work. Linda also discusses some recent images by Friedlander and connects these with themes present in the photographer’s work from the 1960s and 1970s. The Backstory editors hope that our readers enjoy this stimulating and varied collection of work that illuminate some not so well known aspects of New Zealand’s art, media, and design history. There are many such stories yet to be told and we look forward to bringing them to you.


2018 ◽  
Vol 154 (3) ◽  
pp. 179-196
Author(s):  
Michael Darby

Some 2,000 Ptiliidae collected in the North and South Islands of New Zealand in 1983/1984 by Peter Hammond of the Natural History Museum, London, are determined to 34 species, four of which are new to the country. As there are very few previous records, most from the Auckland district of North Island, the Hammond collection provides much new distributional data. The three new species: Nellosana insperatus sp. n., Notoptenidium flavum sp. n., and Notoptenidium johnsoni sp. n., are described and figured; the genus Ptiliodes is moved from Acrotrichinae to Ptiliinae, and Ptenidium formicetorum Kraatz recorded as a new introduction. Information is provided to aid separation of the new species from those previously recorded.


Diversity ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 170
Author(s):  
Gladys N. Benitez ◽  
Glenn D. Aguilar ◽  
Dan Blanchon

The spatial distribution of corticolous lichens on the iconic New Zealand pōhutukawa (Metrosideros excelsa) tree was investigated from a survey of urban parks and forests across the city of Auckland in the North Island of New Zealand. Lichens were identified from ten randomly selected trees at 20 sampling sites, with 10 sites classified as coastal and another 10 as inland sites. Lichen data were correlated with distance from sea, distance from major roads, distance from native forests, mean tree DBH (diameter at breast height) and the seven-year average of measured NO2 over the area. A total of 33 lichen species were found with coastal sites harboring significantly higher average lichen species per tree as well as higher site species richness. We found mild hotspots in two sites for average lichen species per tree and another two separate sites for species richness, with all hotspots at the coast. A positive correlation between lichen species richness and DBH was found. Sites in coastal locations were more similar to each other in terms of lichen community composition than they were to adjacent inland sites and some species were only found at coastal sites. The average number of lichen species per tree was negatively correlated with distance from the coast, suggesting that the characteristic lichen flora found on pōhutukawa may be reliant on coastal microclimates. There were no correlations with distance from major roads, and a slight positive correlation between NO2 levels and average lichen species per tree.


Author(s):  
Liana MacDonald ◽  
Adreanne Ormond

Racism in the Aotearoa New Zealand media is the subject of scholarly debate that examines how Māori (Indigenous Peoples of New Zealand) are broadcast in a negative and demeaning light. Literature demonstrates evolving understandings of how the industry places Pākehā (New Zealanders primarily of European descent) interests at the heart of broadcasting. We offer new insights by arguing that the media industry propagates a racial discourse of silencing that sustains widespread ignorance of the ways that Pākehā sensibilities mediate society. We draw attention to a silencing discourse through one televised story in 2018. On-screen interactions reproduce and safeguard a harmonious narrative of settler–Indigenous relations that support ignorance and denial of the structuring force of colonisation, and the Television Code of Broadcasting Practice upholds colour-blind perceptions of discrimination and injustice through liberal rhetoric. These processes ensure that the media industry is complicit in racism and the ongoing oppression of Indigenous peoples.


1998 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Gordon

New Zealand English has evolved in the past 150 years, at a time when it is possible to find both written and spoken evidence of its development. This paper takes evidence gained from an analysis of written comments on early New Zealand English and compares this with data taken from an analysis of spoken New Zealand English obtained from recordings collected in the 1940s of old New Zealanders born in the 1850s-1890s — the period when the New Zealand accent was developing. By putting the written data beside the spoken data it is now possible to assess the accuracy of written records as a basis for the reconstruction of the earliest form of New Zealand English.


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