2. Methods of the Study

In the current research, we recruited 49 people from all walks of life in different locations, namely, students on the campus of the University of Hawaii (hereinafter UH), shopkeepers in shopping malls, and members of staff from different facilities of UH.  In terms of the sex of the participants, there were 21 males and 28 females. The age of the participants was not required in the questionnaire but different age groups were included in order to represent a more reliable and comprehensive picture. Participants were recruited from different locations to enhance fairness and credibility of the study by making an effort in encompassing people with different demographical backgrounds. The venues of the experiment were also chosen deliberately to facilitate one-on-one follow-up interviews. For these reasons, most of the tests and interviews were conducted in the canteens and the library on campus and shops with fewer customers.

            

Among the 49 participants of the test, 15 of them claimed that they were local Hawaiians, meaning that they were born and raised in Hawaii, while the rest considered themselves as non-local Hawaiians. When asked generally whether they could speak Hawaiian Creole English (HCE), 27 out of 49 participants, which were slightly more than half of the test subjects, admitted that they are HCE speakers. The following table shows the four possible language-identity combinations.

	Local Hawaiian	Non-local Hawaiian
HCE speaker	14	13
Non HCE speaker	1	21

Before giving out questionnaires, participants were asked a simple question "Do you know what Hawaiian Pidgin is?” so that we could confirm they are suitable for the test. Instead of using the term Hawaiian Creole English or HCE, we chose Pidgin as it is the layman’s term that are better known among the public) is.

The questionnaire consisted of two sets of questions. One is for HCE speakers while the other one is for non-HCE speakers. Instructions were given to guide the participants through the whole process. For the participants who were HCE speakers, they were asked to rate their proficiency in HCE on a five-point scale ranging from 1 as “beginner” to 5 as “native”. They were also required to indicate their frequency of speaking HCE in general again on a five-point scale where 1 and 5 represented “rarely” and “always” respectively. After that, the questionnaire takers would have to further distinguish their use of HCE in five social occasions on a six-point scale from 0 being “never” to 5 being “always/very much”. The selected situations include 1) Work/study, 2) Wedding, 3) Family gathering, 4) Classroom, and 5) Chat with friends. This part of the questionnaire was to check if there was any felicity effect and habitual usage of HCE. The final section of this set of questionnaire comprised 11 statements revolving the issues of HCE. Participants were to show their responses towards these statements on a five-point scale with 1 being “strongly disagree” to 5 being “strongly agree”. This was to find out their perceptions towards HCE and their attitudes towards the education of HCE and the use of HCE in the media and other social contexts.

An alternative set of questionnaire was designed for the non-HCE speakers. This set is relatively simple in which the questionnaire takers were only required to reflect their attitudes towards nine statements on HCE. Again, this was to find out the perceptions of the non-HCE speakers towards HCE and their attitudes towards the education and the use of HCE in the media and other social contexts. They were also expected to answer on the same five-point scale that was used in first set of the questionnaire.

After filling in the questionnaire, the subjects were asked a few follow- up questions on how they felt about HCE. The questions and content were based on the answers they had just filled in and some general questions on how they perceived and thought about HCE as a language. The interviews were not formal. Instead, they were in a casual manner, as if they were a conversation. The purpose of such follow-up interviews was to gather more information that the questionnaire may have not been able to collect. We jotted down some of the points the subjects said. However, due to technical problems, some interviews were not recorded and some were recorded partially only.