3. Social perception of Hawaiian Pidgin

It is a common perception of most people that a dialect is more inferior to a language. In another word, the social status of a language is higher, and it gains more recognition from society. What do you think HCE is? Is it a language or a dialect? It is difficult to reach a conclusion because the differentiation of a language and dialect includes a lot more factors, such as cultural and political factors, than just linguistics factor.

The fact is, although the State of Hawai'i's Department of Education has acknowledged the status of HCE as a language in its own right (Romaine 1994), it is usually regarded as a dialect by the public rather than a language because of its lack of writing system and therefore staying non-standardized (Romaine 1994). Romaine (1994) also added that, in spite of having a structure distinct from English, it is most people’s misconception that HCE is a non-standard form of English. Consequently, it receives a low social prestige.

To exemplify why a code such as HCE receives subordinate status, Lippi-Green (1997) develops a model of the language subordination process which describes a number of steps for making a language subordinate to another. It includes:

1. Authority is claimed;
2. Misinformation is generated;
3. Non-mainstream language is trivialised;
4. Conformers are held up as positive examples;
5. Explicit promises are made;
6. Threats are made; and
7. Non-conformers are vilified or marginalised  (Lippi-Green 1997, p.68).
Da Pidgin Coup (1997, p.10-11) also added concrete examples from the situation in Hawaii.

In terms of education, HCE has never been used as a medium in education (Romaine 1994). Pidgin has been regarded as bad English, improper English and broken English (Da Pidgin Coup 1999, p.6). This stems from the description of the language by the institutions in Hawaii. These terms were originally printed and approved in the curriculum material of the Hawaii Educational Review in the 1920s. One of the anonymous authors claimed that “Hawaii is the land of broken English” and “Pidgin English implies a sense of inferiority”. These negative terms and perception were adopted by the academia during the period from 1930s to 1950s as well. Media also had a role to play in consolidating these negative perceptions. According to Da Pidgin Coup, these negative terms “have exacerbated the confusion between Pidgin and literacy” (1999, p.7). This provides an explanation on the discouragement of using Pidgin in education. 

An assumption held by educators over years is that speaker under the speaking environment of both a standard and a non-standard variety/code will be fluent in only one of the variety. (Feldman, Stone, Wertsch & Strizich 1977). Applying to the situation of HCE, the idea comes to mean that the ability to master Standard English will be undermined if the speakers speak HCE often, as HCE has been referred as an non-standard variety as mentioned. The idea leads to the discrimination of the HCE in education so that better environment is provided for learning Standard English. Yet, according to a research done by Feldman, Stone, Wertsch and Strizich (1977), high school students who are competent in Hawaiian English are equally competent in Standard English, so the assumption is misleading and it is not justified to discourage the use of HCE in classrooms.

Despite the tremendous opposition of using HCE in classrooms, there have been scholars and writers who have devoted to the preservation of this language. For example, given the discouragement about the use of Pidgin from the U.S government in the 1990s, Da Pidgin Group was formed by scholars in the University of Hawaii “to question the assumptions and conclusions of the government report” and “to seek mere tolerance in regard to [Pidgin’s] use and protection from discrimination for its speakers” (Da Pidgin Coup 1999, p.3). Some education programs were developed 

aiming at creole-speaking students (Watson-Gegeo 1994), which tried to show more tolerance towards the creole-speaking in education settings. 

In terms of the workplace, HCE has also been connoted with low status and even low education level, and therefore the use of HCE is not favored in the job market (Romaine 1994).

In such a way, part of our research focused on the public perception of Pidgin. The research did not evaluate the effort of the parties in changing the perception. Rather it was to conclude rather how deeply rooted the perception was and to give more accurate picture on the public’s perception of the language. The research also tries to elicit people’s responses to the language to see if any of them still matches Lippi-Green’s model of language subordination, as a support to Da Pidgin Coup’s opinions.

References

Da Pidgin Coup (1999). Pidgin and education: A standpoint paper. 

Feldman, C. F., Stone, A., Wertsch, J. V., & Strizich, M. (1977). Standard and nonstandard dialect competencies of Hawaiian Creole English speakers. TESOL Quarterly, 41-50.

Lippi-Green, R. (1997). English with an Accent. London: Routledge.

Romaine, S. (1994). Hawai'i Creole English as a literary language. LANGUAGE IN SOCIETY, 23 (4), 527-527.

Watson-Gegeo, Karen A. (1994). Language and education in Hawai'i: Sociopolitical and eco-nomic implications of Hawai'i Creole English. In Marcyliena Morgan (ed.), Language and the social construction of identity in creole language situations, 101-20. Los Angeles: UCLA Center for Afro-American Studies.