First generation

A first observation worth making about the use of postvocalic /r/ by the first generation is that for this group of speakers, the dichotomy between rhotic and non-rhotic accents, which has been shown to be a crucial criterion in the classification of English varieties around the world (McMahon et al. 2007; Maguire et al. 2010; Schneider 2005, reported in Schneider 2007), does not hold. The categorisation of a speaker or group of speakers as rhotic or non-rhotic partly depends, of course, on the definition applied. For example, Sharbawi &

Deterding (2010) considered their participants to be rhotic when they exhibited /r/-colouring in four or more tokens out of seven. In the present case, I adopt the position that with an average rhoticity level of 19.3% (and considerable variation across individual speakers; cf. section 6.2), the first-generation East African Indian participants of this study can be regarded as variably rhotic.

143 Although a rhoticity level of around 20% is comparably low, it sets the variety of English spoken by the first generation clearly apart from East African English and East Midlands English, which are both reported to be non-rhotic (on patterns of postvocalic /r/ in the three input varieties, see section 4.1.3). Parallels to the use of /r/-full variants by this group of speakers therefore have to be sought in Indian English, which, according to both qualitative and quantitative studies, is also variably rhotic (cf. section 4.1.3.1). Frequencies clearly have to be compared with caution across different studies, since they depend on many factors, including methodological choices (Tagliamonte 2006: 241). Nevertheless, one may note that the overall percentage of rhotic tokens produced by first-generation migrants is very similar to the casual speech score of 20.5% reported by Sahgal &

Agnihotri (1988) for Delhi Indian English speakers who attended prestigious English-medium schools (whereas the other two groups included in the study, the average and vernacular-school informants, exhibited markedly higher rhoticity levels of 37.45% and 78.07%, respectively). Using a different method of data collection (word lists and other reading materials), Wiltshire & Harnsberger (2006) likewise found their Tamil and Gujarati English speakers to display a relatively low use of rhotic variants. The average frequency reported for the latter (17%) is particularly relevant to the present study, considering the preponderance of speakers from a Gujarati background among the participants.

Considerably higher frequencies of rhotic variants are, however, attested for other groups of Indian English speakers. This includes, for instance, the rhoticity levels reported by Wiltshire (2005) for Tibeto-Burman L1 speakers, which ranged from 83% to 91%. Among Chand’s (2010) New Delhi informants, percentage scores varied somewhat across the three generations (in informal style: 66% for students, 56% for workers, and 68% for retired speakers), but even the least rhotic group, the worker generation, was still much more /r/-full than the first-generation participants of the present study.

It is difficult to assess whether these differences in rhoticity levels are due to different methodological choices (note, however, that Wiltshire 2005 and Wiltshire &

Harnsberger 2006 used the same method of data collection), or whether they may represent actual differences in the use of postvocalic /r/ across different types of Indian English speakers. If the latter were the case, a multiplicity of factors could be at work, none of which seems to account for all the differences on its own. On the one hand, in Indian English generally, lower rhoticity levels appear to be associated with higher education

144 levels and socioeconomic status. Recall that Bansal (1990) and Pingali (2009) consider the non-rhotic variety of Indian English to enjoy prestige in India, and that both Sahgal &

Agnihotri (1988) and Chand (2010) identify null realisations as the Indian English prestige form. In Sahgal & Agnihotri (1988), the least rhotic group is the one who attended the most prestigious schools, and East African Indians’ comparably high socioeconomic status may therefore likewise explain, at least in part, their tendency towards /r/-lessness.² On the other hand, the differences in rhoticity levels could also be related to regional-linguistic background and mother tongue influence, with speakers of Tibeto-Burman languages and those from the Hindi Belt (i.e. Hindi speakers from the Punjab and UP/Haryana, prevalent in Chand 2010) favouring rhotic variants more than Gujarati speakers (predominant in this study). Finally, the differences could also be due to contact with non-rhotic East African English or increased accommodation to non-rhotic East Midlands English on the part of first-generation East African Indians in Leicester, or to a combination of all these factors.

A comparison across diasporic settings reveals that the variable use of postvocalic /r/ by first-generation East African Indians resembles that of first-generation Indian migrants in the San Francisco Bay area, who also vary between /r/-full and /r/-less realisations of coda /r/ (Sharma 2005a).³ At the same time, though, it strikingly contrasts with the non-rhoticity characteristic of the arguably most obvious candidate for comparison, namely South African Indian English (Mesthrie 1992). It seems likely that this difference is at least in part related to the distinct sociolinguistic histories of the two varieties, that is, to the fact that the dialect spoken by first-generation East African Indians remained a second-language variety, whereas South African Indian English underwent a shift from L2 to L1 (Mesthrie 1992, 2004b; see section 2.2).

While East African Indians’ use of postvocalic /r/ in prepausal and preconsonantal position can be fruitfully compared to its occurrence in Indian English, East African English and East Midlands English, such a comparison is more difficult for linking /r/ and intrusive /r/. It is beyond doubt that, with an average frequency of 70.3%, first-generation participants show a strong tendency to pronounce word-final etymological /r/ when followed by a vowel. Overt phonetic realisations of /r/ in this position are, however, not

2 Note, though, that Chand’s (2010) informants also came from an upper middle class background.

3 A direct comparison of rhoticity levels across the two studies is unfortunately not possible because, as mentioned in section 5.2.2, Sharma (2005a) conflated (Indian English) trills and zero realisations in order to contrast them with (American English) approximants, whereas this thesis examines the use of rhotic vs. non-rhotic variants.

145 only expected in a (variably) rhotic English dialect but also very widespread in non-rhotic native varieties (see section 4.1.2). Their high frequency among first-generation East African Indians therefore does not really help to shed light on the relative influence of East Midlands English and Indian English on the migrants’ speech. The case is even less clear for the third input variety. While linking /r/ has been claimed to be uncommon in non-rhotic L2 varieties, no information about the occurrence of this phenomenon in East African English seems to be available (cf. section 4.1.3.2).

With regard to intrusive /r/, one has to bear in mind that, since no quantitative analysis of this phenomenon was undertaken, its non-occurrence among first-generation speakers (as opposed to the second generation) may simply be due to a lack of appropriate contexts in which overt phonetic realisations of unetymological word-final /r/ may surface.

It would not be surprising, however, to find that intrusive /r/ is altogether absent from the speech of first-generation East African Indians, since the phenomenon is generally claimed to be characteristic of non-rhotic accents only (see e.g. Trudgill 1999; Hughes et al. 2005;

but cf. Hay & Sudbury 2005; Barras 2010 for two notable exceptions). No more than a few tentative suggestions can be made about these phenomena in the present study, but patterns of occurrence of linking /r/ and intrusive /r/ present an interesting (and insufficiently explored) avenue for further research, both within this community and in the three input varieties.

More insight into possible parallels between the speech of first-generation East African Indians and the input varieties may be gained by examining the phonetic realisation of rhotic tokens. As discussed in section 4.1.3, taps, trills and approximants are all attested in three input varieties, either in prevocalic or non-prevocalic position. Both Indian English and East African English display alternation between these variants, including varieties of Indian English in the diaspora such as South African Indian English (Mesthrie 2004b) and the dialects spoken by first-generation Indian migrants in the San Francisco Bay area (Sharma 2005a), first-generation Bengali migrants in London (McCarthy et al. 2011), as well as some second-generation Punjabi-English bilinguals in London (Hirson & Sohail 2007; see below). On the other hand, approximants are the predominant realisation in English dialects of England.

The overwhelming preference for taps and trills exhibited by first-generation East African Indians (96.2% if word-final prevocalic contexts are excluded and 93.9% if they

146 are included) therefore clearly does not follow English English patterns. If one considers variation within Indian English, especially as relating to regional-linguistic background, a striking parallel emerges. Recall from section 4.1.3.1.2 that while some Indian English subjects were reported to produce approximant variants of /r/ most frequently (e.g. Tibeto-Burman speakers of Indian English, Tamil English speakers, and Delhi Indian English speakers; Wiltshire 2005; Wiltshire & Harnsberger 2006; Chand 2010), Gujarati English speakers were found to use taps most often, followed by trilled and approximant realisations (Wiltshire & Harnsberger 2006). Considering that the first-generation participants of the present study are predominantly from Gujarati backgrounds, it therefore seems plausible to conclude that, like their variable rhoticity, their strong tendency towards taps and trills points to affiliation with Indian English patterns. Once again, influence from East African English cannot be ruled out, though, and it is possible that it may have had a reinforcing effect on this group’s use of taps and trills.