3.1.2 Children’s observed language use
It is important to note that when making general language use observations our survey team was only qualified to distinguish between Tok Pisin and local languages. We were unable to differentiate between
the local languages. However, since reported language use for the area indicates that most people can only speak their own vernacular and Tok Pisin, this is the only likely distinction that needs to be made.
Also, a main concern of this survey is whether or not Tok Pisin is replacing local languages. It is therefore sufficient to distinguish between Tok Pisin and local languages, without determining which
vernacular was being used.
Eighty seven of the total language use observations involved children speaking to one another or elderly people speaking to children. There were not enough of these observations to break them down by
language, so this analysis only gives the total for all four languages, which is summarized in table 4. The table shows that the local language was used 59 percent of the time and Tok Pisin was used 41 percent
of the time. The team observed the use of the local language more often than the use of Tok Pisin.
Table 4. Languages used in different situations with children Vernacular
Tok Pisin To grandparents
1 --
From grandparents 5
1 To parents
6 3
From parents 19
15 To brothers sisters
3 1
From brothers sisters 3
2 With playmates
14 14
Totals 87 51 59
36 41 Table 5 shows these observations as percentages of the use of both the local language and Tok Pisin
by children and people speaking to children. The difference in language use between these groups is 3 percent, which is not a significant difference considering all the uncontrolled variables in our
observations. These figures seem to imply that the choice of vernacular or Tok Pisin is the same for children as for people speaking to children.
Another fact that should be taken into account is that the percentages for observed children’s use of the vernacular are 8 percent lower than the percentages for observed adults’ vernacular use see section
3.1.4. However, we are not able to make any claims about actual children’s language use from our data because we were unable to get enough observations to make accurate generalisations. The only claim we
can make is that adults’ and children’s language use is generally similar, with the vernacular being used more often than Tok Pisin.
Table 5. Comparison of languages used with and by children Vernacular
Tok Pisin Totals
Occurrences Occurrences
Spoken by children 24
57 18
43 42
Spoken to children 27
60 18
40 45
We were not able to observe children of mixed marriages closely enough to ascertain whether their language use patterns differ substantially from the average.
3.1.3 Adults’ reported language use