Apart from a handful of studies (e.g., Kinney 1956), linguists know little about what variation exists in Hawaiian and what factors constrain the variation. In this paper, we present an analysis of phonetic variation in the word "keia," meaning "this," examining the social, linguistic, and probabilistic factors that constrain…

Some 40 years ago, language transmission in Hawai'i was interrupted among Hawaiians across all islands with the sole exception of language maintenance among a small community on the tiny, isolated Ni'ihau Island. Today, Hawaiian has returned as spoken and written medium with some 5000-7000 new speakers. The present paper provides an up-to-date…

This article analyzes four Hollywood films set in Hawai'i to shed light on how particular languages and language varieties "style" (Auer 2007; Coupland 2007) Local/Hawaiian and mainland U.S. characters as certain kinds of people. Through an analysis of films featuring "haole" ("white, outsider") male protagonists who…

People's attitude towards using the Pidgin language from Hawaii is described. The way in which Pidgin is changing is analyzed with the help of Pidgin linguistics students from University Hawaii.