Abstract

One way in which non-Māori New Zealanders express their New Zealand identity is through the use of Māori words and phrases. Growth in the Māori word component of the New Zealand English lexicon is expected to come from the social cultural domain. This paper reports on an ongoing research project that aims to track this expected development. A 50-item questionnaire that was first administered to senior secondary students in the greater Wellington area in 2002 was used with a similar population in 2007, and the results, analysed. To a considerable extent the results from the second implementation supported the earlier findings, in terms of both the estimated size of an average New Zealand English speaker’s Māori word vocabulary other than proper nouns (70 – 80 words) and the differences between male and female and Māori and non-Māori respondents in their familiarity with these words. It appears however, that these differences may be becoming less marked. The 2007 survey also provided further support for the claim that social cultural borrowings will be the principal source of growth for New Zealand English’s Māori word dimension.

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