The Linguistic Relationships of Spoken and Written Nukulaelae Registers

This study is an investigation of the structural relationships between spoken and written Nukulaelae Tuvaluan, a Polynesian language spoken in a restrictedly literate society in the Central Pacific. The results of a factor analysis of the frequency of co-occurrence of 42 linguistic features across a computerized corpus of naturalistic spoken and written texts show that three dimensions must be identified to account for variation between Nukulaelae registers: attitudinal vs. authoritative discourse; informational vs. interactional focus; and rhetorical manipulation vs. structural complexity. Contrary to claims advanced for English and tacitly for speaking and writing in general, spoken Tuvaluan is not necessarily more involved, less complex, and more context-dependent than written Tuvaluan. These characteristics are a function of the communicative norms at play in each register. The structural relationships of spoken and written language must be explained in terms of the social context of orality and literacy in different literacy traditions, rather than the cognitive demands of language production and comprehension in the spoken and written modes.