PERSONALITY CORRELATES OF PIDGIN ENGLISH USAGE AMONG JAPANESE-AMERICAN COLLEGE STUDENTS IN HAWAII

Hawaii has developed its own characteristic speech, Island Dialect, or Pidgin English. The present study investigated the personality characteristics of college-level Japanese Americans in Hawaii referred to remedial speech courses because of severe Pidgin English usage. 79 Island-born Japanese Americans in remedial speech were compared with 60 Caucasian Americans and with 75 Island-born third-generation (sansei) Japanese-American “controls” on the Cattell 16 P. F. Questionnaire. Both first- and second-order factors in the personality sphere differentiated the groups and findings were discussed in terms of the operation of physiological, educational and socio-cultural variables.