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Languages in contact
Socio-spatial diversity:
Language varieties
Vernacular, Standard, Lingua Franca,
Pidgin, Creole
Vernacular
Three defining characteristics:
Lack of codification and elaboration
A language learned at home
Functionally restricted
Standard
A Standard can be defined as the variety
that has undergone some linguistic
processing so that there is a set of widely
accepted rules for it (eg for spelling) and
that it can serve both official and everyday
functions of a state
Formal Standard
A formal standard applies to the written
language and to spoken situations that are
the most formal. Its rules are set by
‘authorities’ (language academies, editors,
dictionaries, etc)
Informal Standard
Applies to spoken language in everyday
use. It is determined by speakers who
make judgments as to whether a form
is acceptable or not. It is characterized
by multiple norms of acceptability, and
defined by the absence of socially
stigmatized forms.
A continuum of standardness
•V
IS
FS
How does a standard emerge?
Sometimes a standard variety develops out of
a local vernacular that has attained political,
socioeconomic or cultural superiority over
other vernaculars (English, French, Spanish)
Sometimes a standard is created artificially
with some political or social objective in mind
(Katharevusa in Greece, Nynorsk in Norway)
Countries with a colonial past may use the
variety of the previous hegemony as a
standard, alongside a standardized local code
How good is a standard?
Linguistically, standards are not any better
than vernaculars, which is proven by the fact
that any vernacular can become a standard
Socially, standards have more prestige, but
that is an artificial not a natural differentiation
Standards do have a positive impact as they
enhance cross-regional communication,
promote literacy etc.
When the prestige of a standard, however, is
influenced by racial, religious or class biases
the results can be catastrophic
Lingua Franca
Any variety that serves as the tool of
communication for people who speak
varieties which are not mutually
intelligible
Examples of lingua francas
Swahili in many African nations like
Tanzania and Zaire
Russian in the former USSR
English in several tourist destinations,
and in the scientific community
Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea
Bilingualism
Individual bilingualism
two native languages in the mind
Fishman: “ a psycholinguistic phenomenon”
Societal bilingualism
A society in which two languages are used but where relatively
few individuals are bilingual
Fishman: “a sociolinguistic phenomenon”
Stable bilingualism
persistent bilingualism in a society over several generations
Language evolution:
Language shift
Diglossia
BENEFITS OF BILINGUALISM
(California Department of Education, Language Policy and Leadership Office)
•Enhanced academic and linguistic competence in two
languages
•Development of skills in collaboration & cooperation
•Appreciation of other cultures and languages
•Cognitive advantages
•Increased job opportunities
•Expanded travel experiences
•Lower high school drop out rates
•Higher interest in attending colleges and universities
Diglossia
Ferguson’s definition (1959): the side-by-side existence of historically &
structurally related language varieties
the Low variety takes over the outdated High variety
Fishman’s reformulation (1967): a diglossic situation can occur anywhere
where two language varieties (even unrelated ones) are used in functionally
distinct ways
the Low variety loses ground to the superposed High variety
problematic as it creates an opposite situation to widespread
bilingualism
Fishman’s reformulation
+ diglossia
- diglossia
+
bilingualism
Everyone in a community
An unstable, transitional
knows both H and L, which
situation in which everyone in a
are functionally differentiated community knows both H and L,
but are shifting to H
bilingualism
Speakers of H rule over
speakers of L
A completely egalitarian speech
community , where there is no
language variation
Diglossic situation
Four examples:
Situation
Arabic
Swiss German
Haitian
Greek
'high' variety
Classic Arabic
'low' variety
Various regional
colloquial varieties
Standard German Swiss German
Standard French Haiti Creole
Katharévousa
Dhimotiki
Diglossic situation: functions of H vs. L
Situation
Sermon in church or mosque
Instructions to servants, waiters, worksmen, clerks
Personal letter
Speeches in parliament, political speeches
University lecture
Conversations with family, friends, colleagues
News broadcasts
Radio 'soap opera'
Newspaper editorial, new story, caption on picture
Caption on political cartoon
Poetry
Folk literature
H
L
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Ferguson, Charles. 1972. Diglossia. In: Pier Paolo Giglioli (ed.). Language and Social Context.
Harmondsworth: Penguin, 232-251. In: Ralph Fasold. 1985. The Sociolinguistics of Society. Oxford:
Blackwell, 35.
Example of L moving towards H & becoming national language:
LANGUAGES IN INDONESIA: 300 languages and dialects are spoken in
Indonesia, but Bahasa Indonesia is the official and most widely spoken tongue. Its
common use has helped unify the 200 million citizens since Indonesia’s independence
in 1949. Bahasa Indonesia is based on Malay, long the market language of coastal
towns, and it contains elements of Chinese, Indian, Dutch, and English. Today,
television programs, major newspapers, schools, and universities all use Bahasa
Indonesia.
Do you speak English?
Bisa bicara Bahasa
Inggris?
Language choice
code switching
changing from one language to an other
• situational switching
metaphorical switching
code-mixing
speaking in one language but using
pieces from another
style shifting
standard English vs. afro-american
vernacular
language borrowing
Example of code-switching in the
Amazon
Tariana is spoken by about 100 people in the
northwest Amazonia (Brazil). Other languages
in the area is e.g. Tucano (almost a lingua
franca), Baniwa and Arawak (the two latter
related to Tariana). The area is known for its
language group exogamy and institutionlized
multilingualism. Language choice is motivated
by power relationship and by status, and there
are strict rules for code- switching. Code-mixing
with Tucano is considered a “language
violation”; using elements of Baniwa is funny
while mixing different Tariana dialects implies
that one “cannot speak Tariana properly.
Overusing Portuguese is associated with an
Indian who is trying to be better than his peers.
Aikhenvald (2003) Language in Society 32:1-21
Sociolinguistic classification
Ferguson (1966) distinguished between five language
types based on prestige (p) and vitality (v):
Vernacular
• unstandardized native language of speech community (-p, +v)
Standard
• native language of a speech community codified in dictionaries and
grammars (+p, +v)
Classical
• language codified in dictionaries and grammars which is no longer
spoken (+p, -v)
Pidgin
• hybrid language with lexicon from one language and grammar from
another language (-p, -v)
Creole
• language acquired by children of speakers of pidgin, or subsequently
by speaker or Creole (-p, ±v)
Outcomes of Language Contact
Language Death: no native speakers
Language Shift: One language replaces
another
Language Maintenance: A relatively stable bi-/
multilingual society
Pidgin: a rudimentary system of
communication
Creole: creation of a new language based on
pidgins or languages in contact
Lingua Franca
Global Languages
Endangered Languages
Prediction: half of the approximately 6,000 languages
may become extinct within 100 years.
90 Alaskan indigenous
2 being acquired by children.
90 Australia Aboriginal
20 being used by all age groups.
175 Native American
20 being acquired by children.
Pidgins & Creoles Around
the World
PIDGINS & CREOLES
•
PIDGINS
PIDGIN
• arises in a (new) contact situation involving more than two
linguistic groups
• groups have no shared language
• groups need to communicate regularly, but for limited purposes,
such as trade
• is nobody's native language
• vocabulary (typically) from one of the Langua-ges (= Lexifier
Language)
• grammar is a kind of crosslanguage compromi-se with influence
from universals of L2 learning
• no elaborate morphological structures
pidcreo 00
Lifecycles of Pidgins
Jargon Phase: contains great individual variation
Stable Pidgin: contains both simple and complex
sentences
Expanded Pidgin: complex grammar, and has a
developed word formation component
Features of a Stable Pidgin
Lack of surface grammatical complexity
Lack of morphological complexity
Semantic transparency
Vocabulary reduction
CREOLES
Creole
• arises in a (new) contact situation involving more than two
linguistic groups
• is the native language of
a speech community
• vocabulary (typically) from one of the Languages (= Lexifier
Language)
• grammar is a kind of crosslanguage compromise with influence
from universals of L2 learning
• some creoles are nativized pidgins
1. The Slave
Trade
The forcible exile of over 12
million Africans to work the
Profile of a Slave Ship
Name of ship:
Zong
Left Sãn Tomé
6 September 1781
Slaves on board
440
White crew
17
Arrived in Jamaica
27 November 1781
Slaves deceased
60
Crew deceased
7
Slaves sick on arrival, likely to die greater than 60
Price per slave in Jamaica
20-40 pounds
Two Locations
Fort Creole: developed at fortified posts along the west African
coast, where European forces held slaves until the arrival of the
next ship.
Guinea Coast Creole English
Plantation Creole: developed on plantations in the New World
colonies under the dominance of different European languages.
Jamaican CreoleJamaica
English
Negerhollands Virgin Islands
Dutch
Haitian Creole Haiti
French
Papiamento
Netherlands Antilles Spanish
Angolar
Sãno Tomé
Portuguese
2. Trade
Naga Pidgin
Contemporary pidgin spoken by peoples in mountain
regions of north-east India.
Acts as lingua franca (29 languages)
Originated as a market language in Assam in the
19th century among the Naga people
Undergoing creolization among small groups like the
Kacharis in the town of Dimapur, and among the
children of interethnic marriages.
3.European settlement
movement of European settlers to places where
the indigenous population had not been decimated
or moved into reservations
a slave population did not form the labor force
Fanakalo
spoken in parts of South Africa
vocabulary from Zulu, and some from English &
Afrikaans)
stable pidgin, shows no signs of creolizing
4.War
Korean Bamboo English
American wars in Asia (Japan, Korea,
Vietnam, Thailand)
marginal, unstable pidgin
5.Labor Migration
within colonized countries, people from
different ethnic groups may be drawn
into a common work sphere without
being forced
Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea (Pacific
Islands)
pidcreo 00
An example of English Based Pidgins
Hawaiian Pidgin English
Hawaiian Pidgin English
The Foundations…
Hawaiian Pidgins were necessitated by the contact between American merchants
returning from China.
At Hawaiian ports, some Chinese crew members stayed behind.
The Hawaiian natives and the Chinese sailors couldn’t understand one another, thus
the creation of a trade language was necessary.
The new language was a mixture of both, and aided in the communication between
two linguistically divided people.
The language created has morphed into the unique Hawaiian Pidgin that it is today.
The Hawaiian Pidgin English is English based, but consists of 7 diverse languages.
Hawaiian Pidgin English
(see http://www.une.edu.au/langnet/hce.htm)
Today’s Usage…
Hawaiian Pidgins are spoken by
many people who live in Hawaii,
but mostly by teenagers.
Most people raised in Hawaii,
regardless of race or social class
can understand this Pidgin to an
extent.
With words from other
languages making up the Pidgin,
some believe it sounds like
improper English.
'OL KING KAM
'Ol King Kam
He one funny 'ol man
One funny 'ol man he waz
He like fo kau kau
At his bruddah's luau
An kanikapila awl night
Wit his kuz
Romance Based Pidgin
Lingua Franca…
A trade language used around the Mediterranean
The only remnants of the language are found in the
nursery rhymes of children in Jerusalem.
• used as a counting-out rhyme
Characteristics:
• Have had a limited vocabulary
• Have a sharply circumscribed grammar
• Lack verb tenses and case endings
Motu Based Pidgin
The Foundations…
Hiri Motu is a language of
Papua New Guinea.
Piginization of Motu:
Influenced by English, Tok Pisin,
and Polynesian languages.
90% lexical similarity with Motu
Word order tends to be OSV
while most pidgins are SVO
Motu Based Pidgin:
Example of Hiri Motu Text:
“Sapos yu kaikai planti pinat, bai yu kamap strong olsem
phantom. Fantom, yu pren tru bilong mi. Inap yu ken
helpim mi nau? Fantom, em i go we?”
Translation:
“If you eat plenty of peanuts, you will come up strong like
the phantom. Phantom, you are a true friend of mine.
Are you able to help me now? Where did he go?”
(famous comic strip in Papua New Guinea)
What’s the difference?
Pidgins
Is NOT a mother
tongue
Form of
communication
between two mutually
unintelligible languages
Creoles
IS a mother tongue
Larger vocabulary
Greater linguistic range,
capable of being
spoken quicker
Crucial Difference: Pidgins have no native speakers, while Creoles do!!!
PIDGINS & CREOLES
are all alike and characterized by:
• a lack of morphology ?
• a lack of 'exotic' sounds ?
• a lack of complex C-cluster ?
• SVO word order ?
• in Creoles only: particles indicating tense,
mood, and aspect (TMA) ?
pidcreo 00
PIDGINS & CREOLES
p t
ts tš k kw q qw ?
p' t' tł ts' tš' k' kw' q' qw'
b d
g
ł s š x xw X Xw
m n
(N)
r l
w
y
Chinook Jargon consonant phonemes
PIDGINS & CREOLES
Singular
Dual
Trial
mitripela
Plural
1st ex. mi
mitupela
mipela
1st in.
yumitupela yumitripela yumipela
2nd
yu
yutupela
yutripela
yupela
3rd
em
tupela
tripela
ol
Tok Pisin pronouns
PIDGINS & CREOLES
inflectional morphology ?
• Kitiiba
tense suffixes
• Tok Pisin
transitive suffix
• Hiri Motu
causative affix
• Chinese Pidgin Russian
reflexive suffix
imperfective s.
• Sranan
negative prefix
• Berbice Dutch Creole
three aspect s.
PIDGINS & CREOLES
SVO-word-order ?
• Caribeean Creoles
SVO
• Indic Ocean Creoles
SVO
• Hiri Motu
SOV OSV
SVO
• Pidgin Delaware
SOV
SVO
• Chinese Pidgin Russian
SOV
• Nagamese
SOV
• Pidgin Yimas
SOV OSV
PIDGINS & CREOLES
placement of the negative element(s)
• Papiamentu: mi no ta bini
'I nega. future come' / 'I'm not coming'
• Fr.Guiana Creole: mo pa te travaille
'I neg. tense work' / 'I hadn't worked'
• Berbice Dutch Creole: ek suk mu lasan eni ka
'I want go leave 3pl neg.' / 'I didn't want to leave them'
• Chinook Jargon: halo nika kumtux
'neg. I understand' / 'I don't understand'
• Pidgin Delaware: Matta ne kamuta
'neg. I steal' / 'I didn't steal it'
Papiamentu
What? A creole based on Spanish,
Portuguese, and Dutch, with influences from
West African and Amerindian languages
Where? The ABC islands of the Caribbean
(Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao)
Who? 329K total speakers, 20K who speak it
as a second language
Language Characteristics:
Lexicon
About 60% of the lexicon comes from Spanish and
Portuguese (noted as Ib.)
•
Ex: ‘No lubida!’ ‘Mi ta sinti bo falta’
About 25% comes from Dutch (noted as Du.)
•
Ex: ‘(Masha) danki,’ ‘Hende (Hòmber/Muhe)’
The remaining 15% comes from West African
languages, Arawakan languages, and others
•
Often in creoles, the superstratum language supplies the
lexicon, where the substratum supplies the structure (and
such lexical items as toponyms)
Language Characteristics:
Phonology
Some examples:
Emphatic nasalization of vowels before [ŋ]
Lack of word-final voiced obstruents
Use of tone to distinguish “identical” words
Allowance of CC coda clusters, complex onset
clusters
Phonemic inventory similar to that of a
typical Romance language, with obvious
Germanic influences
Ex: [n (with allophones ŋ ñ) h x e ə è o ò y ø]
Language Characteristics:
Grammar
Language Bioprogramme Hypothesis
General creole characteristics:
No case system (accusative case as a catch-all)
• ‘mi’ (from Sp. ‘mi’ or Port. ‘mim’), ‘bo’ (from Port ‘vos’): ‘mi ta
invitá bo’ (“I am inviting you”)
Lack of verb conjugation
• Mi bai, bo bai, e bai, nos bai, boso bai, nan bai
Tense, aspect, and mode specified with separate words,
rather than coded into words
• Mi ta skirbi, Mi ta skirbiendo, Mi a skirbi, Mi tabata skirbiendo,
Mi lo skirbi
Word order generally Subject-Verb-Object
History: A Brief Overview
Earliest inhabitants of the islands were the Caiquetio
Indians who had come over from northern coast of
present-day Venezuela and spoke a language of the
Arawak family
1499: Spaniards discover the islands, dub them las
islas inútiles
1527: Spain colonizes the islands
Indians either die from exposure to new diseases, are
hunted down for cannibalism under decree from the
church, or are shipped to Hispaniola as workers
However, Indians die too quickly to be effective
workers, giving rise to the need for African slaves
History: A Brief Overview
Because of the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), the
Spanish could not explore in Africa, so they had to
get slaves through the Portuguese intermediaries
The islands functioned as a way-station when ships
would stop, but were generally left sparsely
populated (except for the notable population of
Portuguese-speaking Sephardic Jews) and scantily
defended
After the founding of the West Indies Company
(1621), the Dutch were dedicated to establishing
themselves militarily and commercially in the New
World. They landed on Curaçao in 1634, and the
other two islands within two years, ending Spanish
History: A Brief Overview
With the Dutch as such a long-lasting influence over
the islands (all are still possessions of the
Netherlands), one might expect Papiamentu to have
developed into a Dutch-based creole, rather than
Iberian with a certain amount of Dutch influence.
However, the Dutch were never interested in the
linguistic aspect of domination and slavery, and
Spanish remained a lingua franca of the area. Also,
the Catholic church took pains to reach out to the
local population in their own language, Papiamentu,
helping to solidify it in the state they found it:
predominantly Iberian-based.
History: A Dispute
There continues to be a good deal of argument as to
whether Papiamentu is a Spanish-based creole with
some Portuguese influence or a Portuguese-based
creole relexified by Spanish. This argument calls into
question when Papiamentu was formed.
If it is a Portuguese creole, it would have had to have been
formed by the African slaves still in Africa or in transit to the
New World. Papiamentu does show similarites to Cape
Verdean Creole, lending support to this hypothesis. During
the entirety of the slave trade, Cape Verde saw
approximately 100,000 slaves pass through its ports.
History: A Dispute
If it is a Spanish creole, it would have had to have
been formed on the islands themselves through
direct contact with the Spaniards, of which there
was little, since they were frequently absentee
landlords. However, there was constant contact
with Spanish missionaries and Spanish-speaking
settlements on the northern coast of South
America.
Current Status of Papiamentu
As it now stands, Papiamentu is in no danger of
extinction. It is used in all domains, public and
private. It is taught in primary schools, but Spanish,
a more prestigious language, and Dutch, the official
language, are used for later education. Although
Papiamentu does not have a social stigma attached
to it, most people on the islands are multilingual for
commercial purposes. It is used in TV (including
news broadcasting), radio, newspapers, and books,
having a long literary tradition.
Orthography in use is a point of contention between
Aruba and the other two islands, as Aruba uses a
more etymological orthography, whereas Curaçao and
Bonaire use one more phonemic.
Tok Pisin
Tok Pisin
Papua New Guinea
Independence
1975
Melanesian Pidgin
Tok Pisin
Papua New Guinea
Bislama
Vanuatu
Pijin
Solomon Islands
Tok Pisin
Superstrate language:
English
Substrate language:
Austronesian and Papuan languages
Creolisation
In urban centers, the children of mixed couples
learn Tok Pisin as their first language.
Thus, Tok Pisin is changing from an ‘extended
pidgin’ to a creole language.
Tok Pisin Vocabulary
The bulk of the vocabulary comes from English
(i.e. the superstrate language).
In addition, Tok Pisin includes words from
various Austronesian and Papuan languages
(e.g. Tolai, Malay).
Finally, Tok Pisin includes some words of
German origin (e.g. gumi, beten, raus)
Tokgras
Pisin – Word Formation
=
gras/hair/fur
mausgras
=
moustache
gras bilong hed
‘grass belong head’
=
hair
gras belong fes
‘grass belong face
=
beard
gras antap long ai
‘grass on top of long eye’
=
eyebrow
Tok Pisin - Vocabulary
spak
nogut
baimbai
sekan
kilim
pisin
gras
(‘spark’)
(‘no good’)
(‘by and by’)
(‘shake hands’)
(‘kill him’)
(‘pigeon’)
(‘grass’)
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
drunk
bad
soon
to make peace
to kill /hit /beat
bird / pidgin
gras /hair /fur
Tok Pisin - Vocabulary
Tolai
lapun
kumul
palai
old
bird of paradise
lizard
Malay
binatang
lombo
sayor
insect
chilli
vegetable leaf
Tok Pisin - Vocabulary
German
gumi
beten
raus
bros
rubber
pray
get out
chest
Plural marker
nil nil
needle needle
(2) SG
yu
bik haus
-pela
‘spines’
(1)
(3)
PL
yu-pela
bik-pela haus
‘fellow’
SG
man
PL
ol man
ol
‘all’
Pronouns
em
yu
yutupela
yutripela
yupela
he / she / it
him / her / it
you
you two
you three
you all
SUBJ
OBJ
SG
DUAL
TRIAL
PL
Causative/transitive
marker
(1)
Em i rit
‘He is reading.’
Em i ritim buk
‘He’s reading a book.’
(2)
Wara i boil pinis
Meri i boilim wara pinis
‘The water has boiled.’
‘The woman has boiled
the water.’
(3)
Bai mi rait.
Bai i raitim pas.
‘I’ll write.’
‘I’ll write a letter.’
make him
boil him
>
>
makim
tellim
Word Order
(1)
mi
kukim
rais.
I
cook
rice
‘I cooked the rice.’
Complex Sentences
(1)
Mi no save. Ol I wokim dispela haus.
I don’t know (that) they work in this house.
(2)
Mi no save olsem ol i wokim dispela haus.
‘I didn’t know that they built this house.’
African American English
The origin of AAE
1.
Pidgin/creole
2.
Second language of a particular
variety of English spoken in the
South.
The African Substratum Hypothesis
Since the first slaves spoke a variety of
African languages and since they had only
little contact with their white masters, they
used a simplified version of English with
elements of their native language as a lingua
france. AAE developed from this early
pidgin/creole language.
African American English
Until the beginning
of the 20th century,
90% of all African
American lived in
the South, mainly in
rural areas.
African American English
Today, more
than 60% of
all African
Americans live
in the nonSouth, mainly
in urban
centers.
LSA resolution
The variety known as "Ebonics," "African American
Vernacular English" (AAVE), and "Vernacular Black
English" and by other names is systematic and rulegoverned like all natural speech varieties. In fact, all
human linguistic systems--spoken, signed, and
written -- are fundamentally regular. …
Characterizations of Ebonics as "slang," "mutant,"
"lazy," "defective," "ungrammatical," or "broken
English" are incorrect and demeaning.
LSA
resolution
As affirmed in the LSA Statement of Language
Rights (June l996), there are individual and group
benefits to maintaining vernacular speech varieties
and there are scientific and human advantages to
linguistic diversity. For those living in the United
States there are also benefits in acquiring Standard
English and resources should be made available to
all who aspire the mastery of Standard English. The
Oakland School Board's commitment to helping
students master Standard English is commendable.
Agreement - AAE
(1)
He need to get a book from the shelf.
She want us to pass the papers to the front.
Genitive - AAE
(1)
The dog tail was wagging.
The man hat was old.
Copula deletion - AAE
(1)
That my Ø bike.
The coffee Ø cold.
He Ø all right.
Habitual ‚be‘ - AAE
(1)
Do they be playing all day?
Yeah, the boys do be messin’ around a lot.
I see her when I be on my way to school.
The coffee be cold.
(2)
a.
b.
(3)
*The coffee be cold right now.
The coffee cold.
The coffee be cold.
Perfective ‚done‘ - AAE
(1)
She done did it.
They done used all the good ones.
They done go.
Negative inversion - AAE
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
Can’t nobody beat’em.
Don’t nobody say nothin’ to dem peoples!
Wasn’t nobody in there but em an’ him.
Ain’t no white cop gonna put his hands on
me.
Double negation - AAE
(2)
I didn’t have no lunch.
He don’t never go nowhere.
PIDGIN/CREOLE GENESIS THEORIES
Lexical items are easy to trace: one main lexifier language, with small
sets of words from one or more other languages.
• Saramaccan:
~ 50% English
~ 35% Portuguese
~ 15% Kikongo/Ewe/Fon/Twi
• Chinook Jargon: Lower Chinook language
Nootka
Salishan languages
French
English
= LL
= LL
PIDGIN/CREOLE GENESIS THEORIES
All the controversy centers on
the route(s) through which the
languages' grammars
emerged.
PIDGIN/CREOLE GENESIS THEORIES
MONOGENESIS HYPOTHESIS
In its strong form, this hypothesis states that all pidgins and Creoles
are descen-dants of the original lingua franca of the Mediterranean,
albeit with relexification - lexical replacement - for all pidgins and
Creoles that do not have Italian lexicon, i.e. almost all known modern
pidgins and Creoles.
PIDGIN/CREOLE GENESIS THEORIES
ABRUPT CREATION
• a pidgin arising in a new multilingual contact situation for use in
limited domains
• a creole arising in a new multilingual contact situation for use in
all domains.
PIDGIN/CREOLE GENESIS THEORIES
Bickerton's Language Bioprogram Hypothesis
• plantation Creoles:
• adults use a "macaronic" prepidgin
• their children, growing up with only the unstable prepidgin as
input for their langua-ge-learning task, construct a grammar derived from grammatical structures that are literally genetically
programmed in every newborn human infant's brain.
PIDGIN/CREOLE GENESIS THEORIES
Lefebvre's Relexification Hypothesis
• 'creoles are created by adults who develop a new lexicon by
combining the phonetic shapes of one language with the
semantic and syntactic information of another lang.
= 'the central process in creolization'
• compare syntactic structures of Haitian Creole, a French-lexicon
Caribbean creole, with syntactic structures of Fon, that was
spoken by a significant proportion of the slaves during the
Creole's formative period.
PIDGIN/CREOLE GENESIS THEORIES
Pidgin genesis and Creole genesis are akin to L2 acquisition and thus
to processes of
shift-induced interference
The idea is that people's 'right' guesses about what the others will
understand become part of the emerging contact language.
The structures they settle on will be those best understood by all the
other people – primarily unmarked structures, but also marked
structures that are common in most or all of the languages in
contact.
The resulting pidgin or creole grammar,
is a crosslanguage compromise among the languages of the
pidgin/creole creators.
PIDGIN/CREOLE GENESIS THEORIES
Chaudenson's
gradual creole-genesis hypothesis:
• slaves worked & lived with French speakers and therefore learned
French imperfectly.
• newly arrived slaves no longer had much contact with their Frenchspeaking masters; they therefore learned French from the first
group of slaves.
• Subsequent waves of slaves learned increasingly divergent varieties
of French, until at last the general language of the slaves was a
creole
How does a pidgin language develop
grammatical expressions?
What drives the process of
creolisation?
The Bioprogram Hypothesis
The human species comes equipped… with
the capacity to reconstitute language itself should the normal generation-to-generation
transmission of input data be inserted or
distorted by extralinguistic forces.
(Muysken & Bickerton 1988)
Grammaticalization
Source
Target: AUX
go (motion)
gonna
will (intention)
will
have (possession)
have
Grammaticalization
Source
Target: P
during (verb)
during
in front of (PP)
in front of
a-gone (PRE-verb)
ago
Grammaticalization
Source
Target: CONJ
by cause (PP)
because
DEM while SUB
while
given
given
Grammaticalization
Source
Target: PRO/ART
some body (NP)
somebody
one (numeral)
the one
one (numeral)
a
Grammaticalization
Source
Target: Bound
NOUN
-ly
NOUN
-hood
did
-ed
Grammaticalization
Grammaticalization is cross-linguistically
so pervasive that some linguists suggested
that all grammatical expressions are
eventually derived from a lexical source.
Grammaticalization
Grammaticalization is of central signifiance for
the theory of language:
Challenges rigid division between lexicon and
grammar.
Challenges the assumption that grammatical
categories have clear-cut boundaries.
Suggests that grammar is dynamic and
emergent.
pidcreo 00
pidcreo 00
Bibliography
1. Aitchinson, Jean. Language Change: Progress or Decay?. UK: Cambridge
University Press, 2001.
2. Romaine, Suzanne. Pidgin & Creole Languages. NY: Longman , INC.,
1988.
3. Singh, Ishtla. Pidgins and Creoles: An Introduction. NY: Oxford
University Press Inc., 2000.
4. En.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian_Pidgin
5. www.ethnologue.com
6. www.msu.edu/~colem104/paper1.htm