Cours 11 : Pidgin and Creole

Question 1

Pidgin

Answer 1

like creole, it appears in a contact situation between speakers of usually more than 2 mutually unintelligible languages

pidgins have a limited social and functional repertoire (ex. trading, fishing)

pidgins have no access to native speaker models : if they had, they would need a fully functioning language
> people just want to use that language to handle very specific situations of fishing/trading, there is no need for the language to develop sth else

Question 2

Creole

Answer 2

like a pidgin, it appears in a contact situation between speakers of usually more than 2 mutually unintelligible languages

a creole is a fully fledged language, meaning that there are native speakers

Question 3

pidginisation

Answer 3

1. simplification
2. admixture (lexifier and substrate)
3. reduction

Question 4

creolisation

Answer 4

specific conditions are required, as creoles are often derived from pidgins, and it involves a high level of interspeaker variety

when the language turns into a creole from being a pidgin, there are many disagreements as to how it should evolve (the language is still not stabilised)

the main execution of creolisation is by steps of expansion, which leads to vernacularisation

Question 5

why do we need to be normative when teaching a creole to our children ?

Answer 5

because if vernacularisation takes place without early acquisition, we get an expanded pidgin = a pidgin that has no native speakers but that can be used in a variety of situations

Question 6

Bickerton’s claim on creolisation

Answer 6

the lexifier, the substrates and the general cognitive principles governing the human language have an influence on creole formation

Question 7

Nicaraguan sign language example for creolisation

Answer 7

deaf kids from different backgrounds in a boarding school

their isolation has led to the creation of a sign pidgin
> the permanent contact has led to full functional and social usafe (expansion)

different boarding schools developed different pidgins : idiolects of a pidgin

as the pidgin was used by more people, we observed an expansion phase

Question 8

decreolisation and social continuum

Answer 8

a creole starts to shift towards one of its source languages

decreolisation comes with purification (= getting rid of admixture) and complexification (= adding irregularities to the language)

Question 9

Vanuatu example : Bislama’s initial situation

Answer 9

> the national language was Bislama
the official languages were Bislama, French and English
the languages of education were French and English

for Bislama, the substrates were some of the indigenous languages, and the lexifier was the English language

Question 10

creolisation of Bislama : the language changed over the years

Answer 10

when the pidgin was first established, there was no plural

then, pronouns added a Ni-Vanuatu substrate feature with the distinction of the exclusive “we”
> they grammaticalised an indigenous aspect by using an English lexifier
> borrowing of a grammatical marker of inclusivity from an Oceanic language into a creole

today, they added dual and trial distinction in plural

Question 11

conclusion on the creolisation of Bislama

Answer 11

expansion leads to complexification

there is a contrast between inclusive and exclusive

there has been complexification with the addition of the dual and trial plurals