Pidginization Lourdes G. Osollo

1. Pidginization Lourdes G. Osollo ForL 8250 Topics in Pedagogy Dr. Peter Swanson February 3, 2009

2. Rapid structural modification of a language in certain contact situations in which it serves both as the target of broken language and the source of foreigner talk Pidgin languages represent speech forms which do not have native speakers. They are used by people who do not share the same language Pidginization

3. Preconditions for Pidgins • Rate of spread of the source language is asymmetrical with a high incidence of incipient bilingualism among one group that is subordinate in status to another group that places little or no value on knowledge of the subordinate group’s language

4. Mühlhäusler (1986) 3 Basic Distinctions amongst speech forms • Jargons: Rudimentary pidgin • Stable pidgins: Structurally quite complex, mainly when spoken as first language/nativized • Expanded Pidgins: Maybe spoken alongside the language from which it is lexically derived (Some speakers of the extended pidgin called West African Pidgin English also speak English).

5. Characteristics of Pidgins • Often seen as creoles and rated poorly • Structurally different from creoles • May have complex morphology • Are often based on the local language rather than on the colonial one • It is a simplified language (but not all simplified languages are pidgin) • Should not be understood as a `broken language’

6. Maritime/Nautical: Sailors Trade: Eskimo of the Artic Ocean used in and around the whaling ships in the 19th and early 20th century/Used between the Innuit Eskimos and the ships’ crews Interethnic: Spread religion, did political negotiations or in ceremonies involving no common language. Work force: Exist because of the contacts between colonial people and local workers in a household: Buttler and Bamboo English in India Types of Pidgins/Classified according to the social situation in which they are used

7. Multilingual workforces for western or colonial enterprises outside Europe/slavery: Hawaiian-lexifier pidgins used in the harbor and later on plantations in the 19th and early 20th century Further Functions: Songs, radio communication (to hide messages from the enemy) Types of Pidgins/Classified according to the social situation in which they are used

8. Need of contact due to: Colonization, exploitation, trade or multilingual work Development of trade jargon (limited) Jargons and pidgins do not establish vocabularies nor grammatical systems A jargon is characterized by the attrition/friction of morphological markers like verb inflections case endings In a jargon, a limited number of subjects is discussed, but both: jargon and pidgin can be expanded How does a Pidgin come into being?

9. How doesPidgincome into being? • Two groups = status level: Pigdins vary 1 language and their lexicon – contact, the lexicon will come from the two: Russenorsk • (Norwegian for "Russo-Norwegian") was a dual-source pidgin language in the Arctic combining elements of Russian and Norwegian) and Trio Ndjuka Pidgin (Sranan, Saramaccan, Ndjuka and other creoles): will skaffom is Kak ju ja drikke te, what you want to eat and drink tea

10. Types of Pidgins/Classified according to the social situation in which they are used • Morphology: Simplified/Any word order is possible • Phonology: May or not be simplified and the lexicon is reduced, but rarely mixed • Boy! Makee pay my that two piecee book (Chinese Pidgin English) • ‘Give me those two books, boy!’ • Tones are not used in pidgins

11. Types of Pidgins/Classified according to the social situation in which they are used • Japana, makana dala oe Lexicon: Limited, borrowed words from different languages (one word can have several meanings in non-pidgin languages) • “muckamuck” in Chinook jargon means: eat, drink, bite, and more • Hiamoe ma keia hale wau (Pidgin Hawaiian) • Japan, gift dollar sleep at this house • “Pay and you can sleep here”

12. Types of Pidgins/Classified according to the social situation in which they are used/Lexicon continued… • E ke Kepanī, inā hā’awi mai ‘oe ! Kālā, (Hawaiian) • Oh! the Japanese, if give either money • Ons soek kost hier, ons al gedaen wegloopen (Hottentot Pidgin Dutch) • ‘We are looking for food here, we ran’ out!

13. Pidginization • Pidgins are isolated individuals who never learn the social patterns, but work on their own form of cross-linguistic expression…. a very ingenious and original mode of expression, but pidgins are not the automatic consequence of language mixture (Lavob 1971)

14. Pidginization/Examples • 1) As Kerosin, plante ishan, wan mans, fo gaelan giv “The plantation gave us four gallons of kerosene a month” • 2) amerikan pipl mun presi go, mun preis fularaun, emikain Kam hom, aeswai gad ga maed natte kara “The american people went to the moon, fooled around there and got back somehow, that’s why God became angry” • 3) sore Kara Kech Shite Kara pulap • “When I’d caught [the turtle] I pulled [it] in”

15. Explanation • 1) Shows the influence of Japanese SOV order, it is free of Japanese lexicon • 2) Shows a predominantly Japanese lexicon with a correspondingly stronger Japanese influence (the variable is the speaker’s degree of interest in the subject matter)

16. ExtendedPidgins/Robson1975 • Called pidgins “effable”: Anything can be said! This pidgin will tend to increase and as a leveling process will tend to remove distinctive markers/influence from the first language • The communicational need is a function of population displacement. • Where the populations are stable, indigenous languages will survive and even flourish in spite of adverse pressure.

17. Pidgin-Creole World/Areas where populations have been displaced • The Caribbean, The Bight of Benin, TheIndian Ocean, Hawaii (Pidgin has been eliminated with the exception of Hawaii. Now, they are creole and creole speaking) • West Africa, The China Coast, Melanesia, The Pacific Northwest (Pidgins still exist and have either never creolized and in the case of the Cameroons and New Guinea are only beginning to creolize)

18. Eskimo Pidgin (Inuits/Artic from North Siberia to East Greenland- Danish, English, French & Russian) Haitian (6 million) Saramaccan(Surinam, South America-Mataai Tribe) Shaba Swahili (Zaire) Fa d’Ambu(West African Portuguese creole/Equatorial Guinea) Papiamento (Netherlands Antilles/Curaçao and Bonaire) Sranan (English based creole language/Surinam/ South America) Berbice Dutch (Dutch-Lexicon in Guyana) Individual Languages

19. Pidgins’ locations

20. What is the nature of language and why does it change? Schleicher 1871 “The Stammbaum Theory” Influenced by Darwinian ideas  This organic view of languages has been rejected  The span of languages existence of 7000 years does not allow for such biological view  Languages are not organisms and do not reproduce

21. Indo-European: English, German, Dutch, French,Spanish, Portuguese, Gaelic, Italian, Greek, Russian, Persian, Hindi, and Bengali Fino-Ugric: Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian, Lappish Niger-Congo: Kwa Languages, Twi, Efik, Ewe Bantu Languages Parent and Daughter Languages: French is the daughter of vulgar Latin; degrees of relationship: German and English are more closely related tan French Proto Languages: Developed due to migration Families of Languages

22. Acquisitional Mode • Chomsky claimed of our ability to learn a language with his theory of Transformational Grammar and the constraints of any given language must be accounted for any theory of language (This gave input to linguists to study the relation between language, language learning and language change)

23. Acquisitional Mode • The person does not change a language by only performing it • It is the grammar as understanding the set of rules that represent the language user’s knowledge of it. Kiparsky 1965 • Change is gradual and gradualness is the implementation of the rules in the actual speech situation • New generations create new hypothesis on how the language and the grammar work (children > adults)

24. Since the 19th century and even after Saussure’s 1916, dichotomy of synchrony and diachrony has the framework of the acquisitional approach to language, but it does not follow variability Used in the 50’s and 60’s by linguists Greenberg (1966) and Levanob (1965) Acquisition is only a precondition for change The dynamic theory opposes Saussure’s idea of synchrony/diachrony. It demands that “time” is the fundamental dimension of all analysis (Bailey 1973) Time (0) Time (i) a 0 Time ii b a 0 Time iii c b a 0……. Such wave shows and implicational stage; C implies b and b a…. Dynamic “wave” Theories

25. The Acculturation Model and Nativism/John Schuman • He labeled the Pidginization Hypothesis (1975) and more recently relabeled it as The Acculturation Model (1979) stating that SLA is very much like 1st language acquisition • AM explains SLA as universal, invariant and explicable by appealing to an innate language acquisition device

26. The Acculturation Model and Nativism/John Schuman Schuman states that: 1) Early SLA proceeds by reduction; to the terminus quo of all languages acquisitions and are dictated by a biological language acquisition device. This is what he calls ‘Pidginization’ 2) SLA involves the progressive acquisition of specific features and structures of the target language This acquisition is invariant in order, but it depends on the social contact the speakers have with the target language

27. Schuman’s Explanation of his Theory • Universalism: Fixed set of principles underlying the diversity of behavioral forms • Nativism: Implies the first one and explains that the diversity of behavioral forms is a form of the biological essence of nature • This Acculturation Model  believes that SLA goes straight and is never deflected from its course

28. Schuman’s Explanation of his Theory • The course is marked by the uniformities discerned through language typologies; going from more to less features of the markers • The learner’s rules are transformed from unrestricted hypothesis to specific and restricted refinements of those hypothesis due to the demands of the SL • The AM asks us to accept Nativism  terminous quo  acquisition is uniform and invariant in the human species

29. Nativism is philosophically unappealing  Language acquisition is not rigidly programmed Other options: 1) Nativism/Universalism: Schuman’s AM is a radically relativist postulate 2)Nonnativism/Universalism: Principles underlying behavioral forms do not lie on the genes of learners  More open to variability Goes beyond Chomsky’s structural innateness and Piaget’s constructivism Detractors of Schuman/Gilbert 1981, Meisel 1978

30. Acculturation • It is important to consider the behavior and beliefs of members of ethnic groups in any multicultural society • Acculturation has a role in shaping people’s attitudes, norms, values and actions • It is the merger of two or more cultural systems, leading to dynamic processes that include the adaptation of value systems and transformation within relationships and personality traits

31. Bibliography • Andersen, W. Roger, Editor: “Pidginization and Creolization as Language Acquisition.” University of California, Los Angeles, Newbury House Publishers, Inc. 1983 • Arends, Jacques: “Pidgins and Creoles” Johns Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1994

32. Bibliography • Chun, M. Kevin: “Acculturation: Advances in Theory, Measurement, and Applied Research.” American Psychological Association, Washington, DC 2002 • Valdman, Albert: “Pidgin and Creole Linguistics.”Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Lond, 1977