Pidginisation and creolisation
Chapter 3 (pp. 73-99)
Key words
• Acrolect • Lingua Franca
• Auxiliary language • LWC
• Basilect • Mesolect
• English-lexifier creole • Minority language
• Language conflict • New Englishes
• Language election / selection • Sabir
• Lexifier
Pidginisation and creolisation
• Pidginisation
• The process that takes place when two languages come into contact and, as a result,
there is a process of simplification or hybridisation
• The result of a need to communicate between speakers of different languages that
have limited relations
• Used for a specific purpose – ex. Trading
• Simplified grammatical system and some other features
• Words from one language, syntactic order from the other
• Characteristic of colonism -16th – 17th century
• European powers took over the world and new languages lexically related to theirs appear
• Used for functional purposes
• No native speakers – used in specific contexts and situations
• Users of pidgins continue to use their native languages in their communities
Pidginisation and creolisation
• Wardhaugh
• Pidginization probably required more than 2 languages to be in contact
• If only 2 were involved, a relation of dominance
• Social and economic factors - imposition of the dominant culture
• More than two languages need for a common ground
• Pidgins often endure several geographical and sociolinguistic contexts
• Melanesian Pidgin English
• Shipboard lingua franca > plantation language > language of inter-ethnic city
communication
Pidginisation and creolisation
• Creolisation
• Takes place when the language that was originally a functional language used
for a single purpose is acquired as a mother tongue by children who are
exposed to it
• The social circumstances in which the language is now used are more complex
• Different social and communicative needs
• Grammar and phonology become more complex
• Expansion of the language all communicative functions
Pidginisation and creolisation
• Pidginisation and creolisation are absolutely different processes, but
they overlap
• Pidginisation involves simplifying of lexis, grammar and phonological features,
• Creolisation entails the expansion of linguistic features and of communicative
functions
• Becomes a native language
• Not all pidgins become a creole
Pidginisation and creolisation
• Creole languages
• Have gained status
• Millions of speakers whose native language is a creole
• Some feel it’s a sub-standard language
• Some creoles have become official languages
• Papua New Guinea
• Hawaiian Creole English (English-based)
• Haitian Creole (French-based) – over 5 million speakers
• Kiswahili
Pidginisation and creolisation
• 1950 – 1975
• Prior
• Considered of little interest
• Lack certain linguistic features (articles, copula, grammatical inflections) not essential to
convey meaning – specific purpose
• These languages stop being considered uninteresting and marginal
• Considered as languages, and gained social and political status
• Or as varieties of a language with their own history, structure, communicative function
and speech communities
Pidginisation and creolisation
• Originally pidgins worked as lingua franca
• A language used by people who speak different mother tongues and who
used a common language for a specific functional situation
• Lingua francas still occur today
• English – intercultural communication and language of business
• Esperanto – an artificial language used for international communication, no native
speakers
Some instances of pidgins
• Most pidgins and creoles are based on European languages
• English-based creoles: Caribbean areas (Antigua, Barbados, Jamaica, West
Indies), Africa (Cameroon, Kenya, St. Helena, Zimbabwe, Namibia), Asia (India,
China, Hong Kong), and the Pacific area (Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands,
Australia)
• French-based creoles: Martinique, Guadeloupe, St. Lucia and Haiti
• Spanish-based pidgins and creoles: Dominican Republic, Cuba, Puerto Rico
and the Philippines
• Portuguese-based creoles: Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao, Malaysia and
Singapore
Most widespread languages are based
on Some of the most important pidgins
• Cameroon Pidgin English
• English • Hawaiian Pidgin
• Kamtok
• French • Kenya Pidgin Swahili
• Nada Pidgin
• Spanish • New Guinea Pidgin German
• Nigerian Pidgin English
• Dutch •
•
Papuan Pidgin English
Pidgin German
• Italian •
•
Russenorsk
Sango
• German • Vietnamese Pidgin French
Some instances of pidgins
• General characteristics
• Almost complete lack of inflection in nouns, pronouns, verbs and adjectives
• Nouns are unmarked for number and gender
• Verbs lack tense markers
• No distinction for case in personal pronouns (ex. I = me, they = them)
• Syntactically, the absence of clausal structures is quite common in pidgins.
Relative clauses and other types of embedding develop in creolisation
• To avoid possible confusion, as there’s no distinction between long and short
vowels, “reduplication” is introduced
• Ship = sip; sheep = sipsip / peace = pis; urinate = pispis
• Reduplication to intensify the meaning
• Cry = cry; cry continually = crycry / talk = talk; chatter = talktalk
Some instances of creoles
• Terminology and sociolinguistics status are not always consistent
• Some creoles can be considered as pidgins – ex. Tok Pisin or Hawaiian Pidgin
English – and vice versa
• “pidgin” and “creole” are technical terms used by linguists, but not by
speakers of the languages
• There are more English-based creoles than ones based in other
languages
• 350 years of British Empire
• Expansion of Standard English and regional varities
• Two major groups
• Atlantic group – West Africa and the Caribbean (Jamaican Creole English, Creole English
of the Lesser Antilles or Eastern Caribbean varieties in Trinidad and Tobago and Guayana)
• Pacific group – Hawaiian Creole English or Tok Pisin
Some instances of creole
• Some examples of creole
• Anglo-Romani (creolization of Romani in English)
• Asmara Pidgin (Italian-based, spoken in parts of Ethiopia)
• Berbice Creole Dutch
• Chabacano or Zamboangueño (Spanish-based)
• Haitian Creole
• Hawaiian Creole English
• Jamaican Patwa
• Tok Pisin
Decreolisation
• Creoles continue to evolve, as any living language
• Decreolisation
• When a creole has a prolonged contact with a standard language in a specific
society, and that standard brings a considerable influence
• Speakers start to take the standard as a model and a continuum emerges with
the standard as a model at one end and the creole as a model at the other
• This can be seen in places such as Barbados, Cameroon, India, Nigeria and Papua New
Guinea
• Different forms of the creole become socially stratified
• The variety closer to the standard is used by the elite and educated society
• The variety closer to the creole is associated with illiterate people and lower classes
• There can be a wide range of varieties or mesolects associated with social stratification
and identities – speaker’s location and upbringing
The use of pidgins and creoles in education
• It’s uncommon using pidgins, creoles or minority dialects as a
language of instruction
• Valdman gives 2 reasons
• The continuum of variation that’s usually found between pidgin/creole and the standard
educational language represents a strong obstacle as it’s sometimes difficult to isolate a
particular norm to be used in education
• The social consideration of the pidgin/creole is in a way hindered by the fact that it’s
frequently considered as deviant from the standard and as having an inferior status in
the speech community
The use of pidgins and creoles in education
• Siegel affirms that speakers of creoles and minority dialects generally
do not do well in formal education systems
• Socio-economic factors
• The role of language
• Disadvantage because education is based on a standard variety that is not
their native language
• Ex. African American Vernacular English
The use of pidgins and creoles in education
• Some creoles are now recognized as distinct varieties with distinct
grammatical systems – social and political recognition
• Arguments against the application of non-standard varieties in the
educational system of educators and policy makers
• Instruction time should be spent on learning the standard
• Using a nonstandard variety deprives children of a chance to benefit from socio-
economic advantages
• Unchanging underclass status
• Using a nonstandard variety can cause confusion and interference complications
• Social identity is being gained in various places of the world
The use of pidgins and creoles in education
• Tanzania and the choosing of their national language
• Swahili, from the Bantu family
• Widely spoken lingua franca
• Choosing one indigenous language over hundreds means conflict, discomfort
or war
• English perceived as the colonial language – independence
• Language of the independence movement
The use of pidgins and creoles in education
• Movement that claims that speakers of a pidgin, creole or minority
dialect has a right to express their linguistic and sociocultural identity
in their own language
The use of pidgins and creoles in education
• Siegel names some obstacles
• Negative attitudes and ignorance on the part of teachers
• Mistake creole-speaking problems with cognitive problems
• Lower expectations > lower performance
• Negative attitudes and self image of the students
• Denigration of their speech and culture
• Neutralised by the legitimising of these language varieties + integrative approach
• Encouragement to use the language
• Repression of self-expression
• Need to use an unfamiliar form of language
• Difficulty to acquire literacy in a second language or dialect
• Children may feel repressed if they cannot express themselves
The use of pidgins and creoles in education
• Educational programs
• Aim of bilingualism or bidialectalism
• Acquire the standard and maintain their own
• Contribute to their self-steem and right to maintain a mother tongue
• Programs vary in the way the children’s home varieties are considered and
interact with the standard language within the classroom
• 3 programs
• Instrumental program
• Accommodation program
• Awareness program
The use of pidgins and creoles in education
• Instrumental program
• Characterized by the use of the home variety as the medium of instruction
• Method of acquisition of initial literacy and other subjects
• Standard variety introduced at a later stage
• Gradually used for other subjects
• Implemented in Mauritius (Mauritian Creole) or Papua New Guinea (Tok Pisin)
The use of pidgins and creoles in education
• Accommodation program
• Allows the use of the home variation
• Not penalised
• Not used for instruction nor as a language
• Students get familiar with the standard variety
• Home language and culture are preserved
• Study of literature or music of their communities
• Has been used with Hawaiian Creole English and Aboriginal English
The use of pidgins and creoles in education
• Awareness program
• Includes the teaching of basic sociolinguistic and sociopragmatic principles
• Comparison of different languages in the curriculum
• Study of grammatical rules and pragmatics of these varieties compared to the standard
variety
• Used for creole-speaking Caribbean immigrants in the UK and of Kriol and
Aboriginal English in Australia
Hawaiian Creole English
• [Link]
Tok Pisin
• [Link]
