Pidgin and creole

Pidgin and Creole in Second Language Acquisition

1. Second Language Acquisition Topic: Pidgin and Creole GCWU Sialkot Prepared By: Mahrukh Ayesha Shabbir

2. Definition and Introduction Pidgin is a mixture of two or more existing varieties, created jointly for some special purpose, and different from both varieties in term of lexicon, syntax and morphology. Pidgin drives from a Chinese pronunciation of the English word business, and all attestations from the first half of the nineteenth century given in the third edition of the oxford English dictionary mean ‘business; an action, occupation, or affair’ (the earliest being from 1807).

3. Why Pidgin is created? Trade: Pidgin is created where two (or more) communities with languages incomprehensible to each other start trade and business. Here, the need to communicate with members of other community arise, resulting in a PIDGIN- mixture of two different languages of both trading communities.

4. To be continued…. But Not all Pidgins are restricted to being used as trade languages, only. Nor all trade languages are PIDGINS.e.g . English and French are widely used as trade languages in many parts of Africa.

5. To be continued...... General Communication : Pidgin may be created specially for the purpose of communicating with some other group, and not used by any community for communication among themselves.

6. Linguistic properties of Pidgins Since Pidgin vocabulary is pretty limited, meanings are extended. So, stick is not only used for sticks, but also for trees, in Solomon Islands Pidgin. Phonology : Phoneme inventory: consonants and vowels that are phonetically easy. Syllable structure: typically CV or CVC Stress: fixed stress location

7. Linguistic properties of Pidgins Morphology : pretty, much none. No tense or aspect marking. No agreement, either Syntax : Sentences are simple and short with no embedding

8. Pidgin theories Baby talk : According to baby talk theory, the Pidgins and Creoles result from Europeans deliberately simplifying their languages in order to communicate with others.

9. Pidgin Theories Polygenesis According to polygenesis theory, pidgins and Creoles have a variety of origins; any similarities among them arise from the shared circumstances of the origins. Foe example, speakers of English have to make themselves understood for the purposes of trade and those with them, have to be understood.

10. Pidgin Theories Relexification : According to Relexification theory, in 15 th or 16 th century Portuguese relexified that language, that is, they added their own vocabulary to grammatical structure of Sabir. Evidence for this view comes from the fact that there is a considerable number of Portuguese words in the pidgins and creoles of the world.

11. Pidgin theories Monogenesis : Perhaps pidgin and Creoles all came from the same ancestor language then? This is the monogenesis view. A candidate common origin has actually been suggested. All the present European language based pidgins and creoles are derived from a single source i.e., the Mediterranean lingua franca known as Sabir.

12. Characteristics of pidgin No native speaker No language Simple structure No identification unstable

13. creole When a pidgin is acquired as a first language by a Generation of children, it becomes a creole. A creole thus, unlike a pidgin, is a natural language . A creole is often defined as a pidgin that has become the first language of a new generation of speakers . A creole is a pidgin which has expanded in structure and vocabulary to express the range of meanings and serve as a first language as when it turns out, kids impose structure on the language input they receive, ending up with a language that has prepositions, articles, tense marking, aspect , morphology, embedded sentences, etc.

14. Continued…… When a pidgin becomes nativized , the history of the resultant creoles, in essence, is similar to that of any other language. A pidgin is identifiable at any given time by both linguistic and social criteria, but a creole is identifiable only by historical criteria; that is if we know that it has arisen out of pidgin. There are no structural criteria which, in themselves, will identify a creole as such, in the absence of historical evidence.

15. Creole The term comes from the Portuguese crioulo , and originally meant a person of European descent who had been born and brought up in a colonial territory. Later, it came to be applied to other people who were native to these areas, and then to the kind of language the spoke. Creoles are typically classified based on their lexifier language, e.g., English-based, French based , etc.

16. To be Continued …… Since most creole languages developed in the colonies and are typically based on  english ,  french ,  portuguese , and  spanish , the languages of the superpowers of the time. However, there are also numerous creoles based on other languages such as  arabic ,  hindi , and  malay .

17. Characteristics of pidgin and Creole Lexis (vocabulary) Pronunciation Grammar Social functions

18. Grammatical differences between pidgin and creole Pidgins Variable from speaker to speaker Few if any inflections Simple negation: “no” Simple clause structure From pidgins to creoles Consistency across speakers Assimilation & reduction processes Expanded vocabularies Tense system Greater sentence complexity

19. Social Functional differences between pidgin and creole Pidgins: limited range of social functions As contact languages, used for minimal communication purposes Extended pidgins and creoles: wide range of social functions Oral and written literature Education Mass media Advertising Religion

20. To Be continued…. Since most creole languages developed in the colonies they are typically based on  english ,  french ,  portuguese , and  spanish , the languages of the superpowers of the time. However, there are also numerous creoles based on other languages such as  arabic ,  hindi , and  malay . The world’s creoles display many differences in their sound systems, grammar, and vocabulary. At the same time, they share some common features. There is no single accepted theory that explains why creole languages have certain similarities.

21. Features of creole vocabulary Since vocabulary is restricted, words in a creole languages usually have a greater range of meanings than in the language from which the word was borrowed, e.G. , In  tok pisin ,  stap   ‘stop’ means “be located, to remain, to continue’. Some concepts are expressed by phrases rather than by single words, e.G. , In tok pisin   skru bilong arm  means  ‘  elbow’ (literally ‘screw (joint) of the arm’),

22. features Grammar creole grammars are generally simpler than the grammars of the languages on which they were originally based. Below are some of the features of creole grammars: placement of a negative particle before the verb ; as no angry absence of copula(connecting words/verbs to describe dependence), e.g .,   mai sista skini  ‘my sister is skinny’,  yu da boss  ‘you are the boss’;

23. Decreolization Creoles tend to co-exist with their lexifier languages in the same speech community. Since they are based on these languages, at least lexically, they come to be viewed as “nonstandard” varieties of the lexifier language. As we noted a couple of weeks ago, under desires for overt prestige, some speakers start to move away from the creole to the standard lexifier language, in what is often called decreolizatoin .

24. The Post-creole continuum As a result of decreolizatoin , a range of creole Varieties exist in a continuum. The variety Closest to the standard language is called the Acrolect the one least like the standard is Called the basilect . And the one in between these two is a range of creole varieties that are called mesolects : <--------------------------------------------------> Acrolect Mesolect Basilect

25. Creole and pidgin Pidgin Creole No Native speaker Native speaker No language First language Simple structure Complex structure No identification Have identification Unstable Stable