In this paper I am going to talk about pidgins and creoles from the point of view of language acquisition.

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UNIVERSIDAD DE BELGRANO

FACULTAD DE LENGUAS Y ESTUDIOS EXTRANJEROS

TRADUCTORADO PÚBLICO, LITERARIO Y CIENT. TEC. DE INGLÉS

PROF. ALEJANDRO PARINI

“PIDGINS, CREOLES AND THE CRITICAL PERIOD HYPOTHESIS”

SAMANTHA VÁSQUEZ

7517


INTRODUCTION

In this paper I am going to talk about pidgins and creoles from the point of view of language acquisition. Creolistics (short form for pidgin and creole linguistics) have provided some revealing and controversial insights into language evolution, acquisition and use; though disagreements exist over what languages or varieties can be labelled as 'creole' or as 'pidgin', and debate continues over the nature of creolization, the 'life cycle' of pidgins and creoles and the origin of grammatical structures in creoles which are absent in any preceding pidgin.

PIDGIN LANGUAGES

A pidgin language is a language which is based on another language or to be precise on several other languages. A pidgin language develops among people and becomes a means of communication among people who speak different native languages, but in contrast to normal natural languages a pidgin language shows a very poor grammar and a sharply curtailed vocabulary. The major ingredients of a pidgin language come from the native languages of the pidgin speakers. The language with the strongest influence on the pidgin is called the superstrate language and all other contributing languages are called the substrate languages. The vocabulary is mainly drawn from the superstrate language whereas the grammar is a compound product of all involved languages.

Slavery and colonization were a major force for the formation of pidgin languages. For example the slaves taken to America did not necessarily speak the same language but had to communicate with each other. To accomplish this, they invented a pidgin language with English as superstrate language. What is typical for pidgin languages is that their use is highly variable and due to the small vocabulary many concepts are expressed in whole sentences.

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By its definition a pidgin language is native to none of its speakers.

CREOLE LANGUAGES

When a pidgin is used in a community and the next generation learns this pidgin as a native language a process called creolization begins. This occurs among the children that receive the pidgin language as their only input and basis for language acquisition. Here a remarkable thing happens, the children do not learn this easy and poor language but they tremendously extend it and transform it into a real natural language with full complexity and a uniform use among its speakers. This newly developed ...

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