Creole and pidgin languages are widely spoken in the Carribean, South Pacific and West Africa and arose in particular types of contact situations. Surprisingly, pidgins and creoles all over the world show striking similarities even though they developed under complete different circumstances and have different source languages. Originally thought of as incomplete and broken, linguists have recently drawn their attention to these varieties, because they provide a window into the evolution of the human language faculty and universal structures common to all languages.
In this class, we will cover aspects of the history, linguistic structure and social context of pidgins and creoles. We will discuss different theoretical approaches to their emergence and explore the circumstances under which creole formation can occur. Even though PCs draw most of their lexicon from the language of the socially and politically dominant group, their syntax and phonology are different to various extents. Consequently, we will look at the different levels of linguistic structure and establish differences to their lexifier languages. Finally, we will also raise the matter of PCs in formal education and look at attitudes toward creole and pidgin languages.
Although we will mainly work with Holm’s and Arends et al.’s introduction, additional readings will be provided throughout the semester.
Literature:
Arends, J., Muysken, P. & Smith, N. (1994). Pidgins and Creoles: An Introduction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Holm, J. (2000). An introduction to pidgins and creoles. Cambridge: CUP. |
