Sla and the Emergence of Creoles

Abstract

Although the emergence of creoles presupposes naturalistic SLA, current SLA scholarship does not shed much light on the development of creoles with regard to the population-internal mechanisms that produce normalization and autonomization from the creoles’ lexifiers. This is largely due to the fact that research on SLA is focused on individuals rather than on communities of speakers producing their own separate norms, whereas genetic creolistics deals precisely with this particular aspect of language change and speciation. It is not enough to prove that transfer from the first to the second language is possible and can evolve into substrate influence on the emergent vernaculars—transfer is not ineluctable and varies from one learner to another. Additionally, how and why particular features of some speakers spread to a whole population (or to parts thereof), whereas others do not, must be accounted for. Consistent with colonial socioeconomic history, the gradual emergence of creoles suggests a complex evolution that cannot be accounted for with simplistic invocations of either interlanguage or relexification. This article presents limitations in the cross-pollination that has been expected from genetic creolistics and research on SLA.

Testing the role of convergence in language acquisition, with implications for creole genesis

“…We assume by extension that in the case of creoles specifically, features that "converge" across form and function in the languages in contact are favored to participate in the creation of the new language. In support of the literature that connects SLA to creole genesis (Lefebvre et al, 2006;Mufwene, 1990Mufwene, , 2010Plag, 2008;Siegel, 2006Siegel, , 2008a, our position is thus that convergence plays a major role in SLA and creole formation. Even if, in the case of creoles, most of the basic lexicon comes from the superstrate, we assume that the substrates and superstrate collaborate to shape the morphophonological and semantic (and possibly syntactic, see the discussion section) components of the newly emerged language.…”

“…This work is solidly anchored in the extensive literature that closely connects the fields of SLA and creole genesis, most notably Mufwene (1990Mufwene ( , 2010, Siegel (2006Siegel ( , 2008a, Plag (2008) and Lefebvre, White and Jourdan (2006). 1 There are two chief motivations for linguists to consider SLA and creole genesis mutually relevant.…”

CREOLE /L → /R IN AFRICAN AMERICAN English/Gullah: HISTORICAL FACT AND FICTION

“…51. As Mufwene (2010) has eloquently argued, while research on second-language acquisition is highly relevant to reconstructing Stage i of the formation of Afroenglish creoles, it is not applicable to later developments. 52.…”

“…Studies of early AAe have effectively demonstrated that present-day varieties did not evolve from a widespread uniform Gullah-like "plantation creole," as proposed by J. l. Dillard (1972b). the strong presence of creole features in Gullah, while at least in part reflecting retention due to the physical isolation of the area, has been cogently argued by Mufwene (1992Mufwene ( , 1997 to be the result of later importation of captives directly from Africa. Nevertheless, there is scattered earlier historical evidence of creole american speech 90.1 (2015) 10 4.…”

The problem of conventionality in the development of creole morphological systems

“…While these latter questions might seem to be psycholinguistic or even social-psychological rather than strictly linguistic questions, understanding these other processes is also necessary if we are to truly understand the full dynamics of language emergence, formation, and change (Mufwene 2010). …”