Re: Learning a language

From: Eugene Holman (holman_at_elo.helsinki.fi)
Date: 06/14/04 

Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 11:56:57 +0300

In article <osao8rx1xvry$.1u7usezhqlqxb.dlg@40tude.net>,
b.scott@csuohio.edu wrote:

> On Sun, 13 Jun 2004 17:51:21 -0400 "alexB"
> <alexb7623@hotmail.com> wrote in
> <news:10cpiq63qscgq84@corp.supernews.com> in sci.lang:
>
> [...]
>
> > What
> > Atkinson says sounds totally irrational. He says that slaves first learned
> > English, then after a few generations developed the Pidgin English. It does
> > not make any sense whatsoever.
>
> Of course it does. The sequence that he's envisioning is
> clear enough. The first slaves dealt directly with native
> speakers of English; some learned the language reasonably
> well, while others did not. Later slaves had little contact
> with native speakers and were therefore exposed mostly to L2
> speakers whose competence varied widely. From this point on
> there would have been little reinforcement of the
> native-speaker norms.
>
> I don't know whether this is right, but it's plausible, and
> it certainly makes sense.

Elaborating their own norms for English would also have given the slaves
the elements of a new social identity. Addtionally, in condtions of
illiteracy, with no mass communications, and most of their contact with
native-speaker English being the local dialects, it seems obvious that the
language of the slaves would embark on its own path of evolution.

Regards,
Eugene Holman

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