Re: Learning a language

From: benlizross (benlizro_at_ihug.co.nz)
Date: 06/16/04 

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2004 00:48:53 +1200

Eugene Holman wrote:
>
> In article <40CFBAE8.425D@worldnet.att.net>, "Peter T. Daniels"
> <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> > Eugene Holman wrote:
> > >
> > > In article <40CEF95E.1A4D@worldnet.att.net>, "Peter T. Daniels"
> > > <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > <deletions>
> > > >
> > > > The way you've been approaching pidgins and AAVE doesn't have its roots
> > > > in Labov, that's for sure.
> > >
> > > Now that we've waxed all nostalgic about our shared Cornell past, what is
> > > your intake on the following situation from the Cornell area?
> > >
> > > About twelve miles due south of Ithaca there is a town called van Etten.
> >
> > Four years there, and I never heard of the town, much less its Finnish
> > dialect.
> >
> <deletions>
>
> > Because of your statement in the second paragraph after my comment
> > above: "Its grammatical structure is clearly Finnish."
>
> It is, even though reduced and with some forms that would be regarded as
> illiterate simplifications. Finnish is an agglutinative/fusional language
> with a highly integrated morphological structure that would be rather
> impervious to influence from English. That does not mean that this Finnish
> grammatical structure cannot be made to function with a totally different
> lexicon, thus making it questionable whether the reulting code could
> reasonably be called Finnish or not. I could just as well have said the
> grammatical structure of Hawaiian Creole, which arose from an unstable
> jorgon with, is clearly English, or that the grammatical structure of
> Chinese Pidgin English shows many clearly Chinese features of
> morpho-syntax. Its lexicon is as clearly English.
>
> Pussi peipipukki p$BgL(Jjaardilta livinruumiin. Sen j$BgM(Jkee teikauta karbitsi.
> push baby-buggy back-yard-ABL living-room-ILLAT it-GEN after take-aut
> garbage.
> "Push the baby carriage from the back yard into the living room. After
> that take out the garbage."
> (Standard Finnish: Ty$Bön(Jn$Bg(Jlastenvaunut takapihalta olohuoneeseen. Sen
> j$BgM(Jkeen vie roskat.)
>
> > None of the sociological or sociolinguistic details are relevant to the
> > structure of the dialect.
> >
> > "Pidgin" does not refer to a social situation, but to a linguistic
> > phenomenon.
>
> It is, but linguistic phenomena are social *by nature* and thus reflect
> social situations.
>
> 1. A pidgin is a functionally restricted language lacking a community of
> native speakers that arises when speakers of two or more languages who
> share no common language have to communicate, usually in a only a limited
> range of communicatuve situations. [Being restricted to certain types of
> speech situations, lacking native speakers are socially defined
> parameters.]
>
> 2. The type of language that arises in this type of situation is an
> amalgam, typically having a *lexicon* derived primarily from one of the
> contact languages, typically the one of higher status, and a *grammatical
> structure* combining elements of one or more of the substrate languages
> with simplifications resulting from general language learning strategies
> and the jettisoning of non-functional morphological variation. [The fact
> that a language is in a substratum or superstratum position within a
> specific territory is a consequence of social factors and typically
> defines their relative prestige and the manner in which they will
> influence each other. The substrate language will borrow cultural
> vocabulary from the superstrate language, sometimes having to borrow
> phonology, morphological patterns, and syntax as well, the superstrate
> language will be more likely to borrow terms, overwhelmingly, nouns, for
> local topography, flora, fauna, culinary items, and exotica. The nature
> and degree of borrowing is determined by socially determined factors.]
>
> 3. A pidgin is different enough from the languages that gave rise to it to
> be a linguistic norm that marks a clear break from the norms of the
> contributing language: it is a fundamentally new lnguistic system, rather
> than one handed down from the previous generation. [It is a new set of
> norms for communicating; everybody who wants to use it has to make an
> effort to learn it. Learning is a social activity.]
>
> 4. A pidgin can acquire a body of speakers large enough for it to be
> handed down to their offspring and become the nucleus of their native
> languages. This next generation will elaborate its grammatical structure
> and range of functional valency, in which case it becomes a creole. [What
> was once merely "speaking funny" becomes a real language with speakers who
> take it seriously. This is a social re-evaluation of a system of norms and
> of the people who adhere to it.]
>
> 5. A creole can further evolve in such a manner that its speakers
> *associate* or *dissociate* it with the language of higher prestige in
> their speech community. This can lead to a *creole continuum*, in which
> the creole establishes itself as the basilect of speakers who use some
> variety of the higher prestige lexifier language in certain speech
> situations (e.g. the Jamaican Creole continuum), or it may lead to a
> distinction between two cognate but coexisting linguistic systems, each
> with its own set of registers, norms, etc. (e.g. Sranan Tongo and Dutch in
> Surinam). [This is a further re-evaluation of sets of norms, this time of
> co-existing and competing norms, and of assigning each of them to its
> proper place and status. Jamaican Creole is evaluated in its speech
> community as having lesser status than standard West Indian English does
> and it is consigned to speech situations characterized by informality and
> in-group orientation, Standard West Indian English being assigned to
> formal, out-group oriented situations. Sranan Tongo has been assigned a
> status more equal with Dutch in Surinam, thus it is the appropriate code
> to use in a wider variety of formal, out-group oriented speech
> situations.]
>
> Why is the "broken Finnish" that has been almost completely relexified
> with English lexical morphemes, is used as an important secret code by
> local sports teams, as well as for socially circumscribed communicational
> situations by the inhabitants of Van Etten, New York, and which is
> nobody's native language or sole variety, not a Finnish-based pidgin? To
> speak it you have to learn 1) a few hundred high frequency Finnish
> mosphemes, lexical and grammatical, in the meanings and pronunciations
> they had a century ago in Ostrobothnia dialect, 2) how to pass English
> lexical morphemes through a Finnish phonological filter and then 3) how
> use them in the most Finnish syntactic templates.
>
> Regards,
> Eugene Holman

I'm sorry that I have not had the time to read the enormous volume of
postings in these threads, but I wonder what are the real issues at
stake? The "pidgin" and "creole" terminology has been in crisis for a
couple of decades, as more examples of interesting contact languages
which don't fit the classical type emerge in the literature. The
response of most specialists has been to keep the terms "pidgin" and
"creole" for languages conforming closely to the original types so
described, and to try to develop a broader theory of contact languages
which would encompass both these and others such as Afrikaans, Ma'a,
Singapore English, etc. etc. Some terminology like "intertwined
language" and "indigenized varieties" has developed, but admittedly
it's still not adequate. Holman, by contrast, seems to be happy to
broaden the use of these terms to include the entire range of
contact-influenced languages. Van Etten Finnish is certainly
interesting, and I'm disappointed to find that (apparently) nobody has
published a description of it. In some respects it sounds like
Anglo-Romani, a terminal version of an ancestral language functioning as
a cryptolect. But here the roles of grammar and lexicon are reversed.
Still, one would have two immediate reservations about describing it as
a "pidgin" -- (1) the survival of at least some Finnish grammatical
morphology; (2) Is it really "nobody's native language"? From what
Holman says, it appears to be understood throughout the community. At
what age do people learn it? Even if most of its users have English as a
primary language, they can perfectly well have a second native language.

Forgive me if I have missed any important points made in this
discussion. I guess I am suggesting that the argument is largely
terminological and hence not ultimately very interesting. But I sense a
kind of resentment or hostility on Holman's part against something, and
I don't know whether that something is just Peter T.Daniels, or
something more general in linguistics that he thinks has gone wrong. Or
maybe he's just spent too much time in the snake pits of soc.culture.*?

Ross Clark