Creolization & Bioprogram Hypothesis
There are many different theories about the origin of pidgins and creoles. Some of these stress the importance of the superstratum language (e.g. theories that claim that pidgins are the result of imperfect learning of the target language (e.g. English), or the result of ‘baby talk’ by the superstratum speakers). Others put emphasis on the substratum languages (e.g. claiming that the pidgins/creoles are a result of simple ‘relexification’ of the original languages (e.g. African vernaculars)). A more ‘universalist’ theory with respect to the formation of creoles has been developed by Bickerton.
Bickerton (1981) questions the generally assumed link between pidgins and creoles, finding that the latter do not always simply develop gradually out of the former. He claims that in situations in which creoles (i.e. stabilized pidgins with native speakers) emerge, there is often no ‘normal’ continuity of language transmission (i.e. the handing down of a natural language from a generation to the next). In some situations, the creole-speaking community has been torn from their native cultures and native languages, while they have limited access to the superimposed language. Thus, the pidgin has not stabilized (i.e. become grammaticalized and unified) before it is acquired by children as a first language, which provides an exceptional situation for L1 acquisition.
The question that arises is how the children who are exposed to such an unstable pidgin in childhood acquired complex, rule-governed features that become part of the creole. According to Bickerton, the pidgin they are presented with is “unfit to serve as someone’s primary tongue”. Yet, they have a biological need for a native tongue that can fulfil all functions. This makes them turn the insufficient linguistic input into a fully fledged language by running it though an innate system universal to us all: the language bioprogram (cf. Chomsky’s 'language acquisition device').
An important thought behind this is that over thousands of years, biological, natural languages have come to encode features that diverge from a biological base, and are instead cultural. If there is no such cultural language available, though, the bioprogram kicks in and inserts ‘natural’ features into the gaps. (According to Bickerton, the same happens in L1 acquisition, though the cultural influence ultimately wins over the natural ones).
I cannot really make up my mind about this hypothesis, and do not know whether I should agree with it or not. The hypothesis is hard to disprove, as any elements that show up in pidgins or creoles that are not part of the bioprogram can be said to be culturally inherited. Any thoughts/opinions?
Bickerton (1981) questions the generally assumed link between pidgins and creoles, finding that the latter do not always simply develop gradually out of the former. He claims that in situations in which creoles (i.e. stabilized pidgins with native speakers) emerge, there is often no ‘normal’ continuity of language transmission (i.e. the handing down of a natural language from a generation to the next). In some situations, the creole-speaking community has been torn from their native cultures and native languages, while they have limited access to the superimposed language. Thus, the pidgin has not stabilized (i.e. become grammaticalized and unified) before it is acquired by children as a first language, which provides an exceptional situation for L1 acquisition.
The question that arises is how the children who are exposed to such an unstable pidgin in childhood acquired complex, rule-governed features that become part of the creole. According to Bickerton, the pidgin they are presented with is “unfit to serve as someone’s primary tongue”. Yet, they have a biological need for a native tongue that can fulfil all functions. This makes them turn the insufficient linguistic input into a fully fledged language by running it though an innate system universal to us all: the language bioprogram (cf. Chomsky’s 'language acquisition device').
An important thought behind this is that over thousands of years, biological, natural languages have come to encode features that diverge from a biological base, and are instead cultural. If there is no such cultural language available, though, the bioprogram kicks in and inserts ‘natural’ features into the gaps. (According to Bickerton, the same happens in L1 acquisition, though the cultural influence ultimately wins over the natural ones).
I cannot really make up my mind about this hypothesis, and do not know whether I should agree with it or not. The hypothesis is hard to disprove, as any elements that show up in pidgins or creoles that are not part of the bioprogram can be said to be culturally inherited. Any thoughts/opinions?
I think the universalist theory is fascinating, but as you say, hard to prove. And from what this researcher told us this morning, one of the main problems is that very little is known about earlier stages of creoles - there may be many other influences that account for developments. Trudgill's intro to sociolinguistics has a chapter about that too, and if I remember correctly, one of the arguments for the universalist theory is that creoles all over the world share certain features which can be interpreted as just these 'natural' features supplied by the bioprogram. But then, these features could also be explained otherwise - one hypothesis is that they could all be based on an original Portuguese-West-African pidgin (- cf. Trudgill 2000: 179). Apparently the Portuguese were among the first to get to West Africa and get slaves there and the pidgin developped from that contact was then spread by the slave-trade (I find that somewhat hard to imagine - there were so many slaves from such different parts of Africa and brought to such different locations...). But I think the point is that as it's nearly impossible to get access to earlier forms of these languages, there could be other influences that we just don't know/think of.
On a related, but slightly different topic: the lecture this morning was mainly about Jamaican language politics. What I find really interesting (and somewhat related to stuff we've been discussing about Switzerland) is the discussion whether or not Jamaican creole should be officially recognized and supported as a language in its own right. Linguists like the lecturer seem to think that the way to go, as it would (hopefully...) increase the creole's image and keep people from thinking that they speak 'broken english' and don't really master their own language. But then, many Jamaicans consider the creole as 'bad' - and they see it as an advantage to have English as a national language, because it's the major international language everybody wants to learn. Therefore all Jamaicans should learn to speak 'proper' English and abandon the creole (which is also seen as a heritage from colonial times they'd prefer to forget about). He showed us some pretty harsh letters to the editors - stuff like 'the creole is not really a language, its just a degraded and distorted English that in turn degrades the minds of its speakers...
(The situation in Switzerland is of course different in that the dialects don't suffer from social stigma of that sort - but the question of losing access to a more widely spoken language still is an argument against making Swiss German a language of its own, even if people could decide on an 'official' dialect).