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Assessing the Role of Contact-Induced Language Change in the Development of Creoles: Evidence from Takitaki in French Guiana| old_uid | 11250 |
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| title | Assessing the Role of Contact-Induced Language Change in the Development of Creoles: Evidence from Takitaki in French Guiana |
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| start_date | 2012/04/06 |
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| schedule | 11h |
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| online | no |
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| location_info | A |
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| summary | In research on the genesis and development of creole languages researchers have traditionally privileged explanations involving language contact. This is in stark contrast to research on other, non-creole languages and possibly French-based creoles where language-internally motivated explanations have tended to dominate research agendas (Aceto 1999). The dominant model, the creole continuum, maintains that creoles change because their speakers are transferring features from the European official language in the setting into the creole thereby making the creole more similar to the European language. The model has been challenged from both a historical and linguistic perspective but the main tenets of the model remain alive and continue to frame discussions about the sociolinguistic nature and development of creoles. In this presentation I critically assess the creole continuum model on the basis of sociolinguistic data pertaining to the development of Takitaki in French Guiana. The data argue against an account that conceptualizes creoles as monolithic entities and language change as being unilinear in nature and primarily due to contact processes such as borrowing. Investigation suggests that what is locally called Takitaki is the result of various types of agents
and processes conditioned by at times opposing social forces operating side by side and feeding into each other. The investigation calls for more research on the sociolinguistic structure of individual creoles in a range of social contexts.
Bettina Migge received her Ph.D. from the Ohio State University and is currently Senior Lecturer in Sociolinguistics at University College Dublin, Ireland and a member (membre associé) of SeDyL (Structure et Dynamique des Langues, UMR 8202) based in Villejuif and Cayenne. Her main research and teaching interests are contact linguistics, sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, and applied linguistics. She has published on the genesis of creoles, particularly the role of African languages, issues of synchronic language contact and issues of language description in multilingual contexts. Empirically, her research focuses on the Maroon Creole of Suriname and French Guiana, the language situation of Suriname and French Guiana in general, and the Gbe languages of Benin. In recent years she has also been involved in two interdisciplinary research projects on issues of migration to Ireland and, based on these data, is working on the language attitudes and the acquisition of Irish English pragmatics by newcomers to Ireland.
Recent publications include:
New Perspectives on Irish English (with Máire Ní Chiosáin). John Benjamins. to appear 2012.
Exploring Language in a Multilingual Context: Variation, interaction and ideology in language documentation (with Isabelle Léglise). Cambridge University Press. to appear 2012.
Migge, Bettina. 2011. Negotiating social identities on an Eastern Maroon radio show. Journal of Pragmatics 43: 1498-1511.
Migge, Bettina, Isabelle Léglise & Angela Bartens (eds). 2010. Creoles in Education: An appraisal of current programs and projects. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Creole Languages Library, vol. 38]. |
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| responsibles | Bel, Welby |
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