Languages exhibit variation at all linguistic levels, from phonology, to the lexicon, to syntax. Importantly, that variation tends to be (at least partially) conditioned on some aspect of the social or linguistic context. When variation is unconditioned, language learners regularize it -- removing some or all variants, or conditioning variant use…

The present study examines the tradeoff between the on-line construction of modifier-noun gender agreement and verb-subject person/number agreement vs. the automatization and entrenchment of agreement, through the study of bilingual speakers of Spanish and the Afro-Colombian creole language Palenquero, whose lexicon is highly cognate with Spanish,…

Indigenous children living in the more remote areas of Australia where Indigenous languages continue to be spoken often come to school with only minimal knowledge of English, but they may speak two or more local languages. Others come to school speaking either a creole, or Aboriginal English, non-standard varieties which may sound similar to…

This thesis examines the role of the African substrate languages in the emergence of Atlantic Creole grammatical structures. Alleyne (1980) and Faraclas (1990) have convincingly demonstrated that a survey of the grammatical features that typify the Colonial Era English-Lexifier Creoles of the Atlantic reveals remarkable similarities with those…

Aboriginal English has been documented in widely separated parts of Australia and, despite some stylistic and regional variation, is remarkably consistent across the continent, and provides a vehicle for the common expression of Aboriginal identity. There is, however, some indeterminacy in the way in which the term is used in much academic and…

In Black English (BE), in addition to the motion verb "come," there exists a modal-like "come" which expresses speaker indignation. This "come" is comparable to other modal-like forms, identical to motion verbs, which occur in Black and non-Black varieties of English, and which signal various degrees of disapproval.…

This bibliography is divided into three main sections. The first section lists bibliographies relevant to pidgin and creole studies. The second cites books and articles pertaining both to pidgin and creole studies in general and to the West Indies in particular. The third section gives references for books and articles in areas other than the West…

Reports on one of a series of sociolinguistic studies of the speech of children of foreign workers in Berlin, "Gastarbeiterdeutsch," addressing the question of potential creolization. The paper has three sections: (1) a social and linguistic background of "Gastarbeiterdeutsch"; (2) the study methodology; and (3) results of the…

Cape Barren English is clearly the most aberrant dialect of English spoken in Australia. Descended from English sealers, whalers and ex-convicts and their Aboriginal wives, the inhabitants of Cape Barren Island, Tasmania, have lived in relative isolation for the last 150 years or more. Their dialect is not a creolized pidgin; it has a number of…

Variations in the use of perfect "have" and its alternatives in the Trinidadian creole continuum are examined, based on data from a sample of speakers from different social backgrounds. The findings have implications for the study of morphosyntactic variation in other divergent dialect situations. (Contains 56 references.) (Author/LB)

Discusses West Africanisms in Limonese Creole (LC), an English based creole language spoken in Costa Rica that shows substrate influence from the Kwa languages of West Africa, in particular from Akan (spoken in Ghana). Substrate influence is demonstrated through a comparison of LC and Akan morphophonology, morphosyntax, and lexicon. (Author/VWL)

A situation of linguistic contact often produces various degrees of change in at least one of the languages involved. It is shown that the syntactic, as well as the phonological and the lexical, components are the locus of interference from one language on the other. Features of interference are described as part of a systematic pattern build on a…

More than 250,000 of Fiji's citizens are descendants of Indian indentured laborers of diverse origins. There are still distinct social groups based on language, religion, and place of origin. However, nearly all Fiji Indians speak one language called Fiji Hindustani. Other languages, such as Gujarati, Panjabi, Tamil, and Telugu, are still spoken,…

The language development processes of decreolization and second language acquisition are compared. The decreolization of Guyanese creole negation and the acquisition of the English negative by an adult Spanish speaker are described. Each process is seen as a series of internal changes on a continuum of developmental stages which bring speakers…

The dangers and misuses of literary dialect as a source of information for linguistic evaluation are analyzed. "Literary dialect" is used to refer to writing in which the main purpose is the artful construction of a narrative, where the dialect representation is apt to be concerned more with giving an artful impression of a dialect than…