Using English as a global communicating tool makes Taiwanese people have to speak in English in diverse international situations. However, consonants and vowels in English are not all effortless for them to articulate. This phonological reduction study explores concepts about phonological (articulating system) approximation. From Taiwanese folks'…

Analysis of a specific language change--the loss of the Balkan infinitive--demonstrates the inadequacy of either a language-internal or a language-contact explanation in accounting for the change. A composite explanation, in which the infinitive-loss process is explained through multiple causation, seems more appropriate. Whithin the language,…

The loss of the copula in Black English Vernacular (BEV) is demonstrably traceable to norms of pidginization that have their roots in West African languages and in contact among those languages. An extensive examination of the verb systems of a number of West African languages reveals that in every case a variety of verbal forms serves the many…

This paper discusses the relationship between pidgins and creoles and indigenous language maintenance, explaining that the development of pidgin and creole languages always occurs in the context of language contact, often between a European colonial language and one or more indigenous languages. Pidgins are languages that are primarily used as a…

This paper examines factors impacting the acquisition and use of the standard dialect by Australia's Aboriginal youth. It explains that acquisition of a second dialect has implications for the learner's cognitive-affective and sociocultural life and argues that preservation of an "insider" perspective (related to identity) is a key…

Hawaii's history of immigration, language policy, and education are directly related to the issue of bilingual education in its schools today. Beginning with missionary contact, English became the dominant language of the islands, in terms of official policy if not in terms of numerical superiority of English speakers. Until World War II, there…

Human capacity for language acquisition is not strictly compartmentalized, with one acquisitional mechanism for the native language and others totally unrelated to it; rather, it consists of a unified mechanism flexible enough to handle various differences in external settings. This learning system operates on the formal properties of the…

A discussion on the nature of language argues the following: (1) the concept of a closed and finite rule system is inadequate for the description of natural languages; (2) as a consequence, the writing of variable rules to modify such rule systems so as to accommodate the properties of natural language is inappropriate; (3) the concept of such…

The effect of formal instruction in English as a Second Language (ESL) on the pidginized speech of a second language learner was studied. The subject was a 76-year-old Italian woman residing in the United States since the age of 37. Four one-hour tapes were made of the subject's speech in April of 1976, and during the last five months of a…

Anglo-Nigerian Pidgin (ANP), the principal lingua franca of intercultural communication in multiethnic Nigeria, has no recognition as an official language but has penetrated the print and electronic media, especially in southern Nigeria. A survey in six urban centers in southern Nigeria, part of a larger study, investigated the status,…

Twenty linguistic features found in essays of Creole-speaking students taking remedial writing courses at Hunter College are discussed and illustrated. The students spoke a creole or post-creole language as their mother tongue. The language varieties, which are those most frequently encountered in East Coast urban centers from Boston to Miami, are…

This paper examines the differences between second language learning and pidginization to better understand the mechanisms involved in each process. Current research suggests similarities between the two. Both are characterized by reduction and simplification. Grammatical transformations tend to be eliminated, along with inflectional markers of…

A recently implemented program in a decentralized provincial district of Papua New Guinea delays the entry of children into English-medium primary school for two years, during which time the children are taught literacy in a village-based school in their indigenous language, a pidgin, with the local customs and culture as the basis of the…

This report describes the use of the English negative by three adult second language learners, and relates the findings to Schumann's "pidginization hypothesis." This hypothesis states that a particular subject's restricted English was the result of his social and possibly also his psychological distance from English speakers. In order to provide…

The structure of English departments in Nigerian universities is outlined, the English curricula of seven institutions are examined, and problems associated with English instruction in Nigeria are discussed. Nigeria is in a crisis in English teaching, with a shortage of professional language teachers, phonologists, and phoneticians, inadequate…