This article examines several major sociological characteristics of the Caribbean region in a study of pidginization and creolization. Three major conditions which may have affected the ways that Creole languages develop are discussed. They include: (1) the relative proportion of Africans, Europeans, and other groups now present in specific…

The 804 entries in this bibliography are divided into four major categories. The first category, regional dialects, is concerned with those varieties of English which are confined within specific areas of the continental United States. The second, social dialects, is concerned with varieties of English which have features that tend to be…

Traditionally linguists have considered pidgin languages as corrupted constructions of European vocabulary based on African or Asian syntax. Recent systematic studies of these languages show complex patterns of mutual influence on many levels. To explain the structural similarities of pidgin languages, some linguists, such as Keith Whinnom, have…

Recent sociolinguistic research is used to show that the American Sign Language (ASL)-English contact situation does not result in the emergence of a pidgin as supposed. Variation along the ASL-English continuum can be accounted for by interplay of foreigner talk, judgments of proficiency, and learners' attempts to master the target language.…

Reviews what is known about Esperanto as a home language and first language. Recorded cases of Esperanto-speaking families are known since 1919, and in nearly all of the approximately 350 families documented, the language is spoken to the children by the father. The data suggests that this "artificial bilingualism" can be as successful…

Tok Pisin, New Guinea Pidgin English, is becoming increasingly important as a "lingua franca" in Papua New Guinea, even though English is the country's official language. Urban versus rural and spoken versus written varieties of the pidgin are examined, and the influence of English on Tok Pisin is investigated. 73 references. (Author/CB)

Examines the historical changes in agreement patterns between Old Arabic and the New Arabic dialects to see whether they support Versteegh's radical hypothesis of pidginization, creolization, and decreolization. The conclusion is reached that the changes are chiefly because of processes of normal transmissions, "drift," and diffusion. (24…

A multilanguage project for development of a foreign-language curriculum is reported along with the teaching method that has evolved from it. The method is represented primarily in a set of "mini-courses," each being a short introduction to a given language. (Contains 34 references.) (Author/LB)

This paper attempts a brief account of recent trends in interlanguage studies. Interlanguage may be defined as a separate linguistic system which results from a learner's attempted production of a target language norm. According to the recreation hypothesis, this is a dynamic system of increasing complexity, whereas, according to the restructuring…

This study investigated the influence of Pidgin versus Standard English on the mnemonic skills of a group of rural Hawaiian school children and compared the recall performance of rural and urban Hawaiian children. An embedded items free recall story task was administered to a group of 30 rural Hawaiian children. Half of the children were tested in…

The present Information Circular covering the language situation in East Africa has been prepared as a bibliographic reference tool for specialists, universities, and libraries. The introductory section describes the work of EARIC (East African Research Information Centre), which is sponsored by the East African Academy and financed by the Ford…

Roger Shuy and Ralph Fasold's introduction describing sociolinguistics as (1) a desire to refine linguistic theory, (2) an attempt to describe the sociocultural matrices of language, and (3) an effort to apply sociolinguistic knowledge to this monograph. Walt Wolfram contributes substantially to the development of sociolinguistics theory in…

Presents arguments for the view that pidginization can be a model of early second language acquisition, decreolization can be a model for later second language acquisition, and creolization is inappropriate for any aspect of this process. (Author/AM)

Considers the acquisition of language by deaf children of deaf parents and by deaf children of hearing parents in the light of such linguistic theories as Andersen's "nativization-denativization" and Bickerton's "bioprograms." Findings both support the theories and bring to light complexities that the theories do not exactly explain. (SED)

Although English shares official language status with French in Vanuatu, enrollments in English-language schools have increased dramatically at the expense of French-medium schools. Bislama, an English-derived pidgin, has become a compromise language between the two colonial languages that have divided the country. (Author/CB)