This study, conducted among 169 participants in June 2009, is a methodological replica of Labov's original study of the social stratification of /r/ in three New York City department stores. Results of the 2009 study are compared with Labov's original survey and Fowler's replica. Although the distribution patterns of /r/ remain the same as for the two previous studies in terms of stylistic, social, and phonological variables (word-final vs. preobstruent), there have been significant increases in the overall percentages by some 10 to 20 percent, and there are important differences in terms of the age distribution: the 2009 study suggests that lower-middle-class younger speakers use the [r]-less variant considerably less than older speakers, contrary to Labov's original survey. In addition, although African American informants use less word-final /r/ than whites, especially in preobstruent position, they nevertheless follow the general pattern of stylistic and social differentiation according to the store, suggesting that African Americans are moving toward greater integration within the New York City speech community.
There is increasing evidence that most European-lexifier plantation creoles developed over several generations, as successive waves of African slaves acquired increasingly basilectal varieties of the lexifier language, allowing shift-induced interference to play a central role in creole genesis. If in most cases the creators of creoles were adult learners of a second language, and if many of the creole features are the result of second language acquisition over several generations, the next step is to test the hypothesis and to see whether data from current case studies on second language acquisition can shed light on the gradual creolization process. This paper shows that many of the features found in French-lexifier creoles do occur in L2 French and other interlanguages, as a result of L1 transfer and other acquisition processes; examples discussed include word-order within the noun phrase, pronominal clitics, the absence of copula, reduplication, the reanalysis of articles, grammatical gender, verb movement and TMA markers. The major claim of the model of creole genesis advocated here, which can be called the ‘gradualist / second language acquisition model’, is that creole genesis does not involve any specific mental processes or strategies other than those found in ordinary second language acquisition. While in normal, successful second language acquisition, L1 transfer, relexification and reanalysis are relatively marginal in the end, they are nevertheless present, as illustrated in the examples provided here. It is the social and historical circumstances that accelerated the changes and allowed ?deviant? interlanguage structures to fossilize and to create a new language from the linguistic chaos of plantation societies.
This article provides evidence from studies on second language acquisition in support of the gradualist model of creole genesis. According to this model, creole genesis is viewed as a gradual process away from the lexifier language, as successive generations of African slaves acquired increasingly divergent varieties of the emerging contact language. This article provides examples on the L2 acquisition of French, and compares interlanguage structures with Haitian, a radical French-lexifier creole. Using examples within the NP domain, I conclude that many creole features can be accounted for in terms of second language acquisition, either as 1) the transfer of L1 features (via e.g., relexification), 2) the acquisition of L2 features, or 3) interlanguage structures found neither in the L1 or the L2, including innovations (e.g., reanalysis or grammaticalization) or other developmental stages in second language acquisition. The article also discusses the origin of tense-mood-aspect markers, which are not attested in the L2 data and may be better explained in terms of first, rather than second language acquisition processes.
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