Looking Beyond Decreolization as an Explanatory Model of Language Change in Creole-Speaking Communities

Abstract

This paper discusses internally-motivated change as a largely ignored factor in understanding diachrony in creole languages: that is, externally-motivated models — and the most popular of these is certainly decreolization and the related concept of the creole continuum — have been nearly exclusively relied upon by creolists to explain phenomena associated with language variation and change in creole-speaking communities, particularly among the Atlantic English-derived creoles. This paper presents one alternative to viewing variation data derived from creole speakers as solely a function of decreolization. It raises issues associated with (and explores alternatives to) that singular view of diachrony.

Statian Creole English: an English‐derived language emerges in the Dutch Antilles1

“…The reification "basilect" is simply a compilation of all the features that are considered typologically the most distant or different from varieties of metropolitan English. Furthermore, any language, including creole languages, can change in ways left unexplored by the assumptions of the creole continuum, even if the effects of internally induced change have been left largely unexplored by researchers studying creole-speaking societies (see Aceto, 1999). In addition, some types of change, whether they are externally or internally motivated, may occur which do not resemble metropolitan varieties of English.…”

“…“Decreolization” undoubtedly occurs in specific creole‐speaking communities (and similar effects undoubtedly occur in what would be labeled non‐creole‐speaking communities; after all, it is one kind of language shift), but it is only one type of externally motivated change and does not represent change in and of itself in creole‐speaking communities (see also Mufwene, 2000: 77). However, it is my feeling that an over‐reliance on this phenomenon as an explanatory force has obscured the varied details of language emergence in specific Anglophone locations in the Americas (see Aceto, 1999). 35 The assumption in this paper is that, not withstanding normal diachronic change exhibited by human languages everywhere, SCE sounds quite similar today to the colonial variety spoken 200–300 years ago.…”

“…35 35 Aceto (1999) pointed out that a reliance on the concepts associated with the purported creole continuum and the concept of “decreolization” has a tendency to view all changes in, at least, Anglophone creole‐speaking Caribbean societies only in terms of whether the feature in question was similar to or different from more standard varieties of English in terms of form and function. The creole continuum terms “acrolect,”“mesolect,” and “basilect” reveal little about linguistic or sociolinguistic processes invoked by speakers involved in the creation, distribution, and maintenance of their language, except for the assumption (which is undoubtedly true in some specific, well‐defined cases) that some speakers are consciously or unconsciously shifting their language towards norms associated with metropolitan English.…”

“…This abstraction suggests very strongly that, from both a diachronic and a synchronic perspective, there have always been few if any speakers of the purported “basilect” revealing all of its associated features; in other words, few individual English‐derived creole speakers can be said to have ever exclusively displayed all the features of the “basilect.” The reification “basilect” is simply a compilation of all the features that are considered typologically the most distant or different from varieties of metropolitan English. Furthermore, any language, including creole languages, can change in ways left unexplored by the assumptions of the creole continuum, even if the effects of internally induced change have been left largely unexplored by researchers studying creole‐speaking societies (see Aceto, 1999). In addition, some types of change, whether they are externally or internally motivated, may occur which do not resemble metropolitan varieties of English.…”

Variation and change in contact settings

“…Especially in situations where a Creole language is in contact with its erstwhile lexifier, such variation is often seen as due to a specific language contact setting and producing specific results, 8 namely either decreolization of the Creole (even if the notion originally proposed by De Camp (1971) is being challenged, see Mufwene 2001, Aceto 1999 or else a new creolization / re-creolization of the European language (Winford 1997). The same "If-in-doubt-do-without" mentality is at work, but in reverse: there is a general assumption among sociolinguists and creolists that the majority of changes are due to language contact.…”