Creoles as interlanguages

Abstract

The idea that processes of second language acquisition (SLA) are highly relevant to an account of creole genesis is far from new or original (see Plag (2008a) for some discussion and further references). However, it is still controversial which kinds of SLA processes are relevant, and how much of a given creole’s structures can be attributed to such processes. In my previous three Columns (Plag 2008a,b, 2009) I discussed a specific hypothesis about the relation of creolization and SLA that I labeled ’interlanguage hypothesis’. According to this hypothesis, creoles originate as conventionalized interlanguages of an early developmental stage. The interlanguage hypothesis is highly compatible with scenarios that claim that creolization is at least a two-generation process, which involves at least two successive stages of development. For example, Veenstra (2003) argues that during the first stage, adults acquire the superstrate language to variable degrees, with interlanguages of the Basic Variety type (Perdue 1993) chiefly among them. Traditionally, this stage has also been called the pidginization stage, characterized by rudimentary acquisition of the (socially) dominant language. This stage is followed by a second stage, following the so-called target-shift, in which the next generation of speakers acquires the new medium of interethnic communication (cf., e.g., Baker 1994), and no longer the superstrate language. This next generation of speakers may consist of first language learners and second language learners of the new variety, e.g. newly arrived slaves, as in the case of