topic 3 other global englishes pidgin englishes creoles · lesson3pidginenglish.notebook 2 april...

lesson3pidginenglish.notebook

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April 01, 2020

Topic 3 other Global Englishes

pidgin Englishes

Creoles


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April 01, 2020

Task 1: Read the following information on, What is pidgin English?

Early pidgin EnglishThe term pidgin has nothing to do with birds. The word, first attested in print in 1850, is thought to be the Chinese mispronunciation of the English word business. There are other theories about the origin of the term.

Chinese Pidgin English (Chinglish), developed in the 17th century in Canton (Guandong), China,and survived for almost three centuries.

Its use spread from master‐servant relationships to those between English and Chinese traders and bureaucrats. It

continued in use until about the end of the 19th century, when the Chinese started to switch to standard English.

Only Hong Kong was a colony and mainland China was not, so Chinglish was only probably used in Hong Kong.


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April 01, 2020

So this pidgin uses English words with Chinese grammar

E.GI very like play basketball

Christmas old man

I with my friend together have dinner

fire chicken

and when in the culture they have no word for it, they reuse English words to create the term. Do you know wat the following are in Chinese English?

Answer: Santa Claus and turkey


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April 01, 2020

Process of pidgin English

It is a contact language between traders who speak English and those they are trading with or control (slaves). It is usually make shift or temporary.

Because of this it is often referred to as a marginal language. In either case what is important is that it is not the native language of any one of the speakers or groups of speakers.It is a nonnative language.

David Crystal‐ How language works 2006

How languages are born (pidgins and creoles)

Contact languages or pidgins are often seen a ‘makeshift,’ ‘marginal,’ and mixed’ but remain a major means of communication for millions.

A stereotype of them is that they are merely corruptions of a purer language and primitive but actually are ‘creative adaptations of natural languages with a structure and rules of their own.’ They are the clearest examples of language being shaped and created for its own ends, as people adapt to social circumstances.


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April 01, 2020

The language spoken by the people with the most prestige and/or power will probably supply the majority of the vocabulary. So for Global English varieties this was Historically this was English. The language with the most power is called the

superstrate language

In contrast, the native languages of the suppressed and less powerful arereferred to as the substrate languages ;

These pidgins may borrow from any of the native languages of its speakers as well as

the dominant colonial language.This has led to these languages being called mixed languages.


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April 01, 2020

However, what is borrowed from the superstrate language is often borrowed in a reduced version. Reduction affects not only the systematic syntactic aspects of language, but also the extent of usage of the language. They are then called reduced languages.

Pidgin Englishes are also not fixed as influenced by what lexis is chosen from English, what lexis is retained from the native language and what are the grammatical structures of the native language. Therefore each country, and possibly parts of country have their different pidgin Englishes.

According to David Crystal, pidgins don’t last very long, sometimes for only a few years and rarely for more than a century. They die because:

• The original reason for communication diminishes or disappears.

• Communities move apart

• One community learns the language of another

• The pidgin could develop into a creole.

For example a pidgin that appeared in the American Vietnam campaign disappeared when the war was over in 1975.


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April 01, 2020

Case Study: Hawaian pidgin English

Hawaiian pidgin English: go tak tu fala go hapai dis wan

Using all English words: go take two fellow go carry this one

Standard English: Take two men and carry this away.


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April 01, 2020

Case Study 2: Native American English pidgin.Their native items translated into English, which are then ironically adopted into the superstrate language. So not all varieties are deemed as inferior.warpath

paleface

firewater

peace pipe

Other idioms also are then borrowed into English from the pidgin forms.

e.g. no can do comes from the Chinglish can't


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April 01, 2020

Over time these pidgin form of English then become more stabilised and adopted as the language of the country.

Some pidgins are given official status by a community and become lingua francas these are then called expanded pidgins wider forms used more widely and used in broadcasting for example. E.g. Nigerian pidgin is an example of an expanded pidgin.

Jamaica. Initially a pidgin English was created between the slave owners and the Africans from different tribes and geographical regions in Africa, who all had different languages, so they used the pidgin to communicate between themselves. When further generations settled, and became free, so did the language and a hybrid language was established. This then become a creole= language more secure and accepted.


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April 01, 2020

Creoles David Crystal

These can be created from a mix of the colonising European languages mixed with the countries they are trading with or colonising. The word actually derives from Portuguese, ‘crioulo,’ a person of European descent who has been born and brought up in a colonial territory.

A creole is a pidgin language which has become the mother tongue of a community. When a pidgin is used it is then heard and acquired y children so this then becomes their mother tongue. Within a generation or two, native language use becomes consolidates and widespread. The result is a creole or a creolized language. This switch involves a major expansion in vocabulary, grammar and style.


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April 01, 2020

Conflict

Between the creole and the standard form from which derives e.g. Standard English. The Standard Language has the status with the social prestige, education and wealth (superstrate) whereas the creole throughout history is linked to subservience and slavery. So come Creole speakers find themselves under great pressure to change their speech in the direction of the standard thus resulting in decreolization (similar to cultural assimilation in language death)

A consequence of this is the emergence of varieties of creole speech at varying degrees of distance from the standard. Some others though have an aggressive reaction against the standard form so seek to assert the superior status of their creole and ethnicity creating a stronger purer Creole, which is termed hypercreolization.

The whole journey from creolization to decreolization then to hypercreolization can be seen in African American English in the USA.


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April 01, 2020

Pidgin in speech forms:

Acrolect‐ formal contexts prestigious UK RP S.E

Mesolect – middle

Basilect‐ low informal stong accent v informal.


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April 01, 2020

Common linguistic features on creoles

• Reduction of noun and pronoun inflections

• Lack of tenses‐ an adverb of other time phrase is usually used with the present tense. E.g. Yesterday I go there.

• Repetition to intensify adjectives and adverbs e,g He go quick quick

This is why for example creoles in the Caribbean have so much in common with Philipino creoles.


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April 01, 2020

Task 2 Read and make notes on further elaboration of features of pidgins and creoles. Sound systemMost pidgins have relatively simple sound systems characterized by five vowels (/i/, /e/, /a/, /u/, /o/) and no consonant clusters.GrammarPidgins usually have smaller vocabularies, a simpler structure, and more limited functions than natural languages. Some typical features include of pidgin languages are as follows:

> SubjectVerbObject word order > absence of grammatical markers for gender, number, case, tense, aspect,

mood, etc. > Tenses are expressed lexically, i.e., by using temporal adverbs such as

tomorrow, yesterday, etc. > Grammatical relations are usually expressed through simple juxtaposition. > Use of reduplication to represent plurals and superlatives, e.g., Hawai’ian

Pidgin wikiwiki ‘very quick’.VocabularySince vocabulary is restricted, words in a pidgin language have a wide range of meanings. For instance, in the Chinook Jargon, the word klahawaya meant ‘How are you?’, ‘Good day,’ or ‘Good bye’.


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April 01, 2020

What are people's attitudes to pidgin Englishes/creoles?Task: Read the following article about influence of creoles/pidgins on UK English. Make notes on the arguments and language examples given.


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April 01, 2020

'I wan go job but I no well': Pidgin English among 165 languages translated (at taxpayers expense) to help jobless claim doleBy Daily Mail Reporter Published: 16:18, 18 March 2012 | Updated: 07:51, 19 March 2012

Want to claim benefits but speak only Nigerian Pidgin? You may be in luck.

The Department for Work and Pensions has hired a translator who speaks Pidgin, a variant of English, despite only 2 per cent of Nigerians using the dialect.

It means a claimant who tells Jobcentre staff: ‘I wan go job but I no well’, would have his words translated to ‘I would like to work but I am sick’.

Millions of pounds in taxpayer's money is being spent on paying interpreters to help foreign‐speaking nationals claim benefits.

The Department for Work and Pensions offers translators in 165 languages and used interpreters 271,695 times from October 2010 to September last year.

The most popular language is Polish, which was used more than 51,000 times.

This is followed by more than 22,000 for Slovak and Czech while services for Urdu, Portuguese and Punjab were used far less.

Other languages needed for translation include Vietnamese, Italian, Amharic and the Ethiopian language of Tigrinya

Translation was needed once each for French Canadian and Icelandic. However, the service for Basque, Catalan, Tongan and Pidgin was not needed.

One of the languages offered in England is Welsh however, this was used only three times.

All services are contracted out by the DWP. One of the companies regularly used, the Big Word Interpreting Service Limited, received £3.5million of public money in one year.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migration Watch, told the Sunday Telegraph: 'This is the height of absurdity. It is essential that when migrants come to this country they learn to speak English.'

Jonathan Isaby of the Taxpayers' Alliance said that people needed to make more of an effort to speak English

The DWP said the number of times translation services was used is small in comparison to the 15 million people who claim pensions and benefits.

'The cost of interpreting and translation is attributable to the economic downturn and subsequent increase in the number of customers using DWP services.

Text B


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April 01, 2020

BBC Magazine

BBC starts Pidgin digital service for West Africa audiences• 21 August 2017

A new language service for digital platforms in Englishbased Pidgin for West and Central Africa has been launched by the BBC World Service.

Pidgin is one of the most widelyspoken languages across the region, even though it is not officially recognised. The launch is part of the World Service's biggest expansion since the 1940s, following a government funding boost announced in 2016. Pidgin will soon be joined by 10 more new services in Africa and AsiaThe WS also plans to offer more mobile and video content and a greater social media presence.It will also enhance its television services across Africa, including more than 30 new TV programmes for partner broadcasters in subSaharan Africa. Arabic and Russian programming will also be boosted in the 2020 project.

Text C


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April 01, 2020

Daily Mail Nov 2018'God don butta my bread!' Prince Charles drops Queen's English and speaks in PIDGIN during speech in Nigeria

· Charles was speaking at the residence of the deputy high commissioner in Lagos· He addressed his audience in pidgin and West African language Yoruba· Prince opened by asking the crowd 'How you dey?' meaning 'how are you?’Prince Charles gave a hilarious speech to an audience in Nigeria, telling them: 'If person too tey for party, e go follow dem wash plate!Speaking in a mixture of pidgin and Yoruba – a West African language – he said it was 'particularly special to be here, just a few days before my 70th birthday, in the land of the Owambe', a Yoruba word for lavish parties.Warming to his theme at the residence of the deputy high commissioner in Lagos, Charles said: 'Una people. Na fine Lagos people (Wonderful people of Lagos). I hail you!'Highlighting the work of his Prince's Trust International, he added: 'If life dey show you pepper, my guy make pepper soup! Charles said he was struck by Lagos's dynamism and energy and its 'vital role as the beating cultural and economic heart, not just of Nigeria, but of the whole region', but highlighted the challenges presented by climate change, population growth, youth unemployment and pollution.He concluded: 'Sadly, my time in Lagos, and indeed in Nigeria and West Africa on this tour, is fast coming to an end, and soon I must take my leave from you all. As I am sure you will all agree, if person too tey for party, e go follow dem wash plate! (One shouldn't outstay their welcome). My friends, you do well! (Thank you)'.

Text D


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April 01, 2020

Task: Make notes on pidgins, creoles concepts and attitudes. You create a chart like below that also has supporting language examples.

topic 3 other global englishes pidgin englishes creoles · lesson3pidginenglish.notebook 2 april...

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