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Is variation a sign of decreolization?

Exploring decreolization through diachronic analysis of variation in ‘doz’ and singular pronouns in Guyanese Creolese

ORCiD logo with link | Tulane University, USA
Published online: 21 November 2024
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.23008.kai
Abstract
The sociolinguistic situation in Guyana is one in which Creolese has intensive contact with its lexifier language, English, creating a continuum of varieties in which the acrolect varieties behave much like Standard English ( 1987a. Dimensions of a Creole Continuum. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). The creole continuum has been associated with decreolization following the pidgin-creole lifecycle (Hall, Robert. A. 1962. The life cycle of pidgin languages. Lingua 111. 151–156. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Decreolization is the theory of contact induced change wherein a creole becomes more similar to its lexifier language over time (. 1980. “Decreolization and the creole continuum.” In Valdman, Albert and Arnold Highfield, (eds.), Theoretical Orientations in Creole Studies, 109–28. New York: Academic PressGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Many researchers (e.g. Mayeux, Oliver. 2019. Rethinking decreolization: Language contact and change in Louisiana Creole. Cambridge, UK: University of Cambridge dissertation. , . 1999b. Urban Jamaican Creole: Variation in the Mesolect. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) call into question the existence of decreolization as separate from regular language change. This study will add evidence to these critiques and challenge the association of the creole continuum with decreolization and thus language change. Using a meta-analysis of the habitual marker doz and singular pronouns in Guyanese Creolese over a nearly twenty-year period, this paper will investigate whether the linguistic variation observed on the creole continuum shows evidence of loss of creole variants. The findings of this paper help to support earlier critiques of decreolization, and arguments against its usefulness in describing diachronic change observed in creole languages.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction & context
  • 2.Language change or decreolization?
  • 3.Creole continuum a sign of decreolization?
  • 4.Variation in Creolese
    • 4.1Variation in doz in Creolese
    • 4.2Variation in the singular pronoun in Creolese
  • 5.Decreolization in Creolese?
  • 6.Decreolization or just variation?
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
References (55)
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