Creole as necessity? Creole as choice?
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Ana Deumert
Abstract
John Singler (2006) encourages linguists to consider speaker agency in the genesis of pidgin/creole languages. I take my cue from his suggestion and consider the role of speaker agency in the history of Afrikaans, focusing on the Afrikaans negation (nie-2). I show that the social indexicality, and indeed iconicity, of nie-2 is the result of discursive nationalist-ideological work which associated this variant with the emphatic and decisive voice of the Afrikaner boer – an important symbolic figure at the time – and was thus able to disassociate it from the speech of people of colour (where it was the dominant variant). Based on this language-ideological work, nie-2 was adopted by young Afrikaner nationalists and diffused into the emerging (white) standard norm.
Abstract
John Singler (2006) encourages linguists to consider speaker agency in the genesis of pidgin/creole languages. I take my cue from his suggestion and consider the role of speaker agency in the history of Afrikaans, focusing on the Afrikaans negation (nie-2). I show that the social indexicality, and indeed iconicity, of nie-2 is the result of discursive nationalist-ideological work which associated this variant with the emphatic and decisive voice of the Afrikaner boer – an important symbolic figure at the time – and was thus able to disassociate it from the speech of people of colour (where it was the dominant variant). Based on this language-ideological work, nie-2 was adopted by young Afrikaner nationalists and diffused into the emerging (white) standard norm.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgments vii
- Introduction 1
-
Part 1. The sociohistorical matrix of language contact
- Population factors, multilingualism and the emergence of grammar 23
- The African diaspora in Latin America 49
- The sociohistorical matrix of creolization and the role children played in this process 79
- Creole as necessity? Creole as choice? 101
- Bahamian Creole English 123
- Linguistic commonality in English of the African diaspora 145
- Historical separations 177
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Part 2. Sources of grammar and processes of language contact
- Some observations on the sources of AAVE structure 203
- Unity in diversity 225
- Krio as the Western Maroon Creole language of Jamaica, and the /na/ isogloss 251
- Number marking in Jamaican Patwa 275
- Variationist creolistics, with a phonological focus 305
- Pidginization versus second language acquisition 323
- Crosslinguistic effects in adjectivization strategies in Suriname, Ghana and Togo 343
- Author index 363
- Language index 365
- Subject index 367
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgments vii
- Introduction 1
-
Part 1. The sociohistorical matrix of language contact
- Population factors, multilingualism and the emergence of grammar 23
- The African diaspora in Latin America 49
- The sociohistorical matrix of creolization and the role children played in this process 79
- Creole as necessity? Creole as choice? 101
- Bahamian Creole English 123
- Linguistic commonality in English of the African diaspora 145
- Historical separations 177
-
Part 2. Sources of grammar and processes of language contact
- Some observations on the sources of AAVE structure 203
- Unity in diversity 225
- Krio as the Western Maroon Creole language of Jamaica, and the /na/ isogloss 251
- Number marking in Jamaican Patwa 275
- Variationist creolistics, with a phonological focus 305
- Pidginization versus second language acquisition 323
- Crosslinguistic effects in adjectivization strategies in Suriname, Ghana and Togo 343
- Author index 363
- Language index 365
- Subject index 367
