Chaudenson: Creolization of Language and Culture review
If someone wants
to know how languages arise, he or she must study creolization. Creole
languages are the output of pidgins, native languages with more complex
structure but they hide very important knowledge about the birth of
languages.
Robert
Chaudenson, Director of the Institut d’Etudes Créoles et Francophones,
Aix-en-Provence, and Professor of Linguistics at the Université d’Aix-Marseille
examines the phenomenon of creolization mainly in case of French Creoles of the
Indian Ocean and the Caribbean. However, he provides a general overview of the
field as well.
His analysis of the factors that play a significant
role in the process of creolization, gives an important contribution to the
study. In the first parts of the book, he deals with the current debates on the
development of creoles and theories of linguistic creolization. This is the
more technical part. However, in the following chapters, he doesn’t focus on
the linguistic factors only. He shows that in studying creolization one must
take sociohistorical factors into account. He describes different aspects of
the creole cultures, like folklore, medicine and magic, cuisine and music, but
in his opinion, language has to be the center of the study, ‘because language
plays a fundamental role both in social evolution and in the development of
most other cultural systems’. He overlooks other non-verbal communication
systems like gestures too. He demonstrates that non-verbal communication
elements can be similar in some languages which facts can be considered as an
early contribution to creole non-verbal language in some cases. He doesn’t agree with the mainstream theories
about creole genesis, but he proposes alternative views. ‘The theory that views
linguistic creolization as simply a ‘mix’ of coexistent linguistic systems is
not consistent with the most common linguistic reality. The constant outcome of
the contact of two languages in the same community is much more the domination
of one by the other than a harmonious mix. This is even more so in the colonial
societies where creoles developed.’ He introduces new important terms for the
study. ‘Transcommunality is the ability of a system to transcend ethnic or
other social boundaries and to be adopted by the society at large. A communal
system is thus the opposite: one that tends to remain specific to a group in
which it was initiated. Language is a highly transcommunal system. The very
genesis of creoles is characterized by a generalization of usage of the
dominant language by multilingual groups of immigrants.’
The book is comprehensible
thanks also to its translations which are made by four scholars from the fields
discussed in the book.
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