Assane Iassine Kananje

Fátima Chikalipo

Felicidade Pascoa Manhiça

José Manuel Soares Mavuna

Nelson Afonso

Bilingualism, Multilingualism, Bidialectalism & Diglossia; Pidgin and Creole

Languages

Universidade Rovuma

2023
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Assane Iassine Kananje

Fátima Chikalipo

Felicidade Pascoa Manhiça

José Manuel Soares Mavuna

Nelson Afonso

Bilingualism, Multilingualism, Bidialectalism & Diglossia; Pidgin and Creole

Languages

Work of Sociolinguistic Subject, to be

submitted on the Department of Arts and
Social Sciences for evaluations purpose.
Supervised by MSc. Jenet Azizi

Universidade Rovuma

2023
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Table of Contents
I. Introduction ........................................................................................................... 3

Bilingualism, Multilingualism, Bidialectalism & Diglossia; Pidgin and Creole

Languages ..................................................................................................................... 4

1. Concept of Bilingualism ........................................................................................ 4

1.1. Perfection and Imperfection in Bilingualism ..................................................... 4

1.2. Types of Bilingualism ........................................................................................ 4

2. Diglossia ................................................................................................................ 5

2.1. The relationship between Bilingualism and Diglossia ...................................... 6

3. Bidialectalism ........................................................................................................ 6

4. Multilingualism ..................................................................................................... 6

5. The concept oh Low and High Languages ............................................................ 7

6. Bilingualism and Social Integration ...................................................................... 7

6.1. Consequence of Bilinngualism in Education ..................................................... 7

7. Pidgin and Creole Languages ................................................................................ 8

7.1. Pidgin ................................................................................................................. 8

7.2. Creole ................................................................................................................. 9

7.3. Theories of Origin of Pidgins and Creoles ........................................................ 9

7.3.1. The nautical jargon theory John ................................................................... 10

7.3.2. The monogenetic/relexification theory ........................................................ 10

7.3.3. The independent parallel development theory ............................................. 11

7.3.4. Universalist theory ....................................................................................... 11

7.4. From Pidgin to Creole and Beyond ................................................................. 12

II. Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 13

III. Bibliography .................................................................................................... 14

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I. Introduction

At some point of life, there are topics that sometimes arouse controversy are explored -
such as the question of whether there is a relationship between bilingualsim and a
child's cognitive, psychological and social development. The present work is concerned
with multilingualism, that is, bilingualsim as a societal phenomenon. It focuses on such
issues as language choice in bilingual and multilingual communities, national identity
and the education of bilinguals.
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Bilingualism, Multilingualism, Bidialectalism & Diglossia; Pidgin and Creole

Languages

1. Concept of Bilingualism

According to LLAMAS et al. (2006: 207) bilingualism is presented as the ability of a

speaker or group to speak two or more languages. It is important to emphasize two or
more here, as, whilst the term is used by some sociolinguists to describe speaking two
languages, it is often used to refer to those who can speak many languages.

CRYSTAL (2008, 53) defines the bilingualism as a person who can speak two
languages.

Bilingualism can be referred or defined as a speaker's ability to use two languages for
communication.

1.1. Perfection and Imperfection in Bilingualism

 Perfection: the individual speaks two languages perfectly, with high levels of
proficiency in both languages; In common parlance when someone is referred to
as being “perfectly bilingual” two things are implied:
 The subject speaks both languages equally well;
 The subject has two mother tongues.

 Imperfection: the individual possesses a minimal competence in one of the four

language skills, the ability can vary in comprehension and/or speaking skills.

1.2. Types of Bilingualism

Co-ordinate Bilingualism: represents the acquisition of two languages in different

contexts (school, home…), so the words of the two languages belong to separate
independent systems.

Compound Bilingualism: refers to the cases in which an individual acquires two

languages in the same environment at the same time so that he acquires one notion with
two verbal expressions.
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Subordinate Bilingualism: the speaker keeps on translating from one language to the
other as one is dominant that the other.

Balanced Bilingualism: For Haugen (1973) a balanced bilingual is an individual who

has native-like competence in both languages. More frequently, however, the term is
used to refer to an individual who has roughly equal ability in both languages.

Additive bilingualism: develops when both languages and the culture associated with
them bring complementary positive elements to the child's overall development.

Subtractive bilingualism: however, develops when the two languages are competing
rather than complementary. Such competition occurs when the minority language is
being replaced by the more dominant and prestigious language of the majority group.

Simultaneous and successive bilingualism: McLaughlin (1984:123) maintains that

when a child learns two languages simultaneously it is inappropriate to talk about the
child's first and second languages. Both languages are in effect first languages, although
one may dominate in certain situations or with certain people. For McLauglin,
simultaneous bilingualism could occur at any age less than a cut-off age of three years.
Therefore, a 2-year-old Portuguese speaking child who moves to Australia and begins to
acquire English would be considered to be acquiring both languages simultaneously.

2. Diglossia

Diglossia is the term used to describe a situation in which there are two distinct codes
with clear functional separation; that is, one code is employed in one set of
circumstances and the other in an entirely different set.

FERGUSON (1959, 336) cit in WARDERGH has defined diglossia as follows:

Diglossia is a relatively stable language situation in which, in addition to

the primary dialects of the language (which may include a standard or
regional standards), there is a very divergent, highly codified (often
grammatically more complex) superposed variety, the vehicle of a large
and respected body of written literature, either of an earlier period or in
another speech community, which is learned largely by formal education
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and is used for most written and formal spoken purposes but is not used
by any sector of the community for ordinary conversation.

Diglossia refers to two variates (high and low) exist side by side and used by the same
community, because at the same time the two varieties are related. For example:
Mandarin and Chinese.

2.1. The relationship between Bilingualism and Diglossia

Bilingualism is the situation of using two languages in turn, whereas diglossia is the
distinction in function of language use. So, there’s mutual relationship in multilingual
people. People use the language according to the circumstance.

3. Bidialectalism

CHAMBERS and TRUDGILL, (1998) define bidialectalism as speaking a dialect in

addition to a standard language. As it is seen here, there is no consistent definition for
the term over the linguistic continuum. However, dialects are naturally tightly related to
their originating languages, while still having a distinct grammar and phonology.

CRYSTAL (2004, p.19), defines bidialectalism as the use of two distinct dialects (of the
same language) for different social purposes. For example, a local dialect is used at
home or among friends, and the national standard dialect is used in formal contexts such
as for work or study.

4. Multilingualism

LI (2008) defined a multilingual individual as “anyone who can communicate in more

than one language, be it active (through speaking and writing) or passive (through
listening and reading” (p. 4).

A well-known definition of multilingualism is given by the EUROPEAN

COMMISSION (2007): “the ability of societies, institutions, groups and individuals to
engage, on a regular basis, with more than one language in their day-to-day lives” (p. 6).

Therefore, multilingualism is the ability of using multiple languages.

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5. The concept oh Low and High Languages

High variety languages are likely to be the language used in schools or corporate
settings. Low Language, variety on the other hand, is acquired in the home and used in
more informal spaces to communicate with family and friends (McKay & Rubdy,
2009).

Ferguson (1959) coined the term diglossia to describe the context of a bilingual
community whose two languages / codes serve different purposes. For example: high
language or vriety is formal (official, professional); Low variety language is informal
(friendly, slang, vulgar).

6. Bilingualism and Social Integration

The concept of social integration has experienced a certain amount of rejection in the
last two decades (Carrasco, 2021, in preparation) both in activism and academia, partly
due to the way it has often been used in politics, policy and the media as the equivalent
to cultural assimilation. Bilingualism can be considered a direct consequence of
adopting a dual cultural identity within a host nation and reflects the balance between
integration in the host society and ethnolinguistic vitality or the persistence of native
cultural identity.

6.1. Consequence of Bilinngualism in Education

For schools that joined the programme in its initial year, they found a significant
negative effect of bilingual education on academic grades in Science, the subject taught
in English, but not for Mathematics and Spanish Language, taught in Spanish. This
result was found both for the first and second cohorts of pupils. For schools that joined
the bilingual programme the year after, 2005- 06, the effect was similar but only for
children whose parents had less than higher secondary education.

The efficacy of bilingual education programs has been demonstrated empirically. Most
notably, a number of comprehensive reviews of the research literature provide
compelling evidence of the positive effect of bilingual instruction in promoting both
minority and majority language and literacy outcomes of minority language children.
Taken together, these reviews support a basic finding: that at a minimum, learning to
read in the home language promotes modest but meaningful gains in literacy
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achievement in the second language and that its effects are reliable across the
elementary and secondary school years (Goldenberg 2008).

However, little research has focused specifcally on Chinese-speaking children schooled

in North America. It remains unclear whether similar results would be found among
these children. A third bilingual programming option open to minority-language
children within the Canadian education system is French immersion, in which non-
native speakers of French are instructed in French. The goal of French immersion is
additive bilingualism, the development of French proficiency while maintaining native
proficiency in the majority English first language (Wesche 2002).

7. Pidgin and Creole Languages

7.1. Pidgin

Pidgin is said to be language with simplified syntax, word order etc. because it is
constructed in an unplanned way, or it is given birth or been developed by unintelligible
languages, BICKERTON (1984).

JEFF (2008). Pidgin is a language system that developed among people that don’t have
common language to share, it is a language of contact situation where there is no
common language to use.

TODD (1974 pp.1) defined pidgin as “a marginal language which arises to fulfil certain
restricted communication needs among people who have no common language”. This
definition seems to Rickford (1977a) as unsatisfied and there is a disagreement with the
definition. This disagreement came when Rickford reviewed Todd‟s paper and saying
that though it is satisfied to many linguists and scholars, but there are lot of difficulties
with the definition because it focused only on the social and communicative role of the
languages rather than their linguistic characteristics. Based on the concepts above, the
group critically examine or pointed out that the definition of pidgin, there are two things
involved:

 One is the circumstances in which it has been developed (i.e. the contact
situation).
 Secondly, the purpose of its development is to have a common language among
the contact people. It is obvious to say that the contact condition brought pidgin
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into existence and the purpose of having common language among people that
keeping or maintaining its existence.

Pidgin is a type of simplified language which came into existence as a result of contact
between two or more languages in order to find a means of communication. This
situation mostly occurs in trade, plantation and colonization.

7.2. Creole

TODD (1974 pp. 3) defined creole in this way “A creole arises when a pidgin becomes
the mother tongue of a speech-community” It is simpler to define a creole, any pidgin
that become stable and learn by children as their mother tongue. There are two essential
things here stability and learning by children because these are the bedrock of it.

Creole has native speakers, unlike pidgin it is first language to children of the
community where it has been spoken, that n is to say, it is a mother tongue to children.

This language is invented by children BICKERTON (1988), and became a primary

language to them. It is has a grammatically structured form and many of its vocabularies
were derived from the superstrate language.

A creole is a naturalized stable language that came into existence through mixed parent
languages. It is a language that developed or derived from pidgin. When a language has
its origin from an extended between more communities, one of which is European
language then it is called a creole. Creole integrates characteristics from the all the
parent languages to establish the mother tongue of a community.

7.3. Theories of Origin of Pidgins and Creoles

In the last hundred years there were several theories proposed by different initiators that
explained the origin of pidgin. These theories were classified into five groups, and they
overlap with one another. Sometimes there will be a possibility of mixture of origin,
(pidgin and creole, theories of origin, and developmental stages).

There are several theories from different initiators backing issue of pidgin and creole
languages which we are going to look at them one by one. Looking at them should
include the discussion of their problems. Todd (1974) identified and listed four theories
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of pidgins and creoles with their developers, and we got additional one which is the
recent among the theories from Atlantic group:

7.3.1. The nautical jargon theory John

Reinecke came up with the idea of nautical jargon in 1938, suggesting that it could have
been the basis of almost all the pidgins and creoles. What this theory is hypothesizing is
that, members of crews in ships wanted to develop a „dominant‟ language i.e. common
language among the European sailors of 18th and 19th century. This was brought
because the crews‟ members were comprised of different men from variety of dialects
and languages.

This led to the development of core vocabularies of nautical items with simplified
grammar. Regardless of where the language varieties are spoken, pidgins display
several of these lexical items. The possible influence of nautical jargon has noted in
pidgins.

The nautical jargon theory assumes that pidgins are derived from the lingua franca used
by the crews of ships, presumably through trading and other contacts.” That is the view
of Mª Teresa Galarza Ballester.

7.3.2. The monogenetic/relexification theory

The idea of monogenetic theory was first brought by Hugo Schuchardt in the late 19th
century, but others argued that it was 15th century. Neither the year it doesn‟t matter,
but later it has been stressed and propagated by Taylor in 1961, and also by Thompson
in the same year. The idea of this theory is that, Portuguese pidgin is the one in which
all European language based pidgin were derived from, it happened in either 15th or
19th century. The baby-talk theory

This theory was developed by Charles Leland who considered pidgin as „baby talk‟
because of its similarities with babies‟ effort to acquire first language.

They have seen pidgin speakers and babies frequently move toward the standard
articulation, that they both use great amount of content words and limitedly few
function words, that in speech morphological change is either very rare or totally
absent.
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There is no restriction in word classes‟ formation and the pronominal contrast is

regularly reduced. Similarities of such are still exist between pidgin and child language
and many scholars‟ attention have been drawn to this phenomenon in an attempt to
explain why and how pidgin came into being.

7.3.3. The independent parallel development theory

Among the first scholars who recognized and spread the resemblance of pidgin and
Creole was Robert A. Hall, Jr. and he still believed that they are arose and developed in
an analogous lines.

He and his supporters of this theory considered that the similarities that exist can be
justified for, by acknowledging these languages (pidgins and creoles) are all derived
from Indo–European languages regardless of the varieties. Many of the speakers have
common West

This theory still upholds that it is clear that all pidgins and creoles were developed and
arose on the independent and similar because were all derived from Indo-European
languages in case of Atlantic varieties because they all have common West African
substratum. African substratum and had to come to terms with similar physical and
social condition. The relevance features of this theory should not be left out and it come
in two boundaries.

7.3.4. Universalist theory

This theory is talking about the universal similarities of pidgin and creole in general, is
the most recent among all the theories. it claimed that similarities is the basic inclination
among all humans to form languages of similar category or systematic language with
simple syntactic SVO with little or no reduction or other complexities of sentence, with
lexicon that makes maximum use of polysemy operating from limited vocabulary, and
devices use of reduplication, and simplified phonology.
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7.4. From Pidgin to Creole and Beyond

Not every pidgin eventually becomes a creole, that is, undergoes the process of creole
formation. In fact, very few do. Most pidgins are lingua francas, existing to meet
temporary local needs. They are spoken by people who use another language or other
languages to serve most of their needs and the needs of their children. If a pidgin is no
longer needed, it dies out. It may also be the case that the pidgin in a particular area
must constantly be ‘reinvented’; there is no reason to believe, for example, that either
Cameroonian Pidgin English or Hawaiian Pidgin English have had uninterrupted
histories.

Elaboration occurs only when a pidgin becomes the language of a speech community.
We can see how this must have happened in Haiti when French was effectively denied
to the masses and the African languages brought by the slaves fell into disuse. We can
also see how, while many of the guest workers in Germany may have developed
pidginized varieties of German to communicate when necessary with one another, their
children did not creolize these varieties but acquired German, since they had to go to
school and be educated in German. A full language was available to them so they had
no need to creolize Gastarbeiter Deutsch.
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II. Conclusion

The history tells us p & c are new language varieties that developed out of contacts
between colonial non standard varieties of a European language and several non-
European languages around the Atlantic and in the Indian and Pacific Oceans during the
seventeen to nineteen century” (Mufwene, 2015).

As a result, a language must arise that is spoken by all groups in that specific
geographical area, indigenized variations known as "World Englishes". A p does not
have native speaker as it is mentioned earlier and it is restricted in use say for example
trade and work contact but within a few generations a p can improve and become a
stable pidgin or even creole language that is nativized. According to Siegel, (2008),
Improvements are made by transferring data from systems that are no longer capable of
dealing with their own vocabulary and grammatical features. Then a different phase
starts when the improvements are made in the vocabulary level by borrowing lexical
items from the ‘dominant’ language. The example can be given with the gradually
developed pidgin ‘Tok Pisin’ that is spoken in Papua New Guinea. Tok Pisin is
creolizing and on its way to become the main community language in that area.
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III. Bibliography

a) BHATIA, T. & Ritchie, W. The handbook of bilingualism and multilingualism.

UK Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. 2012.
b) Bickerton, Derek. "Creole languages and the bioprogram", Linguistics: The
Cambridge. 1988
c) CHAMBERS, J.K. and Trudgill, Peter. Dialectology, 2nd ed. Cambridge: CUP,
1998.
d) CRYSTAL, D. English as a Global Language, 2nd ed. Cambridge: CUP, 1997.
e) CRYSTAL, D. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language,
Cambridge: CUP, 2003.
f) MESTHRIE, R. Concise Encyclopedia of Sociolinguistics, ed. Oxford: Elsevier.
2001