16.309, Books: Sociolinguistics: McWhorter

Tue Feb 1 14:55:46 UTC 2005

LINGUIST List: Vol-16-309. Tue Feb 01 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.309, Books: Sociolinguistics: McWhorter

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1)
Date: 21-Jan-2005
From: Jared Wright < jared.wright at oup.com >
Subject: Defining Creole: McWhorter

-------------------------Message 1 ----------------------------------
Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2005 09:54:31
From: Jared Wright < jared.wright at oup.com >
Subject: Defining Creole: McWhorter

Title: Defining Creole
Publication Year: 2005
Publisher: Oxford University Press
	   http://www.oup.com/us

Book URL: http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/?view=usa&ci=0195166698

Author: John H. McWhorter, University of California, Berkeley

Hardback: ISBN: 0195166701 Pages: 444 Price: U.S. $ 90.00
Paperback: ISBN: 0195166698 Pages: 444 Price: U.S. $ 49.95

Abstract:

A conventional wisdom among creolists is that 'creole' is a sociohistorical
term only: that creole languages share a particular history entailing
adults rapidly acquiring a language usually under conditions of
subordination, but that structurally they are indistinguishable from other
languages. The articles by John H. McWhorter collected in this volume
demonstrate that this is in fact untrue.

Creole languages, while complex and nuanced as all human languages are, are
delineable from older languages as the result of their having come into
existence only a few centuries ago. When adults learn a language under
untutored conditions, they abbreviate its structure, focusing upon
features vital to communication and shaving away most of the features
useless to communicaiton that bedevil those acquiring the language
non-natively. When they utilize their rendition of the language
consistently enough to create a brand-new one, this new creation naturally
evinces evidence of its youth: specifically, a much lower degree of the
random accretions typical in older languages, which only develop over vast
periods of time.

The articles constitute a case for this thesis based on both broad,
cross-creole ranges of data and focused expositions referring to single
creole languages. The book presents a general case for a theory of language
contact and creolization in which not only transfer from source
languages but also structural reduction plays a central role, based on
facts whose marginality of address in creole studies has arisen from issues
sociopolitical as well as scientific. For several decades the very
definition of the term 'creole' has been elusive even among creole
specialists. This book attempts to forge a path beyond the inter- and
intra-disciplinary misunderstandings and stalemates that have resulted from
this, and to demonstrate the place that creoles might occupy in other
linguistic subfields, including typology, language contact, and
syntactic theory.

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics
                     Sociolinguistics
                     Syntax
                     Typology

Written In: English  (ENG)

See this book announcement on our website:
http://linguistlist.org/get-book.html?BookID=13111

MAJOR SUPPORTERS

	Hodder Arnold
		http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk	

OTHER SUPPORTING PUBLISHERS	

	Kingston Press Ltd
		http://www.kingstonpress.com/

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