Language form and language substance: from a formal to an ecological approach to pidgins and creoles

dc.contributor.authorMühlhäusler, P.
dc.date.issued2011
dc.description.abstractThis paper argues that creolistics has tended to overemphasize the formal and general properties of Creole languages to the neglect of their substantive and singular lexical properties. Rather than assuming that Creoles can express anything their speakers need or want to say as soon as they come into being, this paper shows, with data from a range of Creoles, that lexical adaptation to new natural environments is a prolonged gradual process. The perspective taken is ecolinguistic, i.e. it regards language as a management tool enabling its users to sustain functional links between themselves and their environment. Ecolinguistics judges the adequacy of the lexicon in terms of its ability to do this.
dc.description.statementofresponsibilityPeter Mühlhäusler
dc.identifier.citationJournal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, 2011; 26(2):341-362
dc.identifier.doi10.1075/jpcl.26.2.04muh
dc.identifier.issn0920-9034
dc.identifier.issn1569-9870
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2440/70831
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherJohn Benjamins B V Publ
dc.rights© John Benjamins Publishing Company
dc.source.urihttps://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.26.2.04muh
dc.subjectLexical adequacy
dc.subjectecolinguistics
dc.subjectCreole development
dc.subjectlanguage substance
dc.subjectdenotation
dc.titleLanguage form and language substance: from a formal to an ecological approach to pidgins and creoles
dc.typeJournal article
pubs.publication-statusPublished

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