Creole Languages and Acquisition

A Comparison of Different Creolization Theories

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,0, University of Hannover (Englisches Seminar - Lehrgebiet Linguistik), course: English-based Pidgins and Creoles, language: English, abstract: 1. Introduction It could be as easy as that: pidgins equal second language acquisition (L2A) and creoles equal first language acquisition (L1A). But does this simple equation work out in reality? In the views of some researchers of contact languages and of language acquisition it clearly does. Others have a sceptical attitude towards this hypothesis and suggest different solutions in terms of creolization and acquisition. Creole genesis is a field of linguistic research that has been intensely debated on over the past few decades. Until today, no theory was commonly agreed upon and there are still many diverging explanatory approaches. In my paper, I aim to throw light on this maze of different creole genesis theories. I will use a comparative approach in order to work out the similarities and differences of the researchers' views. Often they agree in their overall assumption and only disagree in regard to smaller aspects. In other cases, their opinions are completely controversial and not able to bring in line with each other. In my account, I will also hint at the weak spots of the hypotheses and the criticism they are confronted with.