Call for papers
Extended deadline: July 7, 2008
Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by late August.
Submission: creole@hum.uit.no
It has been more than 25 years that a concerted effort in the generative study of creole languages was undertaken with a collection of papers edited by Muysken (1981). Although individual linguists (e.g. Aboh (2006), Veenstra (1996) on Saramaccan; Baptista (2002) on Cape Verdean Creole; Kihm (1994) on Kriyol) have studied creoles in a formal framework since, the main focus shifted to descriptive and sociolinguistic work in the last one or two decades. Formal/generative approaches may have been marginalised somewhat, in comparison. This shift probably proved necessary, since many theoretical generalisations, especially regarding the similarities and differences between creoles, may have been premature and hampered by a lack of available data. In addition, many debates in Creoles Studies for the last two decades revolt around the question what the origin of these languages is. With Bickerton (Language Bioprogram Hypothesis 1984) being the most prominent defender of the universal approach and Lefebvre (Relexification Theory 1998) of the substratist view.
The situation has changed, with more detailed grammars of creole languages (e.g. Winford (2000) on tense, aspect and modality in Sranan; Kouwenberg (1994) on Berbice Dutch) being available now and even an atlas of pidgin and creole structures (APiCS) being underway (edited by Haspelmath, Huber, Maurer & Michaelis). In addition, research into the sociolinguistic factors surrounding creole formation has shed new light on how creoles come into existence, who forms them (children vs. adults), and what the relevant input languages for many creoles are (e.g. Arends (1995), Migge (2003) on Surinamese creoles; Siegel (2003, 1988) on Pacific creoles). This allows us to tackle, for example, the perennial question of the respective influence of substrates and universals on a solid empirical basis. At the same time, linguistic theory and generative grammar have advanced considerably since the 1980s. Hence, new analyses may yield surprising new results. Finally, a new generation of scholars has emerged which was not involved in the oftentimes dogmatic debates of the early 1980s and which may therefore be able to take a fresh look at an ideologically loaded topic.
We therefore believe that the time is ripe for a renewed approach to pidgin and creole languages from a theoretical and/or generative perspective and pick up where Muysken (1981) left us. We would like to re-establish the interaction between theoretical and descriptive linguists and to revisit some of the earlier claims made about creoles in the theoretically oriented literature. We therefore invite abstracts that address theoretical and formal aspects in Creole Studies, from all the subfields of generative research, syntax, semantics, phonology, and morphology.
Questions that we think still need to be addressed include (but are not limited to) the following:- Which contribution can creoles make to linguistic theory and theoretical developments?
- Are creoles 'special' languages, from a structural perspective?
- Are there structural similarities that are common to all creoles, irrespective of their origin, their substrates and their lexifiers? If so what are they and how can we account for them?
- How does the claim that creoles are the simplest languages of the world (McWhorter 2005) hold up to formal scrutiny?
- What are the formal factors in creole formation, and how do these formal factors interact with sociolinguistic factors?
Abstract guidelines
We invite submissions of abstracts for 35-minute presentations (plus 10-minute discussions). Abstracts should be no longer than one page US Letter or A4 with one inch (2.5 cm) margins, single spaced, with a font size no smaller than 12pt, and with normal character spacing. A second page may be used for examples, figures, tables or references. The preferred submission format is pdf, but you can also send your abstract in .doc, .txt or .rtf format.
Please send two copies of your abstract. One should be anonymous (all abstracts will be reviewed anonymously), one should include your name, affiliation and e-mail address directly below the title. The two files should be named <yourtitle-yourname> and <yourtitle-anon>, e.g. title-schuchardt.pdf and title-anon.pdf.
Modest financial aid is available to a limited number of researchers with limited financial resources whose abstracts are accepted. Request for funding ought to be submitted together with the abstract.