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Creating Language and Community in Pidginization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

William J. Samarin*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto

Extract

Although “language” and “community” are assumed for all normal, that is, stable, conditions experienced by human beings, both phenomena are problematic in situations where there is no shared means of communication. We should like to know how they emerge, which one takes precedence or is more dominant (if such can be determined) and what factors accompany the predominance of one of these phenomena. In this paper, I approach the problem by examining the origin of jargons and pidgins. I propose, as a modest contribution to the enormous task that has to be addressed, a set of generalizations that might serve as a heuristic for understanding pidginization as a context for the emergence of both language and community.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 1988

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