This study aims at investigating to what extent the linguistic processes exhibited in creolization parallel those manifested by Arab learners of English in particular and those of child language and second/foreign language in general. Another aim of the study is to highlight the link between second/foreign language learning and historical change. To this end, the speech of two speakers of the Broad Jamaican Creole was compared with the performance of Saudi school and university learners of English as a foreign language and data from child language, with respect to the pronunciation of English inter-dental fricatives /θ/ and /e/. The results show that learning in the above three situations takes place according to the same principles. Furthermore, the sound substitutions made in the three situations (i.e. [t], [d] respectively) are the same as those witnessed in historical sound change.
KeywordsInter-Dental FricativesESL/EFLJamaican CreoleSaudi Learners of English
Archibald, J. (1990). The Acquisition of English Metrical Parameters by Polish Speakers: Quantity-Sensitivity and Adult Access to OG. Paper Presented at the Boston University Conference on Language Development.
Arlotto, A. (1972). Introduction to Historical Linguistics. Boston: Houghton.
Atkinson, M. (1982). Explanations in the Study of Child Language Acquisition. Cambrige: CUP.
Bailey, B. (1966). Jamaican Creole Syntax. Cambridge: CUP.
Baxter, A., Lacchesi, D., & Guimaraes, M. (1997). Gender Agreement as a Decreolizing Feature of an Afro-Brazilian Dialect. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, 12, 1-57. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.12.1.02bax
Bickerton, D. (1995). Creoles and the Bankruptcy of Current Acquisition Theory. In W. Herman (Ed.), Creole Languages and Language Acquisition. Berlin: Mouton de Grunter.
Bickerton, D., & Odo, C. (1976). General Phonology and Pidgin Syntax. Vol. 1 of Final Report on National Science Foundation Grant No. Gs-39748.
Broselow, E. (1983 & 1987). Non-Obvious Transfer: On Predicting Epenthesis Errors. In S. Gass and G. Selinker (Eds.), Language Transfer in Language Learning (pp. 269-280). Rowley: Newbury House.
Brown, R. (1973). A First Language: The Early Stages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674732469
Burling, R. (1959). Language Development of a Garoand English-Speaking Child. Word, 15, 45-68.
Cassidy, F. G. (1961). Jamaican Talk. London: Macmillan.
Cassidy, F. G., & Le Page, R. B. (1967). Dictionary of Jamaican English. London and New York: CUP.
Chomsky, N. (1981b). Principles and Parameters in Syntactic Theory. In N. Hornstein, & D. Lightfoot (Eds.), Explanation in Linguistics (pp. 32-75). London: Longman.
Cook, V. (1993). Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Cruttenden, A. (1979). Language in Infancy and Childhood. Manchester University Press.
Denison, N. (1966). The Nature and Diagnosis of Interference Phenomena. Philippine Journal for Langauge Teaching, 4.
Dresher, B., & Kaye, J. (1990). A Computational Learning Model for Metrical Phonology. Cognition, 34, 137-195. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(90)90042-I
Eckman, F. (1977). Markedness and the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis. Language Learning, 27, 315-330. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-1770.1977.tb00124.x
Ferguson, C. (1973). Fricatives in Child Language Acquisition. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development (Linguistics, Stanford University), 6, 61-85.
Gilbers, D., Lowie, W., & Wester, F. (2007). Substitution of Dental Fricatives in English by Dutch L2 Speakers. Language Sciences, 29, 477-491. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2006.12.029
Gimson, A. C. (1980). An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English. London: Edward Arnold.
Greenberg, J. (1966). Universals of Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Hattem, J. (2009). Substitution Patterns for English Interdental Fricatives by L1 Latin American Spanish Speakers. http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~hattem/Academic%20Research/Sample%20Research%20Paper%20 Substitution_Patterns_for_EnglishInter-Dental_Fricatives_(David_J_Hattem)_FINAL_PAPER.pdf
Holm, J. (2000). An Introduction to Pidgins and Creoles. Cambridge: CUP. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139164153
Hung, T. (2004). Innovation in Inter Language Phonology: Evidence from Hong Kong English. http://www.waseda.jp/ocw/AsianStudies/9A-77WorldEnglishSpring2005/LectureNotes/03_HKE_TonyH/HKE_unit5.pdf
Hyman, L. (1975). Phonology: Theory and Analysis. Winston, New York: Holt Rinehart.
Ingham, B. (1971). Some Characteristics of Meccan Speech. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 34, 273279. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X00129544
Jakobson, R. (1968). Child Language, Aphasia and Phonological Universals. The Hague: Mouton.
James, A. (1989). Linguistic Theory and Second Language Phonological Learning: A Perspective and Some Proposals. Applied Linguistics, 10, 367-381. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/10.4.367
Le Page, R. B., & Tabouret-Keller, A. (1985). Acts of Identity: Creole-Based Approaches to Language and Ethnicity. Cambridge: CUP.
Lefebvre, C., White, L., & Jourdan, C. (2003). L2 Acquisition and Creole Genesis. Amesterdam: Benjamins.
Moscowitz, A. (1975). The Two-Year-Old Stage in the Acquisition of English Phonology. In C. Ferguson, & D. Slobin (Eds.), Studies of Child Language Development. Holt Rinehart.
Mousa, A. (1994). The Interphonology of Saudi Learners of English. Unpublished PhD Dissertation: University of Essex.
Nemser, W. (1971). Approximative Systems of Foreign Language Learners. IRAL, 9, 115-123. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/iral.1971.9.2.115
Omar, M. (1975). Saudi Arabic Urban Hijazi Dialect. Foreign Service Institute: Washington.
Patrick-Andre, M. (2006). Second Language Acquisition and Creolization: Same (i-) Processes, Different (e-) Results. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, 21, 231-274. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.21.2.01mat
Peust, C. (1996). Sum: Th-Substitution. The Linguist List 7.1108. http://linguistlist.org/issues/7/7-1108.html
Randell, K. (2004). Finglish. http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1013&context=kent_randell
Rickford, J. (1999). Phonological and Grammatical Features of African American Vernacular (AAVE). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
Roach, P. (2000). English Phonetics and Phonology. Cambridge: CUP.
Schumann, J. (1978b). The Pidginization Process: A Model for Second Language Acquisition. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Sheldon, A., & Strange, W. (1982). The Acquisition of /r/ and /l/ by Japanese Learners of English: Evidence that Speech Production Can Precede Speech Perception. Applied Psycholinguistics, 3, 243-261. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0142716400001417
Smith, N. V. (1973). The Acquisition of Phonology. Cambridge: CUP.
Verma, M., Firth, S., & Corrigan, K. (1992). The Developing Phonological System of Panjabi/Urdu Speaking Children Learning English as a Second Language in Britain. In A. James, & J. Leather (Eds.), New Sounds, 92, 174-199.
Washabaugh, W. (1977). Constraining Variation in Decreolization. Language, 53, 329-352.
Weinreich, U. (1953, 1966). Languages in Contact. The Hague: Mouton.
Wells, J. C. (1973). Jamaican Pronunciation in London. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Wells, J. C. (1982). Accents of English beyond the British Isles. Cambridge: CUP.
Winitz, H. (1969). Artilculatory Acquisition and Behaviour. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.