Issues in the Study of Pidgin and Creole Languages (review)

The seventieth in the Studies in Language Companion Series, the book is a reader on various aspects of creole studies in general, and Haitian Creole in particular, as well as on the broader topic of linguistic change. Except for two original chapters, it brings together articles published between 2000 and 2003, mainly in the Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages (JPCL). The ten chapters aim at developing certain topics that were not addressed in Lefebvre's breakthrough book Creole Genesis and the Acquisition of Grammar: The Case of Haitian Creole (1998).

For the devoted reader of JPCL and other publications on creole studies, this book offers the opportunity to consult at a glance a series of papers Lefebvre has published since her Creole Genesis. Given the prominence and influence the author has gained in the field, and given the thought-provoking quality of many of the chapters, this is a welcome publica- tion. It will allow admirers and followers, as well as detractors and critics, to discuss or develop in a coherent way the views Lefebvre has put forward. The author and subject indices are particularly welcome in this respect.

For the reader who is not familiar with creole studies, the book provides an excellent opportunity to get acquainted with the work of one of the most prolific scholars in the field. It is also an excellent first contact with creole studies, as it provides a perfect balance of data (carefully presented and analysed), theory (with exhaustive reference to all the important work in the discipline), and methodology (exposing and clarifying crucial points of method). The book thus provides a useful resource for teaching graduate or advanced undergraduate courses on creole languages, language change, or language contact.

The organization of the book is particularly suited to the second type of readership, as the chapters are presented in increasing order of complexity, the first chapters providing the basics concepts that will be needed later on in the book. Chapter 2 offers a state-of-the-art account of the genesis of pidgin and creole languages, including a first overview of the relexification theory, which is at the core of Lefebvre's work. Chapter 3 provides an eighty-five-page summary of Creole Genesis, a truly exceptional book, given the breadth and depth of the material presented. Since the book provided the first comprehensive and systematic overview of the properties of a creole, in comparison with the properties of its contributing languages, it is a book that cannot be ignored. Three more chapters deal with the genesis of creole languages, from different perspectives: the relevance for 'mainstream' linguistics (chapter 4); the specific processes involved, i.e., relexification and dialect leveling (chapter 9); and the emergence of a subsystem of the grammar, morphology (chapter 10). Two chapters address the question of the special status of creole languages, the so-called semantic transparency of creoles (chapter 7) and the typological similarities between creole languages (chapter 8). Chapter 5 discusses the 'non-neutral activity' of collecting data while chapter 6 clarifies how relexification and grammaticalization applied to multifunctional lexical entries.

As always, Lefebvre's style is clear and systematic, avoiding as much as possible technical terms and complicated theoretical apparatus. And, as was the case with her Creole Genesis, this book is the result of an incredible amount of research. It provides new answers, raises new questions and opens up new perspectives for specialists or dilettantes in creole studies alike.