Language Creation and Language Change: Creolization, Diachrony, and Development (review)

This book treats cognitive issues in creole genesis, language acquisition, and diachrony. It integrates several subdisciplines within linguistics in an effort to reach beyond old arguments and provide possible multidimensional solutions to nagging polemical questions that remain unresolved within at least the field of creole studies but within other areas of linguistics as well. This collection of essays is also one of the few works to approach these topics from the perspective of generative syntax (see also Muysken 1981). The primary issue DeGraff is trying to unravel is how children turn primary linguistic data (PLD) into I(nternalized) languages or linguistic representations of the mind. Consequently, diachrony is ultimately considered as a ‘resetting’ of parameter values in the mind and not (essentially) as a language contact phenomenon, even if external factors are at play in the invocation of this reconfiguration (see 476–78). The theoretical background to the volume associates language acquisition/creolization with the setting of parameters based on PLD that function as ‘triggers’ or ‘cues’. This book is unique in that it uses studies of creolization, diachrony, and acquisition to explore universal grammar or the genetically-specified hard-wired linguistic component of human beings. With these goals in mind, the volume makes use not only of data from the acquisition of creole languages but of noncreole languages such as Irish and signed languages. Adults engaged in second language acquisition and their possible contribution to creolization are considered as well.

The book is divided into five sections: ‘Creolization and acquisition’ (47–157); ‘Acquisition under (other) “exceptional” circumstances’ (159–253); ‘Language processing and syntactic change’ (255–84); ‘Parameter (re)setting in creolization, language change, language acquisition’ (285–427); and ‘Commentaries and epilogue’ (429–543). The editor’s introduction (1–46) and epilogue (473–543) are substantial review articles in their own right, not simply a rehashing of what contributors have already said. The epilogue in particular is illuminating in tying together various thematic threads and valuable in pointing towards future research topics that demand attention.

The first four articles introduce a (false?) dichotomy all too familiar to creolists: Are the primary agents of language creolization/creation adults or children? Weighing in on the side of children is, of course, Derek Bickerton (49–74), whose language bioprogram hypothesis is alluded to in varying degrees in nearly every chapter. In short, his position is that children abruptly (more or less in one generation) create a new language (i.e. a creole) based on internal rules or settings when the PLD is restricted and highly variable. Dany Adone and Anne Vainikka (75–94) support Bickerton’s conclusions, while John S. Lumsden (129–57) asserts that it is adults via the mental process of relexification who are chiefly responsible for the emergence of creole languages. Salikoko S. Mufwene (95–127) takes a more moderate approach between these two poles (highlighting the roles of both children and adults in creolization), a sensibly inclusive point of view which is also mostly supported by D as well.

Part 2 contains the volume’s most provocative chapters. Two of these chapters examine the acquisition/creation of signed languages by deaf children. The first article, by Elissa L. Newport (161–78), examines data provided by a deaf child named Simon. Simon only received PLD from his deaf parents, fluent but not native signers who learned the language in their late teens. Newport found that Simon reorganized his parents’ PLD into a more rule-governed ASL system whose structure resembles other natural languages. Simon did not create a completely new language. Instead ‘he appears to be following the predominant tendencies of his input, but he sharpens them, extends them, and forces them to be internally consistent’ (173). This general conclusion appears not to fit neatly the strong version of Bickerton’s position of children as the primary ‘creators’ of languages based on variable...