The document discusses sociolinguistics and related topics. It begins by defining language planning, which involves governments deciding official languages. Next, it describes pidgins as contact languages between groups without a shared language used for practical purposes. When a pidgin becomes a community's native language, it evolves into a creole. Creoles have native speakers and are no longer restricted in use. The document concludes by explaining the post-creole continuum, where a creole evolves varieties ranging from basilects with more creole features to acrolects closer to the standard language.

1. SOCIOLINGUISTICS

2. SOCIOLINGUISTICS
 Language planning
 Pidgin
 Creole
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3. LANGUAGE PLANNING
 Government, legal and educational organizations in many countries have to plan which variety or varieties of the
languages spoken in the country are to be used for official business.
 In Israel, Hebrew was chosen as the official government language.
 In India, the choice was Hindi, yet in many non-Hindi speaking regions, their were riots against this decision.
 There were “National Language Wars” in the Philippines before different groups could agree on the name of the
national language (Filipino).
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4. THE PROCESS OF LANGUAGE PLANNING
 The process of language planning have the following stages:
 I. Selection: The process of “selection” includes choosing an official language.
 II. Codification : The process of “selection” is followed by “codification” in which basic grammars, dictionaries
and written models are used to establish the standard variety.
 III. Elaboration: The process of “Elaboration” follows, with the standard variety being developed for use in all
aspects of social life and the appearance of a body of literary work written in the standard.
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5. THE PROCESS OF LANGUAGE PLANNING (CONTINUED)
 IV. Implementation: The government attempts to encourage use of Standard language.
 V. Acceptance: Is the final stage when a substantial majority of population have come to use the Standard
Language and to think of it as the national language, playing a part in not only social, but also national identity.
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6. PIDGIN
 A variety of a language described as a pidgin is often discussed as “contact” language that developed for some
practical purpose, such as trading, among groups of people who had a lot of contact, but who did not know each
other’s languages. As such, it would have no native speakers. The origin of term “pidgin” is thought to be from a
Chinese version of the English word “business.”
 For example, In Papua New Guinea, with more than eight hundred different languages, a lot of official business
is conducted in Tok Pisin. This language is now used by over a million people, but it began many years earlier as
a kind of important language called a “Pidgin.”
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7. CHARACTERISTICS OF ENGLISH PIDGINS
 There are several English Pidgins still used today. They are characterized by an absence of any complex
grammatical morphology and somewhat limited vocabulary.
 Inflectional suffixes such as –s (plural) and –’s (possessive) are required on noun in standard English, but are rare
in English Pidgins. The –ed suffix of standard English is typically missing.
 Functional morphemes often take the place of inflectional morphemes found in the source language. For
example, instead of changing the form of you to your, as in the English phrase your book, English-based pidgins
use a form like bilong, and change the word order to produce phrases buk bilong yu.
 The syntax of pidgins can be quite unlike the languages from which terms were borrowed and modified.
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8. CREOLES
 When a pidgin develops beyond its role as a trade or contact language and becomes the first language of social
community, it is described as creole. Tok Pisin is now a creole.
 A creole initially develops as the first language of children growing up in a pidgin-using community and
becomes more complex as it serves more communicative purposes. Unlike pidgins, creoles have large number of
native speakers and are not restricted at all in their uses.
 Haiti has a French creole and Jamaica and Sierra Leone have English creoles.
 The separate vocabulary elements of a pidgin can become grammatical elements in a creole.
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9. CREOLES
 When pidgin is inherited as a mother tongue,
 “When a pidgin develops beyond its role as a trade language and becomes the first language of a social
community, it is described as a creole”
 Normally, creoles co-exist with the standard language that was pidginised
 New creoles do not have an established library of written language and so are often influenced by the standard,
which is why they tend to change frequently and rapidly
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10. THE POST-CREOLE CONTINUUM
 Development from a Pidgin to a Creole, known as creolization.
 Often there is retreat from the use of the Creole by those who have greater contact with a
standard variety of a language. Education and greater social prestige are associated with a
“higher” variety, used as a model (e.g. British English) many speakers will tend to use fewer
Creole forms and structures, this is known as decreolization.
 It leads at one extreme to a variety that is closer to the external standard model and leaves, at
the other extreme, a basic variety with more local Creole features . The more basic variety is
called the basilect and the variety closer to the external model is called the acrolect. Between
these two extremes may be range of slightly different varieties, some with many and some
with fewer Creole features, known as mesolect.
 Range of varieties evolving after the Creole has been created, is called the Post-Creole
continuum.
 Thus in Jamaica, one speaker may say a fi mi buk dat (basilect), another may put it as iz mi
buk (mesolect) or yet another may choose it’s my book (acrolect).
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11. REFERENCES:
 An Introduction to Language, Victoria Fromkin and Robert Rodman
 Sociolinguistics, R.A. Hudson
 Language and Linguistics, John Lyons
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