Question

The analogy between pidginization and early naturalistic second language acquisition (SLA) has been very productive, but there have been some objections to the analogy. The following are some of the objections, with the exception of one. Which one?

Accepted Answer

A) SLA develops when groups of speakers of several different first languages (L1s) are in contact, whereas pidgins are a situation of bilingual contact only. The admixture (merging of two or more languages into one), characteristic of interlanguages (ILs), is never seen in pidgins. SLA is a group phenomenon, pidginization an individual phenomenon, meaning that pidginization use for intra-group communication is unusual.

Answer

B) SLA, with access to the target language, allows for correction and consequent gradual approximation to that target; pidginization, with restricted access, does not provide this option. Pidginization is not targeted language change, but more independent linguistic development.

Answer

C) For socio-economic and political reasons (colonialism, with imported slave or contract labour), the factors underlying social distance between superstrate language and pidginizing language groups are different from those determining social distance in most SLA situations, with attendant differences in the amount of contact with the target language that is available.

Answer

D) However remote due to high social distance, the target language is always the model for interlanguages (ILs), whereas the often very restricted access to the target in pidginization means that the superstrate language is the model only to a limited extent. Thus, pidgins often show incorporation of features from diverse source languages by way of compensation.

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