Hostname: page-component-89b8bd64d-z2ts4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-08T10:58:45.572Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

LANGUAGE REVITALIZATION AS L2 SHADOW BOXING

THE CASE OF PALENQUERO PLURAL-MARKING

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2020

John M. Lipski Open the ORCID record for John M. Lipski [Opens in a new window]
John M. Lipski*
Affiliation:
The Pennsylvania State University
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to John M. Lipski, Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, The Pennsylvania State University, 442 Burrowes Building, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802. E-mail: jlipski@psu.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the Afro-Colombian community of San Basilio de Palenque, there are school-based efforts to revitalize the once-endangered creole language Palenquero. At present, most Palenquero language classes do not include grammatical instruction, active student production, or corrective feedback, and there is little or no communication in Palenquero between L2 learners and fluent adult speakers. One result is that L2 Palenquero speakers are overgeneralizing the Palenquero prenominal plural marker to singular contexts, in a fashion that partly suggests a Spanish-influenced misinterpretation as a definite article. The present study summarizes oral and written production, and then analyzes processing data from an eye-tracking experiment confirming L2 learners’ emergent restructuring of the Palenquero plural marker. L2 learners have regularized perceived variation similar to learners of artificial languages, and the morphological marking of plurality is seemingly being lost, possibly morphing into an emergent but still unstable definiteness marker effectively delinked from number.

Keywords

Palenquerocreole languageSpanishrevitalizationpluralization

Information

Type
Research Report
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. 220 - 235
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant BCS-1357155, and in its initial stages by a grant from the Africana Research Center at Penn State. The author gratefully acknowledges the support and friendship of the following Palenqueros, all of whom have contributed significantly to all phases of this research: Ana Joaquina Cásseres, Magdalena Navarro, Basilia Pérez, Bernardino Pérez Miranda, Manuel Pérez, Neis Pérez, Venancia Pérez, José de los Santos Reyes, Raúl Salas, Florentina “Yayita” Salas, Sebastián Salgado, Víctor Simarra Reyes, and Juana Torres. And of course my greatest debt is to the more than 200 other Palenqueros who have shared their lives and their languages with me. Thanks to Laura Rodrigo Cristóbal for getting me started with relevant R scripts, and to Jessica Vélez-Avilés for verifying the accuracy of the responses.

References

REFERENCES

Altmann, G. T. (2011). Language can mediate eye movement control within 100 milliseconds, regardless of whether there is anything to move the eyes to. Acta Psychologica, 137, 190–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arrázola, R. (1970). Palenque, primer pueblo libre de América. Ediciones Hernández.Google Scholar
Bickerton, D. (1980). Decreolisation and the creole continuum. In Valdman, A. & Highfield, A. (Eds.), Theoretical orientations in creole studies (pp. 109–127). Academic Press.Google Scholar
Boersma, P., & Weenink, D. (1999–2005). PRAAT: Doing phonetics by computer. http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/Google Scholar
Cásseres Estrada, S. (2005). Diccionario lengua afro palenquero-español. Ediciones Pluma de Mompox.Google Scholar
Cassiani Obeso, E. (2019a). Prenominal ma in Palenquero creole: Emergence of a plural marker. Paper presented at the 27th Conference on Spanish in the U.S. & 12th Conference on Spanish in Contact with Other Languages, Cleveland State University, April.Google Scholar
Cassiani Obeso, E. (2019b). Prenominal ma in variation with zero in Palenquero Creole: Variation of a plural marker. Paper presented at the Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, University of Texas El Paso, October.Google Scholar
Cassiani Obeso, E. (2020). Reinforcement of grammatical structures through explicit instruction in Palenquero Creole. Paper presented at GURT 2020: Multilingualism: Global South and Global North Perspectives, Georgetown University, March.Google Scholar
Dauenhauer, N. M., & Dauenhauer, R. (1998). Technical, emotional, and ideological issues in reversing language shift: Examples from Southeast Alaska. In Grenoble, L. A. & Whaley, L. J. (Eds.), Endangered Languages: Language loss and community response (pp. 57–98). Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deibel, I. (2020). The contribution of grammar and lexicon to language switching costs: Examining contact-induced languages and their implications for theories of language representation. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728919000865.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dink, J. W., & Ferguson, B. (2015). eyetrackingR: An R library for eye-tracking data analysis. http://www.eyetrackingr.com.Google Scholar
Dussias, P. E., Gullifer, J. W., & Poepsel, T. J. (2016). How psycholinguistics can inform contact linguistics: Converging evidence against a decreolization view of Palenquero. In Schwegler, A., McWhorter, J., & Ströbel, L. (Eds.), Spanish and Portuguese in Contact with other Languages (pp. 181–204). Iberoamericana Vervuert.Google Scholar
Dussias, P. E., Kroff, J. R. V., Guzzardo Tamargo, R. E., & Gerfen, C. (2013). When gender and looking go hand in hand: Grammatical gender processing in L2 Spanish. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 35, 353–387.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischer, B. (1992). Saccadic reaction time: Implications for reading, dyslexia and visual cognition. In Rayner, K. (Ed.), Eye movements and visual cognition: Scene perception and reading (pp. 31–45). Springer Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedemann, N. S. de, & Patiño Rosselli, C. (1983). Lengua y sociedad en el Palenque de San Basilio. Instituto Caro y Cuervo.Google Scholar
Gómez Rodríguez, M. T. (2017). Hacia la educación bilingüe en San Basilio de Palenque como medio para la revitalización de la lengua ri palenge: Bases orientativas en su implementación[Doctoral dissertation]. Universidad del País Vasco, Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain.Google Scholar
Hendricks, A. E., Miller, K., & Jackson, C. N. (2018). Regularizing unpredictable variation: Evidence from a natural language setting. Language Learning and Development, 14, 42–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hernández Cassiani, R., Guerrero, C. I., & Pérez Palomino, J. (2008). Palenque: historia libertaria, cultura y tradición. Casa Editorial S. A.Google Scholar
Herrera Llorente, L., & Álvarez Romero, Y. (2013). Fortalecimiento de la práctica de la lengua palenquera [Undergraduate thesis]. Universidad Tecnológica de Bolívar, Cartagena de Indias, Colombia.Google Scholar
Hudson Kam, C. L., & Newport, E. L. (2005). Regularizing unpredictable variation: The roles of adult and child learners in language formation and change. Language Learning and Development, 1, 151–195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hudson Kam, C. L., & Newport, E. L. (2009). Getting it right by getting it wrong: When learners change languages. Cognitive Psychology, 59, 30–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huettig, F., Rommers, J., & Meyer, A. S. (2011). Using the visual world paradigm to study language processing: A review and critical evaluation. Acta Psychologica, 137, 151–171.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ionin, T. (2006). A comparison of article semantics in L2 acquisition and creole languages. In Lefebvre, C., White, L., & Jourdan, C. (Eds.), L2 acquisition and creole genesis: dialogues (pp. 253–273). John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ionin, T., Montrul, S., & Crivos, M. (2013). A bidirectional study on the acquisition of plural noun phrase interpretation in English and Spanish. Applied Psycholinguistics, 34, 483–518.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lew-Williams, C., & Fernald, A. (2007). Young children learning Spanish make rapid use of grammatical gender in spoken word recognition. Psychological Science, 18, 193–198.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lew-Williams, C., & Fernald, A. (2010). Real-time processing of gender-marked articles by native and non-native Spanish speakers. Journal of Memory and Language, 63, 447–464.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lipski, J. (2010). Pitch polarity in Palenquero: A possible locus of H tone. In Colina, S. (Ed.), Linguistic studies in Romance languages (pp. 111–127). John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Lipski, J. (2012a). The “new” Palenquero: revitalization and re-creolization. In File-Muriel, R. & Orozco, R. (Eds.), Varieties of Colombian Spanish (pp. 21–41). Vervuert.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipski, J. (2012b). Free at last: From bound morpheme to discourse marker in Lengua ri Palenge (Palenquero Creole Spanish). Anthropological Linguistics, 54, 101–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipski, J. (2014). La lengua palenquera juvenil: contacto y conflicto de estructuras gramaticales. UniverSOS, 11, 191–207.Google Scholar
Lipski, J. (2015). From “more” to “less”: Spanish, Palenquero (Afro-Colombian creole), and gender agreement. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 30, 1144–1155.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipski, J. (2016). Lengua suto é ngande [our language is great]: Emerging discourse markers in revitalized Palenquero (Afro-Colombian Spanish creole). Revista de Estudios Colombianos, 47, 49–56.Google Scholar
Lipski, J. (2017). Palenquero vs. Spanish negation: Separate but equal? Lingua, 202, 44–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipski, J. (2018a). Can NEG placement have negative consequences (for efficient processing)? A bilingual test case. Applied Psycholinguistics, 39, 1147–1188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipski, J. (2018b). Can agreement be suppressed in second-language acquisition? Data from the Palenquero-Spanish interface. Second Language Research, 34, 309–341.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipski, J. (2020a). Palenquero and Spanish in contact: Exploring the interface. John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipski, J. (2020b). What you hear is (not always) what you get: Subjects and verbs among receptive Palenquero–Spanish bilinguals. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 10, 315–350. https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.17083.lip.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matin, E., Shao, K., & Boff, K. (1993). Saccadic overhead: Information processing time with and without saccades. Perceptual Psychophysics, 53, 372–380.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moñino, Y. (2002). Las construcciones de genitivo en palenquero: ¿una semantaxis africana? In. Moñino, Y. & Schwegler, A. (Eds.), Palenque, Cartagena y Afro-Caribe: historia y lengua (pp. 227–248). Niemeyer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moñino, Y. (2003). Lengua e identidad afro-americana: El caso del criollo de Palenque de San Basilio (Colombia). In Alès, C. & Chiappino, J. (Eds.), Caminos cruzados: ensayos en antropología social, etnoecología y etnoeducación (pp. 517–531). IRD-Éditions & Universidad de los Andes, GRIAL.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moñino, Y. (2007). Convergencias lingüísticas iberocongolesas en palenquero: ¿integrarse a la sociedad mayoritaria o distinguirse de ella? In Mihatsch, W. & Sokol, M. (Eds.), Language contact and language change in the Caribbean and beyond/Lenguas en contacto y cambio lingüístico en el Caribe y más allá (pp. 37–57). Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Moñino, Y. (2012). Pasado, presente y futuro de la lengua de Palenque. In Maglia, G. & Schwegler, A. (Eds.), Palenque Colombia: oralidad, identidad y resistencia (pp. 221–255). Pontificia Universidad Javeriana.Google Scholar
Moñino, Y. (2013). Nueves luces sobre el uso del plural en palenquero y sus orígenes kikongo. Vistas al Patio, (7), 39–58.Google Scholar
Moñino, Y. (2014). Dos lenguas para hablar del mundo y contarlo. In Maglia, G. & Moñino, Y. (Eds). Kondalo pa bibí mejó. Contarlo para vivir mejor. Oratura y oralitura de San Basilio de Palenque (Colombia) (pp. 23–46). Editorial de la Pontificia Universidad Javereiana.Google Scholar
Morales, L., Paolieri, D., Dussias, P. E., Kroff, J. R. V., Gerfen, C., & Bajo, M. T. (2016). The gender congruency effect during bilingual spoken-word recognition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 19 294–310.Google Scholar
Morton, T. (2005). Sociolinguistic variation and language change in El Palenque de San Basilio (Colombia)[Doctoral dissertation]. University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Mufwene, S. S. (2010). SLA and the emergence of creoles. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 32, 359–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muysken, P. C. (2001). The origin of creole languages: The perspective of second language learning. In Smith, N. & Veenstra, T. (Eds.), Creolization and contact (pp. 157–174). John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Navarrete, M. C. (2008). San Basilio de Palenque: memoria y tradición. Programa Editorial, Universidad del Valle.Google Scholar
Pérez Miranda, B. (2011). Chitieno lengua ku ma kuendo (hablemos palenquero a través del cuento). Pluma de Mompox.Google Scholar
Pfleiderer, B. (1998). Sprachtod und Revitalisierung der spanisch basierten Kreolsprache Palenquero (Kolumbien). Freie Universität Berlin.Google Scholar
Reeder, P. A., Newport, E. L., & Aslin, R. N. (2013). From shared contexts to syntactic categories: The role of distributional information in learning linguistic form-classes. Cognitive Psychology, 66, 30–54.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reeder, P. A., Newport, E. L., & Aslin, R. N. (2017). Distributional learning of subcategories in an artificial grammar: Category generalization and subcategory restrictions. Journal of Memory and Language, 97, 17–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rickford, J. (1987). Dimensions of a creole continuum. Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Samara, A., Smith, K., Brown, H., & Wonnacott, E. (2017). Acquiring variation in an artificial language: Children and adults are sensitive to socially conditioned linguistic variation. Cognitive Psychology, 94, 85–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saslow, M. G. (1967). Effects of components of displacement-step stimuli upon latency for saccadic eye movement. Journal of the Optical Society of America, 57, 1024–1029.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schumann, J. H. (1978). The relationship of pidginization, creolization and decreolization to second language acquisition. Language Learning, 28, 367–379.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwegler, A. (2007a). A fresh consensus in the marking: plural ma and bare nouns in Palenquero. In Mihatsch, W. & Sokol, M. (Eds.), Language contact and language change in the Caribbean and beyond/Lenguas en contacto y cambio lingüístico en el Caribe y más allá (pp. 59–75). Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Schwegler, A. (2007b). Bare nouns in Palenquero: A fresh consensus in the making. In Baptista, M. & Guéron, J. (Eds.), Noun phrases in creole languages: A multi-faceted approach (pp. 205–222). John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwegler, A. (2011). On the extraordinary revival of a creole: Palenquero (Colombia). In Haboud, M. & Ostler, N. (Eds.), Endangered Languages—Voices and Images (pp. 153–165). Foundation for Endangered Languages.Google Scholar
Schwegler, A. (2012). Sobre el origen africano de la lengua criolla de Palenque (Colombia). In Maglia, G. & Schwegler, A. (Eds.), Palenque Colombia: oralidad, identidad y resistencia (pp. 107–179). Pontificia Universidad Javeriana.Google Scholar
Schwegler, A (2013a). Palenquero. In Michaelis, S. M., Maurer, P., Haspelmath, M., & Huber, M. (Eds.), The atlas and survey of pidgin and creole language structures, vol. II: Portuguese-based, Spanish-based and French-based languages (pp. 182–192). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schwegler, A. (2013b). Palenquero structure data set. In Michaelis, S. M., Maurer, P., Haspelmath, M., & Huber, M. (Eds.), The atlas of pidgin and creole language structures online. Max Planck Digital Library, chapter 28. http://apics-online.info/contributions/48Google Scholar
Schwegler, A. & Green, K (2007) Palenquero (creole Spanish). In Holm, J. & Patrick, P. (Eds.), Comparative creole syntax: Parallel outlines of 18 creole grammars (pp. 273–306). Battlebridge.Google Scholar
Serratrice, L., Sorace, A., Filiaci, F., & Baldo, M. (2009). Bilingual children’s sensitivity to specificity and genericity: Evidence from metalinguistic awareness. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 12, 239–257.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siegel, J. (2008). Pidgins/creoles and second language acquisition. In Kouwenberg, S. & Singler, J. V. (Eds.), The handbook of pidgin and creole studies (pp. 189–218). Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Stauble, A. M. E. (1978). The process of decreolization: A model for second language development. Language Learning, 28, 29–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tanenhaus, M. K., & Trueswell, J. C. (2006). Eye movements and spoken language comprehension. In Traxler, M. & Gernsbacher, M. (Eds.), Handbook of psycholinguistics (pp. 863–900). Academic Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Washabaugh, W. (1977). Constraining variation in decreolization. Language, 53, 329–352.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wonnacott, E., Brown, H., & Nation, K. (2017). Skewing the evidence: The effect of input structure on child and adult learning of lexically based patterns in an artificial language. Journal of Memory and Language, 95, 36–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar