Creole/superstrate code-switching : analysing the dynamic relationship between Tok Pisin and English in Papua New Guinea

Abstract

Investigating variation in Tok Pisin a generation after Papua New Guinean Independence has found bilingualism with English the most significant factor in the development of this pidgin/creole (Romaine 1992; Smith, G 2002). Two predictions for the development of Tok Pisin can be traced to the pre-Independence debates of the 1970s: that of decreolization and the formation of a creole continuum on the one hand (Bickerton 1975); and that of sociolectal variation and code-switching (CS) with English on the other (Miihlhausler 1975, 1985). This study establishes and discusses reference-points for expanded (creole) Tok Pisin and for Papua New Guinea (PNG) English. Primary data collected during fieldwork from a range of urban, anglicised spoken registers are presented as containing three types of multi-lingual behaviour. The findings of different types of CS show: deliberate separation of languages for particular effects (Poplack 1980; Auer 1999); highly structured unmarked combinations featuring a matrix-language (Myers-Scotton 1993, 2002); and also intermediate language characterised by unmarked CS based on an intermediate, congruent, grammatical system (Muysken 1997, 2000). Relating samples of the primary data to native bilingual speakers shows that tolerance of mixed-language is high, and that grammatical changes in ‘Tok Pisin’ involved in CS may not be salient for some speakers. This indicates a connecting route between bilingualism and language change. This thesis shows that ‘Urban Tok Pisin’ can best be understood as ‘Language Mixing’ involving a full range of CS types. It is shown that there are indications of an intermediate, congruent grammar underlying some variable behaviour that has been elsewhere categorised as creating a ‘continuum’ with English. Both Tok Pisin and PNG English are involved in this relationship. It is argued here that congruency-based CS underlies examples of ‘decreolized’ Tok Pisin, and shown that well-developed CS-analysis including PNG English is vital to any further study of variation in Tok Pisin.