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Language Contact in Africa and the African Diaspora in the Americas: In honor of John V. Singler
Edited by Cecelia Cutler, Zvjezdana Vrzić and Philipp Angermeyer
[Creole Language Library 53] 2017
► pp. 323–342

Pidginization versus second language acquisition

Insights from basilang and mesolang varieties of Zulu as a second language

This paper describes a mid-range (or mesolang) version of Zulu as a second language, acquired ‘naturally’ in a rural area by an Indian South African. Particular attention is paid to the morphology of an agglutinating target language, in relation to the acquisition of an elaborate system of prefixes and concords. Such mesolang morphological production is compared with that of an early interlanguage (basilang) user of a similar background. Both varieties are then contrasted with common features of Fanakalo, a pidgin with Zulu as its lexifier. The paper argues that the data do not support arguments for the similarity between processes of pidginization and second language acquisition – with a possible exception from the complexities of the Zulu tense system.

Keywords: pidginization, second language acquisition, Zulu, Fanakalo, agglutinating languages
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Salient features of Fanakalo pidgin
  • 3.The Fanakalo and Zulu as a second language data sets
  • 4.Mesolang ZSL, Zulu TL and Fanakalo: Similarities and differences
    • 4.1Noun class or gender markers in Zulu
      • 4.1.1Noun class markers in mesolang ZSL
    • 4.2Concord (or agreement) in Zulu
      • 4.2.1Subject prefixes bound to the verb in mesolang ZSL
      • 4.2.2Possessive pronoun concords in mesolang ZSL
      • 4.2.3Adjectival concords in mesolang ZSL
      • 4.2.4Relative concords in mesolang ZSL
      • 4.2.5Object concords in mesolang ZSL
  • 5.Differences between mesolang ZSL and Zulu TL
    • 5.1Tense in mesolang ZSL
  • 6.Stepping back: A brief comparison of basilang and mesolang ZSL and Fanakalo
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 12 July 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cll.53.14mes
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