**** Pidgins -- Functional reduction

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Often a pidgin will serve only a narrow range of functions in a speakers' register although over time this may expand under certain conditions. The same pidgin may fulfill different functions depending on the speech situation--who the speakers and the audience are, and what the social context is, for example. Pidgins, according to Holm, always function as communication. Native languages function as modes of representation as well as communication--thoughts and feelings can be represented in language with no communication necessarily taking place. Pidgin speakers will most likely represent their thoughts in their favored representing language, i.e. their native language, translating into the communicative language only when necessary. They will project their already-formed representations into the non-native communicative system. This is one of the reasons for the idiolectal nature of pidgins in their earliest stages.

• - Conditions for expansion of function .......... <[LINK]>
• - Power relations, perspective and function .... <[LINK]>
• - Representation and communication ........ ........ <[LINK]>
• - Holm's definition ............................... <[LINK]>
• - Pidgins as non-native lects. ................... <[LINK]>
• - General examples of multiple functions ........ <[LINK]>