³ ~struct00 º UP: <[LINK]><[LINK]> ³
³ Structuralist contributions º NEXT: <[LINK]> ³
³ and Boas' dissent' º <[LINK] - ³
Structuralist Contributions to Pidgin and Creole Studies During
the 1930s
The eflorescence of structuralism in the 1930s saw little
new addition to the field of creole studies. Most of the work
done in this period drew on previous work to either support or
refute structuralist hypotheses. Leonard Bloomfield's most
famous (or infamous) contribution to creole studies was to
decontextualize and extend Schuchardt's hypothesis of "baby talk"
{<[LINK]> -def.} and "foreigner talk" {<[LINK]> -def.} from being a
factor among factors to being of itself a primary and sufficient
(in conjunction with the dislocation of the population)
explanation of creole language origins. He also introduced the
concept of decreolization in the speech of African Americans
{<[LINK]> decreolization} ({<[LINK]> Holm88} 33, 38, 61) A critic of
the structuralists, Franz Boas, considering the mixed origins of
lexical cognates in many languages, endorsed Schuchardt's wave
model in opposition to the Stannbaum model preferred by most
structuralists, including Edward Sapir, with whom Boas debated
the issue at length.
({<[LINK]> --Thomason and Kaufman} cptr 1, {<[LINK]> Sapir} 144,
153-154, 204 and passim, {<[LINK]> Boas} 225 and passim.)
<[LINK] to continue with the history of creole studies>