Stéphane Térosier
Department of Romance Languages and Literature
University at Buffalo

Rethinking Creole studies: Going beyond binaries

In this talk, I propose a new approach to the issue of creole simplicity, which has been a
major fault line in the field of creole studies. Recent debates have been dominated by
two apparently unreconcilable views: creole exceptionalism and uniformitarianism.
Proponents of creole exceptionalism claim that creole languages form a distinct class of
languages and are markedly simpler than their lexifiers (e.g., McWhorter 1998, 2018;
Bakker et al. 2011). Uniformitarians, on the other hand, hold that creoles are the
products of universal processes and are thus on a par with all other natural languages
(Mufwene 2001, 2008; Aboh 2015; Aboh & DeGraff 2016). On this view, creole simplicity
is a non-issue.

Although essentially uniformitarian, the approach I advocate for takes a rather different
perspective on complexity. Specifically, I hold that complexity should not be
apprehended as a global phenomenon. Creolization may, therefore, result in both
simplification and complexification. Evidence for this claim is drawn from two
phenomena observable in Martinican Creole: gender loss (a case of simplification) and
“definite” questions (a case of complexification).

Ultimately, I propose that the future of creole studies rests on an approach that focuses
on the interaction between Chomsky’s (2005) three factors in language design (genetic
endowment, experience and domain-general cognition). Creole languages are thus of
special interest to our quest for a deeper understanding of language acquisition and the
language faculty.

This will be a virtual seminar, presented in the Linguistics Seminar Room.