archives@tulane.edu / Despite the work of dozens of dedicated scholars spanning decades, we seem no closer to a clear-cut answer as to who and what are signified by the signifier Creole in the Gulf South. And yet a perduring infatuation with this ever-enigmatic term continues to tempt scholars and laymen alike to try their hand at the Sisyphean task. It is hard to believe that such a vague label could possibly serve as a vehicle for ethnolinguistic identity, and yet that is precisely how Creole functions in Louisiana and beyond. This dissertation employs nexus analysis (Scollon and Scollon 2004) to explore the variable uses of Creole as a tool for delimiting ethnolinguistic boundaries in Texas and Louisiana. These boundaries can subsequently be interpreted as the basis for contemporary Creole identity in the Gulf South. The results bear on issues relating to cultural authenticity, linguistic legitimacy, and racial subjectivity. They also have implications for theories of migration, acculturation, and translocality. My data are drawn from interviews with a sample of Texas-resident (n=32) and Louisiana-resident (n=28) participants who self-identify as Creole-speaking Creoles. The main goal of the interviews was to give participants the space to define what Creole meant to them as a label for people and as a label for language. Based on these data, I was able to map the general and idiosyncratic characteristics associated with Creole in each place and make comparisons between the sub-samples. Creole ethnolinguistic identity, while internally diverse within the two sub-samples, displays very little variation between the sub-samples. These results indicate a certain, loose ideological coherence among Gulf South Creoles regarding delimitation via the label Creole. Creole ought to be considered a handy tool in an ethnolinguistic identity repertoire (cf. Benor 2010) whose contents include both linguistic and cultural traits. Such a reconceptualization may increase Creole access to voice in the region. The weight of translocal flows of people, products, and ideas that can be identified as Creole are heavily skewed towards originating in Louisiana. While Creole remains primarily associated with Louisiana, there are faint traces of Texas influence within and across the sub-samples. / 1 / Nathan A. Wendte

Impairment caused by non-fluent aphasia often results in the omission and substitution of inflectional markers. Cross-linguistic work has revealed differential patterns of aphasic impairment across languages. This study aims to determine how non-fluent aphasia is manifested in English-based Caribbean creole languages, namely Jamaican Creole English (JCE) and Guyanese Creole (GC). The use of inflectional morphology is variable in English-based Caribbean creole languages. Therefore, in aphasic creole speech, it is difficult to ascertain the status of a grammatical omission as a valid creole feature or as a sign of impairment. I argue that Seymour’s et al. (1998) contrastive-noncontrastive schema can be useful for differentiating between normal and disordered creole features. The data in this study was obtained from a creole speaker with aphasic impairments. The data was later transcribed and analyzed. The results of this study appear to suggest that grammatical markers may form a hierarchy of susceptibility to aphasic impairment. Tense, agreement and aspectual markers along with auxiliaries and copulas appear to be more susceptible to impairment in disordered creole speech than plural markers, personal and demonstrative pronouns and articles. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / Non-fluent aphasia is a language disorder caused by stroke and other types of severe brain trauma. This disorder can affect an individual's ability to produce grammatical words and suffixes in different ways depending on the language that they speak. This study seeks to determine how non-fluent aphasia affects English-based Caribbean creole languages, namely Jamaican Creole English (JCE) and Guyanese Creole (GC). Grammatical suffixes are optional in English-based Caribbean creole languages; therefore, it is difficult to determine whether or not an omitted grammatical suffix is a valid creole feature or a sign of impairment. I argue that Seymour’s et al. (1998) contrastive-noncontrastive schema can be useful for differentiating between normal and disordered creole features. The data in this study was obtained from a creole speaker with aphasic impairments. The data was later transcribed and analyzed. The results of this study appear to suggest that certain grammatical markers are more prone error than others in aphasic creole speech. Markers that carry tense, agreement and aspectual information along with auxiliaries and copulas appear to be more susceptible to impairment than plural markers, personal and demonstrative pronouns and articles.

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Linguists and psychologists alike have long overlooked the study of creole languages. We know very little about language and reading acquisition in young creole speakers. The aim of the present study was to examine the development of reading-related skills in native speakers of Haitian Creole (HC), a French-based creole, educated in French. In order to isolate the effects of speaking two highly similar languages, we compared Haitian children in 1st and 2nd grade to Spanish-French bilingual children and French monolingual children from European descent. Children from our sample were from five different schools in Montreal and had similar socioeconomic status. Participants were tested individually over three sessions on French standardized and experimental tasks assessing metalinguistic awareness, reading, comprehension, vocabulary and mathematical skills. Bilingual children were also tested on reading and spelling tasks in HC and Spanish. Results showed that HC and Spanish bilinguals performed as well as French native speakers on metalinguistic and reading tasks. However, Spanish-speaking children received lower scores than children in the two other groups on a receptive vocabulary measure. In an experimental task comparing the spelling of words of varying phonological similarity in HC and French, Haitian children had more difficulty spelling words that are cognates in HC and French than homophones or noncognate translations. Findings from this study were interpreted in light of the Bilingual Interactive Activation model (Dijsktra & Van Heuven, 1998).

The author's Habilitationsschrift--Freie Universität Berlin. / Includes indexes. Includes bibliographical references (p. 292-313).

Thesis--Paris. / Without thesis statement. "Errata" slip tipped in. Includes bibliographical references (p. [xxv]-xviii).

Thesis--Paris. / Without thesis statement. "Errata" slip tipped in. Includes bibliographical references (p. [xxv]-xviii).

No description available.