Chapter 8
The influences of adult and child speakers in the emergence of
Light Warlpiri, an Australian mixed language
Many analyses of language change are only able to
draw on data from adult speech and therefore cannot empirically
motivate a connection between an origin of a potential change and
the actuation of that change throughout a community of speakers. The
case study of the recent emergence of Light Warlpiri (O’Shannessy 2005), a mixed
language spoken in northern Australia, provides new perspectives on
the roles of different age groups of adults and children in the
emergence of the mixed language, and suggests an empirically
motivated model of how a mixed language can emerge from practices of
code-switching between languages, in a two-stage process (O’Shannessy 2020). This
case also has important implications for the sociohistorical study
of the potential role of young learners in other cases of language
change and the emergence of new languages.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.The sociohistorical context for the emergence of Light
Warlpiri
- 3.The roles of adults and children in the emergence of Light
Warlpiri
- 4.The role of child speakers in the development of Light Warlpiri
since its emergence
- 5.Language acquisition and the historical sociolinguistics of Light
Warlpiri
- 6.Conclusion
-
Acknowledgements
-
Notes
-
Abbreviations
-
References