The language bioprogram hypothesis
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23319783 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Derek Bickerton (University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1984 |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 173-188 |
| Publication date | 1984-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Behavioral and Brain Sciences (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0140-525X • E-ISSN: 1469-1825 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0140525x00044149 |
| OpenAlex | W2047310534 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 234 |
| References cited | 80 |
It is hypothesized that creole languages are largely invented by children and show fundamental similarities, which derive from a biological program for language. The structures of Hawaiian Pidgin and Hawaiian Creole are contrasted, and evidence is provided to show that the latter derived from the former in a single generation. A realistic model of the processes of Creole formation shows how several specific historical and demographic factors interacted to restrict, in varying degrees, the access of pidgin speakers to the dominant language, and hence the nature of input to the children of those speakers. It is shown that the resulting similarities of Creole languages derive from a single grammar with a restricted list of categories and operations. However, grammars of individual Creoles will differ from this grammar to a varying extent: The degree of difference will correlate very closely with the quantity of dominant-language input, which in turn is controlled by extralinguistic factors. Alternative explanations of the above phenomena are surveyed, in particular, substratum theory and monogenesis: Both are found inadequate to account for the facts. Primary acquisition is examined in light of the general hypothesis, and it is suggested that the bioprogram provides a skeletal model of language which the child can then readily convert into the target language. Cases of systematic error and precocious learning provide indirect support for the hypothesis. Some conjectures are made concerning the evolutionary origins of the bioprogram and what study of Creoles and related topics might reveal about language origins.
Creole language · Grammar · Language acquisition · Linguistics · Pidgin · Rule-based machine translation · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Language Development and Disorders · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Philosophy · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Psychology
Creole epistemology and Southern Theory
Pidgins and Creoles
Grammaticalization and inflectionalization in Iranian
The Evolution of Language
O pretoguês como comunidade de prática
Adults regularize variation when linguistic cues suggest low input reliability
What multiethnolects reveal about creole genesis
The Evolution of Social Communication in Primates
French Guianese Creole
Two Types of Functional Transfer in Language Contact
The linguistic significance of African proper names in Gullah
Neo-Darwinian accounts of the evolution of language
The formation of Afrikaans
The Lexical Competence Hypothesis
Creoles as interlanguages
Creoles as interlanguages
Substrate influence on the emergence of the TMA systems of the Surinamese creoles
The complex of creole typological features
The origins of empty categories in Singapore English
Creoles are typologically distinct from non-creoles
Creole Formation as Language Contact
Langues créoles et origine du langage
The Language Lottery
Tense and Modality in two creoles
Język migowy w perspektywie socjolingwistycznej
Langues creoles. État des lieux des recherches et propositions pour une approche multicausale de leur genèse
Foundations of a “Sane Creology”
Typological diversity in New Englishes
On the relation between V-to-I and the structure of the inflectional paradigm
Perspectives on Historical Syntax
Connections between sociolinguistics and pidgin-creole studies
The temporal interpretation of Dutch children's root infinitivals
Mikael Parkvall, "Da África para o Atlântico". Campinas, Editora da Universidade Estadual de Campinas, 2012
Fa D’ambô
Grammatical Acquisition
Competition, selection, and the role of congruence in Creole genesis and development
Pidgin and Creole Tense-Mood-Aspect Systems
Development and Structures of Creole Languages
The Homogeneity of the Substrate as a Factor in Pidgin/Creole Genesis
Response to Goodman
Identifying the Creole Prototype
Creole Genesis and the Acquisition of Grammar
Demographics in the formation of language communities and in the emergence of languages
The Role of Diffusion in the Genesis of Hawaiian Creole
Melanesian Pidgin and the Oceanic Substrate
The Structure and Status of Pidgins and Creoles
Myths, magic, and poorly drawn battle lines
Pidgins And Creoles
Interview with Edgar W. Schneider
Substrate influence in Hawai'i Creole English
New Perspectives on Grammar Teaching in Second Language Classrooms
Notes on the history and the syntax of Mauritian Creole
A diachronic and synchronic account of the multifunctionality of Saramaccan táa
Against markedness (and what to replace it with)
Tense and Aspect in Guyanese Creole with Reference to Jamaican and Carriacouan
Modeling Interactions Between Language Evolution and Demography
The language machine
The role of multiple sources in the formation of an innovative auxiliary category in Light Warlpiri, a new Australian mixed language
Grammaticalization and typology in Australian Aboriginal languages
Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective
The Handbook of Pidgin and Creole Studies
Language Variety in the South Revisited
The Emergence of Hybrid Grammars
The Acquisition of Creole Languages
The Making of Vernacular Singapore English
Roots of Creole structures
Languages of the World
The Cambridge Handbook of African Linguistics
Language Development
Pidgins and Creoles
Pinker’s (1994) The Language Instinct
Pidgin and Creole Languages
Language Development, Theories of
African Linguistics in North-Eastern and So-Called Anglophone Africa
Built for Speed
Heritage Languages and Their Speakers
Regularity in Semantic Change
Grammaticalization
Darwin's mistake
Regularizing Unpredictable Variation
On the Inseparability of Grammar and the Lexicon
Getting it right by getting it wrong
When learners surpass their models
The emergence of grammar
Children Creating Core Properties of Language
The Now-or-Never bottleneck
Children Creating Language
Second language acquisition
Statistical Learning by 8-Month-Old Infants
Guest Editor's Preface
The Poverty of the Stimulus Argument
Heritage language and linguistic theory
Religion is natural
Creole and Creolization
Language Evolution
Pidgin and Pidginization
Complexity and Relative Complexity in Generative Grammar
Der Geist, der stets verneint
Learning a Language from Inconsistent Input
“Simpler is better”
Language and responsibility
The units of language acquisition
The Guiana Maroons
Africanisms in the Gullah dialect
Pidgin and creole languages
Rules and representations
The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition
The Child as a linguistic icon-maker
Issues in Italian Syntax
A First Language
Of Human Bonding
Speech Perception in Infants
Rules and representations
Language and the mind
The Biological Foundations of Language
Dynamics of a Creole System
Talking to children
Pidginization and creolization of languages
Pidgin and Creole Linguistics
Linguistic Categories
Lectures on Government and Binding
More about the same
Learning-Theoretic Foundations of Linguistic Universals
The emergence of symbols
The Atlantic Slave Trade
Language in Primates
The Architecture of Complexity
Native language and foreign language acquisition
Observations on Time Reference in Jamaican and Guyanese Creoles
Cognition and the Development of Language
Exceptional Language and Linguistics
Pidgin and Creole Languages
African Language Structures
Irregularity in Syntax
The Genesis of Language
Geoffrey Sampson, Liberty and language. Oxford
Readings in Creole Studies
Theoretical Orientations in Creole Studies
The Place of Gullah
Gullah and Barbadian. Origins and Relationships
Concept, word, and sentence
The language lottery
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Tense and aspect in Sranan
Spanish Contact Vernaculars in the Philippine Islands
Language Shift or Changing Relationship
Grammar and meaning. Papers on syntactic and semantic topics
Lateralization, Language Learning, and the Critical Period
Interview with Noam Chomsky
The Gbeya language; grammar, texts, and vocabularies
Chinese Pidgin English Grammar and Texts
Pidgin and Creole languages
Where does language come from
The Logical Problem of Language Acquisition
Language Learning Strategies
The Gbeya Language
An Analytical Grammar of Shona
Talking to children in Western Samoa
Historical and linguistic evidence in favour of the relexification theory in the formation of creoles
The Origins of Syntax in Discourse
The Nature of a Creole Continuum
The Language Lottery
Dynamics of a Creole System
Historical Linguistics
| Unique citing works | 234 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 5,57 |
| Citation span | 1984 - 2026 (43) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 175 |