Fall 2026 Speaker Series

Simanique Moody (Brooklyn College, CUNY) will present research entitled: “Examining Language Variation and Change in Gullah Geechee Communities in Georgia”

Abstract:

Gullah Geechee is an endangered English-lexifier creole language that developed along the South Atlantic coast of the United States in the early to mid-18th century. While most linguistic and anthropological studies center on communities in South Carolina, Gullah Geechee language and culture also emerged in southeast North Carolina, coastal Georgia, and northeast Florida. Georgia, in particular, has a significant population of Gullah Geechee speakers, yet apart from Turner’s seminal study in 1949, scant formal linguistic research exists on varieties of Gullah Geechee spoken there (but see Klein 2015 for the Georgia Sea Islands).

As a result, little is known about the extent to which varieties of Gullah Geechee spoken in Georgia differ linguistically from varieties spoken in South Carolina, and even less is known about the possible changes these varieties are undergoing as a result of increased contact with English. Mufwene (1997/2007: 121) highlights the need “to determine whether Georgia Gullah should be considered an extension of South Carolina Gullah,” and Weldon and Moody (2015: 174) note that studies on less well-documented varieties of Gullah Geechee could help reveal “the degree to which linguistic uniformity exists across communities.” Weldon and Moody also underscore the importance of “assess[ing] the linguistic consequences of sustained contact between Gullah and other [African American Language] varieties” (p. 175).

In this talk, I will outline a proposal to examine variation and change in Gullah Geechee communities in Georgia with the goal of highlighting the important implications this research has for a) the development of Gullah Geechee outside of South Carolina, b) its relationship to dialects of American English, particularly African American English, and c) processes of decreolization and language shift in communities of African descent in the United States. I will also provide an update on the status of Georgia communities surveyed by Turner nearly a century ago in order to present a more accurate account of where Gullah Geechee communities in Georgia can be found.

Wesley Lincoln (University of Pennsylvania) will present research entitled: “Inflection variation and the architecture of Singapore English grammar“

Abstract

Singapore English (SgE) exhibits variation between “standard” features and “colloquial” Singlish features arising from contact with Chinese and Malay varieties. While SgE has traditionally been viewed as a post-creole continuum, approaches to SgE variation differ in their assumptions about whether and how many discrete lects are involved, and how many mental grammars SgE users have. Here, I approach these questions about the architecture of SgE grammar using data on present-tense inflection (-s) variation. It has been well established that SgE main-verb inflection is generally variable (John go(es) to the market every week), a feature attributed to substrate influence. Here, however, I show that lexifier-origin auxiliaries be, have, and do are incompatible with null inflection (e.g. He has/*have seen it before), but can be deleted altogether (e.g. He seen it before). SgE users have generalised a pattern of null inflection on main verbs into a broader productive process that obliterates overt material associated with T, deriving both bare main verbs and auxiliary deletion. Under this view, phenomena like inflection variation, copula deletion, and several functions of SgE ‘got’ (arising from ‘have got’) receive a unified analysis where they have previously been treated as unrelated. This work advances a single-grammar account of SgE variation by proposing a common generative process that derives a key axis of differentiation in SgE forms.

Rebecca Arkell (University of Göttingen) will present research entitled: “What Body Parts Can Tell Us About Creole Semantics: The Case of Badiu“

Abstract

Research on the semantic structure of creoles has seen relatively little attention (Huttar, 2008), while substrate influence in semantics remains underexploited (Parkvall, 2000). Yet lexical meaning provides a revealing perspective on the outcomes of language contact: lexical origin does not necessarily predict semantic structure, as forms inherited from a lexifier may display referential and conceptual boundaries that differ from those of their etyma. Lexical semantics can therefore offeran important perspective on processes of semantic restructuring in creolisation and on the interaction of superstrate and substrate patterns.

Body-part terminology provides a productive domain in which to investigate such processes. Although the body is a universal aspect of human experience, languages differ considerably in how they segment and conceptualise it and in where they draw lexical boundaries (Enfield et al., 2006; Wierzbicka, 2007). While some languages lexically distinguish ‘hand’ from ‘arm’ and ‘foot’ from ‘leg’, others employ a single term across these regions (Brown, 2008; Witkowski & Brown, 1985). Such variation makes the body a useful testing ground for examining how lexical forms map onto conceptual and referential categories—and how these may be reorganised through language contact.

This study investigates body-part categorisation and conceptualisation in Badiu, the Santiago variety of Kabuverdianu, asking how the body is lexically segmented and what these patterns can reveal about semantic restructuring in a creole context. Data were collected through ongoing collaborations with communities in Santiago Norte, combining linguistic elicitation based on Enfield’s (2006) Elicitation Guide on Parts of the Body, the Body Colouring Task (van Standen & Majid, 2006) and participant observation. Particular attention is paid to mó ‘hand/arm’ and pé ‘foot/lower limb’. Both display broader referential meaning than their Portuguese etyma. Mó has ‘hand’ as its central referent but may extend to parts of the arm depending on context, while pé can encompass not only the foot but parts of the lower limb up to the knee. These patterns do not fully replicate either the Portuguese distinction between ‘hand’/‘arm’ and ‘foot’/‘leg’, or the identity patterns found in substrate languages such as Wolof and Mandinka, whose respective terms cover the whole upper and lower limbs. Instead, they point towards a reorganisation of semantic boundaries under conditions of contact. 

Other terms reveal different dimensions of semantic and conceptual restructuring. Bofi-bofi, conventionally glossed as ‘lungs’, was predominantly associated with internal organs in the abdominal region, suggesting a broader, less anatomically delimited category. Kuadju, etymologically related to Portuguese coalho ‘rennet’, illustrates the interaction between lexical inheritance and culturally shared knowledge: speakers describe it as a body part with which children are born and whose displacement is associated with vomiting and diarrhoea. Such terms therefore participate in culturally grounded models of bodily functioning, health and illness. 

Taken together, these findings align with the view that semantic restructuring and innovation are expected outcomes of language contact (Mufwene 2008), suggesting that lexical forms inherited from the superstrate may persist while their conceptual and referential boundaries are reorganised. Body-part semantics therefore provides a productive domain for examining contact-induced semantic restructuring and, more broadly, the interaction of linguistic, cognitive and cultural factors in the emergence and development of creole lexicons.

Sandra Evans (The University of the West Indies) will present research entitled: “We Would Like to See Our Courts Speak Creole to Our People”: Rethinking Interpreting in St. Lucia’s Magistrates’ Courts

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I examine the use of Kwéyòl interpreters in St. Lucia’s magistrates’ courts in cases were magistrates, lawyers, defendants, witnesses etc.) may share Kwéyòl as a common language. In these cases, the institutional requirement for interpretation cannot be explained simply as a means of overcoming linguistic difference. Instead, it raises a more fundamental question: what does it mean for Kwéyòl to require mediation in a courtroom where it is already a shared language? Using qualitative data from selected magistrates’ courts in St. Lucia, I examine instances in which untrained Kwéyòl interpreters are used despite participants’ shared competence in the language. Rather than treating interpretation as a neutral mechanism for facilitating communication, I focus on what the practice itself produces. Drawing on Frantz Fanon’s theorization of neocolonialism, I approach language as a site where colonial relations may persist and be reproduced beyond formal independence. I argue that in these contexts, interpreting does not simply resolve a communicative barrier but can also function as a form of linguistic governance that positions Kwéyòl as a language that must be mediated to enter the formal domain of justice, while reinforcing the institutional authority of English. The interpreter, therefore, occupies a paradoxical position as the practice of interpretation may not merely mediate an actual linguistic divide but may help produce one. I use this paradox to rethink interpreting as a potentially constitutive practice through which linguistic hierarchies are maintained, and to explore how colonial language ideologies continue to shape who can speak, in what language, and under what conditions speech acquires institutional and juridical legitimacy.

Nele Arnold & Tonjes Veenstra (Leibniz-Centre General Linguistics (ZAS), Berlin)

Joeri Vinke (University of Graz)

Miguel Gutiérrez Maté, (Bielefeld University)

Jillian Melchor & Eeva Sippola (University of Helsinki)

Invited Speaker: Lise Dobrin (University of Virginia)

ROUND TABLE

Claire de Mareschal (Université de Strasbourg)

Corrine Foko Mokam & Enoch Aboh (University of Amsterdam)

Aymeric Daval-Markussen (Aarhus University)