SUBSTRATE INFLUENCE ON BODY-PART IDIOMS IN CRIOULO OF GUINEA-BISSAU By Elizabeth Colleen Nicoleti Presented to the Faculty of The Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts with major in Applied Linguistics Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics June 2011 © 2011 Elizabeth Colleen Nicoleti All Rights Reserved CERTIFICATE I acknowledge that use of copyrighted material in my thesis may place me under an obligation to the copyright owner, especially when use of such material exceeds usual fair use provisions. I hereby certify that I have obtained the written permission of the copyright owner for any and all such occurrences and that no portion of my thesis has been copyrighted previously unless properly referenced. I hereby agree to indemnify and hold harmless the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics from any and all claims that may be asserted or that may arise from any copyright violation. ____________________________________ Signature ____________________________________ Date THESIS DUPLICATION RELEASE I hereby authorize the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics Library to duplicate this thesis when needed for research and/or scholarship. Agreed: _________________________________________ (student signature) ABSTRACT SUBSTRATE INFLUENCE ON BODY-PART IDIOMS IN CRIOULO OF GUINEA-BISSAU Elizabeth Colleen Nicoleti Master of Arts with major in Applied Linguistics The Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics, June 2011 Supervising Professor: Peter Unseth This paper explores the degree of substrate influence of four Niger-Congo North Atlantic languages (Papel, Mankanya, Jola Bayote, and Balanta) on the Portuguese-based creole language Crioulo spoken in Guinea-Bissau. I compare body-part idioms across these languages and then compare them with European Portuguese, and to a lesser extent, with Kabuverdianu, the creole spoken on Cape Verde. To adequately claim language contact and substrate influence, the historical sociolinguistic background is discussed. On the basis of this data, several idioms are shown to have been influenced by the substrate languages. Other idioms are shown to reflect universal cognitive processes. The findings are then applied to the Bible translation projects of Guinea-Bissau. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my committee members, Pete Unseth, Ken McElhanon, and George Huttar for their encouragement and invaluable comments and help. I would like to thank my husband, William Nicoleti and my dear colleague, Rachel de Ruiter for their support and help throughout this process. I praise God for filling me with his grace and wisdom to be able to finish well. April 14, 2011 vii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES.................................................................................................................................. x LIST OF FIGURES............................................................................................................................... xi LIST OF MAPS ....................................................................................................................................xii ABBREVIATIONS USED...................................................................................................................xiii 1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 1 2 Literature Review ................................................................................................................................ 4 2.1 Creoles............................................................................................................................................... 4 GENERAL ............................................................................................................................................. 4 CREOLE GENESIS .................................................................................................................................. 6 2.2 Language contact and change......................................................................................................... 10 VARIATION......................................................................................................................................... 11 CRITERIA FOR LANGUAGE CONTACT .................................................................................................... 12 CRITERIA FOR SUBSTRATE INFLUENCE ................................................................................................. 13 2.3 Concepts and processes of language contact................................................................................... 16 RELEXIFICATION................................................................................................................................. 16 HOMOGENEITY ................................................................................................................................... 20 SEMANTIC TRANSPARENCY ................................................................................................................. 20 CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS.................................................................................................................. 21 2.4 Idiomatic expressions...................................................................................................................... 24 WHAT IS AN IDIOM? ............................................................................................................................ 24 Conventionality ............................................................................................................................. 25 Compositionality ........................................................................................................................... 25 Transparency................................................................................................................................. 26 Worldview..................................................................................................................................... 27 IDIOM PROCESSING ............................................................................................................................. 28 IDIOM TRANSFER ................................................................................................................................ 30 3 Guinea-Bissau Crioulo....................................................................................................................... 33 LANGUAGES ....................................................................................................................................... 41 4 Research Methodology....................................................................................................................... 44 5 Findings.............................................................................................................................................. 47 5.1 Body-part Idioms in Crioulo........................................................................................................... 50 LEXICAL............................................................................................................................................. 50 Head ............................................................................................................................................. 51 Mouth............................................................................................................................................ 52 Heart............................................................................................................................................. 52 Eye................................................................................................................................................ 53 Blood ............................................................................................................................................ 54 Stomach......................................................................................................................................... 54 viii Hard/soft....................................................................................................................................... 55 Cold/hot ........................................................................................................................................ 56 Lightweight ................................................................................................................................... 58 CONSTRUCTION .................................................................................................................................. 59 5.2 Data in light of language change..................................................................................................... 63 5.3 Data in light of substrate hypothesis............................................................................................... 65 Substrate Influence ........................................................................................................................ 66 Independent development............................................................................................................... 68 HOMOGENEITY ..................................................................................................................................