Peter Mühlhäusler

Linguistic ecology : language change and linguistic imperialism in the Pacific region

In this book, the author examines the transformation of the Pacific language region under the impact of colonization, westernization and modernization. By focusing on the linguistic and socio-historical changes of the past 200 years, it aims to bring a new dimension to the study of Pacific linguistics, which up until now has been dominated by questions of historical reconstruction and language typology. In contrast to the traditional portrayal of linguistic change as a natural process, the author focuses on the cultural and historical forces which drive language change. Using the metaphor of language ecology to explain and describe the complex interplay between languages, speakers and social practice, the author looks at how language ecologies have functioned in the past to sustain language diversity, and, at what happens when those ecologies are disrupted. Whilst most of the examples used in the book are taken from the Pacific and Australian region, the insights derived from this area are shown to have global applications. The text should be useful for linguists and all those interested in the large scale loss of human language.

Discourses of ecotourism: the case of Fraser Island, Queensland

Abstract The importance of language in the changing usage of particular environments is a topic worthy of greater attention than hitherto. Fraser Island has passed through a period of intense political conflict to one in which it is dominated by the new discourse of ecotourism. It is now part of that global development in which it is claimed that tourists can become properly informed about, and become particularly sensitive to, the complex and the fragile nature of the places which they visit. In this paper, which concentrates on the discourse of ecotours and whale watching, it is argued that such claims fall a long way short of being realised in one of Australias prime ecotourism destinations.

Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas: Vol I: Maps. Vol II: Texts

Much of the contents of this atlas is based on recent research results concerning intercultural communciation and contact language situations in a very large part of the world. Many of the findings have an impact upon existing views, especially regarding the origin of Pacific Pidgin English as well as intercommunication in the indigneous Artic and American Indian worlds, many parts of Asia including insular Southeast Asia and the Pacific proper. Several virtually unknown hybrid languages in China are dealt with and their origins discussed. Further, the functions and roads of metropolitan languages and the Pidgins based on them are investigated. This publication should be of interest to linguists, ethno-sociologists, anthropologists, historians and political scientists.

Tok Pisin texts - from the beginning to the present

Tok Pisin is one of the most important languages of Melanesia and is used in a wide range of public and private functions in Papua New Guinea. The language has featured prominently in Pidgin and Creole linguistics and has featured in a number of debates in theoretical linguistics. With their extensive fieldwork experience and vast knowledge of the archives relating to Papua New Guinea, Peter Muhlhausler, Thomas E. Dutton and Suzanne Romaine compiled this Tok Pisin text collection. It brings together representative samples of the largest Pidgin language of the Pacific area. These texts represent about 150 years of development of this language and will be an invaluable resource for researchers, language policy makers and individuals interested in the history of Papua New Guinea.

What Is the Use of Studying Pidgin and Creole Languages

Abstract This paper has a number of agendas, including the following: • (a) to provide a brief outline of the history of pidgin and creole studies and their reception; • (b) to make some more general remarks on central and marginal, useful and useless types of academic studies; • (c) to examine the usefulness of pidgin and creole studies, an exercise which is increasingly becoming necessary as academics are being called upon to justify their existence and demonstrate their usefulness. A hidden agenda, one might wish to argue, is the need to justify my own existence as an academic, the fact that I have done my M.Phil and my Ph.D. in pidgin and creole studies, that I have written two books and numerous articles about this topic and generally set aside many years of my life for the study of these languages.

On the origins of Pitcairn-Norfolk

The attraction of looking at Pidgin and Creole languages to gain understanding about the origin of human language and weighty matters such as the nature - nurture debate is derived from the view that many Creolists subscribe to: That ontogenesis recapitulates phylogenesis. This view combined with the Cartesian view that there must be a general or universal grammar underlying the grammatical features of all languages is articulated, for instance, in Bickertons Roots of Language (1981) where it is suggested that the examination of the grammar developed among fust generation Creole speakers with no exposure to a coherent model leads to the discovery of a set of so-called bio-program features of human language.

Book review essays

A Book Review Essay of Allan Bell and Janet Holmes (Eds.): New Zealand Ways of Speaking English. Cleveland: Multilingual Matters, 1990. A Book Review Essay of Susan Berk‐Seligson: The Bi‐Lingual Courtroom: Court Interpreters in the Judicial Process. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1990.

Towards an atlas of the pidgins and creoles of the Pacific area

Language atlases would seem to have a number of distinct functions, including a. displaying what is known about the languages of an area; b. revealing gaps in such knowledge; c. directing researchers toward problems associated with the areal distribution of languages; d. serving as a way of disseminating specialist knowledge to a lay audience and/or speakers of the languages mapped; e. helping governments and educational and business organizations to optimize communication. In other words, it is important to realize that atlases (or language maps) are much more than the pretty pictures they are sometimes taken for. I have discussed several spinoffs of atlas making for (socio)linguistic theory elsewhere (Mühlhäusler forthcoming) so I shall concentrate on practical matters in the present paper. To date we can distinguish two stages in the mapping of the pidgins and Creoles of the Pacific area: (a) Hancocks (1981) map of the pidgins of the world, which lists a large number of Pacific varieties and (b) Wurm and Hattoris Language Atlas-Pacific Area (1981: part 1, 1983: part 2), which contains two pidgin maps (Map 24: Pidgin Languages. Trade Languages and Lingue Franche in Oceania and Australia; Map 46: Pidgin Languages, Trade Languages and Lingue Franche in the Philippines and Mainland and Insular South-East Asia). In his review of these maps Frake (1984: 5-6) draws attention to a number of problems and shortcomings, though he emphasizes the overall importance of such information to pidgin and Creole studies: