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French to English: HAGÈGE : L'homme de parole, chapitre 2 - Le laboratoire créole (extrait) General field: Social Sciences Detailed field: Linguistics
Source text - French Le substrat et l'apprentissage
Comme on l'a vu (chapitre I, p. 20 s.), ce qui, dans l'apprentissage linguistique de l'enfant, tient du code génétique, c'est-à-dire à l'inscription neurologique d'un schéma cognitif universel, est, à sa naissance, un donné déjà présent et entièrement constitué. Ce donné ne saurait, évidemment, refléter les étapes à travers lesquelles le code s'est élaboré durant les centaines de millénaires de l'histoire humaine. La première humaité ne disposait pas du modèle pré-existant que l'enfant reçoit à sa naissance et dont il acquiert les premiers cadres durant sa vie untra-utérine.
La création de parole par les premiers usagers de pidgins est, elle aussi, spécifique. En la supposant homologue des deux autres genèses, on en trahit la nature. Bickerton parle, à propos du créole de Guyana (ancienne possession britannique), dont certains registres lui paraissent influencés par l'anglais, de "décréolisation", conduisant vers une ressemblance de plus en plus grande avec l'anglais. Ainsi, tout comme l'enfant tend à parler de mieux en mieux sa langue, de même les usagers d'un créole tendent de plus en plus vers la langue européenne dont ce créole est issu. Il s'ensuit que l'auteur défend la notion de continuum ou ligne de progression ininterrompue entre les registres les plus proches du pidgin et ceux qui ressemblent le plus à l'anglais. C'est oblitérer le cadre social du discours. L'adhésion au continuum rejoint le rejet du substrat, ou langue disparue mais émergeant encore ici et là. Si l'on se donne pour dessein de prouver l'innéité des schèmes qui commandent des manifestations semblables dans des créoles très divers, grande sera la tentation de passer sous silence - ou au moins de minimiser - le rôle du substrat. Inversement, ceux qui ne croient qu'au substrat sont peu sensibles à l'argumentation innéiste. Or, contrairement à ce qu'implique sa forme la plus rigide, il n'est pas vrai que les premiers locuteurs de pidgin n'aient eu à leur disposition aucun modèle préexistant, aucune langue d'origine qui se comportât comme substrat vis-à-vis des langues nouvelles, à savoir celles des colons, qu'ils acquéraient par imitation. La situation peut se comparer avec ce que l'on sait de pidgins beaucoup plus récents. À la fin du XIXe et au début du XXe siècle se sont constitués des pidgins véhiculaires, c'est-à-dire des moyens rudimentatires de communication entre groupes mis en contact mais parlant des langues différentes.
Translation - English Substrate and Acquisition
As we saw earlier (chapter 1, pg. 20 s.), the aspect of language acquisition in children attributable to genetics (the universal cognitive scheme innate to the brain) presents a given already present and completely constituted at birth. Obviously, this given cannot reflect the stages through which its code was elaborated over the hundreds of thousands of years of humanity. The first humans did not possess this pre-existing model with which every child is born and whose initial structure is elaborated in utero.
The development of speech by the first users of Pidgins is also a distinctive process. We do away with its true nature by supposing it to be a counterpart of the other two types of genesis. When referring to the Creole from Guyana (former British colony) and the influence English seems to have had upon some of its registers, Bickerton brings in “decreolization” whereby the Creole comes to sound ever increasingly like English. So, just as children improve their command of language, speakers of a Creole incorporate more and more of the European language into their tongue as well. As a result, Bickerton defends the notion of a continuum or an uninterrupted line of progression between registers closest to the Pidgin and those that resemble the English language the most. Such a view downplays individual variations and the image each one of us has of our language and our culture. Nor does it account for the social context of speech production. To subscribe to the continuum hypothesis is to endorse the hypothesis that does away all together with the substrate or the extinct language that still shows up here and there. The temptation to keep the role of the substrate under wraps, or at the very least to a minimum, will be great if we have for object to prove the innate nature of schemes that control such manifestations. Conversely, those who only believe in the substrate hypothesis are not sensible to the innatist hypothesis. Yet, contrary to what the innatist hypothesis’ most rigid form implies, it is untrue that early Pidgin speakers did not have any pre-existing model available or were without any source language to act as a substrate vis-à-vis new languages (such as the colonizers’ languages, which they have acquired through imitation). The situation can be compared with what we know of much more recent Pidgins. Vehicular Pidgins formed themselves at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. These played the role of the Lingua Franca between groups put into contact who did not speak the same language.
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Translation education
PhD - Université de Montréal
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Years of experience: 16. Registered at ProZ.com: Apr 2009.
French to English (Université Concordia, Département d'études françaises, verified) English to French (Université Concordia, Département d'études françaises, verified) French to English (OTTIAQ)
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Canadian Association for Translation Studies, Canadian Association for Translation Studies
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Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Photoshop, CafeTran Espresso, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, Passolo, Powerpoint, SDLX, Trados Studio, Translation Workspace, Wordfast
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