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date: 17 February 2020

Abstract and Keywords

This chapter examines bidirectional influences in the speech of bilingual speakers of Portuguese and Cape Verdean Creole in the Cape Verde islands, in two modalities (oral and written). All the data are drawn from two main sources: Costa (2013) that documents the influences of Portuguese onto Cape Verdean Creole and from Herbert Robalo (2013) from Cape Verdean Creole onto Portuguese. The observed contact effects include code-switching strategies and transfer in the domains of gender marking, number agreement, verb morphology, complementizers, and prepositions. One of the main findings is that although speakers practice insertional, alternational code-switching and congruent lexicalization, congruent lexicalization clearly emerges as the dominant pattern and the keystone behind speakers’ choices of code-switching sites in both the oral and written modes. Speakers preferentially switch on the sites that happen to be structurally isomorphic between Cape Verdean Creole and Portuguese.

Keywords: Cape Verdean Creole, language, bidirectional influence, code-switching, lexicalization, contact-induced change, bilingual

Marlyse Baptista

Marlyse Baptista has a doctoral degree from Harvard University and is currently a professor of Linguistics in the Linguistics Department and the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan. Her works include The Syntax of Cape Verdean Creole: The Sotavento Varieties (John Benjamins, 2002) and Noun Phrases in Creole Languages: A Multi-faceted Approach, co-edited with Jacqueline Guéron (The Creole Language Library, John Benjamins, 2007).

Manuel Veiga

Manuel Veiga has a doctoral degree in Applied General Linguistics from the University of Aix-en-Provence (France). He is a Professor of Linguistics and Director of the Master’s Program in Creolistics and the Cape Verdean language offered by the University of Cape Verde. He has held multiple governmental positions in Cape Verde, including that of Minister of Culture. He has also authored several novels in Cape Verdean Creole and Portuguese, in addition to a Cape-Verdean Portuguese dictionary.

Sérgio Soares da Costa

Sérgio Soares da Costa has a Bachelor’s degree in Portuguese Language and Applied Foreign Languages from the Portuguese Catholic University (Portugal), in addition to a Master’s in Creolistics and the Cape Verdean language, from the University of Cape Verde (Cape Verde islands). He is currently the parliamentary editor for the National Assembly of Cape Verde.

Lígia Maria Herbert Duarte Lopes Robalo

Lígia Maria Herbert Duarte Lopes Robalo has a Bachelor’s degree in Modern Languages and Literatures from the University of Lisbon and a Master’s degree in Creolistics and the Cape Verdean language from the University of Cape Verde. She is the President of the Portuguese Language Olympiads and a Counselor in Pedagogical Training at the University of Cape Verde. She is affiliated with the Ministry of Education and the Escola Secundária Cónego Jacinto Peregrino da Costa in Cape Verde.

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