Abstract
This chapter analyses the language used by children on the Tiwi Islands with reference to current theories around bilingualism and code-switching. The Tiwi Islands (northern Australia) are a complex linguistic area with Modern Tiwi, English and Kriol, an English-lexified creole, being commonly spoken. At the preschool stage of the children’s linguistic development, none of these languages appears to be a dominant matrix language as described by Myers-Scotton and Jake (Linguistics 33, 981–1024, 1995; International Journal of Bilingualism 4(1), 1–8, 2000). We argue that children can do more than just code-switch and instead utilise a basic, fairly uniform grammar alongside a repertoire of language-specific features which they draw upon freely. Such versatility is particularly useful in shaping language for an audience which itself has differing abilities in each of the languages.
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Notes
- 1.
The -im ending is a Kriol suffix, usually analysed as a marker of transitivity. See discussion in section “Verbal Suffix -im” below.
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Wilson, A., Hurst, P., Wigglesworth, G. (2018). Code-Switching or Code-Mixing? Tiwi Children’s Use of Language Resources in a Multilingual Environment. In: Wigglesworth, G., Simpson, J., Vaughan, J. (eds) Language Practices of Indigenous Children and Youth. Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-60120-9_6
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