Fossilization in South African Black English : an investigation

Abstract

The English of black students at Sebokeng College of Education is characterized by a number of deviant structures which consistently crop up in their written and spoken work. The aim of this study is to determine whether these deviances have fossilized, or whether they can be regarded as developmental errors. Literature dealing with interlanguage and fossilization is reviewed in order to establish a theoretical basis for the empirical research. Interlanguage studies reveal that interlanguage (IL) can be regarded as a process or a product. When language errors are investigated (as in the case of this study), IL is regarded as a product. Fossilization as a feature of IL is a very complex phenomenon. One of the reasons may be that it has to be explained in both psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic terms. There are many factors which may give rise to fossilization. Many of the causes of fossilization mentioned by the various researchers are applicable to the situation in which black students have learned English. The views expressed by many researchers that group fossilization (i.e. when a group shares the same IL with the same distinct features) may lead to the formation of a new dialect, lead to the study of literature on new varieties of English (the so-called New Englishes) . Researchers claim that there are specific circumstances which lead to the development of a New English. Most of the criteria for the development of a New English are applicable to the circumstances in which blacks learn and use English. A grammaticality judgment test and posttest were administered to establish which erroneous structures have fossilized in the IL of the students . The results of this empirical study were then compared to features of English varieties found in Africa. The results of this study seem to indicate that the IL of black students at Sebokeng College of Education has peculiar features

which were not eradicated by two years of tuition by lecturers who do not speak the IL the students use. One can therefore assume that these erroneous structures will remain in the English of these students, and that this may signify that a distinct dialect is developing.