Languages are said to come into contact when their speakers interact with one another. The linguistic and sociolinguistic consequences of long-term contact between languages arc studied in the subfield of linguistics called 'contact linguistics'. Two of the major concerns of contact linguistics are contact-induced language change and the formation of new contact varieties such as new dialects, pidgins and creoles. However, the actual site of language contact is in the minds of individuals using more than one language (Weinreich (1970) [1953]). Thus, second language acquisition (SLA), an individual psycholinguistic process involving two languages is by definition a kind of language contact. Changes that occur in languages, or the new varieties that emerge, must have originated in individuals' ways of speaking. This chapter examines the role of processes of SLA in individuals that may ultimately lead to the outcomes of language change or the emergence of new contact varieties in communities of speakers.

Tok Pisin (or New Guinea Pidgin) is the dialect of Melanesian Pidgin spoken in Papua New Guinea. It serves as the main language of wider communication in a country where more than 800 separate indigenous languages are spoken by a population of nearly five million. The two other dialects of Melanesian Pidgin are Pijin, spoken in the Solomon Islands (with more than 80 indigenous languages and a population of around 480,000), and Bislama, spoken in Vanuatu (more than 100 languages, population 192,000). Torres Strait Creole (also known as Broken or Yumiplatok) - spoken by approximately 10,000 people around the northern tip of eastern Australia - is closely related to Melanesian Pidgin but is usually considered to be a separate language.

Whether or not there is a break in transmission of the lexifier language has joined the question of substrate influence in being among the most contentious issues in pidgin and creole studies. This chapter first examines the two main views regarding the transmission of the lexifier language in relation to creole genesis. It then looks at debates about the transmission of substrate features into creoles via language transfer. These analyses are followed by a discussion of the implications of the different views with regard to colonial and postcolonial ideologies, and current views of agency and identity in studies of second language acquisition.

This article discusses how research on language transfer in the field of SLA can help to explain the origins of substrate influence in creoles and provide answers to more difficult questions concerning the distribution and verification of substrate features. First, it argues against the view that both SLA and transfer are not involved in the genesis of pidgin and creole languages. Then the view is presented that, as described in the SLA literature, transfer is not just a consequence of second language learning but also of second language use, and it serves as a communication strategy when the need arises. Such a strategy may be used by speakers of either a prepidgin or an already established pidgin when its functional use is being rapidly extended. Sociolinguistic perspectives on transfer in SLA, described next, throw some light onto the question of why substrate features remain in pidgins and creoles. Research on transfer in SLA also provides important insights into the specific factors that may have affected substrate influence in creoles. Evidence is presented that some transfer constraints discovered in SLA research — rather than other proposed factors such as so-called functional expendability — still provide the best explanation for the absence of particular substrate features in creoles. Finally, it is shown that tests proposed for verifying instances of L1 influence in interlanguage could be adapted for verifying instances of substrate influence in creoles.

With over 1,000 indigenous languages and a recent history of colonial exploitation, the Pacific region has provided a fertile context for the growth of contact languages. This chapter first describes new languages (pidgins and creoles) and then new dialects (koines and indigenized varieties) that have emerged in the Pacific as the result of language contact. For the purpose of this chapter, the Pacific region is defined as including only small island countries and territories (thus excluding Australia, New Zealand, and the countries of Asia and the Americas that border the Pacific Ocean). Also, due to space limitations, the chapter concentrates only on lexicon and morphosyntax.