RICHARD J. FILE-MURIEL


but applied their language faculty to convert the system into a full
natural language (i.e. a creole).
 Schumann (1978) and Andersen (1980) hold that pidginization is
characteristic of early second language acquisition in general. They
claim that individual pidginization in early SLA persists when the learner
is deprived of sufficient input from native speakers of the TL due to
social, psychological, or physical distance from such speakers. In other
words, pidginization is second language learning with restricted input.
Andersen claims that restricted input is what promotes and prolongs
pidginization:

 The factors that promote pidginization and cause it to persist, cut
 the learner off from adequate native input that he needs in order to
 learn to express himself in that language. Under these conditions the
 learner can, and certainly does, simply do without expressing certain
 meanings in the L2. But learners also create their own form-meaning
 relations in the L2 by making previously-learned forms take on the
 functions for which the learner has not acquired the TL forms
 (1980:275).

 Andersen proposes a language acquisition model for pidginization,
depidginization, creolization, decreolization, and first and second
language acquisition based partially on Schumann's 1978 revised model.
Andersen treats pidginization, creolization, and early stages of first
and second language acquisition as nativization or acquisition towards
an internal norm, and depidginization, decreolization, and later stages
of first and second language acquisition as denativization or acquisition
towards an external norm. He also distinguishes between individual
and group learning: Individual pidginization arises when the individual
language learner processes linguistic input during SLA. Group
pidginization, on the other hand, results from the communication of
individual speakers who are undergoing individual pidginization. He
concludes, that SLA and individual pidginization are really the same
phenomenon, only the circumstances are different.
 Siegel (1997) notes that when social conditions are 'right,' leveling
may occur in several ways. Gradual leveling results from a series of
accommodation processes where people modify their speech by
adapting to the speech of others. In other words, "dialect differences
are reduced as speakers acquire features from other varieties as well
as avoid features from their own variety that are somehow
different"(128). He emphasizes the importance of child learners in