William Alexander Stewart (September 12, 1930 – March 25, 2002) was an American
linguist
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingui ...
specializing in
creoles, known particularly for his work on
African American Vernacular English
African-American Vernacular English (AAVE, ), also referred to as Black (Vernacular) English, Black English Vernacular, or occasionally Ebonics (a colloquial, controversial term), is the variety of English natively spoken, particularly in urban ...
.
Biography
Stewart was born in
Honolulu, Hawaii to Scottish parents, and grew up speaking four languages (English,
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
,
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
and
Hawaiian).
At the age of 8, he moved with his family to
California.
His parents were killed in a car crash one year later, and he was raised by his father's parents.
He served as an army translator before enrolling at the
University of California, Los Angeles, where he obtained his Bachelor's and Master's degrees.
Work
Working for the
Center for Applied Linguistics
The Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) is a private, nonprofit organization founded in 1959 and headquartered in Washington, DC. Its mission is to promote language learning and cultural understanding. Its president and chief executive officer i ...
, Stewart undertook pioneering work on creoles in the Caribbean in the early 1960s.
In 1965, he discovered that reading problems of some African-American children were caused not by vocabulary or pronunciation, but by differences between the grammar of African American Vernacular English and standard English.
In the late 1960s, he explored the
sociolinguistics of multilingualism, introducing the notions of
polycentric language
A pluricentric language or polycentric language is a language with several interacting codified standard forms, often corresponding to different countries. Many examples of such languages can be found worldwide among the most-spoken languages, inc ...
s,
autonomy and heteronomy
Autonomy and heteronomy are complementary attributes of a language variety describing its functional relationship with related varieties.
The concepts were introduced by William A. Stewart in 1968, and provide a way of distinguishing a ''language ...
.
See also
*
Standard language
*
Language planning
*
Post-creole continuum
*
Monogenetic theory of pidgins
According to the theory of monogenesis in its most radical form, all pidgins and creole languages of the world can be ultimately traced back to one linguistic variety. This idea was first formulated by Hugo Schuchardt in the late 19th century and ...
*
List of diglossic regions
Diglossia refers to the use by a language community of two languages or dialects, a "high" or "H" variety restricted to certain formal situations, and a "low" or "L" variety for everyday interaction. This article contains a list of nations, cultur ...
References
External links
*
*
1930 births
2002 deaths
Linguists from the United States
Sociolinguists
University of California, Los Angeles alumni
City University of New York faculty
20th-century linguists
American people of Scottish descent
People from Honolulu
{{linguist-stub