Gender Projection and Gender Determination in Cameroon Pidgincreole: A Socio-Grammatical Study

Abstract

Although Pidgin and Creole scholars are unanimous about the fact that West African Pidgins are largely understood by different users within the same zone, it is also clear that the different Pidgins - Nigerian Pidgin, Ghanaian Pidgin and Cameroon Pidgincreole amongst others have their specificities, which sometimes lead to unintelligibility. One of such areas is the use of pronouns to represent gender. This paper examines Gender projection and Gender identification in Cameroon Pidgincreole. Ten sentences with three Cameroon Pidgincreole non-specific pronouns occurring fifteen times were read out to 102 informants, 51 females and 51 males in Bamenda and Buea.  The intention was to observe and note what gender the respondents would, under no obligation or influence, render the nonspecific gender neutral pronouns from Cameroon Pidgincreole into English. Data was also drawn from the New Testament Bibles in Cameroon Pidgincreole and the New International Version (NIV) of the Holy Bible in English. The paper holds that Cameroon Pidgincreole has non-specific pronouns which are rendered either as masculine or feminine depending on the individual. Over, 90% of the informants-both male and female, rendered the non-specific genders to masculine. The paper argues that men are not solely responsible for gender biases in language because women still project the masculine gender even when they have the opportunity to project the feminine gender. This socio-grammatical descriptive research was built on Dominance and Prejudice theories.