A look at the acts of identity theory through a social network analysis ofPortuguese-based Creoles in West Africa

This paper examines a hypothesis in the Acts of Identity theory that sugges ts a complementary relationship between the variant attributes of an indivi dual's linguistic presentation and the individual's social identity. Throug h the mathematical modeling of social network analysis, the paper examines 169 lexical relationships between 20 speakers of Portuguese-based Creoles i n West Africa. The resulting sociometric graphs, at the lexical and phoneti c levels, find six network clusters in the data. The research also finds co mplementary relationships between these six network clusters and other soci al grouping features. The paper thus concludes with the objective mathemati cal modeling of social network analysis substantiating the notion of a comp lementary relationship between the variant attributes of an individual's li nguistic presentation and the individual's social identity. The conclusion finds that the phonetic level may carry most of the load in marking social identity, and that the lexical level may carry a lighter load is this area. The conclusion thus finds that the lexicon may be a rather weak feature in the function of marking social identity and therefore flexible and open to lexical enrichment, adlexification (or relexification?), as the stronger i dentity marking features of the phonetic level can be overlaid on the lexic al additions. The conclusion also suggests that the social structure of the post-creole continuum may be one of social fractures and clusters, like an y other language, rather than one analogous with a linear continuum of lect s.