English in Jamaica: The Coexistence of Standard Jamaican English and the English-based Jamaican Creole

Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,3, Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald, language: English, abstract: Throughout the last centuries the English language spread all over the world first and foremost due to the colonial politic of its motherland: Great Britain. Especially in the Caribbean the British empire had a lot of colonies in the past - one, in fact the biggest one, of these was Jamaica. Being one of the world’s many English-speaking countries it is worth studying especially from a linguistic point of view because it is one of the few Caribbean countries in which a standard English and an English-based creole have been employed almost since its colonization. To get a precise picture of what English is like in Jamaica one has to consider the history of the Jamaican languages as well as the present situation. As a standard variety and a creole coexist in Jamaica, one has to look at both of them in isolation and at how they influence each other. Therefore it will not only be of interest to examine the function and some of the linguistic features of Jamaican English and the Jamaican creole but also the post-creole continuum. First of all, a look at the history will make clear how the English language developed in Jamaica. The following chapters will deal with Standard Jamaican English and Jamaican Creole in particular and, finally, the examination of the post-creole continuum will make the consequences of the mutual influence of these two languages clear. David L. Lawton’s text “English in the Caribbean” and the book Linguistic Variation in Jamaica: A Corpus-Based Study of Radio and Newspaper Usage by Andrea Sand will form a useful basis for the study of the English language in Jamaica and will be completed by other subject-relevant literature. The aim of this term paper is to provide an insight into the linguistic diversity in Jamaica and thus to illustrate how a standard variety like Standard Jamaican English and a creole like Jamaican Creole coexist. This text does, however, not aim at completeness with regard to the linguistic features of these languages, which is not least due to the fact that the linguistic situation is not completely explored yet, but it shall serve as some kind of introductory description of the English language in Jamaica and thus contribute to a basic understanding of the subject. [...]