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Creole Discourse Exploring prestige formation and change across Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles

Creole Language Library (CLL) A companion series to the “Journal of Pidgin & Creole Languages”

Editors Jacques Arends

John Victor Singler

Amsterdam

New York

Editorial Advisory Board Mervyn Alleyne

Salikoko Mufwene

Kingston, Jamaica

Chicago

Norbert Boretzky

Pieter Muysken

Bochum

Nijmegen

Lawrence Carrington

Peter Mühlhäusler

Trinidad

Adelaide

Glenn Gilbert

Pieter Seuren

Carbondale, Illinois

Nijmegen

George Huttar

Norval Smith

Dallas

Amsterdam

John Holm Coimbra

Volume 24 Creole Discourse: Exploring prestige formation and change across Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles by Susanne Mühleisen

Creole Discourse Exploring prestige formation and change across Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles

Susanne Mühleisen J.W. Goethe University, Frankfurt

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam/Philadelphia

8

TM

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Susanne Mühleisen Creole Discourse : Exploring prestige formation and change across Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles / Susanne Mühleisen. p. cm. (Creole Language Library, issn 0920–9026 ; v. 24) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 1. Creole dialects, English--Caribbean Area--Social aspects. 2. Sociolinguistics-Caribbean Area. I. Mühleisen, Susanne. II. Series. PM7874.C27 C74 2002 427´.9729-dc21 isbn 9027252467 (Eur.) / 1588112977 (US) (Hb; alk. paper)

2002026206

© 2002 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microﬁlm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa

Table of contents

Abbreviations and transcription conventions ix List of tables and figures Acknowledgments

xi

xiii

Introduction Creole discourse: Exploring prestige formation and change across Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles 3 1. Creole prestige formation and change: Aims and scope 3 2. Creole discourse: Theoretical approaches 6 3. The chapters that follow 8 Chapter 1 Defining language prestige: The positioning of Creole in linguistic and social parameters 23 1.1 Marginal languages 23 1.2 Language prestige: Status, function and attitudes 25 1.2.1 The societal dimension: Language status 26 1.2.2 The institutional and interactional dimension: Language function 27 1.2.3 The socio-psychological dimension: Language attitudes 28 1.3 Prestige change of languages and language varieties 30 1.3.1 Directions of prestige change 31 1.4 Studies on language prestige of Pidgin and Creole languages 34 1.4.1 Language attitude studies in the anglophone Caribbean 35 1.4.2 Evidence for language attitude change in the anglophone Caribbean 37 1.5 “Creole” as a (socio-)linguistic type 42 1.5.1 Socio-historical and socio-linguistic factors: The Stewart typology revisited 43

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1.5.2 Idealized models and prototypical Creoles: An assessment of linguistic projections 47 Chapter 2 Forming language prestige: Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles as prototypical low prestige languages 55 2.1 Shared prestige features of CELCs 55 2.2 A legacy of the past: Diachronic perspectives on Creole prestige 57 2.2.1 Focus on history: Creole conception and its socio-political background 58 2.2.2 Focus on epistemology: Eighteenth and early nineteenth century concepts of language 64 2.2.3 Focus on etymology: What’s in a name? 69 2.3 An intricate relationship: Synchronic perspectives on Creole prestige and the language situation 74 2.3.1 Structural versus sociological relations: Continuum and autonomy (Abstand) 75 2.3.2 Functional relations: Diglossia and elaboration (Ausbau) 81 2.3.3 Changing relations: Violating conventions or creating new norms? 82 Chapter 3 Negotiating language prestige: Towards a functional/discursive framework 93 3.1 Language prestige and the ‘Foucauldian turn’ in social science methods 93 3.1.1 Criticism of earlier socio-psychological research paradigms 94 3.1.2 From the experimental to the discursive: Developmental stages in the study of social psychology and language 95 3.2 Approaches to discourse: Between the social and the text 98 3.2.1 Discourse as a form of constituting knowledge and power 99 3.2.2 Of “madness” and “Creole”: Discursive formations and Creoles 105 3.3 Approaches to discourse: Linguistic analyses in an interdisciplinary perspective 108 3.3.1 Influences from various disciplines 110 3.3.2 Creole discourse: Code choice and identity negotiation 115

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3.3.3 A functional perspective on code-switching 3.4 Linking the social and the text: Towards an integrative framework 122

118

Chapter 4 From speech community to discourse communities: Changing Creole representations in the urban diaspora 135 4.1 Creole transplanted: Nation, migration and the speech community 135 4.1.1 The question of speech community 137 4.1.2 Caribbean migration 139 4.2 Distant communities: Caribbean polyphony in Britain 140 4.2.1 Caribbean post-war migration to Britain 140 4.2.2 Language attitudes towards Creole in Britain (1960s–1980s) 141 4.3 Staging and performing identity: An intergenerational perspective on the social practices of Creole in London 144 4.3.1 Field research in a South London community: Interviews and discursive practices 146 4.3.2 Identity politics and the birth of the West Indian: The first generation 149 4.3.3 Identity choice and ethnicity: Non Afro-Caribbeans 157 4.3.4 Identity choice and linguistic transformation: The second and third generation 161 4.3.5 Creole-crossings and the creation of new (“imagined”) communities 170 4.4 Creole discourse communities in the diaspora 173 Chapter 5 From badge of authenticity to voice of authority: Changing Creole representations in writing 183 5.1 Creole transmediated: Writing and language prestige 183 5.2 Modes of representation: Creole orthography choice as a form of social practice 185 5.2.1 Encoding Creole: Negotiating language autonomy 187 5.2.2 Maintaining traditions: English-based orthography 190 5.2.3 Creating Abstand: (Morpho)-phonemic orthography 193

 Table of contents

5.3 Written representation in Creole texts: A diachronic functional perspective 198 5.3.1 Texts and genres: The oral/scribal divide 198 5.3.2 Changing functions of Creole in the novel 201 5.4 Creole as a written language 214 Chapter 6 From invisibility to register variation: Changing Creole representations in translation 225 6.1 Creole translated: Translation as cultural representation 225 6.2 Representations of Creole in translation 227 6.2.1 General issues of nonstandard varieties in translation 228 6.2.2 Creole-specific issues in translation 233 6.2.3 Strategies in translations of Creole/Standard English texts: A diachronic functional perspective 235 6.2.4 Translation and re-evaluation 245 6.3 Translations into Creole: Ausbau and modernization 246 6.3.1 Bible translations and Creole 247 6.3.2 Text and register: Examples of translations into Creole 251 6.4 Creole as a translated language 257 Conclusion 263 Works cited

269

Appendix 287 Name index 321 Subject index 327

Abbreviations and transcription conventions

Abbreviations AAVE CA CELC JC JE LE LJ P/C RP SE TEC TODA

African American Vernacular English Conversation Analysis Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles Jamaican Creole Jamaican English London English London Jamaican Pidgins and Creoles Received Pronunciation Standard English Trinidadian English Creole Text-oriented Discourse Analysis

Transcription conventions (0.1) xxxx /, // XXX (capitals) (xxx) ** xxx yyy xxx %

Pause measured in seconds Laughter permeating segment Laughter, duration in seconds Overlap/interruption Increased loudness Indistinct: brackets indicate uncertain transcription Unintelligible speech Underlined stretches are “Creole” Represents glottal stop (phonetically [‘])

List of tables and figures

List of tables Table 1: Table 2: Table 3: Table 4: Table 5: Table 6: Table 7: Table 8: Table 9: Table 10: Table 11:

Dimensions of language prestige Directions of prestige change Evaluation of speech community by residence and ethnic group in % (Winford 1976) Evaluation of speech community by residence and ethnic group in % (Mühleisen 1993) Speaker identification by age and ethnic group in % (Mühleisen 1993) Respondents’ language choices (Mühleisen 1993) Models for a sociolinguistic typology of languages (Stewart 1962, 1968; Hymes 1971) Language types and their attributes (Revised Stewart Model) Guyanese metalinguistic vocabulary for Creole reference (Sidnell 1997) Types and functions of code-switches Development of Bible Translations from 1500–1996

List of figures Figure 1: Figure 2: Figure 3: Figure 4: Figure 5: Figure 6: Figure 7: Figure 8:

Mean ratings of the Matched Guise (MG) samples, friend scale (Rickford 1983) Mean ratings of the Matched Guise (MG) samples, job scale (Rickford 1983) Abstract representation of language choice (Appel & Muysken 1987) Conception of discourse (Fairclough 1992) Creole discourse in the urban diaspora Creole discourse in writing Creole discourse in translation Level of abstraction, reflection and distribution

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible without the help of many people to whom I am greatly indebted. I am grateful for the support of my colleagues at the University of Frankfurt, particularly to my supervisor Marlis Hellinger, to Bettina Migge, Raimund Schiess and to the members of the long-standing Postcolonial Theory colloquium. Many thanks go to those who provided assistance and shelter during my fieldwork research in London, especially Glenda Trew, Claudia McKenzie and Klaus Peter Steiger, as well as to numerous people who acted as informants, took us into their homes and were willing to share conversations and give interviews. During the course of this work I have benefitted from many conversations with Caribbean writers and I would like to thank especially John Agard, the late Amryl Johnson, Janice Shinebourne and Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze for their enlightening comments. My understanding of the linguistic and social processes that I try to describe in this book is particularly indebted to discussions with Mark Sebba, Lise Winer, Carolyn Cooper, Christian Mair, Lawrence Carrington and Carol Pfaff. Many thanks also go to those who commented on earlier drafts of this work, especially to Michel DeGraff, Jacques Arends, Rainer Schulze, Mark Stein and Katja Sarkowsky. I appreciate their comments and advice, any shortcomings are, of course, due to me entirely. More than words can ever express I am indebted to the inspiration, companionship and support of Tobias Döring without whom nothing would have been possible.

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[Linguistic ideologies are] sets of beliefs about language articulated by users as a rationalization or justification of perceived language structure and use. (Silverstein 1979: 193)

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Introduction

Creole discourse Exploring prestige formation and change across Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles

.

Creole prestige formation and change: Aims and scope

Creole languages are traditionally associated with a negative image, which has led some researchers to characterize them as “marginal languages” (Hymes 1971a) or “the most stigmatized of the world’s languages” (Alleyne 1994). The present study takes this as the starting point to examine questions of language prestige across Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles.1 How has this negative prestige been formed? And is it still as persistent as the time span between the two characterizations above seems to indicate? In contrast to other postcolonial varieties, there appear to be no significant changes with regard to the macro-social status and function of Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles (CELC) like Jamaican, Trinidadian, Guyanese, Bajan, etc. The few studies (Reisman 1970; Haynes 1973; Winford 1976; Rickford 1983; Mühleisen 1993, 2001a; Beckford Wassink 1999) which have examined external characteristics of these languages have therefore focused on stable diglossic patterns and ambiguous language attitudes, which are a typical feature of the sociolinguistic situation in the Caribbean. Does this mean that these varieties have remained in a static position, i.e. that they have not undergone observable changes in terms of language prestige? This study seeks to demonstrate that, while the social macro structure of the respective societies has been relatively untouched by changes, the uses, functions and negotiations of Creole within particular domains and environments have shifted considerably. It furthermore argues that social, discursive, and linguistic practices have to be considered when looking at the changing social meaning of Creole. This study will therefore attempt to change the traditional framework of language prestige study: it moves away from the exploration of status, macrofunctions and attitudes within a (national) community, and towards a discursive framework in order to focus on the representations of Creole in various

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Introduction

discourses and on the changing micro-functions for which it is employed. Language ideology has become an important issue “as a mediating link between social structures and forms of talk” (Woolard 1992: 235). The social processes through which ideologies come to signify merit systematic attention. In the present study this is given by examining the historical conditions and cultural categories of Creole language prestige formation as well as the dynamics of language prestige change in particular fields. The study therefore breaks away from research paradigms which have looked at language prestige only from a synchronic point of view. Any work dealing with Creole language prestige and language ideology inevitably will have to look at the very origin of Creoles, a point which is strongly emphasized in this study. It is part of the theoretical approach (cf. also below) of this study to focus on the historical and epistemological basis of a conceptualization of Creoles as a linguistic (and cultural) category. Much relevant work has been published on the structural side of the “Creole genesis debate”,2 not least in this series which, after all, started out with a collection of papers on Substrate versus Universals in Creole Genesis (Muysken & Smith 1986). While this is acknowleged here, my argument in the present study is exactly not based on a structural analysis but looks at the other side of the coin, the discursive formation of the concept of Creole: it is not genesis, but conception, not linguistic structure, but discourse that is at stake in this study. The analysis in this study will furthermore range across Caribbean Englishlexicon Creoles (CELC) and linguistic ideologies connected to them not only in a comparative manner, but rather, as a group of varieties with shared specific socio-historical and socio-linguistic features which have influenced and perpetuated negative language prestige. Language attitudes (as one aspect of language prestige) have so far been researched primarily within the boundaries of the nation. This study decisively follows a trans-national approach, “across Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles”, for the following reasons: –

– –

The concept of “Creole” and the language prestige of varieties called Creoles have not been formed “nationally”, i.e. in Jamaica, Trinidad, Guyana, Barbados, alone but rather, they are the result of a colonial and postcolonial discourse over the last three centuries. The ways in which Creole as a linguistic concept has been negotiated is part of this discourse, not outside it. With the turn to the twenty-first century, the nation state as the primary site where such issues are negotiated is becoming less important. Explorations into the social and cultural significance of a language variety, there-

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fore, cannot be restricted to a local level but must include the dislocated spaces of the respective variety. This latter claim is particularly important when one considers uses and transformations of Creole in processes outside the Caribbean as the locus of language. The notion of “speech community” demands a new approach, it will be argued here, including some attention to processes of migration, writing and translation, which have long crossed the geographical and cultural boundaries of Creole in the Caribbean region. The present study looks at these processes as important innovating forces of transforming language prestige of Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles: – – –

Intergenerational changes of Creole (spoken language) in the diaspora (Chapter 4) Diachronic changes of Creole representation in written texts (Chapter 5) Diachronic changes of Creole representation in translation (Chapter 6)

The various levels of abstraction of Creole in its geographical and cultural shifts also require a reconsideration of the function of Creole as a social semiotic (cf. Halliday 1978). In the exploration of continued uses and changing meanings of Creole, one aspect of particular interest will therefore be the intergenerational analysis of Creole in the urban diaspora, both in its representations in the speech (casual conversations) of different generations of West Indians in London and in the significance it is given as a marker of cultural identity in interviews. This approach is supported by both linguistic and sociological ethnographic studies on urban culture and ethnicity (e.g. Hewitt 1986; Sebba 1993; Rampton 1995; Baumann 1996; Alexander 1996), where social practices (including linguistic codes) are examined in their changing significance for cultural groups. In urban youth culture, the use of Creole is not limited to genealogical ties to a West Indian heritage but is employed by adolescents of Anglo-Saxon, Indian and African backgrounds. Creole thus changes in its social significance from the mother tongue of the first generation of a distinct group of West Indian immigrants to a post-modern symbol of changing identities. A second focus will be placed on Creole representations in written texts and their significance from a diachronic point of view. The interest in the codification of Creole derives from the enormous prestige and authority of the written word. Attempts to standardize of the orthography of Caribbean Englishlexicon Creoles have been made since the emergence of serious linguistic attention to Creole studies in the 1960s (e.g. Cassidy & LePage 1980 [1967]) –



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yet with little effect on actual text production. While the research emphasis so far has been on standardization and orthography (cf., for instance, Hellinger 1986; Winer 1990; Sebba 1994), the present study will also include the function of Creole in actual written texts which employ both Standard English and Creole, and the changes of these functions which can be observed over several decades of text production. Thirdly, the changing cultural representation of Creole in translation will be explored through a diachronic analysis of translated texts. Again, the function of Creole in these texts must be considered alongside different strategies of the cultural translation of Creole. This aspect has so far been entirely neglected in Creole studies. However, the significance of postcolonial translation for negotiating power relationships is highlighted by recent studies such as Niranjana (1992), Bachmann-Medick (1997) and Bassnett & Trivedi (1999a). This issue does not only concern translations from Creole/Standard English texts into other languages but also translations into Creole (Görlach 1991; Cooper 1993; Devonish 1994, 1996) as important ways to create norms in new registers, thus enlarging the socio-semantic range of Creole uses. In these three fields of exploration, particular emphasis is placed on the continuations and links between discourses on Creole language prestige rather than its boundaries, the mutual effects and intertextual references between the form and social meaning of Creole.

. Creole discourse: Theoretical approaches This study distinguishes itself from earlier ones on aspects of language prestige (cf. above), not only in its scope, but also in the theoretical and methodological approach. Instead of employing quantitative (e.g. Winford 1976; Mühleisen 1993, 2001a; Beckford Wassink 1999) and experimental (e.g. Rickford 1983) methods of data collection, the present study favours qualitative analyses grounded in ethnographic methodology. The theoretical basis is a discourse analytical approach which aims to link linguistic and social theory, thus also connecting linguistic form and social meaning. It is remarkable that research in Creole studies – often automatically categorized as “sociolinguistics” regardless of the fact that most research in this field deals with syntactic, phonological phenomena or with theoretical discussions of historical linguistics – has mostly neglected recent trends in sociolinguistic theory and linguistic anthropology. Sociolinguistic research in Creole studies is often restricted to rather narrow correlational variation in a Labovian tradition or employs models firmly rooted

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in the sociology of language of the 1960s. Influences from ethnography of communication and discourse analysis have been largely ignored and underrepresented, even though these directions of research have the potential to highlight “the problems of social meaning and linguistic form in new ways”, as Patrick (1997: 43) points out. Some recent studies (e.g. Youssef 1996; Patrick 1999) show the growing interest in and need of coming to terms with code-switching and style variation in the Caribbean sociolinguistic complex. Discourse will therefore be the central theoretical focus of this study, including influences from sociolinguistic theory (e.g. Gumperz 1982; MyersScotton 1993) and social theory (Foucault 1971, 1972). These different traditions of discourse analysis can be meaningfully combined to explore and demonstrate the relation between the linguistic and the social, between text production and power relationships. Discourse in linguistics is taken here in a general sense as analysis above the sentence level, i.e. analysing spoken and written texts according to formal and functional criteria. Discourse in social theory is taken here as a central term to deal with the structure of knowledge and social practices in specific fields (e.g. Foucault 1971, 1972) manifested in language as well as in other symbolic (e.g. visual) forms. Of primary importance is the idea that discourse does not only reflect and represent social entities and relationships but also constructs them. The attempt of a theoretical synthesis of social and linguistic discourse analysis has been made by Fairclough (1992). In the tradition of Halliday (1978), Fairclough has developed a multi-dimensional model of discourse which links text, discursive practice and social practice. Texts are thus seen in a constitutive and indicative relationship with their mode of production, consumption and distribution, and with social practices at large. The present study takes this model as a basis for linguistic micro-analyses of a wide range of written and spoken material in the three discursive fields outlined above – 1. representations of Creole in the urban diaspora (Chapter 4), 2. representations of Creole in writing (Chapter 5), 3. representations of Creole in translation (Chapter 6). The communicative functions of Creole will be examined for each of these fields, which are characterized by different modes of production, distribution and consumption. In order to explore changes in the micro-functions of Creole in relation to changes of social practice, a dynamic dimension will be established and interdiscursive connections between the fields emphasized. The discursive force-field which operates between the macro-forces of society and the micro-functions in the text is highly dynamic because it involves constant processes of interaction and agreement, as well as continual investigations of “acceptable linguistic behaviour” at a given time in a given situation. It is here,



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it will be argued, at the interface of conflicting norms and competing discourses where, in the case of choices between codes, language prestige is being negotiated. In this way, particular discourse forms achieve status to the extent that they conform to the discursive practices of the larger social unit. Especially with regard to the intricate relationship Creole versus Standard English, culturally coded meanings and re-negotiations of such meanings as forms of discursive practice have to be taken into account. The present exploration of prestige formation and change of CELC languages therefore advocates a theoretical turn to a discursive analytical approach which encompasses influences from various disciplines, from sociolinguistic theory, social theory as well as postcolonial theory, besides methodological influences from ethnographic models of communication. In sum, the following points shall be emphasized: –

– –

the connection between macro-forces (social practices) and micro-functions (code-choice) in discourse rather than H(igh prestige)/L(ow prestige) dichotomies in domain configurations discourse communities and discursive force-fields rather than an assumed “national” (Jamaican, Guyanese, Trinidadian, etc.) speech community a methodological focus on qualitative ethnographic and textual data rather than on quantitative and experimental sources.

. The chapters that follow In a broad sense, this book comprises of a more “theoretical part” (chapters one to three) and a more “empirical part” (chapters four to six), even though both parts interlink and are part of the same argument. –

–

The theoretical part looks at earlier frameworks of language prestige. It takes some long-standing classifications (e.g. autonomy, homogenicity, standardization, reduction) of Creole languages in historical and contemporary models as a starting point to explore the historical and epistemological foundations of such categorization. It then proposes an alternative discursive framework which is based on linguistic and social (Foucauldian) theory and aims to bring together the macro-(social) level of language prestige with the micro-(text) level. The empirical part serves as a testing ground of this approach to explore the changing prestige of Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles in various discursive force-fields as well as in various textual modes. Although part of an ar-

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gumentative whole, the empirical studies on Creole in the urban diaspora (Chapter 4), Creole and writing (Chapter 5) and Creole and translation (Chapter 6) may also be read independently. A more detailed outline of the individual chapters may serve as a guideline to the structure of the book: Chapter 1 sets out to examine the parameters that have so far been used in exploring socio-cultural characteristics of languages in general, and in particular, of the English-lexicon Creoles spoken in the Caribbean. Most researchers have worked with the concepts of status, function and attitudes either as separate categories or they have used them interchangeably. The different dimensions of status, functions and attitudes are described, as they have been proposed by sociolinguists such as Mackey (1976), Ammon (1989) or Hellinger (1991). The framework used in these proposals is outlined in Chapter 1.2 and is criticized for several reasons: a) it remains descriptive and does not seek to analyze the reasons for high/low status, functions and attitudes, b) as a model, it is too static and does not capture the dynamics of change other than the sudden change of one or the other parameter (e.g. through legislation, drastic demographic change, etc.). “Change from below”, i.e. gradual change, is not taken into account or, at least, cannot be adequately accounted for within the existing framework. As an alternative, the concept of “language prestige” is proposed. Language prestige places the categories of status, function and attitudes into an interactive and dynamic framework, described in Chapter 1.3. A trigger for changes from below, this includes the additional category “communicative function”, i.e. a micro-function as opposed to the domain-oriented macro-function. In addition, the term “language prestige” is not only open for gradual changes in the future but also points to the past as something that has been inherited and stands in a network of traditions. The idea is to create awareness for both the constituents by which language prestige has been shaped in the past and for the ongoing micro-changes by which language prestige is constantly being reshaped and negotiated. The traditional framework is therefore altered into a more dynamic model as a first step towards a discursive model. This discursive model and its theoretical basis will be elaborated in more detail in Chapter 3. With regard to Caribbean English-lexicon Creole (CELC) languages, there have only been few studies on status, functions and attitudes, all of which remain largely within the static model. It is thus not surprising that in recent publications on status change (Fishman et al. 1996; Ammon & Hellinger 1991) CELC languages do not feature at all. Large-scale changes (change from above)

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are scarce and limited to a few macro-functional changes (i.e. introduction of Creole on primary school level). However, if one looks at socio-cultural characteristics from a discursive point of view, i.e. in a language prestige framework, then one may be able to explore gradual changes, both in the past and as an ongoing process. For this purpose, Chapter 1.4 takes critical stock of previous socio-cultural research on CELC languages. Regarding CELC languages, there have been two types of research, which, within the traditional framework, focus on two different aspects: 1. language attitude studies (empirical), 2. (theoretical) studies on socio-linguistic features of the language type, i.e. the linguistic status of Creole. Both strands of research have important implications for our further exploration of language prestige of CELC languages. Chapter 1.4.1 therefore reviews existing language attitude studies (Reisman 1970; Haynes 1973; Winford 1976; Rickford 1983; Mühleisen 1993, 2001a; Beckford Wassink 1999) and draws comparisons across national boundaries with regard to similarities in beliefs, stereotypes and ambivalences that are associated with CELC languages. A particular focus in Chapter 1.4.2 is on Winford 1976 and Mühleisen 1993, 2001a, a comparative study which looks at changes in language attitudes in Trinidad, because this is the only empirical study which provides evidence that attitudinal and micro-functional changes have already taken place. Furthermore, in Chapter 1.5, the linguistic status of Creole is examined by looking at a historical yet persistent typological model, the “Stewart model” (Stewart 1962, 1968; Hymes 1971b) and its several modifications (1.5.1). This example is particularly interesting, precisely because of its various manifestations, which clearly show that the criteria for defining what is a Creole are not objectively given, but have been formed discursively. The evident need to modify the model so that distinctions between Creole and standard (i.e. English) can be maintained is revealing in this respect. It suggests here that linguistic categorization (and indeed the linguist as the creator of linguistic categorization) does not have its place somewhere outside the discursive model, but is itself part of the discourse. As Aitchison (1991) also argues, linguistic categorizations, such as the ones proposed in the Stewart model, are “idealized constructs”, prevalent in the mind of many a linguist. Old as this 1960s model may be, it still is the prevailing notion in classifications of Creole versus non-Creole, as more recent work exemplifies (cf., for instance, Thomason 1997). The title of the chapter, “defining language prestige” thus has to be interpreted in a double sense. Firstly, as the place in this study where the framework for a discursive model to explore socio-cultural characteristics is developed. Secondly, where the common classifications are questioned which, as argued,

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play the most important role in our whole conceptualization of what makes a Creole a Creole. The sociolinguistic “cornerstones” of defining a Creole, Stewart’s characteristics historicity, homogenicity, autonomy and standardization are taken as parameters to explore the discursive formation of Creole language prestige in the following chapter. Chapter 2 looks at the very basis of how the classifications crucial for the concept of “Creole” have been formed, shaped and re-shaped both in the past and in the present. Rather than limiting the scope to a single variety like Jamaican, Trinidadian, etc., the shared prestige features of CELC languages are stressed in Chapter 2.1. The criteria on which varieties are included in the term CELC languages are laid out and discussed. This chapter argues that the socio-political and epistemological conditions for the formation of language prestige in the past, as well as the modes of interaction in the presence, are shared by all of these varieties. Bearing in mind the attribute historicity, Chapter 2.2 examines the sociopolitical, historical and language philosophical conditions in which the conception of “Creole” has taken place. The term “conception” is used for alluding to both the linguistic and the mental act of origin, to the beginning and the imagining of Creole. Particular focus is placed here, not on linguistic restructuring processes (“Creole genesis debate”), but on why the concept of Creole language gained importance in the first place, i.e. what socio-political functions the emphasis on linguistic differences has had.3 Chapter 2.2.1, shows that, to begin with, the colonial condition and power asymmetry in Caribbean plantation societies of the eighteenth century is a crucial element in assigning this special classification. Drawing on eighteenth century material, such as travel reports and plantation histories, it emphasizes that the creation and maintenance of a perceived fundamental linguistic distinction was instrumental for the justification of colonialism and slavery both within the West Indian plantocracy and in the colonial motherland. Chapter 2.2.2 seeks to substantiate that the epistemological environment in eighteenth and early ninteenth century ideas of language and language philosophy (e.g. v. Schlegel, v. Humboldt) reinforced such a development. Relevant here are concepts from Romantic philosophy as the notion of language as an organic body which develops from a “primitive” stage in an evolutionary cycle to a “higher order”. Such a view on language invites the idea of Creole as a “disruption” of this organic process. Furthermore, since Creole was seen as situated at the very beginning of the evolutionary cycle, the Romantic notion of “language as an expression of culture” had important consequences for cul-

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tural and linguistic attitudes. The characteristics homogenicity or mixture, both of which feature in the Stewart Model, appear as belated expressions of ideas of “purity” versus “contamination”, which originated in the eighteenth century episteme. Both the socio-political and the epistemological aspect mirror the history of the term “Creole”. On the one hand, its various shifts in meaning show the negotiation of difference and the changing associations of this denotation. On the other hand, they also demonstrate that the use of “Creole” as the name of a variety is not grounded in linguistic classifications. Recent proposals (e.g. Carrington 1998) have suggested re-classifications and re-namings for linguistic categorizations of Pidgins and Creoles. However, they remain within the general framework of already existing classifications. Chapter 2.2, therefore, proposes that, rather than trying to find linguistic criteria for concepts which do not have their origin in linguistic classification, we should consider how the concept “Creole” was formed discursively and acknowledge that it can only be changed discursively. This is also reflected in the fact that it is virtually impossible to avoid the term, despite criticizing its basis of classification. As a consequence, no such attempt will be made in this study. Chapter 2.3 shows how linguistic discourse on synchronic relations between Standard English and Creole reflect the notions of autonomy, standardization and reduction. Currently debated models with regard to autonomy (2.3.1) are the idea of a post-creole continuum, as representing a “lack of discreteness”, versus the idea of diglossia (2.3.2), which presupposes discreteness. The criteria for determining discreteness are critically evaluated, i.e. linguistically measurable discreteness (structural) versus discreteness based on speakers’ intuition (socio-cultural). Both categories standardization and reduction reflect the level of elaboration of a variety. On the basis of Kloss’s (1952, 1967) “Ausbau-Modell”, it becomes clear that, firstly, elaboration depends on institutional support; it is both reinforced by and itself reinforces socio-psychological factors. Secondly, for many languages it is “Ausbau” that creates autonomy and “Abstand”. Thus, autonomy is not something simply given; it is, arguably, created and negotiated by elaboration, that is to say the two are mutually dependable. Consequently, Chapter 2.3.3 emphasizes that in the negotiation of the relationship between Standard English and Creole, norms are violated and new norms created. Such negotiation is particularly prolific in certain environments and practices, so-called discursive “force-fields”. Examples of such force-fields can be found e.g. in the urban diaspora, in literature, in the media. Chapter 2 concludes that it is here, in these “discursive practices” that the language prestige of CELC is re-evaluated.

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Chapter 3 looks at the theoretical and methodological basis of investigating such discursive practices. It examines the foundations of discourse analysis both from a sociological macro-perspective, i.e. in the social sciences and cultural studies (Foucault), as well as from a micro-perspective, i.e. through the various approaches in linguistic discourse analysis. In this way, the chapter seeks to redress the points of criticism raised in Chapter 1 against previous theoretical frameworks. Furthermore, it links the discussion of the historical foundations of Creole language prestige as discursive formations (Chapter 2) with the contemporary negotiations of Creole prestige, its transformation and change. The chapter sets out by criticizing earlier research paradigms of sociopsychological research (Chapter 3.1) for a number of neglects. First of all, earlier research methods focus on attitudes as (largely) invariable internal conditions, so that context and situation are not taken into account as influencing factors. Secondly, the notion of identity in these models relies on deterministic characteristics, i.e. the person in society is treated as having some kind of unified identity according to large-scale demographic variables (sex, age, social class, ethnic group, etc.). Thirdly, the link between the socio-psychological research findings and actual language use is mostly neglected and, finally, the role of the researcher as (subjective) interpreter is not considered. In order to meet these challenges, Chapter 3.2 describes a general move in socio-psychological research from the experimental and quantitative to the discursive. Crucial for this development has been a general discursive reorientation, the so-called Foucauldian turn, in the social sciences. The persuasive power of the general idea of “discourse” is that it allows us to bring together the linguistic and the social, text production and power relationships. Foucault’s work on discourse and focus of constituting knowledge is therefore reviewed for what it offers in the present research on Creole prestige (Chapter 3.2). His insistence on discursive formations turns out to be a valuable contribution to the present debate on defining “Creole” and the struggle of linguists in coming to terms with this elusive category. Foucault’s work compels a strictly historized view on the formation of concepts in that it looks at the political and epistemological conditions under which they have been formed. In his studies on the archaeology of knowledge and on genealogy, Foucault locates power at the level of discursive formations, which enable certain truths and knowledges and which also make possible specific kinds of agents and structures. With Foucault’s rules of discursive formation, Chapter 3.2.2 refers back to previous discussions of Creole definitions and takes a look at formations

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of the concept (Foucault’s “object”) of Creole. It demonstrates that, similar to Foucault’s example of how “madness” came into being as a medical category in nineteenth century medical discourse, “Creole” has equally been formed discursively instead of just “being there”. The subsequent part of Chapter 3, “discourse in linguistics” (3.3), reviews linguistic approaches to discourse analysis from an interdisciplinary perspective. Linguistic analysis, after all, is to form the micro-level of the prospective integrative framework here pursued. Approaches from sociology (Goffman), anthropology (Hymes, Gumperz) and social psychology (LePage & TabouretKeller, Potter & Wetherell) are surveyed for their viability in capturing communicative changes of Creole use and their motivations. A special focus is placed on code choice and identity negotiation. Myers-Scotton’s markedness model (1993), Gumperz’ discourse strategies (1982) and LePage & TabouretKeller’s acts of identity model (1985) feature prominently in this discussion (3.3.3). It is argued that in most function-oriented models (like Myers-Scotton & Gumperz) the categories for communicative purposes are rather similar and may be related back to early functional models such as Hymes (1962) or Jakobson (1987 [1960]). The integrative framework (Chapter 3.4) intends to combine both linguistic discourse analysis with (changing) functions of Creole in the text and the wider social discourse on Creole as it is manifest in social practices. Drawing on Fairclough’s (1992) integrative framework, this chapter proposes to consider social practice, discursive practice and text analysis in various discursive “force fields” (Mair & Sand 1998). The three productive force-fields chosen for analysis are (i) Creole discourse in the diaspora (Chapter 4), (ii) Creole discourse in writing (Chapter 5), and Creole discourse in translation (Chapter 6). These interact at various points in their changes of micro-functions, but also differ widely in their production, consumption and distribution and thus represent different degrees of linguistic abstraction, of reflection in the production, and of vicinity to speaker or producer. Chapter 4 examines the first of the three discursive fields: changing functions and changing representations of Creole in three generations of West Indian immigrants in the urban diaspora. The shift of location raises the question of speech community (4.1.1), i.e. of the “appropriate” group of reference for examining changes in language prestige. It is argued here that the suitable frame is not necessarily national (as in previous studies on Trinidadian, Guyanese, Jamaican etc.): not only because the nation as an “imagined community” (Anderson 1983), is losing relevance in times of globalization, but also because the Caribbean has always

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been shaped by migration (Chapter 4.1.2). The socio-historical background of Caribbean post-war migration to Britain is given in Chapter 4.2. Language attitudes towards Creole in Britain and their reflection in sociolinguistic research feature as an important background to the actual analysis (4.2.2). Drawing on field work data (recorded interviews, casual conversations and observation) collected in a South London community (Lewisham), Chapter 4.3 sets out to examine two different but related issues: firstly, how Creole is positioned in the self-representation of respondents in the interviews (here called “staging identity”) and, secondly, how it is represented in the actual speech of respondents in both casual conversations and interviews (here called “performing identity”). In this qualitative analysis of ethnographic data, age is the main parameter which indicates changes in the way Creole is used for “staging identity” and “performing identity”. The investigation thus follows an intergenerational approach – from first generation to third generation – without neglecting the idea of age-specific language uses and registers. The close analyses of the recorded and transcribed data show that the development of “staging identity” runs opposite to the development of “performing identity”, i.e. overt positive attitudes towards and alignments with Patois occur in inversion to their actual use. However, the discussion also demonstrates that this works not so much a decrease in Creole usage, but rather an inter-generational change of the communicative purposes (micro-function) and situations for which Creole is employed. Specific emphasis is further placed on an issue previously neglected in research, namely the Creole use of Indo- and Chinese-Caribbean respondents in the London diaspora (Chapter 4.3.3). It becomes clear that the alignment and identification with a “West Indian community” is one of choice for this largely invisible group, since “Caribbean” in Britain is almost exclusively associated with “Afro-Caribbean”. Linguistic transformation, the creation and use of a form of London Jamaican by the second and third generation, shows the vitality of Creole in the diaspora in a continued contact situation. This vitality is not necessarily dependent on competence, i.e. the use of a homogeneous linguistic system, but on performativity, i.e. the symbolic meaning of Creole as a marker of black identity. This symbol is itself constantly re-negotiated: as a number of studies have shown (Hewitt 1986; Rampton 1995), Creole has long left the boundaries of a community established through genetic ties, but has found new users among white and Asian urban adolescents (Chapter 4.3.5). This leads to the conclusion that there is no single West Indian speech community, but, rather, many new “imagined communities” of Creole speakers, discourse communi-

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ties in the diaspora, using Creole for various purposes and in changing forms (Chapter 4.4). Chapter 5 examines changing Creole representations in writing, the second discursive field as outlined in the integrative framework. Writing is an important function influencing and reflecting language prestige (Chapter 5.1). Standardization, one of the criteria for linguistic status in the Stewart model, often determines whether a variety gains legitimacy as a “language” in public awareness. Furthermore, as Ong (1982) suggests, the very technology of writing has important consequences for a variety, in both its structural and functional elaboration. As writing is itself an abstract form of representing speech, the shift from oral to written medium invites questions about the modes of Creole representation. Chapter 5.2 discusses some of the main problems arising from standardization and choice of orthography in the representation of Creole on the page. Orthography choices involve less technical issues than ideological debates. From a socio-political perspective, the choice of writing and spelling system cannot be seen in isolation but as a choice of alignments and resonances with other codification systems. Therefore, a chosen of orthography may be seen as associating or dis-associating the spelling of a language with other orthographical traditions. In the case of Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles, there are two competing general types of orthography choices, both of which have implications for the negotiation of language prestige. The first type examined in 5.2.3 and illustrated by examples, is the more traditional form of idiosyncratic spelling based on English orthography conventions. The second type discussed and illustrated in 5.2.4 is the (quasi)-phonemic spelling as it has been proposed by Cassidy (1961). Following Kloss’s (1952, 1967) model of Abstand versus Ausbau in languages, this chapter suggests that the latter type creates autonomy, whereas the idiosyncratic spelling actually obscures autonomy. Again, it becomes evident here that the criterion which influences language prestige is created performatively rather than objectively given. It is there where the negotiation takes place, in the social practice of orthography choice. Chapter 5.3 then looks at the functions Creole is used for in written texts. Examining general principles of orality versus literacy (or scripturality), this chapter maintains that the traditional oral/scribal divide, crucial for a diglossic situation, no longer holds for Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles. On the one hand, this results from an increase of written genres and registers for which Creole is used, from folk poetry to academic writing. On the other hand, the dichotomy loses ground because the registers themselves are changing as

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“situation-types” (cf. also Fairclough 1988) and new forms are created by genre mixing and their uses in new environments (e.g. electronic media). In a close analysis, Chapter 5.3.2 looks at diachronic functional changes in one particular genre, the novel. The novel is particularly well suited for this purpose. Firstly, as a literary genre, the novel is traditionally associated with and representative of a “high literate culture”. Secondly, the complex structure of narrative fiction with its various levels of discourse results in “the polyphony of the novel” (Bachtin 1979) with variations of style, register, language or dialect as a characteristic feature. Furthermore, the epic genre of the novel holds a particular claim of representing “reality”. Notwithstanding changes in the realization of this claim in different literary periods, the linguistic choices of a novelist (as opposed to writers of other genres) can be taken to reflect representative sociolinguistic situations. As a consequence of the particular discursive practices in the production of the novel, this type of literary text can serve both as an indicator of language attitudes and as a catalyst of attitude change. In this way, arguably, written texts function interactively and have an effect on sociosemantic change: they can be seen as the battlegrounds on which the struggles between social forces are fought in order to establish new codes. To substantiate this claim, text samples are analyzed for the functional use of Creole discourse in novels by Caribbean authors from the 1930s to the 1990s (Mendes 1935; Naipaul 1957; Lovelace 1979 and Powell 1994). The diachronic text analysis demonstrates that Creole uses change from predominantly expressive to increasingly referential functions. The analysis highlights the crucial position of the narrative voice as the “voice of authority”, determining which of the codes is the “marked code” (Myers-Scotton 1993) in the situation. As Creole is increasingly employed in this position, the effect of its use changes from “badge of authenticity” to “voice of authority”. Creole writing is here to stay and continues to be a productive field in the negotiation of language prestige. It furthers interaction between the Caribbean, diasporic communities as well as other communities (Döring 2002), bringing Creole to new audiences and creating new functions: for instance, as a second language, a learned code of second generation Caribbean migrants, who may be using it exclusively in writing. Chapter 6, finally, looks at changing representations of Creole in translation, both as a source language and a target language. Chapter 6.1 emphasizes the importance of translation as cultural representation. The role of translation in colonialism has been foregrounded in studies such as Greenblatt (1991). Other recent work on translation, e.g. Bassnett & Trivedi (1999a) and Niranjana (1992), argues that translation has a particularly

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important role in addressing and, potentially, redressing power relationships in postcolonial texts. Non-standard varieties have always been problematic for translators, as the specific connotations of such codes cannot be easily transferred to the target language. Chapter 6.2.1 argues for a functional model of translation, which considers the evocation of the code in each situation anew, rather than looking for “equivalence” in translation. Chapter 6.2.2 looks at Creole-specific problems in translation. It argues that the contrastive use of Standard English versus Creole expresses an asymmetrical relationship, not only within the society (region, class), but also between different societies or cultures, typical of postcolonial situations. For languages such as German, there is no similar code, i.e. a German-based Creole with a similar social history and/or similar connotations. This will be taken as the starting point for the close analysis in 6.2.3 with regard to the question of how Creole is rendered in translations of West Indian literature, where, as demonstrated in Chapter 5, Creole is used for various functions. The translator’s choices may be interpreted not only in the light of Creole functions in the source text, but are themselves meaningful. This is demonstrated by looking at examples of Creole in mainly German translations from the 1960s to the 1980s and 1990s. All of these turn out to be reflections of their time and show how Creole culture and language has been interpreted and represented from the outside, as an example here from a German point of view. They range from a complete domestication or germanization to an attempt at foreignization to a strategy of register marking, which rests on levels of formality without overstating differences. The latter strategy is, in fact, the most commonly used strategy in the majority of translations of the 1980s and 1990s. Translation thus becomes a powerful constructive force in renegotiating language prestige. Chapter 6.3 looks at Creole translation in the reversal of positions: how do translations with Creole as a target language contribute to language prestige changes? Translations have always played an important role in both establishing a language as a written code and in forming new registers in that language. After all, the act of translation – as evident in Bible translation in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries – formed the beginning of most European language elaboration in the struggle against the hegemonic writing language Latin. Bible translations and Creole (6.3.1) therefore open the discussion on Creole Ausbau and modernization. The close analysis of Bible translations shows, however, that lexical and syntactic innovation is scarce in contemporary Creole versions. Chapter 6.3.2 then turns to Creole translations in different registers and genres, from folk poetry (D’Costa in Görlach 1991) to academic articles (Devonish

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1994, 1996). While such translations are yet scarce and belong to the sphere of “academic experiments”, they have the potential for structural and lexical innovation in highly specific fields. Translations from Creole/English texts into other languages, on the other hand, are steadily increasing. The social practice of translating Creole should not be underestimated in its effect of representing language and culture – as a general rule, the most translated languages have always been the ones with the greatest socio-political power. Translation, the discursive field furthest removed from the original locus of language, can thus function as one of the most powerful constructive forces in negotiating language prestige.

Notes . For a detailed definition of the term, cf. Chapter 2.1 “Shared prestige features of Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles”. . There is much more published work than could be cited here. For an overview, cf., for instance, McWhorter 1997. . Cf. als DeGraff 2001a, 2001b on a discussion of epistemology and Creole morphology.

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To a creolist, almost everyone else’s definition of a creole sounds absurd and arbitrary; [. . . ]. (DeCamp 1977: 4)

Chapter 1

Defining language prestige The positioning of Creole in linguistic and social parameters

. Marginal languages In the preface to the proceedings of the 1968 Jamaica conference on Pidgin and Creole languages, Dell Hymes (1971a: 3) refers to Pidgins and Creoles as “marginal languages”. What exactly was meant by this notion of marginality? Referring to the great pioneer of the study of Pidgins and Creoles, John Reinecke, Hymes recounts their “humble” beginnings when they were first categorized as “types of languages”. When Reinecke began with the serious study of these languages in the 1930s, he kept them under the rubric of “marginal languages” for two reasons: they were marginal both in the circumstances of their origin and in the attitudes towards them. In his discussion, Hymes attaches an additional meaning to Reinecke’s notions of marginality, namely the knowledge concerning Pidgins and Creoles, and he connects this with the hopeful aspiration of the publication of Pidginization and Creolization of Languages (Hymes 1971a) that this “stepchild” to serious scientific or public attention “may prove a Cinderella”. In the last sense in which he understood the term marginal, this wish for a wondrous transformation has certainly come true: the knowledge concerning Pidgins and Creoles has considerably increased in the last three decades and there is a steadily growing body of research on different synchronic aspects of the linguistic structures of Pidgins and Creoles, on their historical development, as well as on sociolinguistic variation and use in their speech communities. The insights gained from these studies have contributed not only to knowledge of individual linguistic systems which have been classified as P/C languages (e.g. Tok Pisin or Haitian Creole), but have also contributed to our understanding of more general issues in linguistic disciplines, such as sociolinguistics, historical linguistics or language acquisition theories, as well as the investigation of processes, such as language contact and language change. Thus,

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Chapter 1

one could well conclude that the study of Pidgins and Creoles has seen a move from a marginal position to the “establishment” in linguistics. Whether they have undergone this transformation also in the other meanings of marginality ascribed to them, i.e. the manner in which they are regarded, is a different matter. The following assessment, a quarter of a century after Hymes’s optimistic claim, may sober any self-congratulary enthusiasm of the possible effects of linguistic research: One of the general problems that continues to affect creole linguistics in several ways is the extreme marginalization of creole languages relative to the class of natural language. For instance, creoles have been ranked with baby talk, child language, foreigner talk, and with other instances of nonnatural language that do not serve normal societal communicative needs nor the full cognitive needs of the human species. Consequently, it is not surprising that they have been the most stigmatized of the world’s languages. All this has inhibited any programs that would standardize these languages and lead to the elevation of their status and role in the societies where they are spoken. (Alleyne 1994: 8)

While the perspective on linguistic study as the sole bearer of responsibility for the stigmatization of Creoles may be too limiting a view, Alleyne makes an important point by emphasizing the connection between the conceptual classification of these languages and their marginalization – last but not least since this classification is one of the most central as well as one of the most fought over battles in Creole linguistics. It may therefore not be unwarranted to take a closer look at the reasons for a continued stigmatization of these languages and to include linguistic classification as part of a larger discourse on the manner in which these languages have been regarded. This is not necessarily confined to the effect of linguistic research on a larger public, but it emphasizes that the assessments made in linguistic theory are not created out of a conceptual void but are formed, battled over and redefined in environments which are linked to larger social developments.1 Some of the general social, historical and epistemological conditions which have contributed to a stigmatization of P/C languages can thus be shown to be reflected in the criteria which are laid down in the very identification of these languages. These criteria are themselves not static or fixed but are part of a dynamic process which is influenced by, and itself shapes and reinforces or changes the prestige of these languages. They will thus be included in a general discussion on language prestige: the way it is determined and defined by these notions, how they have been applied to P/C languages in general and, more specifically, to Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles.

Defining language prestige

. Language prestige: Status, function and attitudes Determining the prestige of languages and exploring prestige change may involve many questions as diverse as: has their social position changed within the respective country/society? Are they used by their speakers for different purposes and in different contexts today than, say, forty or fifty years ago? Has their scholarly study coincided with or even resulted in any change in people’s beliefs and feelings about them? Each of the questions is, to some extent, connected to the sociocultural feature “prestige” which plays a particularly prominent role in multilingual situations. Winford (1985: 347), for instance, names “prestige” as one of five sociocultural features to describe diglossia in Creole situations. While associating the term mainly with speaker evaluations, Winford also acknowledges the role of prestige as a catalyst for other characteristics, such as functional specialization, literary heritage and standardization, when he states that “such attitudes are reinforced by the association of H with an antiquity, literary heritage, an established norm of ‘correct’ usage, etc” (1985: 347). Prestige, therefore, seems to entail language attitudes but, what is more, it focuses on the inter-relationship between linguistic evaluation and aspects of status and function. Furthermore, since the questions outlined above focus on a development rather than on just a momentary condition, it seems necessary for a definition to explicitly cover a diachronic aspect as well. Mackey’s (1989: 4) characterization of “language prestige” as a language’s “record, or what people think its record to have been” seems appropriate to include not only a synchronic scope but also a dynamic dimension. The term “prestige” as it is used here, therefore, will be established to include the following aspects: a. a socio-cultural dimension to cover status, function and attitudes, b. a catalyst function between those related dimensions (status, function, attitudes), and c. a focus on a dynamic development rather than on a momentary state. The definition above also includes the use of the term as an umbrella for the description of largely external properties of a particular linguistic system on different levels, on status, function and attitudes. As widely used and significant concepts in sociolinguistic study, they merit some more detailed attention. “Caractères externes” (Mackey 1976), such as status and function of, as well as attitudes towards a language or language variety, are by their very definition independent of “caractères internes”, the structure or organisation of a linguistic system. Thus, languages that are very different with respect to their structural type (e.g. Turkish and Chinese) could have a similar profile regard-

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ing their status and function; on the other hand, structurally similar languages could show a great functional disparity. The concepts “status”, “function” and “attitudes”, however, are somewhat elusive: they are used rather inconsistently, sometimes even interchangeably, to cover a wide range of phenomena, such as the status of codification of a language (linguistic status), the role it plays as language of national or international communication (legal status), for which communicative purposes they are used by its speakers (function), as well as the values and beliefs that are connected with it (attitudes). Classifications of status and function have been proposed from the early 1960s on (cf. Stewart 1962, 1968; Ferguson 1966; Kloss 1968), mostly for the description of national sociolinguistic profiles for multilingual societies. Many of these suggestions have later been taken up and redefined in other detailed frameworks (cf., for instance, Ammon 1987, 1989; Mackey 1989). Attitude, as a central concept in the social sciences, first originated in social psychology between the world wars (Allport 1935).2 As a link or bridge between sociology and psychology, attitudes from the very beginning of sociolinguistic study have served as a variable to explain and predict various sociolinguistic phenomena.3 For the status and function of a variety, language attitudes are important in both reflecting and explaining the language situation. However, the study of language attitudes is also a linguistic research topic in its own right, with various methodological approaches applied (e.g. Lambert et al. 1969; Giles et al. 1973; cf. Baker 1992 for an overview of language attitude theory). A closer look at the various components and definitions of status, function and attitude may serve best to illustrate the specific issues that are at stake in a discussion of language prestige, as well as the manner in which these issues are connected. .. The societal dimension: Language status Status focuses on different dimensions of the standing of a language within a wider social framework, its “‘position (in the respective system)’ or ‘rank (in a hierarchy or in a rank order)”’ (Ammon 1989: 26), in a country or a regional unit, for instance. Status therefore appears as a relative category and has to be seen both in connection with the specific societal unit it is applied to and with the other linguistic units that this language stands in a ranking order with, e.g. language X has the status of an official language in country Y but is merely a tolerated language in country Z.4 Status can be taken to comprise three different scopes (cf. also Hellinger 1991):


–

–

–

Demographic status describes the numerical strength of speakers of a language and the ratio of L1 users to the total population. Ammon (1989: 62 ff) also includes the types of speakers (native vs. non-native speaker and monolingual vs. multilingual) and types of communicative skills (functional proficiencies) in this dimension; Legal status, according to Hellinger (1991: 270) “may be given on the basis of administrative and/or legal conditions extant in the social system. This is the clearest category of status emphasizing potential use, i.e. of what people can do with a language [. . . ]” (italics in the original, S.M.). Kloss (1968) defined this as “governmental attitude” towards a language in a ranking list of six stages (SO = sole official language; JO = joint official language; RO = regional official language; PL = promoted language; TL = tolerated language; and DL = discouraged language), extending from maximal acceptance to outright proscription; Linguistic status describes characteristics according to which languages are grouped together as “sociolinguistic types”. Among the early most influential models to describe linguistic status were those by Stewart (1962, 1968), who proposes a functional typology which comprises the classifications Standard, Classical, Vernacular, Dialect, Creole, Pidgin and Artificial. The model was later expanded by Hymes (1971b) to include Xized Y (e.g. Indianized English), Interlanguage and Foreigner Talk. The various versions of the Stewart model and their impact on later models and on reflection of attitudes towards Creoles will be dealt with in more detail in Chapter 1.3.

Howard Giles’s et al. (1977) concept of “ethnolinguistic vitality” combines the former two components of status with yet another factor, “institutional support” in order to provide a descriptive taxonomy of situational and structural variables which may operate in an intergroup situation and which, as they note, “often dictate the sociopsychological climate in which such relations occur” (1977: 308). Despite its large number of variables within the triparte model (status, demography, institutional support), ethnolinguistic vitality does not take into account the question of linguistic status,5 however, which, in the case of CELC languages, is of primary importance. .. The institutional and interactional dimension: Language function Mackey contrasts “status of a language operationally as ‘what people can do with a language’ ” with its function, “that is, to ‘what they actually do with it’ ” (1989: 7). In this sense, the status of a language would seem to be the sum of its

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Chapter 1

functions. Function is here used as operating on a social macro-level, i.e. what Joshua Fishman (1968) described as domains of language usage. While there usually is some correlation between the social position of a language and the purpose it is used for, it is important to note that they operate on independent levels and do not necessarily have to coincide. For instance, the fact that “language X is used for the function of writing literature” need not correlate with “it has the status of a standardized/codified language”. However, a hierarchical order between these levels can be sensed if one looks at an implicational correlation in the reverse order: the fact that a language is standardized makes it very likely to be also used for the function of writing. Largely neglected in the context of language prestige research is the consideration of function on a micro-level, i.e. within a particular discourse unit. However, as shall be argued in this study, an inclusion of micro-functions may provide important insights into the dynamics of language prestige. Early models of language functions reach back to Karl Bühler (1934) and Charles Morris (1946) and have later been taken up by various sociolinguistic and pragmatic approaches, such as the ethnography of communication (Hymes 1962, 1972, 1974a) or speech act theory (Austin 1962; Searle 1969). The exploration of language micro-functions and communicative purposes of speakers in a multilingual setting has featured most prominently in code-switching analyses (e.g. Gumperz 1982; Myers-Scotton 1993). The various approaches to communicative functions, as well as their significance and implications for an analysis of language prestige, will be subject of a more extensive discussion in Chapter 3.3. They will form an important part of what will be introduced as an integrative model in Chapter 3.4. .. The socio-psychological dimension: Language attitudes Attitudes, or “socio-psychological status” in Hellinger (1991), can be seen to interlink with both status and function. Attitudes can be described in terms of mental variables which are not per se observable but help to explain, predict or are related to patterns of behaviour. A central feature of definitions of attitude is the idea of readiness for response, i.e. attitude is not behaviour but rather “a learned predisposition to respond in a consistently favourable or unfavourable manner with respect to a given object” (Fishbein & Ajzen 1975: 6) or “individual mental processes which determine both the actual and potential responses of each person in the social world” (Allport 1954). The theoretical construct “attitude” can be taken to consist of three components:


– – –

the cognitive component (consisting of ideas and beliefs which the attitude holder has about the attitude object), the affective or emotional component (i.e. feelings and emotions toward the object), the conative or behavioral component (i.e. action tendencies toward the object).

The relation between a specific component of attitudes (s.a.) and the theoretical construct “attitude” is not easy to analyze. Fishbein & Ajzen’s (1975) research suggests that the formation of attitudes is based upon a few salient beliefs which a person holds about the object. Their expectancy-value model assumes that one’s attitude is a function of one’s beliefs, when these beliefs are represented as the sum of the expected values of the attributes one ascribes to the respective object. The implicit assumption of the model, i.e. that people form attitudes by attaching a number of attributes to the attitude object, is not undisputed (cf. McGuire 1985) but this criticism has hardly diminished the model’s popularity. The relation between attitudes and behaviour has naturally featured prominently in attitude research – after all, one of its primary goals is to predict social behaviour. The frequency of failure rates in an attitudebehaviour correlation, however, have led to the assumption that behaviour is influenced by social pressures as well as by attitudes (Ajzen & Fishbein 1980). Thus, unsatisfactory results of experimental research on salient sociopsychological questions, as well as influences from other fields, have led to a gradual re-orientation in attitude research, from experiment to discourse analysis. This development will be reflected in the establishment of an alternative model in Chapter 3. Language attitudes reflect social evaluations6 connected with a particular group of speakers. This becomes evident when associations are made between speech patterns and the speaker’s social status, ethnicity, etc., and, furthermore, when associations are made between speech patterns and personal qualities of an individual speaker (e.g. intelligence, friendliness, honesty, etc.). The connection of language attitudes with status and function is twofold: on the one hand, attitudes towards a language variety held by the wider society may determine the purposes it is used for or the legal position it is granted. On the other hand, attitudes may themselves be influenced by the social position held by the respective variety, i.e. actual behaviour reinforces attitudes. As Kelman (1974: 324) notes, “not only is attitude an integral part of action, but action is an integral part of the development, testing and crystallisation of attitudes”. Ammon (1989: 69) also comments on this interconnection by stating that “the

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Chapter 1

prestige is, however, not directly (by definition) a question of the social distribution of La [a language, S.M.] but of attitudes towards La [. . . ], though attitudes and actual social distribution tend to coincide [. . . ]”. The concept of language prestige is therefore neither a new label for language attitudes, nor is it merely a convenient cover under which the three somehow related sociolinguistic concepts of status, function and attitude may find shelter, but rather it provides a vital focus on the interaction of these elements as a continuing process of negotiation of language prestige (cf. also Chapter 3). As an important addition, my understanding of language prestige also includes and emphasizes “micro-function” as the communicative purpose in a discourse unit. The different dimensions of language prestige can be summarized as follows: Table 1. Dimensions of language prestige

dimensions

status

function

attitudes

• demographic status

• macro-functions: domains of usage

• cognitive

• legal status

• micro-functions:

• linguistic status

communicative purpose

• affective • conative

As shall be seen in the following, the dynamics of the interaction between these different dimensions may result in different types and directions of changes of language prestige.

. Prestige change of languages and language varieties One of the general deficits in the research on language status, function and attitudes, with some exceptions (e.g. Ammon & Hellinger 1991; Fishman et al. 1996), is that its focus rests largely on a description of a status quo, so that there is a clear need of investigating the mechanisms of language prestige change. Any exploration of these dynamics, naturally, has to take into account the various components of language prestige, their interaction, as well as the catalysts which may trigger off such a process. Hellinger (1991: 270) points out that there are basically two ways of how prestige changes of a language or language variety may occur, i.e. natural or planned change. With regard to the study of Pidgin and Creole languages, she writes:


Looking at change of linguistic status, nothing need be said about natural linguistic change, which in the study of pidgin and creole languages is referred to as pidginization, creolization and decreolization. [. . . ]. The given status of a language may of course be changed (in the sense of planned change) by changing the legal or administrative framework that constrains the use of the language as, e.g., when a pidgin is accorded semi-official status in the respective country’s constitution or when local authorities will no longer sanction the use of a creole as a medium of primary education. (Hellinger 1991: 270)

One may add that the manner of change first cited here (“natural linguistic change”), which affects the linguistic status of a language or language variety, essentially starts on a functional level, with functional expansion and reduction in the particular type of interaction, in the discourse unit. Notwithstanding the problematic nature of linguistic status definition (which will be discussed in Chapter 1.5), the very basis of the categories Standard, Dialect, Creole, Pidgin, etc. is largely functional – even though, for P/C languages, the criteria are often mixed with structural or seemingly structural arguments. These classifications are therefore the result of social and historical developments which have led to assigning the particular variety the particular functions it has within the larger framework. In the case of Pidgins and Creoles, however, the functional classifications tend to fossilize and be maintained beyond functional expansion (e.g. Tok Pisin) for socio-historical reasons, as will be seen in the following parts of this chapter. .. Directions of prestige change The two kinds of language prestige change outlined in the quote above, will be treated here as two directions of possible changes in an interactive model of language prestige: 1. as planned change, starting from the legal or administrative level via institutions (e.g. media, education, etc.) down to language use in particular interactions, 2. as natural change, starting from the discourse unit level via institutions eventually and possibly (but not necessarily) to the administrative and legal level.

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Chapter 1

Table 2. Directions of prestige change Category

Status

Macro-Function Micro-Function

Attitude

Framework

law and institutions Discourse unit society and administration individual Direction of Change 1. planned ⇒⇒⇒ ⇒⇒⇒⇐⇐⇐ ⇐⇐⇐ 2. natural catalyst

ad 1: The first direction of change is that of a “change from above” or prescriptive prestige change. Because “status” is often dependent on socio-political decisions, it is the category that is most prone to sudden or planned “top down” change, e.g. via legislation. Legal or linguistic status change often goes hand in hand with political change, e.g. national autonomy or independence is often emphasized by such legislated turns. Functional change will then follow this status change, and the language use in different domains (e.g. media, education, etc.) will be implemented via the status change. Prestige change via language planning and language politics is well researched. Studies on language prestige changes focus mostly on these instances and indicators of change, for instance, whether or not a language has been granted official national or regional status, whether or not it has become the language of education, etc. (cf. also Fishman et al. 1996). ad 2: The second form of change is gradual or natural change of language prestige, which, as it will be argued here, is induced by change of language functions. The stablility of macro-function in a domain configuration depends largely on the type of multilingual setting within the respective framework. For instance, the kind of coexistence of two varieties in a speech community that is characterized as “diglossia” (Ferguson 1959)7 is represented by a stable functional distribution of a high prestige (H) and a low prestige (L) code. However, this dichotomy is, to a large extent, a theoretical construct. Notwithstanding its value to describe a more general functional dichotomy according to the situational context, it is clear that even in diglossic situations the actual language situation is more complex, with the “inappropriate” codes being used at times for specific communicative purposes. Kemnitz (1981), in an early but rather neglected review on diglossia from a conflict perspective, calls for a shift of focus to the micro-level of “fonctionnements diglossiques”:8 Even within a relatively small society, ‘fonctionnements diglossiques’ could be very different in detail from what we consider diglossia to be. Diglossia is only the outcome of all these locutionary acts. In each communicative act, the relationship between interlocutors is governed by constraints of power, politeness,


habit and by taboos and it is these that determine actual linguistic practices [. . . ] it is only when we take account [. . . ] of these micro-situations that we will arrive at more accurate descriptions of the overall situation. (1981: 72)

More attention has been paid to studies on code-switching (e.g. Gumperz 1982; Myers-Scotton 1993), which have thrown light on the manners and motivations for such language use on the discourse level.9 For the situation in the anglophone Caribbean, studies on language attitudes and speakers’ perception of their language use (Mühleisen 1993, 2001a) show that in many domains which would traditionally belong to a H or L sphere both codes are used for specific purposes. Language use within specific domains which are assigned to the H or L environment may thus be the most interesting starting point for looking at natural or gradual language prestige change. This is indeed the type of change which will be examined in this study and the direction of change whose importance will be advocated here. Such a functional change may first be observed here, i.e. the language use within particular domains and the communicative roles the variety is given on the discourse level. It is within the nature of such a descriptive rather than prescriptive “bottom-up change” – from the smallest unit at the discourse level to the largest unit affecting the social framework – that this is a slow and gradual process. Status as the most static language prestige component is thus the last one affected by gradually changing individual or social group behaviour. For instance, the fact that an individual or a particular social group writes a certain language variety does not immediately change its linguistic status of codification; the fact that an individual or a social group uses it in a political meeting has little or no influence on its legal status, etc. A change on the status level in such a gradual change process would, therefore, require a considerable degree of change on the functional level. Language attitudes and their change play a large role in both types of language prestige change. They serve as a variable for both explaining and reflecting prestige change. For natural and gradual prestige changes, they may serve as a trigger to set off a change in the communicative role of a language variety. Language attitudes, in the sense outlined above, can only be “measured”10 or analyzed in the individual. However, one speaks of a socio-psychological factor for language prestige and its change if these attitudes are shared by a large part of the group that is subject to the research. With regard to language attitude change, Baker (1992: 97) notes that attitude change in a language context has a strong political dimension. [. . . ] it is clear that language attitudes are manipulated by power groups. Such manip-

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Chapter 1

ulation can be a gentle persuasion, intensive indoctrination, subtle influence or Machiavellian programming. Attitudes to language may change by a slow evolution and gradual development. They can also take ‘U’ turns parallel with sudden religious conversion. Language attitudes may change due to internal thinking; more often, they change by exposure to social influence.

What follows is that language attitudes as one (important) dimension of language prestige must always be seen in connection and interaction with the other dimensions of language prestige, rather than as operating in isolation. Secondly, previous research methods aiming at “measuring” language attitudes in the individual will be abandoned for approaches looking at their manifestation in discursive interaction (as outlined in Chapter 3). Before further elaborations of theoretical and methodological models of language prestige are given in Chapter 3, I will now turn to the concrete object of the initial research question, to the relevance of language prestige studies of Pidgin and Creole languages and to previous research done specifically on Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles.

. Studies on language prestige of Pidgin and Creole languages Prestige changes, as well as their causes and implications, are relevant for the investigation of many languages. However, for contact languages, such as Pidgins and Creoles, the question bears particular relevance. There is, on the one hand, increasing criticism of the linguistic categorizations “Pidgins and Creoles”. As has repeatedly been pointed out, these labels cover languages which are structurally, genetically and typologically quite diverse (DeCamp 1977: 3; cf. Winford 1997). On the other hand, one of the unifying factors which most of these languages share is some form of a colonial past which involved greatly asymmetrical power and prestige relationships between the speakers of the languages in contact (cf. also Holm 1989: 632). Consequently, one could expect that the larger decolonization processes from the mid-twentieth century on and the subsequent independence for the majority of the former European colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific have led to major changes with regard to the language situation and, possibly, to a restructuring of language power and prestige relations. What are the criteria, however, to define these relations and how would changes in language prestige have to be accounted for? Language prestige studies with regard to Pidgins and Creoles can be divided into two different types:


1. The first kind has its focus on one particular linguistic system (e.g. Jamaican Creole, Tok Pisin, etc.), which is then examined within the given societal framework (nation, region, etc.). For the Anglophone Caribbean, such studies exist only in the form of a limited number of language attitude studies. These studies and their outcomes shall be reviewed in the following section (Chapter 1.4.1). 2. The second type deals with the linguistic status “Pidgin” and “Creole” per se as well as the features which are seen as characteristic for a classification of varieties under this typology. The discussion of the linguistic status of “Creole” and its further implications will be subject of Chapter 1.5. .. Language attitude studies in the anglophone Caribbean There are a number of descriptions of external properties and their changes of individual languages, such as Tok Pisin (Romaine 1991), Melanesian Pidgin English (Mühlhäusler 1991) or comparative and contrastive studies (e.g. Hellinger 1991 on Tok Pisin, Bislama and Haitian Creole). While some varieties seem to feature prominently (e.g. Tok Pisin), there is a marked absence of recent studies on prestige change of Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles in more recent relevant literature on the topic (cf. Ammon & Hellinger 1991; Fishman et al. 1996).11 And perhaps this gap is not entirely unjustified or due to idiosyncratic research preferences. After all, when taking only large-scale changes of status and function into consideration, Creoles, such as Jamaican, Guyanese, Trinidadian or Bajan, etc. compare rather poorly with other English-oriented contact varieties outside the region (e.g. Tok Pisin) or with languages of different lexical affiliations within the Caribbean (e.g. Papiamentu, Haitian Creole). None of the Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles have so far “made it” to an official recognition of their legal status, none of them are standardized languages in the sense that their status of codification is formally sanctioned and acknowledged by the general public.12 It is thus not surprising that Devonish (1986a: 87) focuses exactly on those varieties when he states that “even when the language question is not raised in any explicit manner, social and political conflict in the area of language is nevertheless present.” And he adds, “in fact, the absence of any open debate on the language question is itself and expression of the complete control which those who benefit from the linguistic status quo have over the minds of the population at large.” Even though some macrofunctional changes, like the introduction of Creole as medium of instruction on the primary school level (cf. Carrington 1978; Devonish 1986a, 1986b), have been tentatively implemented by legislation in some Caribbean countries, the

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Chapter 1

majority of the “popular struggles” Devonish describes in his Language and Liberation (1986a: 87ff) are still being fought for the legal status and a function elevation of Creole. Thus, Devonish’s prediction in 1986 that “the official language communication system inherited from the colonial period has started to collapse. The reason is that colonial official language policies have been applied to entirely new circumstances in the postcolonial era [. . . ]” (1986b: 49) must be rated as a premature estimation with regard to official language policy implementation in most CELC countries. Recent language political developments in Jamaica (Devonish 2002, Devonish forthc.) show, however, that this may be at the brink of change now: in 2001, a presentation was made to the House of Parliament of Jamaica on the issue of language rights in the Jamaican consitution. Whether or not this will result in making JC an official language of Jamaica is currently still under debate. There are, however, a number of systematic studies which focus on language attitudes in various territories in the anglophone Caribbean (cf. Reisman (1970) on Antigua, Haynes (1973) on Barbados and Guyana, Winford (1976) on Trinidad, Rickford (1983) on Guyana and Mühleisen (1993, 2001a) on Trinidad and, most recently, Beckford Wassink (1999) on Jamaica). Using different research methodologies, all of these studies have attested the respective Creole a high “covert prestige”13 versus a low “overt prestige”14 in different types of contexts, thus confirming an evaluation pattern as is typical for a diglossic language situation.15 Reisman integrates these seemingly paradoxical types of attitudes into a larger model of cultural ambiguity, with the two codes reflecting cultural and social practices (cf. also Chapter 2.3.1).

5

4.3

4 3 2

2.8

3.9 3.3

3.8 2.8

Non-Estate Class Estate Class

1 Basilectal (deep Creole)

Mesolectal (Mixed Creole/English)

Acrolectal (Standard English)

Figure 1. Mean ratings of the Matched Guise (MG) samples, friend scale (Rickford 1983) NOTE:

5 = Field Manager/Headmaster; 4 = Filed Foreman/Book-keeper; 3 = Shop Owner; 2 = Security Guard; 1 = Canecutter (Highest to lowest socio-economic status).


5

4.6

4

3.3

3 2 1.4 1

4.1

Estate Class Non-Estate Class

2.9

1.0

Basilectal (deep Creole) MG Sample

Mesolectal (mixed Creole/English) MG Sample

Acrolectal (Standard English) MG Sample

Figure 2. Mean ratings of the Matched Guise (MG) samples, job scale (Rickford 1983)

Particularly Rickford’s matched guise study firmly establishes the multidimensionality of speaker/hearer attitudes in a rural Guyanese community. His study focuses on both the covert prestige and the solidarity value of Guyanese Creole among male respondents of different social classes. His Estate Class (e.g. cane-cutters, weeders, etc.) and Non-estate Class (e.g. clerks, contractors, book-keepers, etc.) respondents were inclined to judge a speaker as a potential friend when the speech sample (basilect, mesolect or acrolect) was most similar to their own speech. On the status level, respondents of both classes closely paralleled their judgments about the socio-economic status of the “speakers” in the matched guise samples. The acrolectal and mesolectal guises were taken to hold jobs of a higher socio-economic rank than the basilectal guise. Rickford’s findings are an important confirmation and explanation of apparently paradoxical attitudes which seem to have contributed to a stabilization of the diglossic situation in Guyana and at the same time may have worked against a predicted process of decreolization. It must be noted, however, that Rickford’s male working and lower middle class respondents in a rural sugar estate community (Cane Walk) may also be among the most conservative speakers and attitude holders which may not be easily affected by changes. .. Evidence for language attitude change in the anglophone Caribbean Do the many parallels in the research findings above suggest an unalterable stability in the language evaluation patterns within the anglophone Caribbean, regardless of time and locality? While most of the studies cited above focus on a synchronic exploration of language attitudes, Mühleisen (1993, 2001a)16 as

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Chapter 1

Table 3. Evaluation of speech community by residence and ethnic group in % (1976)

Fair to Good Bad Non-committal

Urban

Rural

Indian

African

71.4 26.2 02.3

15.6 71.8 12.5

36.6 61.0 02.4

60.6 27.3 12.1

Table 4. Evaluation of speech community by residence and ethnic group in % (1993)

Good Fair Bad

Urban

SemiUrban

Small Town

Rural

Indian

African

*Mixed

*Euro

75.0 25.0 –

50.0 47.2 –

71.4 28.6 02.8

31.2 68.8 –

51.1 46.8 02.1

60.6 39.4 –

60.0 40.0 –

100 – –

* Number of respondents in this category is less than 10 % of the total sample, figures therefore have to be taken with caution.

a follow-up study to Winford (1976)17 , also takes into account a dynamic perspective on language attitude change and its possible influences. The findings of this dynamic view on teacher attitudes in Trinidad suggest, firstly, that there have been changes with regard to beliefs and values connected with Creole, and secondly that, while the general paradigm of functional differentiation is largely unaltered, the uses and functions of Creole within certain domains have changed considerably. The close correspondence to the Winford study, conducted more than 20 years earlier, provides strong evidence that negative evaluations based on the perception of Trinidadian English Creole as an inferior form of English are disappearing. Some selected examples may be cited here to illustrate the changing nature of evaluations of Trinidadian English Creole (TEC) versus Standard English (SE) in the two questionnaire-based studies. Some of the findings of a more recent language attitude study in Jamaica (Beckford Wassink 1999) will also be considered. I.

A Comparative Evaluation of Speech Community, based on Winford 1976 and Mühleisen 1993

The different responses to the same question “What do you think of the speech in your own community”, shows very clearly that perceptions of what is to be rated as “good” or “bad” speech have changed drastically between 1970 and 1992, i.e. the periods of data collection for the respective studies. An evaluation of Creole as “bad English”, a notion the Winford questionnaire deals with extensively, was practically out of question in the nineties.


Similarly drastic changes can be noted in the evaluation of the respondents’ own speech – the respondents of the later study showed much more confidence in their own manner of speaking than the 1970s respondents (cf. Mühleisen 2001a: 59–65). At the same time, their identification with Trinidadian English Creole (TEC) has increased, thus defying the interpretation that the more positive evaluation of their own speech is based on a decreased use of TEC. The second example may illustrate this: II. A Comparative Evaluation of Speakers Identification 1970: 60.7 % of all respondents saw TEC as their most natural medium of speech. The majority of those who stated that they preferred “correct English” were rural Indians (Winford 1976). Table 5. Speaker identification by age and ethnic group in % (Mühleisen 1993)

Yes No Not sure

–25

26–35

36–45

46–55

Indian

African

80.0 20.0 –

70.0 25.0 05.0

67.6 32.4 –

59.1 36.4 04.5

77.1 20.8 02.1

51.6 48.4 –

* Number of respondents in this category is less than 10 % of the total sample, figures therefore have to be taken with caution.

Age, an extralinguistic factor which does not feature in the Winford study, clearly plays a major role in the follow-up study as an indicator of change. With regard to the table above, it reveals a trend towards an increasing identification with TEC as one’s “most natural speech”. A lack of linguistic self-confidence, which seems to have prompted a majority of rural Indians to state that they “preferred correct English”, while, at the same time, exposing the most negative ratings for their own speech as well as their speech communities, appears to have developed into a more affirmative identification with Trinidadian English Creole. Many comments on an open question about the role of Trinidadian Creole in the future confirm this notion in the 1990s research: It is an integral part of our society and is rich in our linguistic tradition. It has a vibrant role to play and should not be described as ‘Bad English’ since it is a language in its own rights. I think people have to be better educated about the richness and evolution of Trinidadian Creole and its importance in their everyday lives. The media especially has an important role to play. (Resp. 029: F/Age 1/ Pr./TC/Semi-urban/Ind.)18

It may also be concluded that, along with the heightened awareness of the existence of two separate codes (TEC and SE), the awareness of a functional

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Chapter 1

distinction has equally increased. Many comments thus focused on the usefulness of the codes in different contexts. Other than in Winford’s study, the limitation of TEC is not seen in the language per se, as an “inferior form of English”, but rather in its restricted usefulness as a language of international communication, as opposed to Standard English. To some extent, this also corresponds with results in Beckford Wassink’s study “Historic low prestige and seeds of change: Attitudes toward Jamaican Creole” (1999) on speaker attitudes in Gordon Town, Jamaica. Her structured interview questions are subgrouped into three different categories – “feel”, “use” and “hear” questions – in her investigation of patterns in respondents’ attitudes towards Jamaican Creole.19 The “feel” score, i.e. reactions to JC itself, rated, by far, the highest across all age groups, with a slightly higher value for male than for female respondents. Questions designed to reflect the respondents’ reported willingness to use JC in a number of contexts (“use”-questions) clearly scored lowest among speakers of all age and both gender groups. Beckford Wassink nevertheless attests a shift away from the historical low prestige, especially among Gordon Town males between 20 and 45 years of age. In Trinidad, several results in Mühleisen (1993, 2001a) clearly indicate a strong speaker awareness of code selection with different interlocuters and in different situations. III. Language Choice on an Interpersonal Level Table 6. Respondents’ language choices (1992)

a. With Parents b. With Spouse c. With Children d. With Friends e. At Work, With Colleagues f. At Work, in Classroom g. In Church h. When “Liming”20 i. When Quarrelling j. Telling Jokes k. New Acquaintance l. When Introduced to a Trinidadian Abroad

Creole

Standard

(Both)*

76.1 % 72.2 % 28.2 % 65.5 % 22.7 % 03.4 % 09.5 % 84.9 % 79.5 % 92.1 % 10.2 % 30.6 %

17.0 % 22.8 % 61.2 % 19.5 % 59.1 % 91.0 % 79.8 % 09.3 % 12.0 % 05.6 % 84.1 % 62.4 %

06.8 % 05.1 % 10.6 % 14.9 % 18.2 % 5.6 % 10.7 % 05.8 % 08.4 % 02.2 % 05.7 % 07.1 %

* This option was not given in the questionnaire. However, many respondents ticked both Creole and Standard in certain categories.


While most of the Creole/Standard choices confirmed a private/public and formal/informal dichotomy, some of the findings here were nevertheless surprising. Firstly, some categories like “At work, with colleagues”, for instance, displayed a distinct age-grading in the choices made. On the one hand, this could be an indicator of change in those interpersonal domains; on the other hand, it could point to a change in how formal/informal the situation is perceived to be. Secondly, the fact that many respondents ticked both, “Creole” and “Standard”, even though this option was not explicitly given in the questionnaire, shows a marked awareness of respondents that the dichotomies might not be as clear-cut as it first seems and that contextual code-switching is the norm rather than the exception. This may also be confirmed by the result of a question on the acceptability of Creole usage in public spheres: in quite a number of public domains like, for instance, literature or various media genres, Creole was rarely thought of as inappropriate (cf. Mühleisen 2001a: 69). The results illustrate not only that “public” and “private” domains are not necessarily the main dividing lines for the use of Creole or Standard English. They also show that domain classifications such as “media language”,21 “writing language” or “language of politics” may not be sufficient as they do not reflect the various genres and sub-genres within these larger domains.22 Nor do they in any way consider the communicative functions the codes may be used for in those genres. The findings presented above suggest that there have been changes in language attitudes for speakers of Creole, both on the level of language use in various micro-functions and on the conceptual level. That these levels may not be entirely inseparable is suggested by Ajzen (1989), who argues for a hierarchical view of language attitudes with the cognitive component (knowledge and belief) playing a most vital role in attitude formation under certain conditions. He states that “attitudes are not merely related to beliefs, they are actually a function of beliefs, i.e. beliefs are assumed to have a causal effect on attitudes” (1989: 247, italics in the original, S.M.). In other words, the concept of the nature of a Creole, what speakers know or think they know about Creole, may also influence their overall language attitudes. Changing notions of Creole characteristics are not an isolated phenomenon of speaker attitudes. Rather, they form part of a larger debate which is reflected in and influenced by an academic debate on the nature of Creole, which will be dealt with in the following part.

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

Chapter 1

. “Creole” as a (socio-)linguistic type While research on speaker attitudes towards Creole in the anglophone Caribbean is relatively scarce, there are quite a number of studies which deal with the concept of Creole as a particular type of language and the basis of their classification. This concept has increasingly come under attack, and it now forms part of a substantial debate on whether or not this categorization is obsolete or in need of considerable revision (cf., for instance, in Winford 1997; Mufwene 1997; Mufwene 2000; Carrington 1998; DeGraff 2001a; DeGraff 2001b). Unlike other language classifications, which are based on genetic, geographical, structural or (structural) typological features, Winford (1997: 1) notes that “the identification of pidgins and creoles is based on a variety of often conflicting criteria, including function (the communicative roles they fulfill), historical origins and development, formal characteristics, or a combination of these”. Twenty years earlier, DeCamp (1977: 3–4) similarly describes the peculiar relationship between an agreed presence of a group of languages called Pidgins and Creoles and a lack of any agreed definition among linguists when he states that “there is no [. . . ] agreement on the definition of the group of languages called pidgins and creoles. Linguists all agree that there is such a group, that it includes many languages and large numbers of speakers, [. . . ]” (1977: 3). Yet, he continues, any definition of these languages seems to be insufficient: Some definitions are based on function, the role these languages play in the community: e.g. a pidgin is an auxiliary trade language. Some are based on historical origins and development: e.g. a pidgin may be spontaneously generated; a creole is a language that has evolved from a pidgin. Some definitions include formal characteristics: restricted vocabulary; absence of gender, true tenses, inflectional morphology, or relative clauses, etc. Some linguists combine these different kinds of criteria and include additional restrictions in their definitions. To a creolist, almost everyone else’s definition of a creole sounds absurd and arbitrary; [. . . ]. (DeCamp 1977: 3–4)

These criteria provide indeed an odd “mixed bag”, especially if one bears in mind Mackey’s (1976) postulate that questions of status are by definition “caractères externes” and not tied to language structure. Despite ample refinements in more contemporary research of DeCamp’s examples of definitions, as well as a considerable re-orientation from the study of “Pidgins and Creoles” to the study of “contact languages”, the predicament of classification persists. It is illustrated at the very outset of Thomason and Kaufman’s (1988) comprehensive work on “contact languages”, in a juxtaposition of two seemingly contradictory


statements by 19th century German linguists: “There is no mixed language”23 (“Es gibt keine Mischsprache” – Max Müller 1871.1: 86, quoted in Thomason & Kaufman 1988: 1), and “There is no completely unmixed language” – (“Es gibt keine völlig ungemischte Sprache” Hugo Schuchardt 1884: 5, quoted in Thomason & Kaufman 1988: 1). If we take the latter one to form the basis of research on contact languages, the question remains: if all languages are to some extent influenced by linguistic contact, the distinction assigned to those languages labelled “Creoles” loses its special significance. For languages classified as Creoles, the question of linguistic status can be seen to play an important role in the continued marginalization and stigmatization of these languages. In order to explore the negative prestige of Creole languages, assessing the criteria of their linguistic status is therefore highly relevant because they may serve not only as a description, but also as a reflection of attitudes towards Creoles. .. Socio-historical and socio-linguistic factors: The Stewart typology revisited Sociolinguistic typologies date back to the very beginnings of sociolinguistics. Not surprisingly so, since the “types” these classifications seek to come to terms with are much older than sociolinguistics as a field, and concepts such as “standard”, “dialect”, etc. have been in public usage for a long time. Thus, rather than establishing new classifications, sociolinguistic typologies try to find explanatory categories which make already existing classifications plausible. In this way, it will be argued, they are not cut off from the wider public discourse on the meaning of those terms, but they are rather a reflection and perpetuation of notions long established. In the following, a historical, yet persistent model of linguistic status, the sociolinguistic typology of Stewart (1962, 1968), will be revisited with a close look at the basis of his classifications of the “language type” Creole. The Stewart review will prove relevant for two points I wish to make here. Firstly, it will be shown that in this model seemingly “objective” criteria repeatedly had to be adapted to fit the stereotype of Creoles as a distinct type. Secondly, it will be argued in the discussion of an “idealization” in later models (Chapter 1.5.2) that many of the Stewart notions are, in fact, perpetuated in a different form. The Stewart (1962, 1968) typology works with the underlying assumption that “languages may be differentiated into types in terms of [. . . ] attributes which demonstrate a consistent tendency to affect social attitudes toward them” (1962: 17) and that these characteristics can be ranked to produce





Chapter 1

an “order of potential prestige” (1962: 18). He makes this capacity dependent on four criteria (model 1, 1962), later modified to 7 criteria (model 3, in Bell 1983, based on Fishman 1971 and Hymes 1971b). The criteria themselves are supposed to be language external features, which do not seek to take into account individual internal (e.g. syntactic) features24, since, as I have noted before, language prestige is not dependent on linguistic structure. However, this principle is not altogether consistent, and the model does take some form of measurement of elaboration of language structure into its catalogue. The attributes and their definition shall be presented in some detail here, as their significance and implications will form much of the basis of the discussion: Table 7. Models for a sociolinguistic typology of languages Model I (1962)

Attributes

1) standardization – The existence of codified norms which are accepted by the language community 2) vitality – The existence of a living community of native speakers 3) historicity – Whether or not the language has developed through use of some ethnic or social group 4) homogenicity – whether or not the basic grammar and lexicon are derived from the same prestages of the language II (1968) 1–3 as in 1962, plus 4) autonomy – whether or not it is accepted by the users as being distinct from other languages/varieties III (1971) 1–4 as in 1968, plus 5) reduction – whether or not it makes use of a smaller set of structural items and relations than some related variety of the same language 6) mixture – whether or not it consists essentially of items and structures derived from no source outside itself 7) de facto norms – whether or not it possesses norms of usage which, though uncodified, are accepted by the community


As Stewart himself points out in his 1962 statement, the criteria are based on the notion of determining a favourable or unfavourable disposition to a language, i.e. language attitudes in linguistics as well as in the wider public. One could also see them as attempts to explain already existing attitudes and the criteria that are laid down for the identifications are, in fact, expressions of negative or positive evaluations of a language variety. By striving to find the exact reasons for these social evaluations, the models necessarily serve as indicators for assessments which have been formed in the past and reach well into the present. The apparent necessity of a modification of the original proposal is interesting, as it illustrates the unsatisfactory nature of this enterprise, of trying to “objectify” the patterns of negative evaluations and to present them as clearcut evidence, rather than seeing the negotiation of linguistic status as part of a discursive process in which the models themselves are taking part. Some of the reassessments of the criteria seem to have been made directly in need of coming to terms with the categories “Pidgins” and “Creoles” which, at the time of the proposals, were still rather new topics of investigation in linguistics. In fact, most of the reassessments were carried out because it was found that the original attribute could not serve as a distinguishing criterion between “standard” languages, such as English, and those types labelled Creoles. The model in its various forms thus documents the futile effort to come up with any objective criteria of distinguishing these “types”. The attribute homogenicity – “whether or not the basic grammar and lexicon are derived from the same pre-stage of the language” – seems to be one of the properties which were at first invented especially to classify Creoles. It was also the first one to be dropped in the second model, probably because it does not comply with any one “type” exclusively: Bell (1983: 148) notes that [. . . ] examples of such ‘mixed’ languages are by no means confined to nonstandard varieties – the pidgins and creoles for example – but include such standard languages as Swahili, Maltese and indeed English, with its essentially Germanic grammar based on that of Old English and its mixed GermanicRomance lexicon.

In the second model, this attribute was replaced by autonomy, an equally elusive term which, however, acknowledges a subjective perception in its definition “whether or not it is accepted by the users as being a distinct language/variety” rather than pretending to be based on objective principles. The attribute historicity is another interesting example which illustrates the effort to capture both the attitudes towards the history of Creoles and the debate about the origin of Creoles themselves. In Model 1, Creoles were seen as possessing





Chapter 1

historicity, in the sense of having “developed through use of some ethnic or social group”. This was modified in Model 2, where Creoles were then attributed an undecided +/-, until, finally, in Model 3 (based on Hymes 1971b and Fishman 1971), the attribute was redefined as whether or not the community is concerned to find for the language a “‘respectable’ ancestry in times long past” (Fishman 1971: 230). This often results in the creation and cultivation of myths and genealogies concerning the languages’ origin and development. [. . . ] a variety achieves historicity by coming to be associated with some great ideological or national movement or tradition [. . . ] Usually, historicity provides the ex post facto rationale for functional changes that have transpired with respect to the verbal repertoire of a speech community. (1971: 230)

In this restated form in Model 3, the attribute was no longer applied to the category “Creole”, thus paying tribute and reinforcing the myth of Creoles as either discontinued languages or languages without “respectable parents”, i.e. “bastard languages” in an anthropomorphical metaphor. In the modified classical Stewart model (Model 3, based on Hymes 1971b and Fishman 1971), the attributes defining the “type” Creole as opposed to Standard are listed as follows (in Bell 1983: 151): Table 8. Language types and their attributes (revised Stewart model) ATTRIBUTES

1 – Standardization 2 – Vitality 3 – Historicity 4 – Autonomy 5 – Reduction 6 – Mixture 7 – De Facto Norms

LANGUAGE TYPE Standard Ex.: English

Creole Ex.: Krio

+ + + + – +/– +

– + – – + + +

The table shows clearly which of the attributes are defined in order to describe the difference to a high prestige variety: standardization, historicity, autonomy and reduction and, to a certain extent, mixture. It is these notions which set the parameters for defining a Creole. These are also the notions which are at the very heart of the process of Creole prestige change and which are at stake in renegotiating a discursive change of Creole prestige. A brief look at some of the language situations in which so-called Creoles can be found throws some light on some of the incongruities between the


theoretical term “Creole” as a language type in this model and “Creole” as applied to a particular language system. What happens when a Creole becomes a standardized language? In the model above, a standardized Creole presents a contradiction in terms, an oxymoronic species. Is the linguistic status affected by this development or do the remaining attributes prevent this? How have these notions attributed to Creoles historically been developed and to what extent do they present merely perceptions of negative attitudes? The obscurity between, arguably, empirical characteristics and theoretical concepts has been criticized more than once (Fishman, Cooper & Conrad 1977; Ammon 1987). The effect of this obscurity, one may safely assume, is that the confusion over terms and concepts associated with Creole has not been helpful in what Hymes (1971a: 3) hopefully described as the transformation of the “stepchild Creole” to a “Cinderella”. .. Idealized models and prototypical Creoles: An assessment of linguistic projections Despite the fact that the models above have their origin at a time when the study of P/C languages was still quite new, the issues raised by them are still valid. The problem of defining Creole has not been solved yet and the quest for the Creole archetype is still the Holy Grail for many creolists. Even though more recent models have made alterations and modifications to the classic Stewart model above, they basically operate within the same parameters of definition. This point is also made by Aitchison (1991) who addresses the problematic question of language status assessment. Her identification of features which make a language a good prototypical candidate for a high status language closely resemble the attributes of the Stewart models (Aitchison 1991: 491): a.

The Complexity model: a ‘proper’ language has a fully developed phonology, morphology and syntax, so is complex (vs. reduced). b. The Richness model: a ‘proper’ language is able to cope with the full range of its users, so is rich (vs. impoverished) (cf. Ferguson’s functional range). c. The Rule-Governed model: a ‘proper’ language has rules which can be formulated, so is rule-governed (vs. broken language, or ‘jargon’). d. The Purity model: a ‘proper’ language has its own characteristic set of rules, so is pure (vs. mixed) (cf. Ferguson’s autonomy criterion). e. The Native Speaker model: a ‘proper’ language has people who learnt it as a first language, so has native speakers (vs. no native speakers).





Chapter 1

f.

The Standardization model: a ‘proper’ language has a variety which serves as a norm, so has an agreed standard (vs. unstable varieties).

What Aitchison adds to this treatment of language status assessment, however, is a self-conscious awareness on the side of those who operate in these frameworks. She points out that, in much of the evaluation of a language, the criteria are projected to a language which would otherwise not be able to stand up to close empirical scrutiny. Such definitions may thus be described as “linguistic ideology” in the sense Silverstein (1979: 193) described the term, as “sets of beliefs about language articulated by users as a rationalization or justification of perceived language structure and use”. Linguistic ideology is not restricted to users, but also extends to “expert beliefs”. Aitchison argues that, while sociolinguists frequently work overtly with this kind of “checklist” paradigm, they also often subconsciously work with a rather different idealized mental model in their minds.25 In this “idealized cognitive model” (ICM) of “languagy-ness”, Creoles are seen as somewhere in between a jargon and a language, in fact, more on the jargon’s side of the scale: This scale appears to be part of an ICM (idealized cognitive model) common to many linguists – even though they themselves might not realise they are using it. There is therefore a belief that a pidgin, and to a lesser extent a creole, must be less complex, less rich, less rule-governed, less pure, with fewer native speakers than a full language. (Aitchison 1991: 492)

That this idealized model does not correspond with social reality is easy to demonstrate when confronting the assumptions of this model with real-world examples (e.g. the fact that a well-established pidgin is likely to be much more rule-governed that a “full” language). As Aitchison concludes, “proper” languages are therefore often “less rule-governed, less ‘pure’ and may have fewer native speakers than systems which come lower down on an idealized ‘language scale’ subconsciously used by many linguists” (1991: 494). It is thus shown that perceptions of the language are likely to matter more than the actual situation. Thomason (1997: 73) takes this prototype view into consideration for a definition of Creoles when she notes that “identifying creoles by means of a laundry list of grammatical features has proved to be an elusive goal: there are no features that are exclusive to, nor universal in, languages generally thought to be creoles”. True, after all, when talking about a “prototype”, we acknowledge per se that the semantic classification of an object is not necessarily based on the sum of its components, but rather on subjective preconceptions formed by convention. The insight that there are no exclusive “Creole components” is becoming more and more widespread among creolists (e.g. Thoma-


son 1997; Mufwene 1996, 1997, 2000) and are even acknowledged by those in defense of a “Creole prototype” based on (three) structural traits (McWhorter 1998: 792, 799).26 However, the index Thomason lists for the identification of a prototype Creole does not differ very much from traditional models. This list includes that Creoles (1) develop in a multilingual situation involving more than two groups of speakers, that (2) they draw their lexicon primarily from the socially dominant language, while their grammars “can be accounted for in large part as cross-language compromises among the grammars of their creators’ native languages” (Thomason 1997: 78), that (3) they are distinct from Pidgins on the basis of presence vs. absence of native speakers, and presence vs. absence of extensive vocabulary and rich structural resources. In her conclusion, Thomason acknowledges that any classification of these languages is, in fact, the result of historical and social processes which have to be taken into account: [. . . ] from a purely synchronic viewpoint, a creole does not differ from any other native language; if we lacked all social and historical information about a prototypical creole, including information about all the input languages and their relatives (including the lexifier language), the creole would be indistinguishable from languages with histories of unbroken transmission stretching back thousands of years. (Thomason 1997: 80)

The point is that for this rather heterogeneous group of languages we do have such social and historical information precisely because it is encoded in the very concept of a “prototypical” Creole language. This is not restricted to a “we” as an in-group of linguists who engage in academic debates over the definition of P/C languages. Rather, it can be said to have formed the very basis of popular socio-psychological notions about these languages and to feature prominently on all levels of negative language prestige. It has formed the essence of the cognitive component of language attitudes, it has largely laid down the criteria for defining a linguistic status, it has formed an obstacle in expanding language (macro-) functions. It is thus that the cultural concept “Creole” defines the language, and the linguistic status associated with it, rather than the other way round. In this chapter I have laid out the social and linguistic parameters in which language prestige and, more specifically, Creole prestige operates. In the theoretical review of existing models of status, function and attitudes, it has been shown that there are basically two ways of changing language prestige, only one of which applies to Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles. In order to account





Chapter 1

for changes “from below”, a new and dynamic model has been proposed, including micro-functional changes below the domain level. A review of previous research on language attitudes towards Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles has shown that there is evidence for a gradual prestige change. Finally, the attributes and notions connected with the negative prestige of Creole – which indeed define the very linguistic status of Creole – have been explored. It will be argued in the analysis chapters (Chapter 4, 5 and 6) that these are also the issues at stake when we look at how language prestige changes discursively. Before that, however, the following chapter will look at the formation of these notions, i.e. how they formed discursively in a historical and situational perspective.

Notes . With respect to Hawaiian Creole, Theodore S. Rodgers (1996) gives some highly enlightening examples of earlier linguistic descriptions of HC and the attitudinal perspectives that seem to underlie these phrasings. Rodgers draws a connection to contemporary popular attitudes: “[. . . ] it is unfair to pose contemporary habits of politicolinguistic correctness as the appropriate critical standard for the work of other times and climes. However – again – it is just such language, taken out of its historical context, which fuels contemporary, irate, pidgin-poisoning letters to the editor in the Honolulu Advertiser” (1996: 223–224). . The change of denotation of the term “attitude” is a prime example of the influence psychology has had in the 20th century: Until the 19th century the word was used exclusively to refer to a person’s posture but has now changed to a psychological rather than physical orientation, to an individual’s mental state rather than his or her bodily stance (cf. Allport 1954). . E.g. for diachronic variation: to explain occurrence and direction of change (Labov 1963); as a defining characteristic for a speech community (Labov 1966); for synchronic variation: to explain patterns of style-shifting and interference (Weinreich 1953); for language planning: to determine which language or language variety should be used in which domain (Ferguson 1966), in second language acquisition: to predict achievement in L2 acquisition (Lambert 1967). . Ammon (1987: 233) notes a considerable confusion between these variables caused by a common usage of these terms: “Bisweilen ist es schon verwirrend, daß an Stelle von hat die Funktion (den Status) einfach ist steht. Beispiel ‘Italienisch ist Nationalsprache in der Schweiz”’. However, he also contributes to the confusion by an inconsistent distinction between the terms “status” and “function”. . Giles et al. refer to language status, both within and outside of the linguistic community network which as “a language’s history, prestige values, and the degree to which it has undergone standardization [. . . ] as “sources of pride and shame of members of a linguistic community” (1977: 311). However, they do not operate with different sociolinguistic classifications such as “standard”, “dialect”, etc.

Defining language prestige . Such evaluations are taken to be influenced both by social and individual forces. As Allport (1954: 9) points out, “attitudes are related to, but to be distinguished from ‘personality’ and related to, but to be distinguished from ‘culture”’. . For a more general discussion of the concept of diglossia in Caribbean Creole situations, cf. Winford 1985, Dejean 1983, 1993. . According to Martin-Jones (1989: 122) the term was introduced by Lafont in 1979 to describe actual linguistic practices in bilingual communities. . Cf. also Myers-Scotton’s markedness-model which will be discussed in Chapter 3. . For criticism of research methods focusing on attitude “measurements”, cf. Chapter 3.1. . The title of Fishman et al. 1996, Post-Imperial English, might seem to suggest that an inclusion of English-related Caribbean Creoles was not intended on theoretical grounds, i.e. in order to avoid an undue appropriation of Creole languages under that title. Other postcolonial countries/areas with contact languages are included, however (e.g. Nigeria or Papua New Guinea) and, as the introduction by Andrew Conrad (1996: 13–36) suggests, the issues raised in the book stand in a tradition of publications (e.g. VEAW or Cheshire’s 1991. English Around the World) which are conspicuous for their long-standing practice of covering English-related Caribbean Creoles. One may thus safely assume that their lack of inclusion in this volume does not reflect theoretical considerations. . This does not mean, however, that Creole is not used in writing or that there have been no attempts to introduce orthographic principles for its written forms. For a full discussion of this, cf. Chapter 5. . A high prestige in informal and private situations, as languages of solidarity and intimacy. . A low prestige in formal and public situations, as languages of authority. . As Cooper and Fishman (1977: 8) state, “it would be misleading to assess attitude towards a language globally or in an uncontextualized fashion or for one domain alone. Similarly, attitudes of a diglossic speech community towards its functionally differentiated language varieties differ globally but they also differ as a function of social context, with one variety being favorably viewed for use in one set of contexts and the other variety being favorably viewed for use in another”. . The fieldwork for this study was conducted in 1992 on 90 primary and secondary school teachers in Tunapuna, Trinidad, a semi-urban area which stretches along the Eastern Main Road. The schools were both denominational and government schools. The male-female ratio of the sample corresponds to the general male-female ratio of Trinidadian teachers in primary and secondary schools and furthermore considers extralinguistic factors such as age, ethnic group, residential background and qualification. . The fieldwork for this study was conducted in 1970 on a group of trainee teachers at colleges in San Fernando and Port of Spain, Trinidad. . Information on the respondent’s background is given in brackets, i.e. here: female, age group 1 (= – 25 years), primary school teacher with a teacher’s certificate, semi-urban resident of East Indian origin.





Chapter 1 . Beckford Wassink (1999: 77) argues that due to the historical stigmatization of Jamaican Creole (JC), a reported willingness to use the language (“use”-questions) may indicate a more positive attitude towards it than a willingness to hear (or be addressed in ) JC. Reactions to JC itself were coded as “feel” questions. . “Liming” encompasses a whole range of leisurely activities with friends, e.g. chatting, going to a party, etc. . Cf. also Andrea Sand (1999) Linguistic Variation in Jamaica. A Corpus-based Study of Radio and Newspaper Usage. Sand explores morphosyntactical features of JC in various media genres in her study. Her analysis shows that there is considerable variation also in this “educated Jamaican English” usage. . Dell Hymes’s (1974a) approach to “genre” may be useful here: within his ethnography of communication stylistic structures are identified as elementary or minimal genres which then enter into more complex groupings as complex genres. An example of this would be a church service (complex genre) consisting of songs, hymns, psalms, prayers, sermons, etc. (minimal genres), cf. also Chapter 3. . Note that in the original quote the expression “mixed language” is in a compound noun form (Mischsprache). This provides a stronger notion of a particular type of language whose main characteristic is the fact that it is mixed (an X-language) than an adjective modification (gemischte Sprache) would achieve. After all, the two quotes may therefore not be as contradictory in the original as in the translation: if we interpret Müller’s statement meaning “There is no ‘type of language’ which based on the characteristic of mixing”, it does not necessarily clash with Schuchardt’s idea that there are “no languages which are completely unmixed”. . This is not to say that there have been no attempts to create a “Creole typology” on the basis of structural features, cf., for instance, Bickerton’s (1981) twelve feature catalogue for creole grammars or McWhorter’s (1998) “creole prototype”, based on three structural traits. As I am concerned with socio-cultural features and their evaluation, these models are not really part of the present discussion. It should be noted, however, that the need to replace ever more features that “did not work” (because they can also be found in non-Creoles) with others is more informative on the validity of such a classification based purely on structure than on the relationship between the languages which are classified. . The theoretical and methodological oppositions Aitchison draws on here correspond, of course, with two different kinds of semantic analyses, i.e. componential analysis versus prototype theory. . “[. . . ] we must not be misled into attempting to define creole languages on the basis of particular constructions, such as serial verbs, preverbal markers of tense, mood, and aspect, or multipartite copulas. As has often been noted [. . . ] such constructions can be found in ‘regular’ languages, often even clustering in them, such as in the Chinese languages, just as they do in creoles” (1998: 792). In his vindication of Creoles as a typological class, McWhorter bases his case on a replacement of such already invalidated criteria with a set of more general features, such as “little or no inflectional affixation”. (Cf. also McWhorter 2000. For criticism, cf. DeGraff 2001b; Mufwene 2000).

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Discourses allow us to see things that are not “really” there, and that once an object has been elaborated in a discourse it is difficult not to refer to it as if it were real. (Parker 1992: 5)

Chapter 2

Forming language prestige Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles as prototypical low prestige languages

. Shared prestige features of CELCs The following part will examine the formation of the negative prestige of languages generally labelled Creoles in their historical and social context. Rather than looking at one single variety or considering the full range of rather diverse Creole languages all over the world, the focus will be on a group of such varieties which have evolved in comparable historical conditions and have been subjected to similar social conditions since. They may not fulfill Thomason’s (1997) criteria for a “prototypical Creole” (cf. Chapter 1.5.2), but, as I will argue, they may be prototypical in the second meaning of the word, i.e. in the very formation of the concept of the term Creole in the “anglophone world”. So, even though they may not fulfill all stereotypical qualities, they offer the “first or original examples” of Creoles. The anglo-creolophone Caribbean has by no means a homogeneous culture. There are very obvious regional differences concerning geographical conditions, historical settlement patterns, ethnic diversity and, not least, speech forms.1 But the overall similarities still outweigh the differences, so that, as Holm points out, [. . . ] many see Creole English in the Caribbean as a single language, historically related to – but distinct from – both English (a parent language) and the Surinamese creoles (sister languages). The various dialects of Creole English in the Caribbean proper (and to a lesser extent in certain adjoining areas such as in the Bahamas, South Carolina and Georgia, the eastern coast of Central America, and Guyana) have remained in relatively close contact with both their European parent and one another as the language of maritime colonies which in the main had strong political and economic links. (Holm 1986: 4)

Furthermore, as the few studies on language attitudes (cf. Reisman 1970; Haynes 1973; Winford 1976; Rickford 1983; Mühleisen 1993, 2001a) in this re-



Chapter 2

gion reveal, language evaluation patterns and the reasons given for them seem to match rather closely. In this discussion, therefore, those Caribbean English lexicon Creoles which share a number of features will be considered which, as will be argued, have been influential for the formation of language prestige: 1. They developed largely in the late seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries during plantation slavery and thus share a social history that is, while not identical, similar enough to be considered part of one story; 2. The territories share cultural and institutional ties as a legacy to a common colonial past, which are described by Holm (1989: 445–446) as follows: Despite these [phonological, lexical and syntactic, S.M.] differences, it should be borne in mind that most of the Creole-English-speaking territories in both the Eastern and Western Caribbean were maritime colonies bound by strong political, economic, and cultural links that facilitated the diffusion of linguistic features, making the British West Indies a single speech community in the larger sense of the term.

3. The term ‘Creole’ is part of the compound of their denotation (e.g. Jamaican Creole); 4. They have been in continued relationship with their main lexifier English; 5. They are used by a demographic majority within their speech community as at least one variety/code; 6. They are to a large extent mutually intelligible;2 7. They have interacted not only within the Caribbean but also outside the Caribbean as the locus of language and have influenced one another in their further spoken and written development. The criteria above exclude, for instance, the Surinamese English-lexicon Creoles for several reasons: firstly, for their time of formation – the period of core development of the Surinamese Creoles is assigned somewhat earlier, secondly, for their language situation, which is unlike that of CELCs – the Surinamese Creoles have not been in close continued contact with their lexifier, thirdly, for their lack of mutal intelligibility with CELCs, and, finally, for culturalinstitutional reasons – they are usually not subsumed under the term “West Indian”.3

Forming language prestige

. A legacy of the past: Diachronic perspectives on Creole prestige The discussion of the criteria for determining linguistic status may have shown the unsatisfactory nature of this endeavour and the fallacy in operating with seemingly objective principles of categorization. It has also demonstrated that language prestige cannot be explored from a synchronic perspective alone: the notoriously elusive attribute historicity points to the necessity of including a diachronic perspective on the matter, too. Status and function are, after all, the result of political and historical processes, independent of whether a change in status and function occurs in either a planned and abrupt or in a slow and natural manner. In the same way, language attitudes, the values and beliefs that are connected with a variety, cannot be decontextualized from their sociopsychological origins. As St.Clair postulates, To understand fully how language attitudes develop, it may be necessary to reach back into the past and investigate the social and political forces operating within the history of a nation. These patterns of development may have once surfaced in form of social movements and, even when these events are now a part of the written record, their forces still remain. (St. Clair 1982: 164)

In the anglo-creolophone Caribbean, where the history of independent nations does not reach further back than the early 1960s, the social and political forces, both within the colonial history of the region, as well as in the political superstrate – the colonial “motherland” – have to be considered. In the present chapter, historical factors which have influenced the language prestige of Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles will be explored. It will be argued that it is necessary to investigate the socio-political environment, not only in view of how linguistic processes of language contact were governed (i.e. the “genesis debate”), but also in view of how the concept of Creole developed (to denote the shift from the material – “genetic” – focus to the mental – “conceptual” – idea, and for the interaction between the two, I therefore propose the term “conception” rather than “genesis”). Chapter 2.2.1 will focus on the latter aspect and explore the socio-political conditions necessary for the emergence and establishment of the idea of Creole. Furthermore, a historical view must take into account the concurrent historical notion of language and culture (Chapter 2.2.2), i.e. the general concept of language at the time when the concept of Creole was formed. As shown above, many of the debates of linguistic status centre around the term Creole and its various definitions. The last part of the historical explorations will therefore consider the etymological

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Chapter 2

development of the term and its connotations (Chapter 2.2.3) in view of the present debate. .. Focus on history: Creole conception and its socio-political background A historical view on the origin and beginnings of Creole concerns basically two related issues, which form two separate fields of linguistic research. The first concerns the historical and socio-demographic background for hypotheses on the exact linguistic make-up of the contact language. This issue is one of the primary topics in creole linguistics, with a long-standing debate on the nature of Creole genesis, and the different views on the structural contributions of the languages in the contact situation. The second issue, largely neglected so far,4 concerns the political and philosophical environment in which the “idea” of Creole languages was formed and gained intellectual attention. This will form the focus in the present chapter, and not much will be said here to contribute to the first mentioned debate. However, the two issues are, in fact, interrelated, in the sense suggested by my (deliberately ambiguous) term “conception”, meaning both the beginning and the imagining, both the physical and the mental act of origin. With regard to the nature of Creole genesis, Alleyne (1994: 8) sees the “uncertainty of the tradition to which these languages might be attached” as “one of the most important, if not the most important factor in the existence and preservation of the stigmatization of creole languages”. He suggests that this unresolved origin – a “maculate conception” in the sense given above – is to a large part responsible for the development and maintenance of negative attitudes: [. . . ] it plays a fundamental role in the development of the generally negative social psychological attitudes and interpretations that have emerged in opposition to any notion of standardization. In this regard it is very interesting how hypotheses about genesis impinge on and affect social psychological attitudes.

His main criticism here is the focus of Western linguistic tradition on a process of simplification in the development of Creole languages, rather than seeing linguistic convergence or language contact as natural developments in language change. The Creole genesis debate is certainly one of the most embattled sites in this field of linguistic research. With regard to the contributions of the different languages involved in the contact situation, the positions at the extreme ends range from seeing Atlantic Creoles as relexified African lan-


guages, to the (now almost obsolete) theory of Creoles as relexifications of a Portuguese Pidgin, to an almost complete withdrawal from natural language change influences in universalist hypotheses.5 That the various positions do not only rely on “objective” empirical evidence or “value-free” theoretical reflections, but also mirror underlying ideological stances seems rather obvious. They may also have contributed to a continued treatment of Creole languages as rather special cases, whose existence does not comply with “normal” language change and transmission. However, Alleyne’s (1994: 9) claim that “these ideological assumptions about natural language change have come to support and fuel those social psychological attitudes that are based on the perception that these languages are corrupt, deviant derivatives within the Western linguistic tradition and, concomitantly, on the notion of their inadequacy” seems to overestimate an osmotic influence of linguistic debates on the wider public. While the question of whether or not these languages are seen as “normal languages” may well have an influence on their public image, it must be maintained that the origin of negative attitudes lies before the beginning of these debates. It will be argued that these negative attitudes, which developed from a particular political and philosophical environment in the eighteenth century, are continuous with our contemporary views on language. In the subsequent part of the diachronic perspective on Creole prestige the emphasis will therefore be to explore the historical conditions and the political situation which made a stigmatization of Creole languages, particularly in the anglophone Caribbean, possible. Political domination often goes hand in hand with linguistic domination, in either a planned or an implicit manner. There are many effects colonialism may have on a language situation: it may result in a linguistic genocide, a language restructuring, like pidginization and creolization, or in a bilingual situation which is likely to be functionally asymmetrical (diglossia). European domination in the Caribbean, which constituted the longest colonial history in the modern age, has produced all of this – and in that order. Caribbean creolization, with its origin in the language contact between the European colonial masters and the West African slaves, may be dated between the late seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries, the time span when translatlantic slavery was in full force.6 Although the questions of settlement patterns or the precise nature of Creole genesis and prior pidginization are still unresolved (for an overview cf., for instance Holm 1989, for a critical debate cf. McWhorter 1997), the power and prestige relationship of this colonial language contact situation is largely undisputed. Holm (1989: 632) states that asymmetrical power and pres-

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Chapter 2

tige relationships are indeed decisive factors in pidginization and creolization, with the dominant language determining the lexifier in language restructuring. It has been suggested that colonialism or slavery might be key factors in the sociolinguistics of pidginization and creolization; while there are a number of counter examples, the correlation is frequent enough to bear closer examination. The relevant factor would appear to be the degree of power of one group over another, since very powerful social forces are usually needed to counter the momentum of normal language transmission. (Holm 1989: 632–633)

Whether or not one sees languages, such as Pidgins and Creoles, as a disruption of “normal language transmission” or the product of a particular contact situation with a continuity of the input languages is again part of the Creole genesis debate (cf. above). The point here is, though, that behind the unsatisfactory attribute “lack of historicity” in the Stewart models – the idea that these languages have not developed “normally” through use of some ethnic or social group – lies a complex history of structural violence, which has left its mark not only on the linguistic outcome, but also on its socio-psychological status. Ammon’s (1987: 231) functional dimension “social asymmetry and dominance” may thus be seen as a precondition of the linguistic result of both the political as well as the linguistic situation. As Calvet (1974: 112) in his treatise on language and colonialism remarks: “La créole est en effet une langue dont l’existence même est signe d’une certaine forme d’exploitation (à base d’esclavage au départ) qui est constitutive de cette langue et que, par simplification, j’appellerai ici colonialisme” [italics in the original, S.M.]. However, colonialism is not a monolithic phenomenon, and the situations which can be subsumed under this term may actually be quite diverse. It is thus necessary to modify the statement above to the effect that the social asymmetry necessary for both the linguistic development of varieties labelled Creoles and their consequent low prestige is a phenomenon of plantation colonies. While seeing the linguistic outcome of settler colonies (e.g. Australian English, American English) and of plantation colonies (“Creoles”) as only gradually different, Mufwene (1997: 57) stresses the importance of the social and ethnic distribution in the settler colonies and considers this as decisive for the terminological distinction between Creoles and other contact-based varieties: [. . . ] there are good socio-historical reasons why these varieties [e.g. in settler colonies like Australia, the U.S., S.M.] have not been called creoles: they developed in settings in which descendants of non-Europeans have been the minority; and they have not been disowned by Europeans and descendants thereof. Typically, creoles have been island and/or coastal phenomena, espe-


cially associated with the plantation industry of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The other contact varieties do not have this typical genetic history.

In the final analysis, as this argument implies, it is not only the language situation but rather the prestige of the social group of speakers that determines whether or not the language is categorized as “Creole”. Mufwene (1997, 2000) does not rest his argument on a purely terminological differentiation, but takes the position that it is precisely these shared socio-historical features which justify a grouping as Creole languages (2000: 79–80). The type of colonialism out of which the Caribbean Creoles developed was almost exclusively connected with plantation slavery. Rickford and Traugott (1985: 259) stress the role of slavery in the formation of the language as an influential factor for attitudes towards it. Compared with Caribbean Creoles, they attribute “the exceptionally positive attitude toward Tok Pisin” partly to the fact that it was never the language of slavery. One may add to this observation that colonialism reached the Pacific region notably later than the Atlantic area and remained there for a shorter period of time. While it may not only be unjust but simply impossible to compare or measure the different hardships of different colonial histories, it can nevertheless be claimed that the different type of colonialism enacted in the Pacific area has resulted in a rather more positively rated outcome in the language situation. Romaine (1991: 230), in her discussion on language and colonialism in Papua New Guinea, also stresses the integrative function of Tok Pisin in uniting the indigenous population. In the Caribbean colonialism in connection with plantation slavery certainly had the reverse effect, and overtly expressed negative attitudes frequently focus on the origin of Creole as the “language of slavery”. This notion can best be observed in the heated arguments over Creole/Patois, which are frequently conducted in Caribbean newspaper columns or in the “Letter to the Editor” section. The following example is taken from a column in the Jamaican Daily Gleaner which was entitled “corruption of language is no cultural heritage”. Cargill’s distaste is directed against those who7 [. . . ] would like to see Patois retained as part of our cultural heritage and believe that it can occupy that honorable place alongside the teaching of standard English. I, on the other hand, take the view that if it is what is called our “cultural heritage” it is a lousy heritage, reverent of slavery and that we keep on saying that it is a great thing, merely encourages its continued use until it will finally swamp what remains of standard English in Jamaica. Of necessity, most people have inherited Patois but I see no reason to make a virtue of a necessity. (Morris Cargill in the Daily Gleaner, Oct. 1989)

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Chapter 2

The fact that, in the Caribbean, Creole had a tradition of being attributed to slaves’ speech has important consequences. Bearing in mind that language attitudes are ultimately attitudes towards a group of speakers, it is not surprising that linguistic judgments of deprivation, inferiority and corruption were applied to those who were also regarded as inferior human beings. This becomes evident in eighteenth century sources from West Indian plantation societies and their population. At a time when the slave import had already passed its peak and the plantation industry was at its most thriving,8 supplying the sugar for England’s tea cups, contemporary English records of the West Indies or travel reports reflected and brought home notions and judgments on the inhabitants’ manner of speaking.9 Edward Long’s three-volumed The History of Jamaica (1774) offers a vast number of examples for contemporary language attitudes and also some interesting insights into the late eighteenth century language situation.10 He distinguishes between “the Africans [who] speak their respective dialects, with some mixture of broken English” and the language of the Creoles which “is bad English, larded with the Guiney dialect, owing to their adopting the African words, in order to make themselves understood by the imported slaves, which they find much easier than teaching these strangers to learn English” (Long 1774: 2: 426). The “corruption” of metropolitan English, as was frequently noted, pertained not only to the speech forms of the slaves but also to the white Creole population. This is reflected in the following historical excerpts: To talk of a Homer, or a Virgil, or a Tully, or a Demosthenes, is quite unpolite; and it cannot be otherwise; for a Boy, till the Age of Seven or Eight, diverts himself with the Negroes, acquires their broken way of talking, their Manner of Behavior, and all the Vices which these unthinking Creatures can teach; then perhaps he goes to School; but young Master must not be corrected; if he learns ‘tis well; if not, it can’t be helped. After a little Knowledge of reading, he goes to the Dancing-school, and commences Beau, learns the common Topicks of Discourse, and visits and rakes with his Equals. (Leslie 1740: 36–37) The Creole language is not confined to the negroes. Many of the ladies, who have not been educated in England, speak a sort of broken English, with an indolent drawling out of their words, that is very tiresome if not disgusting. I stood next to a lady one night, near a window, and, by way of saying something, remarked that the air was much cooler than usual; to which she answered, ‘Yes, ma-am, him rail-ly too fra-ish’. (Nugent 1907 [1802]: 132)11

One of the most striking aspects to be found in these eighteenth century documents12 is the fact that the language issue is invariably brought up in con-


nection with fears of a “contamination” of the white population by their black servants, both in language and in their habits. The English correspondences support the notion that Creole, contrary to its popular myth, is precisely not the creation the African slaves alone, but that it was spoken by a substantial part of plantation society and that it was taken up and reinforced by the white population, too. It thus gives the lie to the common notion of a linguistic difference, which was often constructed contrary to evidence from the actual language situation. Thirdly, they also reveal much about contemporary ideas about the connection of language to culture. The fear that, alongside with the speech of those held in contempt, one would also adopt “their Manner of Behavior, and all the Vices which these unthinking Creatures can teach”, reflects much of underlying eighteenth century philosophical assumptions (cf. also Chapter 2.2.2). Edward Long, Jamaican plantation owner and fervent propagandist in defense of slavery, in his influential History of Jamaica13 (1774: 278) laments the consequences of close contact on the plantations with black domestic servants “whose drawling, dissonant gibberish they [children brought up in the West Indies, S.M.] insensibly adopt, and with it no small tincture of their aukward carriage and vulgar manners, all which they do not easily get rid of, even after an English education, unless sent away extremely young”. Especially the effects on women, who, after all, were those in closest contact with domestic servants and who, in general, were not sent to the “mother country” to receive an education, were of utmost concern. Long’s views on the matter present an interesting historical document worthwile quoting at some length: Those, who have been bred up entirely in the sequestered country parts, and had no opportunity of forming themselves either by example or tuition, are truly to be pitied. We may see, in some of these places, a very fine young woman, aukwardly dangling her arms with the air of a Negroe-servant, lolling almost the whole day upon beds or settees, her head muffled up with two or three handkerchiefs, her dress loose, and without stays. At noon, we find her employed in gobbling pepper-pot, seated on the floor, with her sable handmaids around her. In the afternoon, she takes her siesto [sic] as usual; while two of these damsels refresh her face with the gentle breathings of the fan; and a third provokes the drowsy powers of Morpheus by delicious scratchings on the sole of either foot. When she rouses from slumber, her speech is whining, languid, and childish. When arrived at maturer years, the consciousness of her ignorance makes her abscond from the fight or conversation on every rational creature. Her ideas are narrowed to the ordinary subjects that pass before her, the business of the plantation, the tittle-tattle of the parish; the tricks, superstitions, diversions, and profligate discourses, of black servants, equally illiterate and unpolished. (Long 1774: 279)

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Chapter 2

While this openly racist (and misogynist) passage may seem like an emotional outburst fuelled by despair, it, in fact, presents a carefully employed strategy and a common topos in the public debate on the colonies.14 The kind of negative language attitudes towards Creole, by both the colonists and the metropolitan traveller, has been instrumental in eighteenth century plantation society for several purposes. Apart from the afore mentioned cultural restraints towards the “slaves’ speech”, any dilution of linguistic differences also threatened to undermine social differences and the strict hierarchy on which these societies were based. Secondly, chauvinist ideas about “superior” versus “inferior” forms of language were used to reinforce stereotypes about Africans as childlike people, barely participant in the symbolic order (cf. also Ferguson 1992: 103). These notions were important arguments in justifying slavery and colonialism and were in turn fostered and nourished by those defending slavery as an institution (cf. Long 1774 Vol. II).15 Thirdly, it served to uphold a paternalistic stance towards colonial subjects: the construction of the other as a barely speaking entity in turn necessitates protection and intervention by the colonizer. .. Focus on epistemology: Eighteenth and early nineteenth century concepts of language The historical period when these negative notions and beliefs documented above were formed and articulated is itself significant. Value judgements on Creole by English travellers and writers were closely connected to political, linguistic and philosophical issues of the time. There are no timeless truths, as the thought and work of Michel Foucault on the production of knowledge16 has told us. Rather, the different epistemes of, for instance, the Renaissance, the Classical Period or the Modern Age, are crucial for the organisation of discourse on objects such as philology, economics or biology. In all three periods, structural analogies in the writings on language, money and trade, flora and fauna can be detected.17 Foucault (1973: 217 ff.) situates the transition from the Classical to the Modern episteme towards the end of the eighteenth century – a period which, as will be argued, is crucial for the formation of the concept of Creole, which continues to dominate popular and scientific discourse up to date. There are good reasons to suggest that the eighteenth century, the time when Caribbean creolization reached its peak – first in the smaller islands of the eastern Caribbean, later in the Western Caribbean – provides a particularly rich environment for the type of scorn and disgust metropolitan contemporaries seem to have sensed for the colonial “corruptions” of the English language. It


may thus not be unwarranted to take a closer look at the dominant Western concepts of language and culture during that time. A brief glance at the history of the standardization of English (cf., for instance in Milroy & Milroy 1991) shows that the eighteenth century, in particular, was the age of language prescription in Britain. The need to define a standard form in writing had arisen for practical reasons with the invention of the printing press (Caxton’s press 1490), but only the eighteenth century saw the end to the great linguistic diversity in written language – as had been the case until then. It was therefore not until this period, the second half of the eighteenth century, that works such as Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary (in 1755), or the grammar books of Bishop Lowth (in 1762) and Lindley Murray (in 1795) were published and had an overwhelming impact on the creation of language norms. Language prescriptivism, thus, was a new achievement which had to be defended by introducing strong value judgments on speech deviant from the standard. Olivia Smith (1984), in her account of the “hegemonic” discourse of language of eighteenth-century England asserts that syntax, vocabulary, style and topic defined some kinds of speech as legitimate or as unworthy of recognition: ‘The vulgar and the refined’, ‘the particular and the general’, ‘the corrupt and the pure’, the barbaric and the civilized’, ‘the primitive and the arbitrary’ were socially pervasive terms that divided sensibility and culture according to linguistic categories. The base forms of language were said to reveal the inability of the speakers to transcend the concerns of the present, an interest in material objects, and the dominance of the passions. Those who spoke the refined language were allegedly rational, moral, civilized, and capable of abstract thinking (Smith 1984: 3).

The creation of language difference which had begun in a rather pragmatic approach then gradually turned into a linguistic ideology in the sense Silverstein (1979: 193) sees it as sets of beliefs about language which in turn serve as a “rationalization or justification of perceived language structure and use”. One can hardly think of a better example than the Caribbean plantation society to see how linguistic ideology became instrumental in the legitimization and affirmation of social structure. Anderson (1983: 80–81), stressing the role of language in the formation of European nationalist movements, reminds us that it was this “lexicographic revolution”, i.e. print and the emergence of standards in writing that “created, and gradually spread, the conviction that languages (in Europe at least) were [. . . ] the personal property of quite specific groupings”, “imagined commu-

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Chapter 2

nities”, as he calls them, with a distinct national consciousness. The rise of the nation state in the eighteenth century has important implications on the whole conception of language as a key element in national identity, and the construction of linguistic difference or deviation within this “imagined community” as a means of social control. Ralph Grillo (1989a), in his study on language hierarchy in Britain and France, claims that linguistic inequality, and the connection between language and power, are central to the project of the nation state: “Language has been a major element in the organisation of European society, and of the construction of ‘difference’ both within and between the countries of Europe, especially over the last 200 years” (Grillo 1989a: 2). This construction became even more important in the differentiation between the “English at home” and “English abroad”, and especially the varieties emerging in the New World. Richard Bailey (1991), in his resourceful cultural history of English, writes on “transplanted English” and language attitudes: “[. . . ] if the facts of linguistic difference were little noticed, the idea of difference and the supposed “corruption and barbarity” of transplanted English had certainly become an accepted idea about English by the end of the eighteenth century” (1991: 129, italics in the original, S. M.). He also sees the Caribbean as the first and most prototypical target for scorn and linguistic ideas about corruption: Domestic comment on transplanted English begins with the Caribbean, and, as a reflex of British racism, those varieties influenced by Africans, as Silliman’s journal18 shows, were the first to be scorned. (1991: 130)

This metropolitan contempt was also applied to colonial whites who, as has been shown above (2.2.1), had to make an even greater effort to uphold distinctions between their own group and the African slaves. Anderson (1983) suggests that the writings of Herder and Rousseau, who claimed that climate and ecology had a profound and constitutive impact on character, exerted a wide influence on such a distinction between metropolitans and those born in the colonies: “It was only too easy from there to make the convenient, vulgar deduction that creoles,19 born in a savage hemisphere, were by nature different from, and inferior to, the metropolitans – thus unfitted for higher office” (Anderson 1983: 61). Thus, the birth of a linguistic concept of “Creole” must also be seen it its philosophical environment and here, more particularly, in its language philosophical context. Language philosophy in the eighteenth century and the influence of anthropology may bear much responsibility for a climate of thought where a distinction between “barbaric” or “primitive” languages versus “civi-


lized” and “developed” languages seemed only natural. These ideas complied with the general concept of language as an organic whole moving from the most primitive stage to a most developed stage (cf. characterization of the Modern episteme, Foucault 1973: 217 ff). Calvet, in his seminal study on language and colonialism, writes about eighteenth century language study: Comment étudier l’origine de nos langues? se demande Maupertuis. La réponse est simple: il suffit de se pencher sur “les jargons des peuples les plus sauvages” qui, proches du magma linguistique originel, devraient nous apprendre beaucoup de choses sur l’origine de nos langues. Adam Smith suit le même chemin et, lorsqu’il tente d’imaginer “le premier pas vers la formation d’un langage” il met en scene “deux sauvages” qui vont se donner un “jargon primitif ” (Adam Smith. 1775. Varia Linguistica). La “grammaire” elle même, science du siècle s’il en est, va être mise en relation avec cette évolution du jargon primitif vers le langage évolué [. . . ]. (Calvet 1974: 29, italics in the original, S.M.)

It must also be borne in mind that the ideal of a “highly developed” language was represented by the highly inflected classical languages Latin and Greek. The philosophy and study of language at the beginning of the nineteenth century represents this ideal. August Wilhelm von Schlegel (1818), for instance, divides the languages of the world into three different classes: languages without any grammatical structure, those which employ affixes and the inflectional languages: Today’s languages and earlier ones spoken by the various people on this earth fall into three classes: languages without any grammatical structure, languages which use affixes and inflecting languages. Languages of the first class merely consist of words of a kind which are not capable of any development or modification. One might say that all words of such a language are roots, albeit infertile roots which develop neither plants nor trees (v. Schlegel 1818: 14, my translation).

Undoubtedly, these different classes also stand for three different stages in the evolution of languages. Von Schlegel thus remarks that the first class of languages is certainly unfit for any development of any scientific (or other) skills.20 The lack or scarcity of morphological inflection or affixation in Caribbean Creoles must then have stood evidence for their position at the very beginning of an evolutionary cycle of languages. In a detailed discussion of Creole morphology, DeGraff (2001b) notes the impact of an evolutionary view of language as the ideological undercurrent of a perceived “lack of morphology” in Creoles:21

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Chapter 2

In ‘modern’ versions of Schleicherian linguistics, it is Creole languages that are equated to the young, primitive, and structurally simplest linguistic species. In effect, Creole languages are singled out as living fossils – observable instances of Language at its evolutionary incipience. (DeGraff 2001b: 55)

The organic view of language, with its ties to nation and culture, is closely connected to the emergent Romanticism of the late eighteenth century, a movement which set itself apart from the Enlightenment movement. Grillo (1989a: 64–65) draws a comparison between the Romantic concept about language as developed by Herder (and his predecessor Hamann) to Humboldt, and linguistic relativism, influenced by anthropology, as much later represented by the works of Franz Boas, Sapir and Whorf. A “language mixing”, as evidently the case in the development of Creoles,22 would be seen as “unnatural” and disrupting the organic body of the language, as this quote by Wilhelm von Humboldt illustrates: One may take it as a firm principle that everything in language is based on analogy and that its structure is organic up to its smallest parts. Exceptions of this rule are found only in those cases where the linguistic development of a nation is disrupted, where a people borrows linguistic elements from another, or is forced to use another language wholly or partly. This occurs in all languages known to us today – [. . . ] But whenever a language takes up a foreign element or mixes with another language, the assimilating activity starts at once. An effort is made to gradually change the matter which comes off second-best in the mixing and to convert it into the analogous development of the other one. This mixing may thus result in shorter and longer analogous lines but it not easily results in completely unorganic matter. (v. Humboldt 1812, my translation)23

While Humboldt concedes that borrowing elements of other languages is a common phenomenon, the idea of language as an organic whole, nevertheless, explains the notion of “corruption”, invariably found in language attitudes towards Creoles. In a negative interpretation, the “foreign element” which has come into the language via language contact is not seen as an addition or a new creation, but rather like a virus affecting the rest of the language as well. It is certainly no coincidence that the Stewart models (Chapter 1) made various attempts to grasp this as one of the “attributes which demonstrate a consistent tendency to affect social attitudes toward them” (Stewart 1962: 17): homogenicity (Model 1) and mixture (Model 3) stand for exactly this notion of a “lack of purity”. “Purity”, on the other hand, is often attributed to languages which have come about through divergent language development, with a proper “genetic parent” in a “language family tree” model.


Ironically, both attributes used in the Stewart model prove unsatisfactory because they apply to different functional types of languages, not least to Standard English, whose many influences from various linguistic sources are well documented. A slightly more positive image for this notion of mixture in languages is that of a “hybridization”, i.e. the original word used for plants with parents of different species or varieties. Drawing on botanical vocabulary, the image nevertheless fits into the view of the organic body of a language.24 What becomes clear, even from this look at the epistemological environment of the emerging idea of a Creole, is how our very conceptions of language, the images and terminologies used in linguistic discussions, tie into a web of discourses and are shaped by knowledge production in other fields. .. Focus on etymology: What’s in a name? Much of the confusion about the attempt to define Creoles as a group of language arises from the unfortunate choice in linguistics to adopt a term which, for a long time before its use in linguistics, was used as a lay term for various references. The choice is unfortunate for a number of reasons, the first being that it lacks a clear linguistic principle for classification. Mufwene (1997: 39) notes that a structural and typological grouping under this term must fail because attempts to define these lay terms have not been consistent with the genetic histories of the varieties called Pidgins and Creoles. He sees one of the reasons in “the total ignorance of the fact that structure was not a relevant factor as Europeans called various colonial restructured varieties of their languages jargon, baragouin, pidgin or creole”. Instead, the colonial location and the divergence from European-metropolitan ancestors were decisive for calling a variety a “Creole” (Mufwene 1997: 38). While the naming problem poses a special problem for precise identification of varieties on linguistic grounds, its implications for language attitudes are equally far-reaching and problematic. In the history of its use the term has undergone various semantic shifts. In the following part, I will argue that the word history may have contributed to a negative image of the varieties subsumed under this term and that its adoption in linguistics may have perpetuated some of the negative connotations. Although the term ‘Creole’ is nowadays not restricted to the Caribbean territory, it originated in that region. Most sources (OED, SKEAT, The Century Dictionary) agree that the term derives from Spanish criollo – adapted from Portuguese crioulo – meaning native and was first used to designate Spaniards born in the Americas. The earliest source of its use seems to be D’Acosta’s His-

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Chapter 2

toria natural y moral de las Indias written in 1590. In French, the term was used as early as 1598 (originally falsely as crollo) (cf. Mufwene 1997: 37) and in English in 1604, in translations from the same work: “Some Crollos [sic], for so they call the Spaniards borne at the Indies” (OED). A deviation from the notion that the term was first used for descendants of European origin is presented by the Spanish etymologists Corominas and Pascual, who consider an African origin of the word use in this sense.25 One of their sources, Garcilaso el Inca (Peru 1602) is cited in Allsopp (1996: 177, translation Jeannette Allsopp): It’s a name that the negroes invented [. . . ] It means among the negroes ‘born in the Indies’; they invented it to distinguish those [. . . ] born in America, because they consider themselves more honorable and of better status than their children because they are born in the fatherland, while their children are born abroad, and the parents are offended to be called criollos. The Spanish, in like manner, have introduced this name into their language to mean those born [in America].

The early date makes this source particularly interesting. While the first use of the term thus seems to be more uncertain than is suggested in other sources (cf. below), it is clear that at first the word was strictly used for person reference. For the North American mainland, Webster’s (2nd ed.) cites G.W. Cable from Creoles of Louisiana (1812), who states that the term, first used by French settlers, “implied a certain excellence of origin” and was soon adjusted “to include any native of French or Spanish parent by any parent, whose alliance with the slave race entitled him to social rank. Later the term was adopted by, not conceded to, the natives of mixed blood and is still so used among themselves”. In this definition, the designation of the word moved away from its implication of an ancestral “purity” to an explicit notion of mixed heritage by an act of appropriation. Later, the word came to be used as an attribute or adjective, as “belonging to or characteristic of a Creole” (OED, 1828 G.W. Bridges. Ann. Jamaica II). The Collier’s Encyclopedia of 1965 sees a confusion between human noun reference and adjective usage as responsible for the shift from European to mixed African/European person reference: “[. . . ] for it has been customary to apply the adjective to anything produced in the ex-colonies [. . . ]. Thus, there are ‘creole’ eggs, ‘creole’ carrots, ‘creole’ mules, and, in the same adjectival sense, ‘creole’ Negroes, to differentiate the latter from the bossals imported from Africa”. This modification of any kind of human or non-human “product” throws a rather cynical light on the changed use of Creole for person reference.


An interesting, yet rather rare, derivation of the word is the intransitive verb “creolize”, “to do the Creole”, as J.M. McLeod’s Voyage of Alceste (1818) is quoted in the OED:. “The ladies [. . . ] generally creolized the whole day in a delectable state of apathy. Creolizing is an easy and elegant mode of lounging in a warm climate”. This meaning evidently reflects metropolitan attitudes towards West Indian society, which, in Britain, was often portrayed as a parasite on English tax payers’ money. When the term was increasingly employed to refer to the speech of both black and white Creoles in the eighteenth century, one can assume that it was first used in an adjective-like function, as the speech characteristic of a Creole person. In an account by Moravian missionary Christian Oldendorp in 1777, the term is applied to distinguish between metropolitan European languages and European languages in the West Indies.26 He notes that “only those people who learned to speak them in Europe can talk the pure European form of the language. On the other hand, the people who were born here – the crioles – do not speak the same kind of language”. He rationalizes these differences as due to, firstly, the contact situation and, secondly, different needs of vocabulary. Oldendorp concludes: All of these considerations lead to the customary designation of the Crioles’ language as Criole, especially in those cases where it deviates markedly from a European language and is characterized by the admixture of many features foreign to the original national tongue. Hence, there is a criole English, a criole French, and so on. Blacks in these places speak Criole, too. Except for those who have learned the European languages in their youth, from whites for the most part, Blacks generally corrupt the European languages still more, due to their Guinea dialect and to the words which they mix in with their speech. (Oldendorp ms., translated by Gilbert 1986, as quoted in Holm 1988: 18–19)

The semantic shift the term has undergone is two-fold. It has shifted from a designation of “purity” to a designation of “mixture”, and the meaning has broadened, from person reference to include language. Mufwene (1997: 39) suggests that “the negative connotations associated with the terms also explain how they have alternated with the other negativelycharged term, patois, used in French (and borrowed in English) also for ‘regional rural/provincial variety of language”’. He sees the continuation of the low esteem associated with Creole languages as arising from this choice of term. As another implication in the designation “Creole” and “Patois”27 he identifies the “acknowledged connection with their lexifiers.” (ibid). This becomes particularly important when the term forms one element of a compound of the

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Chapter 2

name of the language (e.g. Belizean Creole, Guyanese Creole). It is striking that, in the Caribbean orbit, this applies mainly to those languages which have been in a continued contact situation with their lexifier, i.e. to those languages dealt with here as CELCs. Winford (1994: 45) draws a comparison between linguistic autonomy, attitudes and an “independent name”, when he states that “it is worth noting that creoles that have this greater degree of autonomy and acceptance generally have names of their own: English-based Sranan, Saramaccan, and Ndjuka in Suriname; Iberian-based Papiamentu in the Dutch Antilles; and so on”. Le Page and Tabouret-Keller (1982) trace the scholarly use of the term Creole to Thomas Russell’s 1868 Etymology of Jamaica Grammar, where the author states that “the estates usually employ, besides Creoles, Africans, and these latter, even after they manage to speak ‘creole’, still retain the deep and harsh accentuation of their own language” (Russell 1868, as quoted in LePage & Tabouret-Keller 1982: 167). They also note that despite the term’s continuation in scholarly use to the present day, “the name has never caught on in the Jamaican vernacular” (1982: 168). Thus, while the discussion on the “naming debate” seems to become more and more important, with a growing uneasiness about the present solution, it must not be forgotten that the academic debate does not necessarily represent common usage. While ‘Creole’ certainly forms one of the possible popular designations for the language in the anglophone Caribbean, it is by no means the only one: ‘Patois’ (mainly in Jamaica), ‘dialect’, ‘nation language’28 are alternatives with various implications, reflecting different conceptualizations of the language. Sidnell, in his work on Guyanese Creole (1998: 94) discusses native metalinguistic vocabulary for Creole reference and presents the following terms, arranged in a scale from basilect to acrolect: Table 9. Guyanese metalinguistic vocabulary for Creole reference BASILECT

MESOLECT

ACROLECT

Creolese raw talk broad talk brawlin’ talk patwa Coolie talk

broken-down language mix-up talk

deep English talking proper proper English

(in Sidnell 1998: 94)


He also notes that this arrangement on a structural scale might be misleading from a native speaker point of view, since most of the expressions are not differentiated on the basis of structural features. Rather, they are associated with speaker (“Coolie talk”), situation (“brawlin’ talk) or context (“talking proper”). Thus, while linguistic variation is represented on a hierarchical scale from a linguist’s point of view, speakers’ perceptions may interpret it much more as register and style variation, as can be found in most languages. Given that any attempts to define Creoles as typologically separate from other kinds of language (and as typologically distinct from pidgins) have been futile, Carrington (1998) argues for a rejection of a distinction between pidgins, Creoles and other kinds of language. His proposals for improving the use of terminology with regard to Pidgin and Creole languages within a framework of language contact include the following points: – –

– –

A general distinction between two major categories of natural languages should be established: genetically affiliated languages and syncretic languages, The use of the terms pidgin and Creole as typological indicators should be abandoned but may be retained within the names of those languages for which it forms part of the “calling name” (e.g. Hawaiian Creole English), Those syncretic languages which have established distinctive names (Sranan, Saramaccan, Papiamentu) should continue to use these names, The remaining languages should be renamed in such a way that either the name of the people who traditionally speak the language or the country/geographical zone where they are spoken is used as the stem (e.g. Trinidadian, Jamaican, Guyanese, etc.).

The last option seems to comply with recent changes in “conscious” popular usage in CELC languages, too (cf. Cooper 1997; Döring 1995). An independence in name, a “cutting off ” of the Creole part of the designation may not immediately mean the end of stigmatization, but it may be a tentative beginning to discard with this linguistically arbitrary and historically problematic term. Such a change in naming can only be successful, however, if it is supported “from below”, if the change is gradually pursued by a broader basis rather than an authoritative demand. The dilemma here becomes particularly evident if we consider the way how the term came into being – not via legislation or based on linguistic criteria, but via its manifestation in historical-colonial discourse. As Parker (1992: 5) remarks, “once an object has been elaborated in a discourse it is difficult not to refer to it as if it were real”. This is precisely the point why it is extremely hard to criticize the concept of Creole without continually reaffirming it in its referential substance. In this light, Carrington’s distinction

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Chapter 2

between “genetically affiliated languages” and “syncretic languages” only seems to transfer and defer the naming problem, in that it generally remains within the assumption that objectively definable criteria may be formulated on the basis of the genetic make-up of one versus the other variety. It transfers the problem to struggling over the criteria where, as the result of a contact situation, a “genetically affiliated language” ends and where a “syncretic29 language” begins. Once again, I argue that the problem does not lie in the genetic origin (Creole genesis), but in the conception of Creole which has been formed in discourse and can only be changed discursively.

. An intricate relationship: Synchronic perspectives on Creole prestige and the language situation Having dealt with a diachronic view on language attitudes towards CELCs and various explanatory factors in the preceding part, the focus will now be on a synchronic perspective, i.e. on the language situation. From a synchronic point of view, there are several factors which contribute to negative prestige, all of which apply either to the Creole languages in the specific relationship with their lexifiers or are the result of this relationship. CELCs are thus never defined in isolation but always “in comparison with” the high prestige language English. It is therefore not surprising that Alleyne (1994: 10) sees the language situation as one of the most important contributions to a negative prestige when he states that “[. . . ] creoles whose existence is not in competition with the European languages to which they are lexically related – have most successfully escaped the negative evaluation often attached to creole languages and have progressed or are progressing to the status of official and national languages”. It seems evident that linguistic independence goes hand in hand with language prestige. The relationship between Creoles and the lexically related European language have featured prominently in two major issues under discussion in Creole linguistics: one of them is the concept of the “creole-continuum”, i.e. the kind and degree of variation between the “deep” Creole variety (basilect) and the lexifier/standard language. The second abstraction, sometimes seen as a competing model in the CELC language situation, is that of diglossia, i.e. the functional distribution of two different codes. Both concepts are fundamentally related to the question of linguistic distinctiveness, the autonomy attribute in the Stewart model, which will be dealt with in Chapter 2.3.1. It is important to note, however, that the attention in these seemingly competing models is fo-


cused on two distinct issues: while the first model tries to describe a structural relationship, the second concept is exclusively based on functional criteria. The question of autonomy is also related to prestige factors which can be seen as the result of a functional relationship: standardization and reduction, the two remaining attributes (or their lack) defining Creole-ness in the Stewart model (represented also as the ‘Richness model’ and the ‘Standardization model’ in Aitchison’s ICM). Both of these attributes will be discussed in Chapter 2.3.2, under the heading Ausbau, i.e. the term for functional elaboration first coined and used by Kloss (1952). .. Structural versus sociological relations: Continuum and autonomy (Abstand) Linguistic distinctiveness is usually seen as the chief criterion to legitimize a language variety as a “language”, as opposed to a variant of a language, a dialect or sociolect. While this distinction may seem straightforward in popular usage, linguistics has long ago recognized that it is almost impossible to rely on differences in phonology, lexicon and/or grammatical structure alone for such a demarcation. Thus, it can be argued that “the autonomy of a language variety is not solely, or even primarily, a linguistic question, but also involves considerations of political, sociocultural, and historical factors” (Winford 1994: 45). The question of whether or not Creoles can be regarded as autonomous varieties, as well as whether there is a smooth cross-over of intermediate varieties between Creole and the lexically-related standard, are at the very heart of the debate on language prestige of Creoles, and especially the CELCs. Notwithstanding the fact that certainly there are, on a structural level, different degrees of distance versus vicinity between e.g. rural Jamaican–Standard English and urban Trinidadian–Standard English, these will deliberately be discussed together. The basis for this lies in the idea that it is not structural distinctiveness that forms the most important criterion for autonomy. In an early discussion on how to determine autonomy, Sprachabstand, Kloss (1952: 17) distinguishes between a linguistic and a sociological definition of the discreteness of languages. He claims that, even though there are some very clear-cut cases of language definition on structural grounds alone (Abstandsprachen),30 more often than not, the discreteness between languages is not rooted in a structural difference but in their sociological independence: However, if Slovak and Czech, [. . . ] perhaps even Luxembourgish and German are distinguished as separate languages, the reason for this does not lie in their

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Chapter 2

special linguistic position but in their sociological autonomy, i.e. especially in the scope and degree of their elaboration to a cultural language; thus one may speak of elaborated languages [Ausbausprachen]. (Kloss 1952: 17, my translation)31

Autonomy is thus often perceived and created by a sociological independence and intricately tied to Ausbau (Elaboration, cf. 2.3.2). However, Kloss does not dismiss linguistic (structural) distinction as irrelevant. He argues that, while sociological independence is the primary requirement for the definition of a separate language, the secondary requirement is that of a Mindestabstand (“minimal distance”). A clear decision on whether or not this latter requirement is fulfilled is, according to Kloss (1952: 20), not always possible. It is particularly difficult in cases where the variety in question is “roofed” (überdacht) by a lexically related language which is used for high prestige functions.32 His main point here is that some of the most important aspects in this decision of autonomy are, in fact, speakers’ subjective perceptions of such an autonomy as well as language attitudes: [. . . ] the sociologist must never forget to take objective as well as subjective facts into account, i.e. the attitudes of a speech community towards their own language. If there is a general conviction among speakers of an idiom that their speech is an autonomous language and not a mere branch of another language, then many a shortcoming of the external linguistic development are compensated for by such a viewpoint. For this attitude of the speech community means that the internal prerequisites are given to catch up with the lead of other idioms and to make all cultural fields accessible to the mother tongue, once the historical situation arises and the code word is uttered. (Kloss 1952: 30–31, my translation)33

Subjective perceptions of autonomy by outsiders of the speech community may have played a role in the very conception of Creoles when they were first perceived as such. This becomes clear when Hancock (1977: 277) notes that “in the few instances where early forms of modern creoles have been recorded, it appears to have been by speakers of languages lexically unrelated to them”. Holm (1988: 16) suggests that this may be no coincidence since “such speakers were apparently more willing to deal with the Creoles as autonomous systems, and their representation of creole sounds has usually been less obscured by the orthography of the lexical-source language.” Görlach (1996), in his discussion of various borderline cases to ‘Englishness’ and the criteria of distinctness of speech forms, explicitly supports Kloss’s view on the relationship between speakers’ attitudes and language autonomy.


When he presents “the four A’s” – “abstand, ausbau, attitude and acquisition” – as determinants of the status of a language, he places speaker attitudes as the foremost principle in this process. While he acknowledges that “individual views on language-ness will differ as well”, he still puts speakers’ attitudes in the position of highest authority, claiming “if they [the speakers, S.M.] wish to regard widely divergent speech forms as varieties of one language, or minimally different ones as distinct languages, the linguist cannot tell them they are wrong” (1996: 154). Kloss (1967: 35) includes Creole in his discussion on “near-dialectized languages” (as opposed to genuine dialects), “abstand languages which fate has also largely relegated to dialect-like primary group functions” and which a majority of speakers feel to be mere dialects of an all-powerful literary language. One of the conditions of such languages is, as Kloss explains, that their speakers are willing to put up with their present status. They feel and think and speak about these language is terms of dialects of the victorious tongue rather than in terms of autonomous systems. To some extent these two features – acceptance of the social status of the mother tongue and underrating of its linguistic status – may be interdependent. (Kloss 1967: 36)

This breach between an apparently objective and observable linguistic variation versus subjective speakers’ perceptions is at the very center of one of the most controversial concepts in Creole linguistics, the “continuum-model” of Creole variation. This becomes clear at the very origin of the debate when DeCamp brought up this issue in 1971,34 precisely telling speakers that their perceptions are wrong: There is no sharp cleavage between creole and standard. Rather, there is a linguistic continuum, a continuous spectrum of speech varieties ranging from the “bush talk” or “broken language” of Quashie to the educated standard of Philip Sherlock and Norman Manley. Many Jamaicans persist in the myth that there are only two varieties: the patois and the standard. But one speaker’s attempt at the broad patois may be closer to the standard end of the spectrum than is another speaker’s attempt at the standard. (DeCamp 1971: 350)

While speakers’ intuition does not always have to be “more correct” or “superior”, it has to be borne in mind – and this represents an essentially traditional structuralist Saussurean view – that the distinctiveness of one element from another is created and perceived by setting itself apart from something else within one system, rather than being “just there”. In the same way as there is no use of accusing a native speaker of Spanish to be deaf to the distinction between [b] and [v], it is no use accusing speakers of Creole of being oblivious to a contin-

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Chapter 2

uous variation between what they see as fundamentally two different systems of speech patterns, two different codes – a notion which does not exclude style and register variation within those codes – as has been shown in recent studies (cf. Patrick 1997, 1999).35 Judith Irvine’s notion of style as a “social semiosis of distinctiveness” (2001: 23, cf. also Irvine & Gal 2000) may therefore be very useful in exploring speakers’ perceptions of differences. Taking an ideological perspective, Irvine emphasizes [. . . ] the need to investigate ideas about language and speakers independently of empirical distributions, and the need to recognize that “attitudes” include participants’ basic understandings of what the sociolinguistic system consists of, not just emotional dispositions. Moreover, the categories and behaviours toward which one has these attitudes cannot be assumed to have been established independently of anyone’s perception of them. (2001: 24)

The point is, that the perception of this variation is based on its social function and pragmatic meaning, rather than on an implicational scaling of lects. Alleyne’s claim (1994: 14) that “there is a clear correlation, in creole-speaking societies, between some kind of linguistically measured structural distinctiveness or autonomy on the one hand, and speakers’ perception of such autonomy and distinctiveness on the other” therefore seems rather doubtful. The concept of continuous variation rather than discretion has not exactly helped CELCs in gaining status, as can also be seen in the somewhat accusing remark by Görlach: [. . . ] most of the existing English-related pidgins and creoles have not achieved the degree of acceptability and ‘respectability’ that would make them fully independent of English; rather, they form continua, at least sociolinguistically, which has effectually made them dialects of English marked by the characteristics of modern regional dialects in Europe: informality, variability, restriction to (more or less) spoken uses and general lack of overt prestige (whereas the covert prestige as an indication of solidarity may be very high). (Görlach 1996: 167)

There are a number of other problematic points in the continuum model – like the implied direction of change (“decreolization”), the linearity of the model (versus multidimensional models), etc. – which have elsewhere been dealt with in comprehensive and critical contributions to the debate (cf. Rickford 1987; Devonish 1991; Carrington 1992, 1993a, 1993b; Hellinger 1998). Since DeCamp’s early formulation, there have been a vast number of challenges, modifications and redefinitions of the model. Some of them criticize


it for its abstraction: Labov (1980), for instance, challenges the validity of the term “continuum” in that [. . . ] it implies that linguistic knowledge is spread out throughout all possible combinations of rules of productions and interpretations. Instead, it seems likely that we will find certain combinations within this cline that are structurally more united than others, where the vernacular knowledge of speakers is concentrated. (1980: 384)

Others also allow for structural gaps within the model (Winford 1988) and competing grammars (Winford 1993). The point remains, however, that most of the revised models rely on structural descriptions of variation rather than on functional ones. As most language attitude studies in the anglo-creolophone Caribbean have shown, speakers continue to categorize their speech as consisting of two codes. As my study on the change of language attitude in a CELC community (Mühleisen 1993, 2001a) has shown, perceptions of two separate codes in Trinidad have increased rather than decreased. While there is no evidence of an increased structural autonomy, respondents in this study consistently referred to Creole and Standard English as two separate systems. In a comparable study by Winford (1976) on which Mühleisen (1993, 2001a) was based, respondents showed much less awareness of a linguistic separateness, a fact that was also noticeable in frequent references to Creole as “bad English”. In one of the earliest treatments of the socio-psychological dimension of variation between these codes, Reisman’s (1970) study on “cultural and linguistic ambiguity in a West Indian village” in Antigua sees the linguistic variation here as operating within a larger semiotic system: English-based Creole on the island of Antigua, West Indies, serves as part of a more general way of handling cultural symbols, a way which uses and increases their ambiguity. Ambiguities of cultural reference and of associated expressive and moral meaning pervade symbolic expression and are focus for constant play and manipulation. There is a duality of cultural patterning, both of Creole vs. English speech and of “African” vs. English culture. (Reisman 1970: 129)

Reisman thus sees variation as a constant negotiation of cultural symbols by way of “masking”, “reinterpretation” and “remodeling”. Focusing largely on the communicative meaning production and interpretation, he sees “external models of bilingualism, dialect variation, linguistic continua or simplification” as inadequate pictures of such a situation and concludes that “only by looking at the overall way in which speech is handled in the cultural conceptions and practices of people can we begin to know how varieties of speech are de-

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Chapter 2

marcated and used in a particular community” (Reisman 1970: 129). Edwards (1983), in his analysis of speakers’ choices in Guyana equally comes to the conclusion that linguistic variation in the Guyanese situation can only be explained within a theoretical framework that is “capable of accommodating the relevant principles of social and psychological motivation, strategic interaction, ‘footing’, reference groups and the reference-other orientation” (1983: 302). The only seriously discussed model which explicitly incorporates a sociopsychological dimension is one by Robert LePage and Andrée Tabouret-Keller (1985), which explains code-choice in a multilingual setting as both individual and communal acts of identity. The individual speech patterns are seen here as governed by complex social and psychological rules for switching between and mixing items from two (or more) codes in a shared repertoire. The general theory assumes that all utterances are affected by the audience, the topic and the setting, and that “the individual creates for himself the patterns of linguistic behaviour so as to resemble those of the group with which from time to time he wishes to be identified, or so as to be unlike those from whom he wishes to be distinguished” (LePage/Tabouret-Keller 1985: 181). The advantages of the model, especially with regard to language prestige, are quite clear: not only does it release the Creole speaker from the notion of excessive and unmotivated variation beyond any “normal” variation, it also dismisses the idea that this variation inevitably leads to unilinear change. Lastly, since it takes the situational context into consideration, it also incorporates stylistic and social variation as an integral part. Roberts (1988: 84) points out that in the West Indies, by and large, the changes in form which are made for social variation are the same changes that are made for stylistic variation and this is overwhelmingly a matter of shifting from creole to colloquial. The important point is that there is no way that normal speakers in normal communities can interact without both social and stylistic variation. Therefore the variants are in an integral relationship with each other and not an evolutionary one.

The idea of two discrete systems is not affected by social and stylistic variation within one system. Language use and function is explored in Patrick’s (1997) analysis of style and register in Jamaican Patwa (JP). He discusses “SpeakySpoky” as a style and “Rasta Talk” as a register as explanations of variation. While in a structural description of variation, Speaky-Spoky would probably rank on an upper mesolectal level because the identification of this form of qualitative hypercorrection is, in fact, imitative of Standard English and marked by only a few salient features, they are here both seen as functional codes and internal to the system of JP (Patrick 1997: 51).


.. Functional relations: Diglossia and elaboration (Ausbau) If one treats Creole and the lexically related standard language as two distinct codes in the CELC language situation, then the natural competing model to the continuum model is to describe the variation as one of code distribution according to social function and role. Winford’s (1985) proposal to describe the Creole situation as diglossia is, in fact, also a criticism of (the “strong form” of) the continuum: [. . . ] there has been a tendency in certain studies (e.g. Bickerton 1975) to treat creole continua as though they represented no more than an extreme form of monosystemic linguistic variation which could be described in terms of a unitary grammar. Such an approach may in fact obscure the nature of the relationship between the language varieties which function in such communities, and may even lose sight of the vital role played by sociocultural factors in preserving the relatively stable oppositions between the varieties. Such oppositions do indeed persist, and any informed approach to sociolinguistic analysis of creole continua must take this fact into account. (Winford 1985: 355)

The notion of a distribution of Creole versus Standard English according to the H-(high) prestige and L-(low) prestige language functions, a classical “diglossia” as formulated by Ferguson (1959), would probably not be disputed by many. The fact that Creole is used primarily in informal situations, whereas Standard English occupies the space of communication in more formal contexts has certainly had effects in reinforcing a negative overt prestige. In addition, it naturally had effects on the lack of functional elaboration, or Ausbau (Kloss 1952). The attributes which have to account for this in the Stewart model are both standardization (= lack of it) and reduction. However, it would be too deterministic a view to deny the possibility of change within a diglossic framework. As described above, Kloss sees Sprachausbau as an important means to increase autonomy and gain linguistic independence, specifically in cases where the language does not stand in structural isolation (Kloss 1952: 17). Alleyne (1994: 11) cites Haitian as a successful case in this respect. Once the classical example for Ferguson’s early formulation and concept of diglossia, Haitian has now “expanded its functions and its domain configuration to the point that some consider Haiti a monolingual country [. . . ]”.36 Thus, even though a “diglossic model” may at first seem more damaging to language prestige than the “continuum model”, it nevertheless also holds the possibility of a change. The need for functional elaboration or “modernization” (Fishman, e.g. 1994: 85–86,37 cf. also Chapter 5 & 6) is not restricted to Creoles, but common

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Chapter 2

to all languages which have been in competition with another language for the H-prestige functions. Lexical expansion in specific areas, style and register formation and increase, along with an expansion of grammatical possibilities (e.g. junctions, cf. Raible 1994; cf. Ludwig 1994 for French-related Creoles), are important in this process. For CELCs, most of the discussion on this issue has centered around the question of orthography in standardization, rather than on a functional elaboration. (For a fuller discussion of this, cf. Chapter 5). While there are now dictionaries and grammars available for most CELCs,38 the acceptance of a standardized version is not in sight for any of these varieties. .. Changing relations: Violating conventions or creating new norms? With regard to language prestige change, the major focus of attention has been largely on the question of standardization alone – a project, which by nature can only be achieved through institutional support as “change from above” and which has not made much progress in the past decades. At the same time, the diglossic situation, as described in Winford above (1985), is perceived as a “relatively stable opposition”. However, there may be gradual changes on a micro-functional level, i.e. within specific domains traditionally ascribed to a high or low prestige sphere hitherto neglected. Evidence for this can be found in Mühleisen (1993).39 As the Trinidad research shows, expressed acceptability of Creole usage in public spheres, like literature and various media genres, has shifted significantly, others (e.g. “conversations with colleagues at work”) have shown notable age-related difference in evaluation, which could be either a sign for an ongoing process of change or indicate consistent age-specific use. Support for this view can also be found in Martin-Jones’s (1989) criticism of a simplistic structural-functional model of society which underpins a diglossic framework with a domain distribution as has been proposed by Fishman (1972). She, too, argues against seeing individual language choices as mere reflections of community-wide norms and criticizes the lack of scope for dealing with individual or group variation within such a framework which emphasizes norms and consensus as central features of social relations and social activity. (Martin-Jones 1989: 108). Her review of Fishman’s domain analysis also challenges an ahistorical view of the situation, as is expressed in the following quote, as well as the inadequacy of the model in coming to terms with change over time. Power is treated as a secondary phenomenon while norms and values are seen as being the most basic features of social activity. Diglossia is characterized as


a natural and common sense reality. No account is given of the social origins of the functional division of labour between the H and the L languages. The model merely represents this division of labour as a natural form of social and linguistic order, thereby implicitly reinforcing the legitimization of the H language. (Martin-Jones 1989: 109)

With regard to the CELC situation, the stability of the situation has also been questioned elsewhere. In fact, requiems are already being played for the traditional high prestige language Standard English, manifested in ShieldsBrodber’s (1997: 57) claim that “the diglossia of the past, on the one hand, is being steadily eroded, as Jamaican Creole (JC) – the first language of the majority, and traditionally functioning as the ‘Low’ (L) language – gradually ursurps the functions of the ‘High’ (H) language, conventionally the domain of English.” For her, this process is under way, because code-switching has become a norm for educated and non-educated Jamaican speakers. While acknowledging divergent attitudes towards JC, she notes that “there can be no doubt that a wide range of speakers from all walks of life and at all levels of the socio-economic hierarchy are increasingly employing JC extensively in their public/formal communication, thereby providing it with newfound legitimacy in that domain” (1997: 63). Shields-Brodber sees the clearest manifestation of this change in the electronic media, particularly in phone-in talk shows on the radio. Her identification of code-switchers includes several different types (1997: 63): a.

speakers whose shifting from English (used in the initial, sometimes formulaic pleasantries involved in beginning their conversation) to JC (in which they remain until the closing formalities) suggests their greater ease with the latter variety; b. those whose mastery of English, in which they elect to struggle for much of their presentation, is demonstrably absent; c. educated speakers (including moderators) whose mastery of English is indisputable, but who switch to JC for a range of pragmatic purposes.

Shields-Brodber’s conclusion that the direction of gradual change (“through use rather than edict”) is towards a considerably changed, recognisably local variety, functioning to complement, rather than replace JC (1997: 65),40 is largely supported by research on linguistic variation in radio and newspaper usage by Sand (1999). Shields-Brodber additionally maintains that this change of language functions is in no way restricted to Jamaica itself: whereas in the 1940s to 1960s





Chapter 2

Jamaican migrants had adopted British or American accents, the reverse now obtains, i.e. that particularly entertainers in the music business are now coming to Jamaica to adopt a Jamaican accent. In addition, Shields-Brodber reminds us also that large communities of Jamaicans all over the world maintain JC as their native language.41 The idea of functional changes beyond the national boundaries of specific Creole communities has important implications for a prestige change of CELC and will, in fact, form the basis of discussion in Chapter 4,42 5 and 6. The question remains to what extent the use of Creole in traditional standard domains is still perceived as a “marked form”,43 as a violation of practiced conventions for a specific communicative purpose, or whether the continued, habitual and dominant use of Creole in “classical” H-situations has resulted in new linguistic norms. Mair and Sand (1998: 191) offer a classification of the cooccurrence of Creole and standard forms in the speech of an individual along the lines of habitual vs. occasional, and reflected vs. unreflected usage: 1. Cases of habitual and unreflected use would present counter-evidence to the continuum model. 2. Occasional and unreflected use may represent a type of performance slip which does not have any consequences for standard linguistic practices. 3. Occasional and reflected use is interpreted as a rhetorical gesture. 4. Habitual and reflected use results in a new linguistic norm “in which a Creole language form has acquired open prestige and is “officially” encouraged as a substitute for its English equivalent”. (1998: 191) It is clear that, for any model of a gradual change of language prestige, the cases presented in number three and four are the most relevant ones. “Occasional and reflected use” as a rhetorical gesture hereby seems the most dynamic situation. It has the potential of resulting in a “habitual and reflected use” laid out in situation no. 4, but, as Mair and Sand also mention, “at present, this case is rare, and usually confined to subcultural norms, such as the “politically correct” speech conventions developed by non-mainstream political activists or the cultural avant-garde” (ibid). It may, on the other hand, remain a rhetorical gesture, become conventionalized as such or change in its expressive or stylistic function. Mair and Sand draw on the concept of “anti-formalism”44 as a useful device for the description of linguistic variation “in which societal norms of usage have not developed yet but are being negotiated in a force-field marked by conflicting loyalties” (1998: 191). This force-field can be characterized as involving not only norms of language usage, but also links to the economic, political and institutional setting


within which the speech event takes place. It is in such force-fields – or ‘discursive fields’ as they shall be defined in 3.1.3 – that the changing language prestige of Creole is continually constructed, represented, negotiated and re-evaluated. In this chapter we have seen how classifications such as historicity, homogenicity (or mixture) or autonomy and standardization, crucial for the conception of “Creole”, have been formed, shaped and re-shaped, both in the past and in the present. By considering shared socio-cultural features of CaribbeanEnglish-lexicon Creoles, rather than narrowing the focus on a single variety, a historical and discursive perspective is given preference to individual national language political considerations. It has been shown that the conception of Creole – rather than a language structure oriented “genesis” – must take into consideration socio-historical, as well as language philosophical aspects, and must place them into an epistemological context. The history of the term “Creole” has illustrated the various shifts in meaning, the negotiation of “difference” and the changing associations with this concept. It furthermore demonstrates that the classification of “Creole” as the name of a variety is not based on primarily linguistic objectives. The negotiation of “Creole” as a linguistic concept is part of an continued debate. It has been pointed out that the various models to describe the relationship between Creoles and their lexifier rest on different assumptions of “objective” versus “subjective” autonomy. It has been argued here that, for most languages, autonomy is not something given, but is rather created and negotiated by elaboration. Emphasis has been placed on the idea that in the negotiation of the relationship between Standard English and Creole, norms are violated and new norms created. Such negotiation is particularly prolific in certain environments and practices, so-called discursive “force-fields” (literature, media, etc.) in which the language prestige of CELC is re-evaluated. The theoretical basis of how to investigate such practices will be explored in the next chapter.

Notes . For a brief historical overview cf., for instance, Holm 1986. . Holm (1986: 4) sees this as a chief criterion for distinguishing CELC languages from Surinamese Creoles when he writes, “[. . . ] if “Creole” is understood to mean the English-based creole language of the Caribbean area (except for the creoles of Suriname, which constitute separate languages if only because there is so little mutual intelligibility), we can speak of Virgin Islands Creole or Jamaican Creole in much the same way as we refer to nonstandard





Chapter 2

Yorkshire English or Appalachian English – i.e. as dialects (or groups of dialects) of the same language”. . West-Indian, unfortunate and misleading as the term may be, nevertheless remains useful as a common denominator to cover those territories with a British colonial history. Many cultural (West Indian literature) or institutional (the West Indies cricket team, University of the West Indies) terms make reference to that shared heritage. In this sense, the term will at times be used interchangeably with “Caribbean” in this study. . For a recent excellent discussion, cf. however, DeGraff 2001a. . In picking out only the extreme positions of the Creole genesis debate, one cannot do justice to the complexities of the matter. However, as the focus here is limited to reflections on language prestige, this is not the place to give a detailed overview of the full debate which would require a separate section in this work. I will therefore refer to the abundance of summaries of and contributions to the subject matter, cf. for instance McWhorter 1997. . For a detailed census, cf. Curtin 1969, Lovejoy 1983. For a description of the transition from settlements to plantation colonies cf. Curtin 1990, including ecomonic and geographical arguments for the patterns of development of different islands (Curtin 1990: 73–85). For an excellent socio-history of Caribbean society and sugar economy, cf. Mintz 1985, 1989. For a highly detailed socio-political analysis of Creole society in Jamaica, 1770–1820, cf. Brathwaite 1971. For an analysis of the development of Jamaican society into a Creole society – again the term is not meant purely linguistically – cf. Burton 1997. Burton describes several temporal phases in this process: Phase 1: The Formation of Plantation Society, 1655– 1700; Phase 2: Consolidation and Expansion, 1700–1750; Phase 3: The Fulcrum, 1750–1780; Phase 4: Toward a Creole Synthesis, 1780–1838. . There are many similar examples of how Creole is publicly fought over in Caribbean newspapers. I am grateful to Carolyn Cooper for this example, which reportedly has led to her weekly newspaper column written in Jamaican Creole (cf. Chapter 5). . Eighteenth century slave exports from Africa almost tripled between the first decade (ca. 312.200) to the 1780’s (ca. 887.700) (Lovejoy 1983: 50). . Burton (1997: 25) suggests that cultural creolization lagged behind linguistic creolization. Drawing on Alleyne 1980 he states that “by 1760 linguistic creolization was without doubt well advanced. Cultural creolization (. . . ) lagged significantly behind, but, as Creolespeakers became a majority, the conditions were created for the gradual transformation of a culture that up to that time had, depite certain creolized features (notably diet), remained essentially African in character”. . Long even gives a brief description of some linguistic features of the language spoken by the Creoles: “In their conversation, [they] confound all the moods, tenses, cases and conjugations, without mercy: for example; I surprise (for, I am surprised); me glad for to see you (pro, I am glad to see you); how you do (for, how d’ye do?); me tank you; me very well; &c” (1774: 2: 426). . Lady Nugent’s diary was written at the end of the eighteenth/beginning of the nineteenth century. It was rediscovered and published in 1907.

Forming language prestige . Jamaica seems to have been the source of many of those eighteenth century pro-slavery writings: most of the documents cited are by Jamaican planters (cf. Leslie 1740; Long 1774,) or visitors to the island (cf. also Ramsay 1788; Nugent 1907 [1802]). . It is important to note that Long’s three-volume history was partly meant as an advertisement of the West Indies in Britain. While most of his descriptions praise the advantages of the West Indian soil, economy, and (white) population, the citations presented here are unusual in their stark contemptuous stance. They may be interpreted as, on the one hand, a plea for further investment into a new type of schooling which he proposes. On the other hand, it may respond to already existing notions in the British metropolitan society about the West Indian society being parasitic and lazy, putting the blame on the close contact with the black population. . In the second half of the eighteenth century this debate featured slave-holders versus abolitionists and their respective arguments on the question of the slave trade. After an intensive public campaign – and, one may add, after the profitability of West Indian sugar had become highly questionable with the increased production of European beet sugar – the British Parliament abolished the trade to British colonies or carried by British ships in 1808. . Cf. also Fryer (1988) who in his historical account of Black People in the British Empire convincingly argues (with many other historicans) that the emergence of racism in Britain in the eighteenth century arose as a justification of the enslavement of black people in the New World. Fryer states that “the classic expression of plantocracy racism was the History of Jamaica (1774) by Edward Long [. . . ]. Long adduced ‘scientific’ evidence for black inferiority, and his History was in fact the key text in the turn to the pseudo-scientific racism that served, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as a justification of colonialism” (Fryer 1988: 65). . E.g. Foucault 1972, 1973, cf. also the extensive discussion in Chapters 3.1 and 3.2. . Foucault distinguishes the significant features roughly as follows: for the Renaissance episteme, resemblance played a constructive role in the knowledge of Western culture. Objects like language have a signifying function and can be read as part of a divine “prose of the world”. The Classical episteme is characterized by its turn from mystical signs to transparent classifications based on sets of features to indicate similarities and differences. In the Modern episteme, objects are grouped around a central concept which in turn serves as an explanatory force of the objects. An example with regard to language would be the idea of language as an organism which goes through various evolutionary stages. . Benjamin Silliman, an American professor of chemistry who visited England in 1805 and 1806. His journal was published in 1812. . Anderson apparently uses the term in its very original sense, to denote a a person of European origin who is born in the Americas. . His reasoning is particularly interesting with regard to the “high-culture” language Chinese which is also characterized by lack of affixation or inflection: “Such languages must present great obstacles for the development of intellectual capacities. It seems to require an act of violence to endow them with cultural achievement, and if this phenomenon can indeed be noted in the Chinese language, this may only have been come about by the use





Chapter 2

of a very artificial and difficult syllable script which in some ways stands substitute for the original poverty of the language” (v. Schlegel 1818: 14, my translation). . Cf. also DeGraff 2001a for a thorough discussion on language philosophy and creole genesis. . Here in the sense that various linguistic sources played an important role in the language formation. The question of what is regarded as a “mixed language” has fuelled much of the discussion in language contact research and is indeed part of this discourse on notions of language purity versus language mixture. An extreme view is that of Schuchardt who in 1884 claimed that there are no completely unmixed languages (cf. quote above, in Thomason & Kaufman 1988: 1). As Thomason & Kaufman (1988: 3) state, mixed languages “include pidgins and creoles but are not confined to them”. It is notable that the whole debate on “genetic relationships” versus “mixed languages” as it has been led in Thomason & Kaufman (1988) falls into this discourse of whether or not language is seen as an “organic body”. . “Man kann es als einen festen Grundsatz annehmen, daß alles in einer Sprache auf Analogie beruht und ihr Bau bis in seine feinsten Teile hinein ein organischer Bau ist. Nur wo die Sprachbildung bei einer Nation Störungen erleidet, wo ein Volk Sprachelemente von einem anderen entlehnt oder gezwungen wird, sich einer fremden Sprache ganz oder zum Teil zu bedienen, finden Ausnahmen von dieser Regel statt. Dieser Fall tritt nun zwar wohl bei allen uns jetzt bekannten Sprachen ein – [. . . ]. Allein wo eine Sprache ein fremdes Element in sich aufnimmt oder sich mit einer anderen vermischt, da beginnen sogleich ihre assimilierende Tätigkeit und ihr Bemühen, nach und nach denjenigen Stoff, welcher in der Vermischung den kürzeren zieht, soviel als möglich in die dem andern eigentümliche analogische Bildung zu verwandeln, so daß durch diese Mischungen zwar kürzere und längere analogische Reihen entstehen; nicht leicht aber ganz unorganische Masse zurückbleibt” (v. Humboldt 1812: 45ff). . A good example of this is the following enthusiastic portrayal of these “new languages” of a missionary and Bible translator in the late nineteenth century. The botanical metaphors in this text abound: “What a study it is to mark the Patois growing up to the level of the authorized Vernacular! The Romans may have laughed at the patois of the Gaul, the Iberian, the Dacian, and the Italian, but they grew and grew, till they strangled their mother. A speaker of English must not judge harshly the young hybrids coming into existence in every part of the non-European world, the issue of a European Linguistic Father and an African, Asiatic, American, or Oceanic Mother: already specimens are being collected and arranged. Some will strike shoot, and be the Vernaculars of the future. Once let the Bible be translated into them, and their future is secure” (Cust 1886: 49–50). . This does not contradict the undisputed fact that the lexical source is from Portuguese, possibly from criar ‘to create’, cf. also Allsopp (1996: 176). . Moravians were among the first to treat Creoles as autonomous languages, they studied and recorded them quite independent of the lexical source. Even though most of their work was carried out in Suriname, on the English-lexicon Creoles spoken there, this statement by Oldendorp refers generally to the use of European languages in the West Indies. . Both expressions exist side by side in the Caribbean, however with different distribution. Whereas some communities (e.g. Belize) adopted the term Creole as part of a compound


to refer to their local variety of language, others continued to apply a pejorative term like “broken English” or “Patois” (e.g. Jamaican). . This term has its origin in the work of Barbadian poet and academic E.K. Brathwaite who uses it to stress the common origin and shared features of Afro-Caribbean culture (cf. Brathwaite 1979). . Note the relationship between the term “syncretic language” with the category “mixed” in the Stewart Model. It then raises the same questions of a precise definition of the “confluence of more than one linguistic tradition” such as, is English (with its many linguistic heritages) a syncretic language? It should be noted, however, that “syncretism”, as a creative process which involves both parties, has far more positive connotations than “mixing”. . He cites those cases where a language structurally stands in relative isolation (e.g. Basque in Europe) and notes that these varieties would be called “languages” even if there was no single written or printed line in that language, i.e. even if other Ausbau-features were missing. . “Wenn hingegen das Slowakische vom Tschechischen, [. . . ], vielleicht sogar das Letzeburgische vom Deutschen als besondere Sprache unterschieden werden, so liegt der Grund nicht in ihrer linguistischen Sonderstellung, sondern in ihrer soziologischen Verselbständigung, also insbesondere in dem Umfange und Grade ihres Ausbaus zur Kultursprache, so daß man hier auch kurzweg von “Ausbausprachen” reden kann.” (Kloss 1952: 17) . This definition of “Überdachung” matches Ferguson’s (1959) definition of a “diglossia” in many aspects. . “[. . . ] der Soziologe darf nicht vergessen, außer nach den objektiven Tatbeständen auch nach einem subjektiven zu fragen, nämlich danach, wie sich eine Sprachgemeinschaft zu ihrer eigenen Sprache stellt. Herrscht bei den Sprechern eines Idioms einmütig die Überzeugung, was man da gebrauche, stelle eine selbständige Sprache dar und nicht bloß einen Seitenzweig einer anderen Sprache, so werden durch eine solche Haltung manche Unzulänglichkeiten des äußeren Entwicklungsstandes der Sprache ausgeglichen. Denn diese Einstellung der Sprachgemeinschaft bedeutet, daß die inneren Voraussetzungen dafür gegeben sind, sehr rasch den Vorsprung anderer Idiome aufzuholen und der Muttersprache immer neue und schließlich alle Kulturgebiete zu erschließen, wenn nur einmal die geschichtliche Stunde kommt und das Losungswort fällt.” (Kloss 1952: 30–31) . DeCamp was not the first linguist to apply the idea of a linguistic continuum (even earlier used to describe closely related dialects) to the relationship between a Creole and the lexically related language: As Hellinger (1998: 72–73) points out, Van Name in 1869/70 and Schuchardt in 1914 had already extended the concept of a continuum model to Creoles in the second half of the nineteenth century. One may add that it is easy to draw the connection between the perception of “language as an organic body” which is so characteristic for the Modern episteme (cf. the discussion on epistemology in 2. 2. 2.) and the “life-cycle model” of the (post)-creole continuum. From an epistemological point of view, the continuum idea certainly has its origin and place more at the end of the eighteenth/beginning of the nineteenth century rather than in the mid-end twentieth century. . Patrick’s recent study on Urban Jamaican Creole again confirms speakers’ perceptions of two distinct codes: “The belief that there are two stable and distinct codes, commonly labeled





Chapter 2

“English” and “Patwa”, with nothing in between, is even more widely held by Jamaicans than it is by creolists. This folk position, which is the easiest one to elicit from JC speakers, does not explicity recognize intermediate varieties, and confers no firm sense of alternative identity upon the mesolect. In language attitude questionnaire sessions, however, many people in Veeton were also willing to grant that people sometimes “mix” them (1999: 273). . Cf. also Dejean 1993 on the linguistic situation in Haiti. . Fishman also stresses the dual nature of modernization (e.g. lexical expansion) in both a planned and an unplanned manner: “Due to language contact, on the one hand, and due to conscious language planning, on the other hand, felt lexical gaps can be overcome. All modern languages now have words that they did not have a quarter of a century ago and all primitve languages can undergo modernization in both planned and unplanned ways, [. . . ]” (1994: 85). . To cite just a few: Bailey (1966), Cassidy & LePage (1967/1980), Holm & Watt-Shilling (1982), Solomon (1993), interregional: Allsopp (1996). . Cf. also Chapter 1.4.2, Table 6. . Cf. also Escure’s (1997) notion of “Creole acrolects as innovations” with reference to the Belizean context. . One may add that this applies to a majority of West Indians, i.e. Jamaican or its derivative has largely formed British Black English. Thus, it is not necessarily a language maintenance which applies, in the sense that Jamaican is preserved unaltered in migrant communites. Rather, I would like to describe it as an extended form of language contact. . Cf. also more specifically the discussion of the notion of “speech community” in Chapter 4.1. . Although the term “markedness” is in general use in linguistics, here in the context of code-choice it is related to the research of Carol Myers-Scotton (1993). For a more detailed discussion of her markedness-model in code-switching cf. Chapter 3. . The term “Anti-formal” in Caribbean lexicographical studies has been defined by Richard Allsopp (1996: 1vii) as “deliberatley rejecting Formalness; consciously familiar and intimate; part of a wider range from close and friendly through jocular to coarse and vulgar; any Creolized or Creole form or structure surviving or conveniently borrowed to suit context or situation”. His interpretation of the use of such items is that of signalling of “an absence or wilful closing of social distance” (ibid).

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Discourse is a site of struggle. It is a terrain, a dynamic linguistic and, above all, semantic space in which social meanings are produced or challenged. (Seidel 1985: 44)

Chapter 3

Negotiating language prestige Towards a functional/discursive framework

. Language prestige and the ‘Foucauldian turn’ in social science methods The previous chapter has shown that assumptions about and connotations of language varieties are in many ways ‘accumulated knowledge’, which has its roots in the social history of their speakers, in certain linguistic ideas or in language philosophy. The social evaluation of language varieties resulting from this process is undoubtedly reflected in the sociolinguistic norms of language use. In a multilingual language situation, such as is the common situation for Caribbean English-Lexicon Creoles, these norms of language use thus symbolically mirror the relationship between the codes in use, Creole and Standard English. In this light, it seems necessary to now take stock of the methods employed so far in analyzing CELC language prestige, and to reflect upon their adequacy in bringing together a macro-sociological and a micro-linguistic dimension. In Chapter 1 we have seen that the main approaches to language prestige assessment have their roots either in the sociology of language, i.e. in the analysis of status and macro-functions (“who speaks what language to whom and when?”), or in language and social psychology, i.e. in the assessment of language attitudes as predispositions (“what opinions, feelings and tendencies to act are connected with language X?”). With regard to the former, a critique of the domain as too deterministic and static a concept has already been suggested in the foregoing parts, along with the subsequent need for the inclusion of micro-functions of language. This chapter will deal with how to bring about such an incorporation into a larger framework of analysis. The focus will be, first of all, on a methodological shift in the investigation of language attitudes, from the experimental to the discursive. This will then provide the ground for a more detailed look at discourse as a major concept in the social sciences, as well as in lin-



Chapter 3

guistics. For linguistic discourse analyses in multilingual situations, research on code-switching has provided some of the most fruitful sources for sociopsychological interests. Thus, particular emphasis will be placed on motivations for and functions of code choice in various multilingual contexts. The last part of the chapter will then introduce an integrative framework, which attempts to link the macro-level and micro-level of discourse. .. Criticism of earlier socio-psychological research paradigms Language attitude research, so far the main focus of language prestige assessment for Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles, has drawn its methodology mainly from research techniques as they are practiced in general social psychology – often with a lag of a few years or even decades with regard to shifts in method and theory. As we have seen in Chapter 1.4, most of the research carried out on language attitudes in the Caribbean rests on either quantitative self reports (questionnaires) (e.g. Winford 1976; Mühleisen 1993, 2001a; Beckford Wassink 1999) or on experimental data such as matched guise technique1 (e.g. Rickford 1983). Both methods are very much part of research practices within the social sciences of the 1960s. Using different means, both techniques aim at finding some key to the inner state of the respondent, his or her beliefs, emotions and intention to act with regard to the language in question which are, in turn, set in correlation with larger sociological variables. Thus quantified, the data may then serve to interpret and predict behaviour of specific social groups in the speech community.2 While this has resulted in some important insights and interesting findings – which have indeed formed the starting point of the present research – there are yet a number of problems and deficiencies which lie within the limits of the research paradigm and which shall be addressed here: –

–

– –

Both research methods focus on language attitudes as (largely) invariable internal conditions. Context and situation as influencing factors are not taken into account. Their notion of identity relies on deterministic characteristics: the person in society is treated as having some kind of unified identity according to large-scale demographic variables (sex, age, social class, ethnic group, etc.). The link between the socio-psychological research findings and actual language use is mostly neglected. The role of the researcher as (subjective) interpreter is not considered.

Negotiating language prestige

In addition to these points, one may sometimes question the surplus value of some quantitative data for our understanding of language attitudes: what insights, exactly, can be gained from results which state that in community X the mean attitude score for group Y is 1.5 points lower than for group Z?3 Especially in the case of social evaluation of language, which, as I argue, is greatly dependent on speaker/hearer identity and self-positioning, as well as on context and situation, large-scale demographic variables are only of limited value. The danger here is not that one cannot see the wood for trees, but rather the opposite, that one cannot make out the tree in the wood, i.e. that the individual’s motivations and conflicts are not considered worthy of recognition and in-depth analysis. Qualitative data analysis takes its starting point from the example, the individual, etc. in order to come to larger conclusions. Quantitative data has its starting point in the cross-section of larger demographic groupings in order to reflect upon and predict individual behaviour. In my own quantitative research on language attitudes in Trinidad (Mühleisen 1993, 2001a), the most interesting findings were always those in the “open” (not quantifiable) questions or in incongruent answers within a single questionnaire sheet. The anonymity of the questionnaire, however, does not permit us to engage in any interaction where such conflicts and motivations may be analyzed in more depth. .. From the experimental to the discursive: Developmental stages in the study of social psychology and language Critical4 approaches to social psychology, (e.g. Stainton Rogers et. al. 1995) see forms of traditional social psychology as part of a “pre-eminently Modernist endeavour” (1995: 14) which had its time and place in the enlightenment enterprise to replace superstition, magic, etc. with reason. The idea was, by way of experimental research, to find the right method to discover the “mechanics” of attitudes, i.e. if only the right research paradigm is applied, the individual’s inner state is laid open in neatly quantifiable results. Such a “mechanistic model” of the person has received much criticism in social psychology since the early 1970s (cf. the “crisis in psychology” and the “new paradigm” in the writings of, for instance, Gergen 1980; Harré 1979) and has, in turn, resulted in a call for the inclusion of personal subjective experience. Methodological criticism is also directed against hypothetico-deductive research methods with “objectively definable” results, as well as the researcher’s role: the idea that the investigators’ understandings is in some sense objective and correct, “inevitably draws the whole endeavor into the realm of ideology” (Stainton Rogers et. al.





Chapter 3

1995: 26). Like Stainton Rogers, Robinson sees the reason for a persistence of such research in studies of language and social psychology, in the fact that the discipline for a long time positioned itself close to the natural sciences: Social psychologists have been products of psychology laboratories, which have trained them as experimentalists according to a tradition that has emphasized man’s interaction with the physical rather than the social environment. In that tradition problems are presented as being most amenable to solutions if attacked with approaches and methods derived from either physiology or a distorted model of nineteenth century physics. (Robinson 1985: 108)

As a response to the critical challenges above, and as an alternative to such orthodox methods in social psychology, a different paradigm was advocated with a strong turn to language. For the connection between linguistics and social psychology, Robinson (1985: 108) points out, the move towards discourse analytical approaches occurred significantly later than, for instance, in anthropology or sociology, where a distinct ethnomethodological shift had resulted in ethnographic models of communication (Hymes, Gumperz) on the one hand and conversation analysis (Sacks, Schlegloff & Jeffersen) on the other. This included developments in language philosophy and pragmatics (e.g. speech act theory, maxims of conversation), as well as conversation analysis (e.g. turn-taking systems), as can be seen for instance in the work of Clarke (1975, 1977) and Clarke and Argyle (1982). In his survey article of 1985, Robinson notes, however, that much of the latter work is indeed too strongly concerned with descriptive generalizations about structures and sequences of conversation which could or do occur: [. . . ] it does seem to be the case with language and social behaviour that linguists can be satisfied by descriptions of what and how, whereas social psychologists have to proceed to ask why. If linguists do pose ‘why’ questions, the acceptable answer will relate to why conventions are as they are, which in turn will lead them into historical-sociological analysis, into investigations of the actions of people in the past. Social psychologists have also to offer answers to ‘why’ questions about contemporary behaviour, both specific and general. Why might X say what he is saying in the way he is speaking in the conversation? Why do X’s generally use this form rather than that form in this situation, and what do selections of other forms mean? (Robinson 1985: 133)

Thus, in addition to the questions posed in Chapter 1 (“who speaks what language to whom and when?” and “what opinions, feelings and tendencies to act are connected with language X?”) these “why-questions” seem relevant to the study of language prestige. It is all the more surprising that Robinson


(1985: 116) does not attribute any importance to the work of Giles et al. for socio-psychological discourse analysis, as their accommodation theory (“Interpersonal Speech Accommodation Theory”, Giles et al. 1973; Giles & Powesland 1975) indeed pursues the ‘why’-question of speech changes (mainly of modifications of accent) in an encounter by investigating the role and power relationship between participants. However, the import of ideas from other disciplines by some of these “new paradigm” psychologists until the 1980s initiated a divide in the discipline, “between those stubbornly clinging to orthodox, usually laughably trivial laboratory-experimental studies of individual behaviour and (more markedly in Europe than in America) those producing ostensibly more radical field studies”. (Parker 1992: xii). Parker, professed and unconcealed advocate of the latter stance, concludes that “it is discourse analysis that has caused most damage to the pretended internal coherence of social psychology”. The re-orientation itself, the crisis in psychology which made discourse analytical approaches possible, must be seen in the context of debates over structures of meaning which have swept all over the human and social sciences, most pronouncedly influenced by the work of cultural analyst, philosopher and psychologist Michel Foucault. This general move towards the discursive is thus often referred to as the “Foucauldian turn” in the social sciences. What then are the methodological consequences of this re-orientation? Does the shift away from experiments and quantitative research also result in a shift away from scientific methods? Certainly not. What is meant by the phrase “Foucauldian turn” is not necessarily the replacement of one distinct method by another. After all, as will be seen in the discussion of Foucault’s own approaches towards analyzing knowledge and power (Chapter 3.2.1), one of his main contributions to methodology is exactly an “openness towards method” and a careful adaptation of method to the subject of research, rather than the other way round. As Apperley (1997: 19) remarks in his article on “Foucault and the problem of method”, “in common with his rejection of systematic and totalising philosophies, we should not be surprised to find that Foucault’s own writings avoid system and totality. This is no less the case with regard to his writings on method”. This does not mean, however, that the idea of method is abandoned in total or that the Foucauldian turn has resulted in a complete methodological void. Rather, the critique of hypothetico-deductive approaches was combined with a move into alternatives, which include, for instance, forms of ethnography, autobiographies and, above all, forms of discourse analysis. The Foucauldian turn in social sciences emphasizes that the task of human sciences is not to dis-



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Chapter 3

cover timeless truths about human nature, but rather to relate social phenomena to the social environment and put them into a historical and situational perspective. The point is not that we don’t experience emotions or hold attitudes or have a personality or whatever – nor is it that they were ‘just invented’ by psychologists. What is at stake is what is meant by these terms. Our argument is that these terms do not refer to objectively measurable ‘essences’ or processes which can be got at in some pure form by stripping away the subjective and the discursive. Rather they are part of and inseparable from the subjective and discursive. (Stainton Rogers et al. 1995: 30)

What follows for the investigation of socio-psychological phenomena such as language attitudes, for instance, is that they can only be meaningfully explored contextually. Rather than relying on experimental forms of data gathering, a focus must be placed upon an “opinionation” of the subject: “By putting the emphasis instead upon opinionation as discourse (cf. Potter & Wetherell 1987)”, Stainton Rogers (1995: 114) argues, “‘what we say’ can be treated in its own right, as a human expression – not as a shadow of some inner psychic essence [. . . ]”. “Why not ask them?” – this injunction by Harré and Secord (1972) was a first call for the serious inclusion of participant knowledge and against the strict opposition between “experts” and “objects” in a research.5 Such a shift of expertise from the researcher to the participants themselves has also been advocated in various forms of ethnography, especially in the investigation of culturally different groups or in specialized subsystems of a culture. Critical social psychologists promote a critical distance between researcher and research objects (e.g. “attitudes”), they furthermore take into consideration the ways these research objects operate as sites of power play between knowledge and action (e.g. for the promotion of ideology): “[. . . ] the endeavors of theorizing, researching and communicating about ‘attitudes’ can be seen as, in themselves, discursive productions – means by which ideology is promoted and conduct warranted” (Stainton Rogers 1995: 114). It is thus that the themes of attitude research and their primary concerns may also be read as a kind of social history.

. Approaches to discourse: Between the social and the text The methodological move from quantitative analysis to a discursive model, where communication as a cultural practice is taken into account and con-


nected to outside social forces, now requires a closer look at the various approaches to discourse on the (sociological) macro-level and the (linguistic) micro-level. It is notable that disciplinary cross-overs have become increasingly important and the connection between these two levels of discourse have featured in a number of recent explorations of discourse (Potter & Wetherell 1987; Parker 1992; Fairclough 1992), with Norman Fairclough’s work on Discourse and Social Change as perhaps the most pronounced advocate of such a link. From the discussions in Chapter 1 and 2, it has become clear that neither is the linguistic status of a language given and predefined by apparently objective criteria, nor are language attitudes and language functions in a multilingual situation fixed or as stable as the concept of diglossia may suggest. Rather, it seems that language prestige is not dependent merely on the present sociopolitical situation, but also the result of decades- or even centuries-long dynamic discursive processes both on a metalinguistic level (“how ‘Creole’ is defined, conceptualized, talked about and evaluated”), as well as on the meanings it is employed for in various spheres of action. This section will therefore deal with discourse as a key concept both in a sociological and a linguistic sense, and how the central ideas in both fields can be meaningfully linked and used for exploring changes in the signification and interpretation of ‘Creole’ in individual (spoken and written) texts6 , as well as in larger social terms. The pervasive power of the general idea of ‘discourse’ is that it allows to bring together the linguistic and the social, text production and power relationships. The term ‘discourse’ is certainly one of the most often and variedly-used notions in different disciplines, and no attempt will be made to give an exhaustive overview of the various definitions and approaches.7 However, at the inevitable risk of oversimplification, it will be necessary to venture on a specification of the meaning(s) for the present research in the following. .. Discourse as a form of constituting knowledge and power In Chapter 3.1, it was pointed out that much of the uses of ‘discourse’ in the social sciences and in the humanities, in cultural studies, as well as postcolonial theory8 is directly or indirectly connected with the theoretical and methodological assumptions in the work of French philosopher and psychologist Michel Foucault (1926–1984). The popularization of the concept of ‘discourse’ may, in fact, be largely attributed to this influence. Discourse, in Weedon’s (1987: 108) interpretation of Foucault’s work, is



 Chapter 3

[. . . ] ways of constituting knowledge, together with the social practices, forms of subjectivity and power relations which inhere in such knowledges and relations between them. Discourses are more than ways of thinking and producing meaning. They constitute the ‘nature’ of the body, unconscious and conscious mind and emotional life of the subjects they seek to govern.

A central question in Foucault’s work concerns systems of knowledge, modalities of power and how they are produced: contrary to the orthodox view to see power as a property of groups, individuals, classes, i.e. of agents, or as the property of structures, Foucault locates power at the level of discursive formations which make possible certain truths and knowledges and which also make possible specific kinds of agents and structures. Foucault [. . . ] does not see power as fixed in particular individuals, classes, structures or institutions for it ‘ends by forming a dense web that passes through apparatuses and institutions’ [. . . ]. Such power is thoroughly pervasive ‘not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere’ [. . . ]. Power as Foucault understands it is not located at a central point such as the State, nor is it located in sovereign individuals or classes. The fact that orthodox accounts of power take it to be so is itself to be understood as an effect of power. (Apperley 1997: 15)

According to Foucault, it is in discourse that power and knowledge are joined together. The starting point of the study of discourses as carried out by Foucault and his followers then is the question of how a phenomenon or object is discursively formed. For example, one of Foucault’s works (1971) explores how “madness” as a medical category and object in psychopathology was constituted from the nineteenth century onwards, by “statements different in form, and dispersed in time, [which] form a group if they refer to one and the same object” (Foucault 1972: 32). [. . . ] mental illness was constituted by all that was said in all the statements that named it, divided it up, described it, explained it, traced its developments, indicated its various correlations, judged it, and possibly gave it speech by articulating, in its name, discourses that were to be taken as its own. (Foucault 1972: 32)

Thus, discourses not only reflect or represent social entities or relations as such but rather, they are part of them, construct and ‘constitute’ them. As Parker (1992: 5) points out, “a strong form of the argument would be that discourses allow us to see things that are not ‘really’ there”. Once an object has been established in a discourse, however, it is “there”, i.e. it is difficult to ignore it or


not to refer to it as if it were real. Discourse thus must be seen as a system of statements which constructs an object. As we have seen in the discussion of a methodological shift in social psychology in Chapter 3.1, Foucault’s work has been highly influential in much of contemporary research in social sciences and in the humanities (cf. Apperley 1997). Foucault propagates no single one method of analysis in his work,9 however, each of his emphases has produced a specific research approach which may be briefly characterized: (i) archaeology, for instance, stands for the investigation of truth as a system of procedures governing forms of discourse; (ii) genealogy focuses on the mutual relations between systems of truth and modalities of power, while (iii) ethics is the study of the self ’s relationship to itself (cf. Davidson 1986). Of particular relevance for the present purposes – the investigation of the concept of Creole in its social and linguistic function and their possible changes – is Foucault’s archeological work on ways of constituting knowledge. The foundation of the archaeology of knowledge, his “rules of discursive formations”, will thus be outlined in some detail. This will indeed provide the paradigm against which the foregoing definitions and formations (Chapters 1 and 2) of Creole should be read. Foucault’s shift in emphasis to the relation between knowledge and power in his genealogical work and its impact on research methods will then be only briefly considered; Foucault’s focus on ethics will not be considered for the present purposes.

i. Discursive formations In the Archeology of Knowledge, Foucault explores discursive rules in the formation of knowledge. Contrary to contemporary Chomskyan-influenced approaches to analyzing language, these rules are not concerned with wellformedness and grammaticality of sentences (the “how” question), but with systems of rules which make it possible for certain statements but not others to occur at particular times, places and institutional locations (the “why” question). The question posed by language analysis of some discursive fact or another is always: according to what rules has a particular statement been made, and consequently according to what rules could other similar statements be made? The description of the events of discourse poses a quite different question: how is it that one particular statement appeared rather than another? (Foucault 1972: 27)

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 Chapter 3

The socio-historical specificity of a statement is one of the corner stones of Foucault’s archaeological work. A second major point is the inter-relationships and interaction between statements themselves and between statements and social practices.10 The analysis of thought is always allegorical in relation to the discourse that it employs. Its question is unfailingly: what was being said in what was said? The analysis of the discursive field is orientated in a quite different way; we must grasp the statement in the exact specificity of its occurrence; determine its conditions of existence, fix at least its limits, establish its correlations with other statements that may be connected with it, and show what other forms of statements it excludes [italics in the original, S.M.]. (Foucault 1972: 27–28)

A discursive formation consists of “rules of formation” for the specific set of statements which belong to it:

rules for the formation of ‘objects’: What is meant here is the constitution of objects of knowledge, entities which particular disciplines or sciences identify within their fields of interest, and which are investigated within those fields of interest. Foucault emphasizes three major traits in the formation of object – their first emergence, their delimitation to other objects, as well as their specification: This formation [of objects, S.M.] is made possible by a group of relations established between authorities of emergence, delimitation, and specification. One might say, then, that a discursive formation is defined (as far as objects are concerned, at least) if one can establish such a group; if one can show how any particular object of discourse finds in it its place and law of emergence; if one can show that it may give birth simultaneously or successively to mutually exclusive objects, without having to modify itself. (Foucault 1972: 44)

Foucault stresses the constitutive nature of language in the formation of objects. As Fairclough (1992: 41–42) points out, this is a major contrast to approaches in discourse analysis based within linguistics, “that discourse is in an active relation to reality, that language signifies reality in the sense of constructing meanings for it, rather than merely referring to objects which are taken to be given in reality”.

rules for the formation of ‘enunciative modalities’ and ‘subject positions’: The question of the conditions in which statements come into being (the ‘enunciative modalities’) has to consider three main aspects: a) Most importantly, the producer of the statement (“First question: who is speaking? Who, among the

Negotiating language prestige 

totality of speaking individuals, is accorded the right to use this sort of language (langage)? [. . . ]” – Foucault 1972: 50). According to Foucault, the social subject that produces a statement does not stand in isolation outside of and independently of discourse. There is no single source of a statement – the “author” – but rather, both producer and addressee of the statement are a function of the statement itself: statements position subjects. The second and third point of enunciative modalities concern b) the institutional place of the statement, and c) the situation of the statement and the relation of the subject to the object.

rules for the formation of ‘concepts’: What is meant here is the set of categories, elements and types which a discipline uses as an apparatus for treating its field of interest and their organization in the field, in particular, a) the order of statements, their inferences, implications, linearity or subordination; b) the coexistence of statements within a discursive field (“field of presence”, 1972: 57), between discursive fields (“field of concomitance”, 1972: 58) and, finally, of statements “that are no longer accepted or discussed, and which consequently no longer define either a body of truth or a domain of validity, but in relation to which relations of filiation, genesis, transformation, continuity, and historical discontinuity can be established” (Foucault 1972: 58), c) procedures of intervention as the techniques or methods of description or transcription which can be legitimately applied to the statements within a discursive field. The relation of statements within discursive fields may best be captured by the term “intertextuality”, the relation of statements between discursive fields has been labelled “interdiscursivity” by Fairclough (1992: 46). Fairclough also observes that the consideration of context relations in different discursive formations may be an important contribution to the sociolinguistic analysis of statements: In discussing relationships within fields of statements, Foucault (1972: 97–98) makes some valuable comments upon the notion of ‘context’, and specifically upon how the ‘situational context’ of a statement (the social situation in which it occurs) and its verbal context (its position in relation to other statements which precede and follow it) determine the form it takes, and the way it is interpreted. It is a commonplace in sociolinguistics that statements (or ‘utterances’) are so determined. The important additional observation that Foucault makes is that the relationship between an utterance and its verbal and situational context is not a transparent one: how context affects what is said or written, and how it is interpreted, varies from one discursive formation to another. (Fairclough 1992: 47)

 Chapter 3

rules for the formation of ‘strategies: Foucault rather tentatively outlines how particular transformations of objects, particular types of statements form themes and theories within one field of interest, “according to their degree of coherence, rigour, and stability” (Foucault 1972: 64). As examples, he cites themes and theories in the exploration of language, the monogenetic theory of language (langue) in the eighteenth century or the “Stammbaumtheory” of the nineteenth century – the idea that all Indo-European languages are genetically related and connected to one language origin. Secondly, different discourses (e.g. in the natural sciences and in linguistics) may have analogous or opposing relations and may support or exclude one another, or as Foucault (1972: 66) cites for the case of General Grammar in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries, where it “appears as a particular model of the general theory of signs and representations”, a discourse can also present a concrete model that is applied to higher levels of abstraction: This whole group of relations forms a principle of determination that permits or excludes, within a given discourse, a certain number of statements: these are conceptual systematizations, enunciative series, groups and organizations of objects that might have been possible (and of which nothing can justify the absence at the level of their own rules of formation), but which are excluded by a discursive constellation at a higher level and in a broader space. (Foucault 1972: 67)

Thirdly, the function of a particular discourse in a field of non-discursive practices has to be considered, for instance, as Foucault points out, “the Analysis of Wealth played a role not only in the political and economic decisions of governments, but in the scarcely conceptualized, scarcely theorized, daily practice of emergent capitalism, and in the social and political struggles that characterized the Classical period” (1972: 68). Furthermore, the rules and processes of appropriation of discourse – the right to speak, the ability to understand, and the right to draw upon the body of already formulated statements are unequally distributed between different social groups – are examined, as well as the possible positions of desire in relation to discourse that “may in fact be the place for a phantasmatic representation, an element of symbolization, a form of the forbidden, an instrument of derived satisfaction” (Foucault 1972: 68). Besides the rules of discursive formation, it is important to note that they do not remain abstract entities, but gain their relevance in social life. Discourse becomes a social practice (“discursive practice”, Foucault) in these rules of formation, which are constituted by combination of prior discursive and non-

Negotiating language prestige 

discursive elements, and in the process of articulating these elements (cf. also Fairclough 1992: 57–59).

ii. Discursive practices In his move from archaeology to genealogy, the emphasis in Foucault’s work shifts from discursive formations in terms of particular disciplines11 and their interrelations to modes of knowledge production and the relationship of knowledge and power: “discursive practices”, the key concept in Foucault’s genealogical work, more generally describes the techniques used in knowledge production, like for instance, interviews or counsellings: [. . . ] they point of various forms of interaction which are structured in particular ways and involve particular sets of participants (e.g. interviewer and interviewee), which can be used in various disciplines or institutions and are thus compatible with various discursive formations (so there are medical, sociological, job and media interviews). The contrast for some writers is between ‘discourses’ and ‘genres’ [. . . ]”. (Fairclough 1992: 52–53)

In his genealogical work (1979, 1981), Foucault analyzes two major technologies of power, (i) “discipline” (with “examination” as its core technique) and (ii) “confession” (Foucault 1981). Both technologies focus on power relations that “make it possible to extract and constitute knowledge” (1979: 185). They differ, however, in their ways of looking at the interactants in the power play. While “examination” is a means of objectifying people, “confession” is a technique to subjectify them. .. Of “madness” and “Creole”: Discursive formations and Creoles Relating back to our field of interest – Creole languages and, particularly, the Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles – one may now take stock of the importance of Foucault’s understanding of discursive formations and discursive practices to the present research objective. 1. I argue that Foucault’s contribution provides us with some vital tools and the necessary language for coming to terms with the growing unease over “objective” definitions and prestige attributes of Creole languages. Looking back at the ongoing struggles and debates over definitions of Creole as outlined in Chapter 1.5, the discussion of Foucault’s rules of discursive formation throws light on the main crux of the debate: it shows that the concept of Creole is not there because of any objectively perceptible crite-

 Chapter 3

ria of difference to other languages. It is there because it has been formed discursively. 2. But Foucault’s merits of the exploration of changing Creole prestige reach beyond the level of object formation. His work also makes transparent the relationship between seemingly isolated incidents and statements and places these discursive incidents into a historical and social context (cf. Chapter 2). It thus becomes clear that objects like Creole are not formed in a socio-political and epistemological vacuum, but they are linked to other discourses. 3. The constitutive nature of his concept of “discourse” allows us to see processes of prestige change on the basis of discursive interaction rather than as solitary phenomena of language politics. This Foucauldian paradigm thus forms the link between our explorations of Creole language prestige as defined and shaped in the past (Chapters 1 and 2) and our exploration of ongoing prestige change in various discursive fields in the following chapters (Chapters 4, 5, and 6). From the preceding chapters on “defining language prestige” and “forming language prestige”, it should have become evident that the formation of the object “Creole” presents just as valid a case in point as Foucault’s object of analysis, the constitution of “madness” in nineteenth century medical discourse. Applied to “Creole” as an object of analysis, Foucault’s rules of discursive formations may be read as follows: –

–

The formation of objects: Rather than just “being there”, the meaning of “Creole” has been constructed in a network of statements, as exemplified in the historical material in Chapters 2.2.1 and 2.2.3. The formation of “Creole” as an object starts out in its first emergence as colonial person reference, in its delimitation to other objects (e.g. other population groups), in its specification in meaning in whose process it has given “birth simultaneously or successively to mutually exclusive objects, without having to modify itself ” (Foucault 1972: 44). This formation is not restricted to birth place and time, nor is it completed yet. In contemporary linguistic discourse, the construction of “Creole” is equally an ongoing process, with various definitions, delimitations and re-definitions (cf. Chapter 1.5). The enunciative modalities: The formation of Creole as an object has come into being under certain conditions, for certain purposes, with the producers of the statements about Creole who “is accorded the right to use this sort of language” in certain power positions situated inside the discourse. As suggested in Chapter 2.2.1, the creation of and emphasis on lin-

Negotiating language prestige 

–

–

guistic differences in the eighteenth century plantation society was an important means to uphold the social order. The emphasis on linguistic differences between the colonies and the mother country was equally instrumental for the contemporary political discourse in Britain. In both cases, those producing the statements had to be in particular positions (plantation owner, politician, members of a social class who could afford to travel) to be heard. And certainly they were not speakers of Creole, i.e. Creole was always the Other. The formation of concepts: The concepts which are used in the discursive formation can be analyzed for their organization within the field. In our linguistic discourse on Creole, such a concept may be that of the “postcreole continuum”, which then has certain implications and inferences on other statements (e.g. autonomy). Such concepts may also be analyzed in relation to coexisting statements within and between fields (e.g. in the description of the Creole situation as “post-creole continuum” versus “diglossia”), as has been seen in the transformation of linguistic notions of “Creole” with its changing denotations, connotations and relations (Chapter 2.3). And even if the concept of the “post-creole continuum” were no longer valid or acceptable in linguistic discourse, it would still be there as something that exists in negation and would thus continue to influence the formation of concepts within the field. The formation of strategies: The formation of the object “Creole” has also been demonstrated to be rooted in a particular epistemological environment, at the turn of Classical episteme to Modern episteme (Chapter 2.2.2). The production of knowledge, according to Foucault, is time-specific and shows structural analogies between seemingly independent fields. The formation of the object “Creole” therefore interrelates with other ideas in the history of science (e.g. biology) and is furthermore instrumental for non-discursive practices. It has been suggested in Chapter 2 that this formation interlinked with ideas of language as an organic body, as well as of language hierarchies based on what was held to be their evolutionary stages. The relation with contemporary ideas in other sciences, such as biology (evolutionary theory)12 , is more than obvious and goes well into the metaphors of linguistic description (e.g. “hybridity”, “lifecycle of languages”).13 Foucault makes the epistemological classification of evolutionary thought (with “primitive language” at the beginning of the cycle) explicit:

 Chapter 3

Suffice it to recall that the quest for primitive language, a perfectly acceptable theme up to the eighteenth century, was enough, in the second half of the nineteenth century, to throw any discourse into, I hesitate to say error, but into a world of chimera and reverie – into pure and simple linguistic monstrosity. (Foucault 1972: 223)

Alluding to Foucault’s statement about mental illness above, one could thus say that Creole was constituted by all that was said in all the statements that named it, divided it up, described it, explained it, traced its developments, indicated its various correlations, judged it, and possibly gave it speech by articulating, in its name, discourses that were to be taken as its own. In Foucauldian terms, it is only possible to talk about Creoles because the object has been constituted as such in discourse. Nor would it be possible to discard the concept, as suggested in the “naming and re-naming” (Chapter 2.2.3) debate – once discursively formed, an entity cannot be simply dropped or “talked away”. However, this does not mean that object formation is stable as such. Rather, it is subject to continuous transformation via interaction in discourse. This continued interaction in various fields will be the focus of the analyses in Chapters 4, 5, and 6. In the remaining part of this chapter, we will now explore how a text-based linguistic discourse analysis may be integrated with the idea of discursive formations and may indeed prove insightful for the particular analysis of changing representations of Creole.

. Approaches to discourse: Linguistic analyses in an interdisciplinary perspective Having explored discourse as a sociological entity in the previous section, this chapter will now turn to the micro-level organization of discourse as the “bottom-end” of a prospective integrated approach. As we have seen in Foucault’s rules for the formation of a concept, there may be a coexistence of statements within a discursive formation (“field of presence”) or between discursive formations (“field of concomitance”). A good example of the latter type is the coexistence of “discourse” as a concept in the (Foucauldian) humanities, social sciences, etc., and “discourse” as a concept in linguistics. The statements organized in this field of concomitance refer to different objects. However, some of the more general principles of the concept bear analogies in both disciplinary fields or discursive formations.

Negotiating language prestige 

This [a field of concomitance, S.M.] includes statements that concern quite different domains of objects, and belong to quite different domains of objects, and belong to quite different types of discourse, but which are active among the statements studied here, either because they serve as analogical confirmation, or because they serve as a general principle and as premises accepted by a reasoning, or because they serve as models that can be transferred to other contents, or because they function as a higher authority than that to which at least certain propositions are presented and subjected. (Foucault 1972: 58)

As a term in the linguistic discipline, discourse is most generally understood as a larger unit of spoken or written language, “language above the sentence or above the clause” (Stubbs 1983: 1) or as a “generic term for various types of text” (Bussmann 1996). But even in the “linguistic sense” (i.e. “within the discursive formation”), there is, of course, a vastly diverging range of definitions and approaches to discourse analysis. One reason for this is that discourse analysis is per se a primarily interdisciplinary endeavour, and linguistic discourse analysis has fruitfully interacted with various approaches from sociology, social psychology, anthropology, psychology, text linguistics, media studies, etc. Beyond the disciplinary orientation, one criterion of distinction may be whether the focus is chiefly on structure (formalist) or on function (functionalist)14 (cf. also Schiffrin 1994: 20ff.). In formalist terms, discourse analysis focuses on the organization of different units or schematic patterns in talk, as well as their relation with each other. Here, discourse analysis often shares interest mainly with text analysis, with a particular focus on coherence, cohesion and deductive rules. For functionalists the focus lies on a different aspect of language: The analysis of discourse is necessarily the analysis of language in use. As such, it cannot be restricted to the description of linguistic forms independent of the purposes or functions which these forms are designed to serve in human affairs. (Brown & Yule 1983: 1)

In a functionalist approach, discourse is assumed to be interdependent with social life and the dynamic character of discourse as construction and interpretation process by the speaker/writer and the listener/reader is emphasized. In the following, we will concentrate on three main disciplinary influences and review some of their proponents for their relevance and suitability in the present study: (i) sociology and discourse (Goffman), (ii) anthropology and discourse (Hymes, Gumperz), and (iii) social psychology and discourse (LePage &Tabouret-Keller, Potter & Wetherell).

 Chapter 3

.. Influences from various disciplines There are a number of pertinent points in various linguistic approaches to discourse which are important for the present purpose: 1. Since the research goal lies in the changing social meanings and functions of Creole use in various contexts, a functionalist paradigm is evidently more useful than a formalist approach. Approaches which are primarily concerned with questions of function in discourse, i.e. anthropological approaches, such as those associated with Dell Hymes’s and John Gumperz’s work, are therefore more relevant for an analysis than those which largely neglect this point (e.g. Conversation Analysis). 2. Since Creole is a socio-cultural entity, which, as has been argued, is negotiated in various fields, linguistic representation must be linked with speaker self-presentation, as in Robert LePage and Andrée Tabouret-Keller’s “acts of identity” model. This will be combined with the idea of changing social roles within talk which has been introduced by the work of Erving Goffman. As will be suggested in the analysis of textual data (e.g. Chapter 4), the act of identity may vary within the same exchange, according to social roles speakers assume in the conversation. 3. It is furthermore clear that the key point to be examined on the microlevel of a discursive framework concerns the interaction between the two codes in question, Standard English versus Creole, and the motivations of selecting one above the other in various circumstances, rather than focus on selections within the grammar of one linguistic system.15 It follows that those approaches, which explicitly focus on code-switching (e.g. Gumperz, Tabouret-Keller), will be considered and drawn on more closely than those which do not pursue this point (e.g. Potter & Wetherell). This does not mean, however, that content will be totally neglected at the expense of form. Rather, the analyses will focus on the link between the two, on both “what has been said” and “which code has been chosen for it”. Some of the main points of the works relevant for our purposes will now be summarized:

i. Sociological approaches Goffman (1959, 1981): Self-presentation and Discourse Processes. One of the main emphases in the work of Erving Goffman is the social self as a social construction or, rather, an interactive construction. He suggests that when individuals interact, they are concerned with presenting and maintaining a public


image of themselves.16 One of the most important aspects of Goffman’s work for the present scope is his consideration of both form and meaning: Goffman’s analyses of the relationship between interpersonal meanings and social structure are balanced by careful attention to both the symbolic value of what is said and done and the more abstract forms of social life [. . . ]. (Schiffrin 1994: 103)

In his later work (1981), Goffman situates the self within a participation framework. Individuals can take (one or more of) four positions, or participation statuses, in the interaction which can be roughly characterized as animator (who produces talk), author (who creates talk), figure (who is portrayed through talk) and/or principal (who is responsible for talk). Additionally, Goffman introduces the concepts of frame (1974) as an organizational and interactional principle by which situations are defined, and footing (1981) as “the alignments we take up to ourselves and the others present as expressed in the way we manage the production or reception of an utterance” (1981: 128).17 For the analysis of Creole in interaction, Goffman’s work provides important insights as to the constitution of speaker identities and interpretations of the situation.

ii. Anthropological approaches Hymes (1962), Gumperz & Hymes (1972): Ethnography of Communication. The most influential approach to discourse and culture certainly is the ethnography of communication, first developed by Dell Hymes (1962),18 later followed up by Gumperz and Hymes (1972). The methods used for investigation are influenced by anthropological methods for which two principles can be seen as central: 1. Holism (linguistic issues are not separated from human experience and behaviour) and 2. Emergence (categories and structures should be discovered rather than preassigned or imposed). Research in the tradition of ethnography of communication allows a number of research procedures, with participant observation and introspection as the most important ones, observation, interviewing, ethnosemantics, ethnomethodology and hermeneutics as supplementary ones (cf. Saville-Troike 1982). Investigation within the speech community focuses on three organizational levels of talk: the speech situation (e.g. church, court, school) speech events (e.g. sermon, cross-examination, school yard gossip) and speech act (e.g. blessing, accusation, joke). Hymes’s approach is most valuable for the investigation of prestige changes of Creole, not only because it covers all areas of social life (not only face-to

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Chapter 3

face interaction), but also because it explicitly includes diachronic investigation (e.g. in written texts) as part of the ethnography of communication.

John Gumperz (1982): Discourse Strategies. John Gumperz’s work on discourse strategies developed out of some earlier ethnographic work on the realization of social categories in language (e.g. Blom & Gumperz 1972).19 His observations on verbal strategies revealed that “an individual’s choice of speech style has symbolic value and interpretive consequences that cannot be explained simply by correlating the incidence of linguistic variants with independently determined social and contextual categories” (Gumperz 1982: vii). Unlike other sociolinguistic approaches, Gumperz also stresses the constitutive nature of language and the negotiation of meaning in interaction: Language forms do not have a social meaning by themselves but only in so far as the participants in the interaction agree on this meaning. The latter is crucial; the social meaning of language does not depend on the speaker alone, not on the hearer alone but on an agreement, the result of negotiation as it were, between speaker and hearer. (Appel & Muysken 1987: 28)

Conversational code-switching explores the social meaning in various kinds of interactions. Gumperz distinguishes between conversational, or metaphorical, code-switching, “where alternation enriches a situation, allowing for allusion to more than one social relationship within the situation” (Blom & Gumperz 1972: 408) and situational code-switching, “where alternation between varieties redefines a situation, being a change in governing norms” (1972: 308, cf. also Gumperz 1982: 60ff). In diglossic situations, as often the case in a Creole situation, code alternation is largely of the situational type, usually quite stable – unless norms are changing. However, as Gumperz observes, language usage in such situations is not merely a matter of conforming to norms of appropriateness, “but is a way of conveying information about values, beliefs and attitudes that must first be discovered through ethnographic investigation, and that in everyday situations define the underlying assumptions with respect to which participants infer what is intended” (Gumperz 1982: 27). Conversational code-switching reveals a more complex relationship of language usage to social context. Gumperz points out that, at first glance, the social norms or rules which govern language usage here may seem to function like grammatical rules; they form part of the underlying knowledge which speakers use to convey meaning.


Rather than claiming that speakers use language in response to a fixed, predetermined set of prescriptions, it seems more reasonable to assume that they build on their own and their audience’s abstract understanding of situational norms, to communicate metaphoric information about how they intend their words to be understood [. . . ]. (1982: 61)

Central here is also speakers’ assessment of the situation, which, according to Gumperz, is signalled by so-called “contextualization cues”,20 “any feature of linguistic form that contributes to the signalling of contextual presuppositions” (Gumperz 1982: 131). These cues may come in a number of linguistic realizations, such as code, dialect and style switching processes, prosody, choice among lexical and syntactic options, formulaic expressions, conversational openings, closings and sequencing strategies (Gumperz 1982: 131). Carol Myers-Scotton (1993: 56) summarizes Gumperz’ crucial research premises in three points: 1. small group interactions are the proper research site and naturally occurring data are the object of study; 2. the social meaning of language use is a function of situated contexts; and 3. the use of linguistic choices as a strategy adds intentional meaning to an utterance. Gumperz’s idea that social norms of language use are created and negotiated in discourse forms the very basis for the present study. The notion of code-choice as motivated by language attitudes and thus related to the language prestige of a code/variety of language is fundamental for analyzing language prestige changes in Creole situations. There is by now a well-established research tradition on discourse and code-selection/code-switching (e.g. Heller 1988; Myers-Scotton 1993, etc.), which has been highly influential in sociolinguistic research of the last two decades and will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 3.3.2.

iii. Socio-psychological approaches Acts of Identity Model: LePage and Tabouret-Keller (1985). Similar to Howard Giles’s speech accommodation theory21 , Robert LePage and Andrée TabouretKeller’s (1985) acts of identity model is concerned with variation in the language use by different social groups and the psychological intergroup dynamics associated with them. Their multidimensional model is described as a more complex process of projection, focusing and diffusion, clearly geared to the multilingual situation (cf. also Chapter 2.3.1):

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Chapter 3

[. . . ] the speaker is projecting his inner universe, implicitly with the invitation to others to share it, at least insofar as they recognize his language as an accurate symbolization of the world, and to share his attitude towards it. By verbalizing as he does, he is seeking to reinforce his models of the world, and hopes for acts of solidarity from those with whom he wishes to identify. (LePage & Tabouret-Keller 1985: 181)

The speakers may either be reinforced by the feedback they get from their interlocutors, or it “may cause him to modify his projections, both in their form and in their content”. LePage and Tabouret-Keller predict a focusing, i.e. a regularization of behaviour, in the case of reinforcement; in the case of an accommodation to others the behaviour “may for a time become more variable, more diffuse, but in time the behaviour of the group – that is, he and those with whom he is trying to identify – will become more focused”. (LePage & Tabouret-Keller 1985: 181). The advantages of the LePage/Tabouret-Keller model lie in the following points: – – – – –

the expansion of speech accommodation from individual to communal acts of identity, the speakers (rather than the analysts) identify the groups on which to model their behaviour, the symbolic value of the code itself, as an “accurate symbolization of the world”, the focus not only on participant relations, but also on topic and setting, the focus not only on form (like in Giles’s accommodation model), but also on content.

The disadvantages are that this “symbolic value” of the code itself is not further examined and it remains somewhat elusive what precisely the speech act is in the specific situations. Furthermore, LePage and Tabouret-Keller are concerned almost exclusively with units of spoken utterances. Other kinds of texts and their representation of the codes are not considered.

Discourse and Social Psychology: Potter and Wetherell (1987). Jonathan Potter and Margaret Wetherell are psychologists who take up a number of language-based models of discourse analysis for their study on “attitudes and beyond”. Their starting point is somewhat different from the ones described above, and their research objects are mainly social issues (e.g. racism), rather than language attitudes or the social meaning of variation. Their work is nevertheless useful as a challenge to traditional attitude theories, in that they stress both the variability of attitudes in different contexts, as well as the “construc-


tion of the attitudinal object in discourse” (1987: 54). Their view is that “a much more powerful explanation [of attitudes, S.M.] can be given if the researcher looks at the organization of discourse in relation to function and context” (1987: 54). The focus, therefore, shifts from “a search for underlying entities – attitudes – which generate talk and behaviour to a detailed examination of how evaluative expressions are produced in discourse” (1987: 55). Speech act theory, ethnomethodology as well as semiology are all advocated for this kind of analysis. However, their approach has also been criticized (Fairclough 1992), in that their distinction between form and content is often not clear. Generally, Potter and Wetherell’s work tends to deal more with content (vocabulary and metaphor) analysis than with form (e.g. as in Giles’s accommodation theory). Fairclough (1992: 25) points out that “their [Potter and Wetherell’s] ‘content’ amounts to limited aspects of the ‘ideational’22 or conceptual meaning of discourse, which leaves untouched other (broadly, ‘interpersonal’) dimensions of meaning and associated aspects of form”. After this brief summary of the main general influences for our textoriented discourse analysis, emphasis will now be placed on code choice and identity negotiation in a Creole context. .. Creole discourse: Code choice and identity negotiation Language variation for signalling cultural or sociological differentiation is not necessarily specific to multilingual speech communities – some degree of mixing, be it in the form of very different varieties (Chinese – English) or in the form of dialectal or stylistic varieties can be observed in all communities, i.e. to some extent, all communities and speakers are heteroglossic. Nor is the idea of language variation as identity negotiation a recent field of interest in linguistics: heteroglossia, a term associated with Russian linguist, philosopher, and literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin, argues against the linguistic homogeneity which has been assumed by most linguists, philosophers and philologists as an ideological construction, historically tied to the process of nation building in eighteenth century Europe. The concept of raznorecie (Russ. for “heteroglossia”) tries to capture the multitude of voices or linguistically constructed personae within the speech of a single person. As Malena (1999: 11) notes: For Bakhtin then, individuality is achieved through a processual relationship with society. Since language plays a primary role in this relationship, he examines the utterance as representative of the conflictual dialogic process that

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Chapter 3

takes place within the individual and which also reflects the inner tensions of society.

More recently, code-switching and variation within utterances has featured prominently in linguistic research in the last two decades and has produced a number of highly relevant studies (e.g. Gumperz 1982; Heller 1988; MyersScotton 1993; Milroy & Muysken 1995; Auer 1998). Since code-switching is concerned with the use of more than one language, dialect/sociolect or style23 within discourse, it is per se tied to the different general approaches to discourse and their questions, such as on the formal restrictions/occurrences of code-switching in an utterance or sentence, or the social motivations and interpretations of code-switching. Stroud distinguishes between two basic lines of research. The first is concerned with extra-conversational (ethnographically recoverable) meaning of code-switching and subscribes to “some form of the view that the social meanings of conversational code-switches are carried by a set of social categories ‘metaphorically symbolized by particular languages’ [. . . ]” (Stroud 1998: 321), the second one deals with conversational meaning of code-switching and “question[s] the primacy of macrostructural or societal contributions to the social meanings of code-switching, that particular languages stand as metaphors for, and see the meanings of code-switching as emerging out of the sequential and negotiated development of conversational interaction” (Stroud 1998: 322). It is notable that most researchers who adhere to the extra-conversational meaning of code-switching work on language situations with prestige differences between the codes in question, codes which can be distinguished in their cultural belongings and connotations, and which invite the discrimination between “us” and “them”-codes (e.g. Sebba & Wootton 1998 on London Jamaican versus London English, Rampton 1998 on inter-ethnic communication among adolescents in Britain, Stroud 1998 on Tok Pisin versus Taiap in Papua New Guinea). In this way, they follow Gumperz’s (1982: 66) postulate that at the most general level it can be said that grammatical distinctions which mark the bilinguals’ two codes directly reflect or signal the contrasting cultural styles and standards of evaluation which they encounter in daily interaction. The tendency is for the ethnically specific, minority language to be regarded as the ‘we code’ and become associated with in-group and informal activities, and for the majority language to serve as the ‘they code’ associated with the more formal, stiffer and less personal out-group relations.


However, Gumperz also contends that the association between speech style and group identity is a symbolic one and does not predict actual usage. He claims that there is no direct link between the occurrence of a particular set of linguistic forms and extralinguistic context and that the interpretation of the social meaning of code-choice in each situation is thus subject to discourse context, social presuppositions and speakers’ background knowledge. While Myers-Scotton (1993) in many ways follows Gumperz’s ideas (cf. Myers-Scotton 1993: 45 ff.), she also specifies some of his ideas and offers a restriction to Gumperz’s view that there almost always is a “variety of options” (Gumperz 1982: 66). In Myers-Scotton’s exploration of socio-psychological uses of juxtaposed multiple language production in East African settings she looks at how CS is used to convey intentional (i.e. non-code-based) meanings of a socio-pragmatic nature. Her research question: “what do bilingual speakers gain by conducting a conversation in two languages?” is essentially a question for sociopsychological functions of code-switching which, even though her examples are primarily tied to specific settings (Kenya and Zimbabwe), she asserts, have a more universal character (Myers-Scotton 1993: 3). While stressing the general functions of code-switching, Myers-Scotton manifests that for each situation, the language-specific connotations have to be considered: “it seems clear that CS exploits the socio-psychological attributes which languages assume in a specific community based on its patterns of language use.” (1993: 3). One of Myers-Scotton’s main contributions to explaining socio-psychological motivations for code-switching is her markedness-model. The main idea of the markedness-model is that of marked versus unmarked language choices in different situations. The main idea behind the markedness model proposes that speakers have a sense of markedness regarding available linguistic codes for any interaction, but choose their codes based on the persona and/or relation with others which they wish to have in place. This markedness has a normative basis within the community, and speakers also know the consequences of making marked or unexpected choices. (Myers-Scotton 1993: 75)

The concept of markedness thus implies that code choice is viewed as a system of oppositions which are understood as indexing rights and obligation sets (RO sets) in a particular type of interaction. It distinguishes between the unmarked code in the specific interaction as the “Matrix Language” (ML = main language) and the unmarked choice as the “Embedded Language” (EL

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Chapter 3

= lesser language). Matrix Model offers explanation for socio-psychological motivations [. . . ] CS in general is a type of skilled performance with communicative intent. From the socio-psychological point of view, CS can be characterized as symptomatic either (a) of an unwillingness or an uncertainty on the speaker’s part regarding the commitment to indexing any single rights-and-obligations set between participants in a conversation, or (b) of a negotiation to change the rights- and-obligations set [italics in the original, S.M.]. (Myers-Scotton 1993: 6)

Myers-Scotton explains the indexicality of a rights-and-obligations set with the specific socio-psychological associations of each language variety. According to her, this set is derived from important situational features (like status of the participants, topic or setting) and relevant cultural values in the specific interaction type. .. A functional perspective on code-switching The most crucial questions, however, remain: what are the functions of codeswitching? What meaning does it have in discourse to make a choice for one or the other variety? And, more particularly, what motivations can a speaker have to switch to a “marked code” in a specific interaction? The idea of various functions of language has also been explored for monolingual communication and dates back to early communication models such as Karl Bühler’s (1934) Organon-model, which differentiates between three dimensions in the relationship, i.e. between speaker, hearer and message: referential (message-oriented), emotive/expressive (speaker-oriented) and directive/conative (hearer-oriented). A basic distinction between conveying content and interacting with the interlocutor (real or imagined, as in writing) has been drawn by many scholars, ranging from Bühler to Roland Barthes. Halliday and Hasan (1975: 26–27), for instance, write about the this distinction (“interpersonal function”): The interpersonal component is concerned with the social, expressive and conative functions of language, with expressing the speaker’s “angle”: his attitudes and judgments, his encoding of the role relationships into the situation, and his motive in saying anything at all. We can summarize these by saying that the ideational component represents the speaker in his role as observer, while the interpersonal component represents the speaker in his role as intruder.


A distinction between two types of meaning, referential and social (or socioexpressive), has also been made by Hymes. As Halliday (1978: 63) himself remarks, this distinction is roughly equivalent with the first two functions of Halliday’s triadic system, comprising ideational, interpersonal and textual components. These components are based on a three-way categorization of the situational determinants of text into “field”, “tenor” and “mode”. Following functionalists like Hymes (1962) or Jakobson (1987 [1960]), one may distinguish between six types of functions: 1. the referential (also: ‘denotative’, ‘cognitive’) function: information-oriented, reference to extralinguistic reality, as Jakobson (1987: 66) points out, “the leading task of numerous messages”. 2. the directive and integrative (also: ‘conative’) function: addressee-oriented, by using, for instance, imperatives, exclamations, and questions, contacts are made with others. 3. the expressive function: orientation on the presentation of the self, e.g. by making one’s feelings and attitudes known. 4. the phatic function: orientation on communication itself, e.g. by using conventionalized openings, closings, and ways to signal turn-taking, also by using language forms that identify the in-group within which interaction is taking place. 5. the metalinguistic function: orientation on the medium, by using language the speaker’s attitude towards and awareness of language use and linguistic norms are made known. 6. the poetic function: orientation on language, by means of verbal play (jokes, puns and other word play), as well as conscious style and register shifts, the use of language is the very goal of this function. (cf. Appel & Muysken 1987: 29–30) Appel & Muysken (1987: 30) point out that functions can be hierarchically arranged (from the most formal to the most intimate situation) and attributed to different situations. However, their model presupposes a rather deterministic link between domain/situation and language function (e.g. “institutions – referential, work – directive, the street – expressive”, etc.), which seems by far too static a pattern, even in monolingual situations. With regard to bilingual/multilingual situations, a link between language function, situation and code-choice is made explicit in an integrative functional model, as they claim, “the notion of function links the deterministic [e.g. domain-determined, S.M.] with the interaction-centered approaches” (1987: 31).

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Integrative functional model according to Appel & Muysken (1987: 31): social norms imply a certain functional separation

(domain/diglossia)

individuals have a variety of codes with different functions at their disposal

a social event calls for a specific code with a certain function

(interaction-centered)

Figure 3. Abstract representation of language choice

However, this model also fails to provide an integrative approach since it does not take into consideration the possibility of different functions within an interaction in a multilingual context. The notion of “social event” seems too close to the domain concept and does not register various levels of interaction within a situation.24 Besides, it presupposes that the codes are already determined according to their function in the life of a bilingual speaker. Such a deterministic view is not shared by Gumperz (1982), who emphasizes the idea of code-choice as negotiated meaningful interaction in the speech situation. He remarks that the situations where code-switching can occur reflect “conditions of change marked by diversity of values, norms of language usage and standards of grammaticality that cut across commonly recognized ethnic boundaries” (1982: 75). Based on his data, Gumperz suggests the following typology of functions of conversational code-switching: A. B. C. D. E. F.

Quotation Addressee Specification Interjections Reiteration Message Qualification Personalization versus Objectivization

This typology essentially explains situations where code-switching might occur, but it does not explain the motivations of speakers, which in some instances might be self-explanatory (e.g. quotations), while in others they are not


Table 10. Types and functions of code-switches Type of switch (Gumperz)

Function

A. Quotation B. Addressee specification C. Interjections D. Reiteration E. Message qualification F. Personalization vs. objectivization

Expressive Directive Phatic referential or metalinguistic referential or metalinguistic expressive versus referential

(e.g. interjections). These functions of code-switching also seem far removed from the classical model of language functions (cf. Hymes’s model above). However, at closer inspection, a link between Gumperz’s functions of codeswitching may indeed be linked with Hymes’s functional typology to provide some insight into the reasons for a switch. Thus, A (quotation) as a change from ‘author’ to animator’ (cf. Goffman) of the message relates back to the speaker and can be seen as expressive; B (addressee specification) relates directly to the addressee and represents the directive function, C (interjections) focuses on speaker-hearer relationships and thus serves a phatic function. The next three situations may be more complex and affect a number of different functions, e.g. D (reiteration) could be exercised for referential reasons (when the message/information is not sure to be understood in one code) or metalinguistic reasons (to reveal one’s attitudes about a code, cf. example in Gumperz 1982: 79). Similarly, E (message qualification) may have multifunctional reasons, both referential and metalinguistic functions, whereas F (personalization versus objectivization) strikes one exactly as the distinction between an expressive versus referential focus within the utterance. Myers-Scotton (1993) goes a step further in explaining speaker motivations on code choice. Not only does her Markedness Model distinguish between code-switching as marked or as unmarked choice, but also are the motivations of making a marked choice placed within a socio-pragmatic framework, drawing on work such as Brown & Levinson’s politeness theory (1987). But her theory of code-choice is more speaker-oriented than audience-oriented, in contrast to both Brown & Levinson and Giles’s accommodation theory. According to Myers-Scotton (1993: 131), when a speaker makes a marked choice, he or she dis-identifies with the expected RO (rights- and-obligations) set in the situation. The meaning of the marked choice is derived from two sources: “first, since it is not the unmarked choice, it is a negotiation against the unmarked R[ights and] O[bligations] set; and second, as ‘something else’, the marked

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choice is a call for another RO set in its place, that for which the speaker’s choice is the unmarked index” (ibid). Myers-Scotton’s functional model lists the following possibilities: 1. Codeswitching (CS) as a sequence of unmarked choices – when situational factors change within the interaction 2. CS is itself an unmarked choice when the speaker wishes to index two identities or “attitudes” toward the interaction (= two RO sets) simultaneously 3. CS as a marked choice when a speaker wishes to negotiate a RO set other than the unmarked one. The overall motivation here is to negotiate a change in the expected social distance holding between participants, either increasing or decreasing it (cf. also LePage/Tabouret-Keller, Giles). In more detail, such negotiations are listed by Myers-Scotton as follows: a. Use of marked CS to increase the social distance via authority/anger b. Marked CS as an ethnically-based exclusion strategy c. The message is the medium d. Marked CS for aesthetic effect e. Marked choices as echoic f. Speakers as entrepreneurs g. Structural flagging Most of these marked choices correspond with particular micro-functions, e.g. a) as a speaker-oriented negotiation would be associated with an expressive function, b) with a directive function, c) as a metalinguistic message, d) a poetic function. The motivations for the last few choices on Myers-Scotton’s list remain somewhat more elusive: e) the “echo” of a marked choice is explained as that they “call up ‘something different’ from what has been presented thus far or is expected” (1993: 140), f) the speaker is presented as an “entrepreneur”, who weighs the relative costs and rewards in making a marked choice; g) structural flagging calls attention to the marked choice, in particular phonological flagging (e.g. pitch change). 4. CS as an exploratory choice when the unmarked RO set is uncertain.

. Linking the social and the text: Towards an integrative framework To provide a connection between linguistic discourse analysis and the larger social world is not an entirely new endeavour. Rather, as we have seen above, it is part of the explicit agenda of most functionalist research in discourse to


consider the links between language and social structure. One of the main proponents of an interdependence between the social and the text has been Halliday (1978: 191), who claims that “[. . . ] while it [language, S.M.] represents reality referentially, through its words and structures, also represents reality metaphorically through its own internal and external form”. He makes a distinction between, firstly, “the functional organization of the semantics”, which symbolizes the structure of human interaction, and, secondly, “dialectal and ‘diatypic’ (register) variation [which] symbolize respectively the structure of society and the structure of human knowledge”. For Halliday, linguistic norms are maintained, modified and changed in a constant process of interaction and agreement. As he points out below, the symbolic power of social variation in language to reflect social structure is basically linked by the socio-psychological status of the varieties in question. [. . . ] linguistic structure is the realization of social structure, actively symbolizing it in a process of mutual creativity. Because it stands as a metaphor for society, language has the property of not only transmitting the social order but also maintaining and potentially modifying it. (This is undoubtedly the explanation of the violent attitudes that under certain social conditions come to be held by one group towards the speech of others. A different set of vowels is perceived as the symbol of a different set of values, and hence takes on the character of a threat.) Variation in language is the symbolic expression of variation in society: it is created by society, and helps to create society in turn. Of the two kinds of variation in language, that of dialect expresses the diversity of social structure, that of register expresses the diversity of social process. The interaction of dialect and register in language expresses the interaction of structure and process in society. (Halliday 1978: 186)

Halliday’s concept of language as social semiotic forms a powerful site of interaction between text and society, stressing both the representative and the constructive force of language. If Halliday’s claims hold true for variation and options within one linguistic system, can they also be transferred to variation between two linguistic systems, as in the choices between Creole and English in a particular text? Research on code-switching suggests that for the multilingual speaker, language alternation follows meachanisms similar to variation within one system. Notwithstanding the sociological autonomy of Creole, its long-standing relationship with the lexifier in a multilingual setting, which has been described for the case of Standard English and CELCs in a multilingual setting (cf. Chapter 2.3), makes variation between the two codes largely a symbolic option for a different set of values, similar to Halliday’s vowel example for dialectal variation above.

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 Chapter 3

Thus, the choices made for one or the other code become negotiations of language prestige. In a constant process of interaction and agreement, these are expressions of social change wherever existing norms are violated. New norms are created where various discourse forms stand side by side in competitive interaction. Drawing on much of Halliday’s work, Norman Fairclough in his Discourse and Social Change (1992) makes an explicit link between what he calls “TextOriented Discourse Analysis” (TODA) and discourse as knowledge and power production such as in Foucault’s work. Additionally, the scope of his “social theory of discourse” (Fairclough 1992: 62 ff.) combines a whole range of philosophical, literary and linguistic traditions, from Foucauldian views of discourse, a Bakhtinian emphasis on intertextuality to the “texture” aspect of texts (Halliday & Hasan) and ethnomethodological conversation analysis. While stressing the connection between the social and the text, Fairclough warns against oversimplifying the determinative aspect in this relationship: It is important that the relationship between discourse and social structure should be seen dialectically if we are to avoid the pitfalls of overemphasizing on the one hand the social determination of discourse, and on the other hand the construction of the social in discourse. The former turns discourse into a mere reflection of a deeper social reality, the latter idealistically represents discourse as the source of the social. (Fairclough 1992: 65)

In order to avoid these pitfalls, Fairclough specifically focuses on the boundaries between the social and the text, the space where the two are mediated by a third dimension of “discursive practice”. The phrase “discursive practice” is again associated with Foucault, as “a body of anonymous, historical rules, always determined in the time and space that have defined a given period, and for a given social, economic and geographical area, the conditions of operation of the enunciative function” (Foucault 1972: 117). What this seems to suggest, when applied to texts (as enunciative function), is that text production and interpretation and the meaning created by them is largely dependent on the societal parameters established in a given period. This dependence should not be seen as a static and unalterable one. Bex (1996: 60–61) stresses the role of the individual in the negotiation between text production (authorship) and social control: Following Foucault to his logical conclusion, it would seem that we are imprisoned within sets of discursive practices which determine what we can say [. . . ].In particular, he suggests that the attribution of authorship is both an act of appropriation and a means of social control. It is an act of appropriation to


the extent that it assigns property rights to a discourse that is communally constructed; and a means of social control in that it enables society to identify and punish particular individuals who engage in subversive discourses. Foucault’s argument is logically coherent, but tends to ignore the role that individuals have in contributing to and altering particular discourses.

In Fairclough’s definition, discursive practice is manifested in linguistic form (text) while at the same time representing a particular type of social practice. It encompasses more than social norms of linguistic usage, but focuses also upon processes of text production, distribution and consumption: The central concern is to trace explanatory connections between ways (normative, innovative, etc.) in which texts are put together and interpreted, how texts are produced, distributed and consumed in a wider sense, and the nature of the social practice in terms of its relation to social structures and struggles. (Fairclough 1992: 72)

These processes may be more or less complex and differ vastly between different types of discourse according to social factors. The production, distribution and consumption of a casual conversation, for instance, is much more immediate and part of the actual situation than, say, that of a literary novel, where conditions of these processes are mediated, governed and transformed by a whole range of institutional decisions. Decision-making in a casual conversation is usually up to the interlocutors only;25 choices such as code-selection may nevertheless be equally complex and have to consider existing social practices for the situation, as well as the compliance or violation of these. Fairclough’s three-dimensional conception of discourse is represented in the diagram below:

TEXT DISCURSIVE PRACTICE (production, distribution, consumption) SOCIAL PRACTICE

Figure 4. Three-dimensional conception of discourse (Fairclough 1992: 73)



 Chapter 3

The discursive force-field (cf. also Chapter 2.3.3), which operates between the macro-forces of society and the micro-functions in the text, achieves its dynamic by processes of interaction and agreement, by the continually posed question “what has become acceptable linguistic behaviour at a given time in a given situation?” It is at this interface of conflicting norms and competing discourses where, in the case of options between different varieties, language prestige is being negotiated. Particular discourse forms achieve status to the extent that they conform to the discursive practices of the larger social unit. Any assessment of language prestige and language prestige changes therefore has to consider a number of points which, I argue, have so far been neglected in language status assessment and the traditional approach to language attitude study. Especially with regard to the intricate relationship Creole versus Standard English, culturally coded meanings and re-negotiations of such meanings as forms of discursive practice must be taken into account. This means especially: –

–

–

emphasis on the connection between macro-forces (social practices) and micro-functions (code-choice) in discourse, rather than on H/L dichotomies in domain configurations emphasis on discourse communities and discursive force fields, rather than on an assumed “national” (Jamaican, Guyanese, Trinidadian, etc.) speech community methodological emphasis on qualitative ethnographic and textual data, rather than on quantitative and experimental sources (cf. methodological discussion Chapter 3.1.)

The following three chapters will explore Creole language prestige and its potential changes by using such an integrative framework. The negotiation of language prestige will be investigated in three discursive force-fields, all of which involve a shift from the original locus of language. These three discursive force-fields shall serve as examples. They are by no means exhaustive; however, the particular fields chosen are especially interesting, in that their micro-functional changes interact. Secondly, they differ widely in their production, consumption and distribution, and thus represent different degrees of a) level of linguistic abstraction, b) level of reflection in the production, and c) widening of distribution, i.e. increase of potential audience. In this chapter, we have examined the theoretical and methodological basis of discursive practices by looking at the foundations of discourse analysis both from a (Foucauldian) sociological macro-perspective, as well as from a microperspective – through the various approaches in linguistic discourse analysis.

Negotiating language prestige 

I. Shift of Location: Representations of Creole in the urban diaspora (Chapter 4): Identity constitution and Identity shift in the urban diaspora Self-positioning (interviews) & positioning in verbal interaction (casual conversations) Code-choice and communicative function in the spoken text

Figure 5. Creole discourse in the urban diaspora

II. Shift of Medium: Representations of Creole in writing (Chapter 5) Literature as a social representation Writing as a reflected, mediated and edited process Code-choice and communicative function in the written text

Figure 6. Creole discourse in writing

We have seen that Foucault’s notion of discursive formations provides a useful framework for coming to terms with the conception of Creole in its historical context. Applying Foucault’s rules of discursive formations to Creole, it has become clear that the concept of Creole is not there because of any objectively perceptible criteria of difference to other languages, but rather because it has been formed discursively. A Foucauldian view makes transparent the relationship between apparently isolated events and statements and places these

 Chapter 3

III. Shift of Language: Representations of Creole in translation (Chapter 6) Translation as cultural representation Translation as reflected, mediated, translated and edited process Code-choice and communicative function in the written text

Figure 7. Creole Discourse in translation I spoken

II written

III translated

a) least abstract---------------------------------------------------------------most abstract b) least reflected and mediated--------------------------------------------most reflected c) most tied to immediate presence-----------------least confined in time and space

Figure 8. Level of abstraction, reflection and distribution

discursive incidents into a historical and social context (cf. Chapter 2), also connecting the formation of Creole to discourses in other fields. It thus forms the linkage between our explorations of Creole language prestige, as defined and shaped in the past (Chapters 1 and 2), and our exploration of ongoing prestige change in various discursive fields in the following chapters (Chapters 4, 5, and 6). We have furthermore looked at various approaches to linguistic discourse analysis, with influences from sociology (Goffman), anthropology (Hymes, Gumperz) and social psychology (LePage & Tabouret-Keller, Potter & Wetherell). All of these were examined for their viability in capturing communicative changes of Creole use and their motivations, with a special focus on code choice and identity negotiation. The formulation of an integrative framework combines both linguistic discourse analysis with (changing) functions of Creole in the text and the wider social discourse on Creole as it is manifest in social practices. Drawing on Fair-

Negotiating language prestige 

clough’s (1992) integrative framework, we have proposed to consider social practice, discursive practice and text analysis in various discursive “force fields” (Mair & Sand 1998). The three productive force-fields chosen for analysis are (i) Creole discourse in the diaspora (Chapter 4), (ii) Creole discourse in writing (Chapter 5), and Creole discourse in translation (Chapter 6). These interact at various points in their changes of micro-functions while differing widely in their production, consumption and distribution, and thus represent different degrees of linguistic abstraction, of reflection in the production, and of vicinity to speaker or producer.

Notes . The “matched guise technique” is an indirect investigation method which was first introduced by Wallace Lambert and his associates (e. g. Lambert et al. 1969) for the study language attitudes. Its main principle is that speakers fluent in various languages or language varieties are recorded on the same topic or reading the same passage. These speech samples are presented to judges as if each passage had been read by different speakers. The listeners are then asked to rate the speakers on characteristics such as intelligence, social class, or likeability. If the same speaker is rated differently in different “guises”, the difference in language or language variety has to account for it since factors such as voice quality or content of the recorded passage are excluded with this method. . Within a sociolinguistic theoretical framework, such an approach may be closely associated with (quantitative) Labovian sociolinguistics. . Cf., for instance, Beckford Wassink (1999). . The label “critical social psychology” (similar to “critical linguistics”) is understood to distinguish itself from “mainstream” ideas of the academic field, especially in their questioning of ideological positions of already existing traditions, often from an explicitly Marxist or Neo-Marxist point of view. As Wodak (1989: xiv) states in her introduction to Language, Power, and Ideology, “a critical analysis should not remain descriptive and neutral: the interests guiding such an analysis are aimed at uncovering injustice, inequality, taking sides with the powerless and suppressed”. It is clear, however, that this self-appointed “critical position” of the proponents is a subject position which is itself not beyond criticism. . This does not mean, however, that the researcher uncritically adopts the position of the “object”. . I use the term text here to designate a written or verbal unit of interaction which bears text-specific features (coherence, cohesion, etc.). Halliday (1978: 60) refers to text as basic unit of semantic structure which “has no connotation of size; it may refer to speech act, speech event, topic unit, exchange, episode, narrative and so on”. Text in the post-structural tradition is, of course, much broader a concept than that and refers to any system of meaning, including visual images. The present study, however, will limit its scope to verbal and written communication.

 Chapter 3 . The problem of definition arises because there have been concurrent developments in various disciplines (linguistics, philosophy, psychology, sociology, anthropology, literary studies, communication studies) with a whole spectre of different theoretical approaches. It is, as has been pointed out frequently, perfectly possible to have two books on discourse analysis with virtually no overlap in content at all. . Cf., for instance, Hulme (1986) or Greenblatt (1991). . It is notable that in his own discussion of method (1972: 15) Foucault’s definition is mainly one of negation and exclusion: “– My aim is not to transfer to the field of history, and more particularly to the history of knowledge [. . . ], a structuralist method that has proved valuable in other fields of analysis. My aim is to uncover the principles and consequences of an autochthonous transformation that is taking place in the field of historical knowledge. It may well be that this transformation, the problem that it raises, the tools that it uses, the concepts that emerge from it, and the results that it obtains are not entirely foreign to what is called structural analysis. But this kind of analysis is not specifically used; – my aim is most decidedly not to use the categories of cultural totalities (whether world-views, ideal types, the particular spirit of an age) in order to impose on history, despite itself, the forms of structural analysis”. . Foucault uses the term “discursive practice”. . Note, however, disciplines and discursive formations are not the same: Foucault would reject a simple one-to-one equation between disciplines and discursive formations even though there can be (and often are) large overlaps between the two. . Cf. especially DeGraff ’s (2001a) criticism on “Neo-Darwinian linguistics” where he traces back concepts (“primitive languages”, Creoles as “Ursprachen”) to early 19th century notions of language evolution. . For botanical metaphors, cf. also Cust quote in Chapter 2.2.2. . The difference between a formalist versus functionalist paradigm is, of course, not limited to discourse analysis but features in many other aspects of linguistic analysis, too (e.g. Labov’s focus on structure in sociolinguistics versus Hymes’s focus on function), cf. also Hymes (1974a: 79) for a list of distinctions. . This would represent the approach of functional grammar (e.g. Halliday and his associates) who see the grammar of a language as a system of choices from which speakers select an option according to social circumstances. The underlying assumption is that the choices are always significant since formal options have contrastive meanings. . Central to this public self-presentation is the notion of “face”, as “the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact” (Goffman 1967: 5), and whose maintenance is built into the very pattern of interaction. This maintenance of face can be observed in interpersonal rituals, both avoidance rituals (acts signalling distance to interlocutor) and presentational rituals (acts signalling relationship between actor and recipient). . As Schiffrin (1994: 104) notes, Goffman’s concept of footing is similar to the kind of mechanisms Gumperz has identified as “contextualization cues” (cf. below). This may not be surprising since Goffman and Gumperz have repeatedly and publicly referred to each other’s work (e.g. Gumperz 1982: 130 ff.).

Negotiating language prestige . Influenced by linguistic traditions such as the Prague Circle functionalism, Firth’s contextualization and Sapir’s relativism (Hymes 1974a: 5), Hymes sees his own approach as fundamentally distinct from other sociolinguistic orientations, as “socially constituted linguistics” concerned with social functions and patterns of communication. Hymes re-defined the (Chomskyan) term competence to “communicative competence”, emphasizing that a speaker’s competence goes far beyond grammatical knowledge and includes knowledge of culturally appropriate ways to speak to different people about different things in different settings. . Blom & Gumperz (1972) “Social meaning in linguistic structure: code-switching in Norway” can be seen as the starting point of scholarly engagement with the meaning of choice between two (or more) varieties. . Cf. also Goffman’s “footings”. . Howard Giles’s (1973, 1975, 1977) accommodation theory takes into account the positioning of the speaker as well as solidarity and distance towards the interlocutor which are expressed via code-choice. They argue that language choice cannot be adequately explained by referring to situational factors but, rather, that interpersonal relations have to be emphasized. In its core, accommodation theory is derived from social psychological research on “similarity-attraction”: by reducing the number of dissimilarities between her-or himself and the other, a person can induce someone else to evaluate her or him more favourably. “Speakers will automatically adjust themselves to each other, both in gestures and often positioning the body and in the type of speech. This may carry over to bilingual settings, and one way of interpreting the choice of a particular language is in terms of the other speaker’s language and identity.” (Appel & Muysken 1987: 28). Giles’s theory may thus be seen as an important contribution also to the evaluation of languages and language varieties in multilingual settings such as are the rule for CELC languages. There are, however, a number of points which have to be considered: 1. Giles’s approach is largely concerned with form, not with meaning. The only meaning component lies in the assumption that accommodation is motivated by the wish to establish social distance or vicinity. Situational variables do not feature as important clues for the interpretation of variation. 2. The notion of accommodation rather than code-switching presupposes a continuum (based on linguistic forms) rather than two distinct codes (based on speaker intention and hearer interpretation). . This term is part of the Hallidayan functional model and roughly corresponds to the “referential function” of other functional models (e.g. by Hymes, etc.). . Definitions of code-switching vary according to whether variation within one linguistic system is also included. . Cf. Hymes’s three-level model of speech situation, speech event and speech act. . Note, however, Goffman’s (1981) distinction between different roles (animator, author, figure and principal) in a speech situation.



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[. . . ] instead of thinking of identity as an already accomplished fact, which the new cultural practices then represent, we should think, instead, of identity as a ’production’, which is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within, not outside, representation. (Hall 1990: 222)

Chapter 4

From speech community to discourse communities Changing Creole representations in the urban diaspora

. Creole transplanted: Nation, migration and the speech community This chapter presents the first of the three “discursive force fields” (cf. Chapter 3.4) which shall be explored in their negotiation of CELC language prestige. As the sub-title “changing Creole representations in the urban diaspora” suggests, this exploration goes beyond the boundaries of the individual Caribbean country and, what is more, it shifts the focus geographically from the Caribbean region to London, one of the primary destinations of Caribbean post-war migration. One may legitimately ask why such a shift of location should be necessary or indeed relevant for our exploration of Creole language prestige? After all, is not Creole an even more “marginal” language in the metropolis (both demographically and in its socio-cultural meaning), on the verge of disappearing in the language of third generation West Indian migrants, as common patterns for most immigrant communities suggest?1 And in what way are developments in Creole language prestige in the diaspora2 of any concern to the CELC-speaking countries? This chapter argues that any uni-dimensional and clear-cut model of language shift would seem too simple for real-life processes in the migrant community, because these are negotiated between social practices of Creole identity politics and textual practices of Creole use. For the latter, we shall take into account processes of code-switching and language mixing, resulting in new linguistic forms which are used for particular functions. Social practices of resistance and shifting identity may create new groups of speakers while others are submerged in the majority language. We will therefore depart from the traditional framework (outlined in Chapter 1) for examining the various dimensions of language prestige within

 Chapter 4

national or regional boundaries, as it has been applied in earlier CELC prestige investigations (cf. Winford 1976; Rickford 1983; Mühleisen 1993, 2001a; Beckford Wassink 1999). We have seen that the similarities in all previous research in this area are obvious enough to redirect the focus of our interest towards the common roots, links, parallel developments and continued interaction of language prestige of CELC languages. We have seen that, from its earliest beginnings, discourse on Creole is not confined to the individual nation, but has common socio-political, epistemological and etymological roots (2.2), is shaped by the discursive modes of its relationship with Standard English (2.3) and, as shall be developed in this chapter, engages in an ongoing renegotiation of this relationship, both inside and outside its local ties. Against the background of the common roots and parallel developments explored in Chapter 2, this chapter foregrounds the continued interaction in the development and change of language prestige and, more specifically, migration as one of the sources of this interaction. Placed into the discourse analytical framework outlined in Chapter 3, changes in social practice and language function of Creole will be explored in distant, yet linked communities, where CELC languages are in a continued contact and interaction situation. As Gumperz (1982: 6) points out, Because it makes no assumptions about sharedness of rules or evaluative norms, the interpretive approach to conversation is particularly revealing in modern urbanized societies where social boundaries are diffuse, where intensive communication with speakers of differing backgrounds is the rule rather than the exception and signalling conventions may vary from situation to situation.

It is thus that migration may be seen as one of the most powerful catalysts for a prestige change of CELC languages. Before turning to our actual investigation of Creole identity politics and Creole use in the urban diaspora (Chapters 4.3 & 4.4), we must begin by addressing the questions outlined at the outset of this chapter: firstly, the question of speech community and its relation to conceptions of nation or ethnic group (4.1.1) and, secondly, migration and its relevance for Creole communities (4.1.2). These two questions will now be discussed in more detail, because they point to the fundamental assumptions made for the discursive force field of Creole representations in the urban diaspora.

From speech community to discourse communities 

.. The question of speech community When looking at CELC languages beyond their national borderlines, we may well have to search for other cornerstones which serve to delimit their reach. Does an (assumed) global connectedness mean that the idea of a local or ethnic community has become irrelevant? If not, what then offers an appropriate framework to analyse language ideology and language prestige change? These questions lead us to the problem of how to define an appropriate reference group for sociolinguistic analysis, i.e. what comprises a “speech community”. Even though in actual practice, speech communities are often linked to nationality or ethnicity, especially in multingual settings (e.g. the Greek, the Japanese or the West African speech communities in Britain),3 sociolinguistics from its earliest beginnings has struggled to come up with more subtle and sophisticated answers to this question. Some of the more important ones will be discussed in the following. Straightforward and rather simplistic definitions of a speech community as “all the people who use a given language (or dialect)” (Lyons 1970: 326) fail in their assumption of homogeneous varieties. Labov (1972: 293) sees the speech community not so much defined by a marked agreement in the use of language elements, as by “participation in a set of shared norms; these norms may be observed in overt types of evaluative behaviour, and by the uniformity of abstract patterns of variation which are invariant in respect to particular levels of usage”. Thus, Labov’s criteria rest on shared norms of both variation and evaluation in the speech community. Dell Hymes, on the other hand, looks at speech community within his model of an ethnography of communication. His idea of the speech community does not rely on abstract patterns of variation but on shared rules for speaking in an ethnographic sense. That speech communities can overlap, i.e. that a person can (and usually does) belong to several different speech communities has been noted by Saville-Troike (1982) in her discussion of Hymes’s work. Hymes also distinguishes between participation and membership in a speech community: To participate in a speech community is not quite the same as to be a member of it. Here we encounter the limitation of any conception of speech community in terms of knowledge alone, even knowledge of patterns of speaking as well as of grammar, and of course, of any definition in terms of interaction alone. Just the matter of accent may erect a barrier between participation and membership in one case, although be ignored in another. Obviously membership in a community depends upon criteria which in the given case may not

 Chapter 4

even saliently involve language and speaking, as when birthright is considered indelible. (Hymes 1974a: 50–51)

Robert LePage (1968), on the other hand, makes a strong claim for voluntary individual affiliation, unaffected by deterministic factors such as birthright, etc. He suggests that individuals create the systems for their verbal behaviour so that they resemble those among the group with whom (from time to time) they may wish to be identified. The four riders added to LePage’s general hypothesis are: 1. the individual can identify the groups 2. he or she has both opportunity and ability to observe and analyze their behavioral systems 3. the individual’s motivation is sufficiently strong to impel him/her to choose, and to adapt his/her behaviour accordingly 4. the individual is still able to adapt his/her behaviour. Compelling as this scenario might appear, one may yet question this seemingly unlimited choice of self-identification with a particular group as a viable definition of what makes a speech community. After all, “group membership” can never be a one-sided process, but must equally involve acceptance and recognition by the group. Gumperz (1982: 26) questions the contemporary validity of the whole concept of a speech community as “overtly marked social boundaries are disappearing and sanctions compelling adherence to group norms are weakening throughout the known world”. He observes a move away from social identities that are fixed by social variables, and he challenges Labov’s notion of “shared norms of evaluation” when he states: Many new options have come to exist so that individuals are freer to alter their social personae with circumstances. The assumption that speech communities, defined as functionally integrated social systems with shared norms of evaluation, can actually be isolated thus becomes subject to serious question. (Gumperz 1982: 26)

As the definitions by LePage and by Gumperz suggest, membership in a speech community is not least a matter of voluntary association with a particular group, a deliberate “act of identity”, which may, however, undergo shifts and become more or less important during a person’s life-time. Stuart Hall (1990) argues against a transparent or unproblematic view on identity when he states that “instead of thinking of identity as an already accomplished fact, which the new cultural practices then represent”, one should instead see identity in a more

From speech community to discourse communities 

dynamic way, “as a ‘production’, which is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within, not outside, representation” (Hall 1990: 222). The idea of “transitional identities”, i.e. repositioning a given identity, plays an important role as a form of social practice. Gumperz’s skepticism about classifying speech communities shall thus serve as the starting point of our exploration into functional changes of Creole in both use and evaluation among West Indians and persons of West Indian heritage in the urban diaspora. .. Caribbean migration The countries of the English-speaking Caribbean have always been connected to one another by travel, migration and dislocation. In the long colonial period, the boundaries of the colonial empire were of greater importance than individual island boundaries. During slavery, the African population was frequently bought and resold, often passing through several territories in their working life in bondage. Shared colonial offices and institutions made interisland contact inevitable for colonial administration. In the second half of the twentieth century, lack of economic opportunities and resources made postindependence mobility and international migration a necessity for many people (for a detailed overview, cf. Marshall 1987). As Segal (1987: 44) states, “the Caribbean has been more deeply and continuously affected by international migration than any other region of the world”. Thus one might conclude, migration to the metropolis and inter-island mobility can be seen as characteristic features of Caribbean culture. Richardson (1992: 132 ff.) describes Caribbean migration patterns and motivations in some detail, dating back from the time of emancipation: In many ways, the current generation of Caribbean migrants [i.e. to Europe and North America, S.M.] is simply doing what earlier generations have done for one and one-half centuries. Since British slave emancipation in 1834, men and women of the region have ventured abroad in order to compensate for the lack of resources and opportunities at home. They have thus broadened their livelihood possibilities by extending their travel patterns (“migrating”) through extraordinary and costly individual efforts. Each successive generation of West Indian peoples has identified and traveled to nearby and distant locales. So a successful migration tradition characterizes much of the Caribbean region in the late twentieth century. (Richardson 1992: 133)

Aaron Segal (1987) sees this “Caribbean exodus” as unique, not only in terms of numbers,4 or diversity,5 but also in what he calls “migrant recycling and the retention of diaspora/homeland ties” (Segal 1987: 47), the continued contact

 Chapter 4

between the diaspora and the homeland. This has, of course, important consequences for the language situation: the linguistic ties between the diaspora and the homeland are not abruptly cut off either, but rather extended beyond the geographical boundaries.

. Distant communities: Caribbean polyphony in Britain We will now turn specifically to post-war Caribbean migration to Britain and look at the demographic conditions of the migration process and the social environment the newcomers were faced with. After some demographic and factual information (4.2.1), we will turn to the issue of language attitudes (4.2.2) towards Creole in the British diaspora, as established in early sociological studies (e.g. Patterson 1963) and investigated in socio-linguistic research (e.g. Edwards 1978, 1979, 1986, 1989; Hewitt 1986, etc.). .. Caribbean post-war migration to Britain CELC languages (or “Patois”)6 came to Britain on a larger scale7 via post-war immigration from the (then British) West Indies to the colonial motherland. This move, memorably marked by the arrival of the SS Empire Windrush, which brought the first 492 Jamaican workers to Britain in 1948, was initiated mainly by economic depression in the Caribbean. Estimates of the total Caribbean migration to Britain between 1951 and 1961 vary from 230,000 to 280,000. Since British West Indians travelled on British passports then, exact and reliable figures could never be obtained. Of those approximately 200,000 West Indians arriving in Britain during the peak of the migration wave, between 1955 and 1961, the majority were from Jamaica (cf., for instance, Davison 1966). In the early 1960s, when resentment against increasing numbers of immigrants from the former British Empire became more and more pressing, the Commonwealth Immigration Act was passed. It was approved in Parliament in April 1962 and took effect three months later. As from July, 1962, only those West Indians already residing in Britain could bring their wives, husbands, and children under sixteen to live with them, all others were barred from residing in the UK. In the early 1990s, the number of British black citizens is estimated at roughly 650,000 (cf. Richardson 1992: 143). While usually perceived as a homogeneous group from the outside, many of those collectively referred to as “West Indians” first met people from other Caribbean countries in the urban centres of England. One can only speculate

From speech community to discourse communities

about linguistic consequences of this contact among first generation West Indians, as there are no data from this early period. One may assume that some sort of accommodation, i.e. an adjustment or modification of speech depending on speakers’ feelings of solidarity or distance, must have taken place in interpersonal contacts between people of different island affiliations. However, the maintenance of the various regional varieties, like Trinidadian Creole, Guyanese Creole, etc. spoken by this first generation was initially aided by distinct settlement patterns according to island affiliation. It is difficult to obtain a clear record of the residential distribution of Caribbean immigrants since, as Davison (1966: 21) points out, official records did not distinguish “between different groups of immigrants, and no specific reference has been made to coloured people”. Gerd Baumann (1996), in his ethnographic study on ethnic identity in a London community (Southall), remarks that early island-specific settlements have their roots in a tradition of “rivalry” and “mutual estrangement” between Caribbean islands, both in colonial and postcolonial times. According to Baumann, this heritage was also reinforced by official settlement policies: British authorities used island distinctions to facilitate the bureaucratic process of ‘settling’ these immigrants. Thus, Brixton in South London came to be an area in which some four out of five Afro-Caribbeans were of Jamaican birth; High Wycombe, a town some twenty miles west of Southall, was ‘settled’ almost exclusively with Vincentians; and the western parts of London were allocated to people from other ‘Smallies’. Among Southall’s Afro-Caribbean community, the largest regional contingents come from Grenada, Dominica, and Barbados. (Baumann 1996: 87)

While this, as a linguistic consequence, must have led to concentrations of regional varieties in specific parts of London, the relatively small overall concentration of West Indian immigrants8 makes it inevitable that language contact, even for the first generation, must have extended well beyond the “settlement boundaries” to speakers of other West Indian and British varieties. Linguistically, specific island affiliations certainly lost importance for the second and third generations and have given way to shifts in both identity and speech, as will be shown in Chapter 4.3. .. Language attitudes towards Creole in Britain (1960s–1980s) The wider British society was oblivious to the subtle distinctions in language and identity in different Caribbean islands and saw West Indian immigrants



 Chapter 4

(or even all “coloured immigrants”, cf. Patterson 1969: 6) as one homogeneous mass (cf. 4.2.3). A “West Indian accent”, as it was interpreted, often added to the many difficulties the first generation and their children were faced with. An early sociological study on these “dark strangers” in Britain (Patterson 1963) found that West Indian speech patterns were often a source of irritation and misunderstandings. Reports of virtual unintelligibility and “aggressiveness” on the side of West Indian railway workers (e.g. Patterson 1963: 161) feature prominently. The sociologist’s comments are also quite revealing about the contemporary situation and attitudes: Such misunderstandings [on Rent Tribunals’ proceedings, S.M.] are usually caused by sheer inability to communicate – resulting from considerable differences in vocabulary and accent. They also arise out of ignorance on either side of the other group’s customs and living standards, while the West Indians, most of whom are simple people, are often inhibited and apprehensive in the presence of white authorities whose position and function they do not fully understand. (Patterson 1963: 187)

Sociolinguistic research in the 1970s on Creole or Patois in Britain – the two terms will be used alternately and interchangeably to refer to Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles and their British transformations in the British context – mainly focused on these negative aspects. A matched-guise study on British and West Indian attitudes towards speech (Edwards 1978)9 revealed that speakers with a West Indian accent were rated lowest among working class judges, whereas middle class judges did not distinguish between West Indian and working class speakers in their evaluation. Edwards’s more comprehensive (1979) study exhibits in some detail the results of a mixture of linguistic misconceptions, negative language attitudes in connection with racist tendencies and cultural stereotypes: failure rates of students of West Indian background were exceedingly high in the 1960s and ‘70s, and compared unfavourably not only with achievements of white British school children, but also with those of other immigrant groups. Thus, in the early years, Creole was the language of disadvantage: it was not different enough to be recognized as a distinct language in the same way as Punjabi, Chinese or Greek was, with second language programmes to support their speakers. In addition, the fact that systematic differences between Creole and Standard English are often obscured by the varying abilities of speakers to shift between varieties did not help to improve negative attitudes. The pressure for the second generation to change their speech, to become “less audible” as West Indians, was certainly at least as great as for other

From speech community to discourse communities 

immigrant groups. Changes in the verbal behaviour of the younger generation of West Indians were already observed in the early 1960s: Among the second generation, audibility is also less, since most [West Indians, S.M.] now speak with a cockney accent. A welfare worker with over ten years experience of the area commented in late 1960 on the probable consequences of this decreased audibility and increased intelligibility: ‘It furthers good relations and acceptance because most of the locals really don’t understand what the older ones are saying. I had trouble myself at first until I got used to the accent, but I still can’t follow if they switch into dialect. Small wonder that some locals think that English isn’t their mother tongue’. (Patterson 1963: 250)

However, this change seems to have led to bilingual competence rather than to language shift in the generation who first grew up in Britain and received their education in the British school system. There are inconsistent accounts of Creole or Patois usage in the late 1970s. One large-scale report by Rosen and Burgess (1980) on languages and dialects of London school children suggests that Creole is used regularly only by a small proportion of British born blacks. In a different survey conducted in the late 1970s in Bedford by David Sutcliffe (1982) on language use of British and Caribbean born West Indians, the vast majority (over 90 %) of participants reported that they used some Patois. Since these two studies rely on self-reports, differences in methodology and questions may account for the different findings. Additionally, the discrepancy may also reflect different notions and uses of Creole/Patois, which naturally have undergone some transformation and, as will be shown in Chapter 4.3.2, have neither the same structure nor the same functions any more as the varieties of first generation Jamaicans, Trinidadians or Guyanese. Have attitudes towards Patois/Creole in Britain changed significantly in the last three or four decades? Or, rather, are negative stereotypes associated with Creole persistent enough to survive in its transplanted versions? In the 1980s, the research focus on Creole in Britain underwent a shift towards the use of Creole in the classroom and its interpretation as “politics of protest” (cf., for instance Edwards 1985, 1989; Hewitt 1989). Now, Patois/Creole is not necessarily the language of disadvantage anymore, which is to be avoided and whose traces are to be erased at all costs, but rather a deliberate choice of “expressing alienation”. Creole use at this time also appears to depend much more on the kind of social network into which a person is integrated and his or her overall attitude towards a perceived West Indian community, rather than the “West Indian heritage” alone. Viv Edwards’s study (1986) on Patois in Dudley, West Midlands, finds that the frequency of Patois usage and the competence in

 Chapter 4

Patois in the 1980s correlate significantly with the extent of integration into a black community. Her study involves recordings with respondents in different (formal and informal) situations, as well as a questionnaire to collect extralinguistic variables of the interviewees. The recordings were then analyzed in a quantitative-variationist tradition, according to a feature list of Patois correlating to a frequency score: not surpisingly, perhaps, the Patois score rated highest in the most informal situations. Edwards’s method and findings are criticized by Sebba (1993) on the grounds that they neglect the code-switching aspect as an important characteristic of British black English: [. . . ] these scores hide as much as they reveal. If code-switching is a regular feature of all speech styles in British black English, except perhaps the most formal, then the index of each speaker will actually be based on two distinct, discontinuous stretches of speech; one will have a Patois index of 100 or very close [. . . ] and another – the Patois part – which will have a Patois index closer to 0. [. . . ] The Patois index therefore tells us everything and nothing about an individual speaker: it tells us whether that person uses many or few Patois features overall in their talk, but nothing about how he or she uses Patois and English as part of a communicative strategy. (Sebba 1993: 36)

This criticism is taken up in the following inter-generational analysis of Patois in London, in the various uses of Patois as a communicative strategy as well as an act of identity.

. Staging and performing identity: An intergenerational perspective on the social practices of Creole in London To begin with, we will explore identity politics (cf. Hall 1996: 2) and identity transformation as they become manifest in three different generations of London residents of West Indian heritage. We shall then examine the way in which this has resulted in the maintenance of speech communities, the creation of new “imagined” communities (cf. Anderson 1983) and in the resolving of others. The material for this investigation is drawn from various sources: a) informal structured tape-recorded interviews conducted with respondents of different age-groups, b) tape-recorded casual conversations with respondents of different age-groups, c) participant observation during the fieldwork,10 and d) material from secondary sociological and socio-linguistic sources such as Foner (1979), Hewitt (1982, 1986), James (1993), Sebba (1993) and Rampton (1995). The focus of the analysis will be on the reflected alignment with, or rejection

From speech community to discourse communities 

of, Creole in the interviews as well as the less reflected actual use of Creole in casual conversations. With reference to LePage and Tabouret-Keller’s (1985) concept of language choices as “acts of identity”, the first, more conscious act will be described as “staging identity”, whereas the second choice of language use will then be called “performing identity”. For the analysis of the interviews, the following points need to be established: – on the concept of Creole/Patois in London: 1. What is referred to as Creole or Patois in London is not a homogeneous and stable variety, but rather allows for a diffusing of norms and is characterized by high internal and external variability. Respondents may have very diverse ideas of what is meant by using Creole or Patois, ranging from a full-fledged Jamaican Creole characterized by the phonology, syntax and lexis of at least a mesolectal variety as spoken in Jamaica itself up to the odd insertion of a lexical item, or the occasional phonological shift to a “Jamaican pronunciation” (cf. also the description of “salient features” in London Jamaican, Chapter 4.4.2). The term Creole/Patois in the London diaspora, therefore, should allow for a greater level of abstraction, a more theoretical construct, in comparison with CELC language spoken in the Caribbean region.11 2. Structural variability is of less concern, however, when investigating prestige features of Creole in Britain and speakers’ politics of identification with Creole as a form of social practice. After all, it is one of the most important ideas in the ethnography of communication that language is socially constituted. In this approach, the identification of social functions gains preference to the description of the linguistic features which serve them. What is at stake in this chapter are the changing meanings of Creole/Patois among West Indians of various generations, how linguistic distinctions are conceptualized, upheld, levelled or denied in the negotiation of a Caribbean/West Indian/black/Jamaican identity. – about a diachronic view on Creole identity politics and use: 3. Unlike written documents, spoken language does not allow a diachronic analysis from a synchronic view point. In ideal circumstances, changes in both the social situation and in textual practice, i.e. the functions of Creole in discourse, should be observed over several decades in a stable pool of respondents. As such longitudinal studies are scarce and not a viable option for the present purpose, an age-graded, “inter-generational” analysis may

 Chapter 4

be regarded as an alternative for a diachronic perspective. However, one has to bear in mind the following restrictions: a. It is likely that both the social positioning (“staging”) and the functional use of Creole (“performing”) change in the life of an individual, i.e. respondents in their sixties or seventies may have been different in their social and verbal behaviour forty years ago than they are now. b. Verbal behaviour itself is, to some extent, age-specific. “Youth language” often consists of a particular type of jargon, an in-group language where specific words and phrases are used to mark the distance of its speakers to the “adult language”. It must be stressed, therefore, that the main emphasis is on “inter-generational” interaction, rather than on a genuine “diachronic” development. But given these qualifications, the analysis will still allow us to draw conclusions on the dynamics and changes of the position and use of Creole in the urban diaspora. Even though the main focus is on age, attention is paid to additional aspects which may have an identity-constituting effect, i.e. whether respondents are – – – – – –

1st/2nd/3rd generation immigrants12 British-born or not Afro-, Indo- or other- Caribbean interested in Caribbean culture or involved in Caribbean cultural activities whether or not they have a network of mainly West Indian friends and acquaintances their estimation of their own ability to speak Creole/Patois.

.. Field research in a South London community: Interviews and discursive practices The question posed above will now be further explored by drawing on material gathered during a field work research in Lewisham,13 South London, in 1996 and 1997. Using an overall ethnographic approach as the most viable form of the type of research intended, this field work consists of qualitative rather than quantitative research, i.e. participant observation, structured informal interviews with respondents of different age groups, as well as recordings of casual conversations in groups (cf. 4.4). The idea of recording group conversations reaches back to Blom & Gumperz’s (1972) first investigations of code-switching in casual conversations and is meant to join and compare two types of situations in which spoken language is used and, in the case of the

From speech community to discourse communities 

informal structured interviews, how Creole/Patois is evaluated and seen as an identity constitutive element.

Interviews as a form of discursive practice The interviews were conducted and recorded by myself and a research assistant of London Jamaican heritage mostly in respondents’ homes. Unlike written or translated texts (cf. Chapters 5 & 6), which are marked by a rather complex production, consumption and distribution process, spoken language is a more direct mode of communication least mediated by text production practices (cf. also Fairclough 1992: 79). These spoken texts are, however, mediated by the tape recorder and influenced by the participants in the actual situation. Thus, some preliminaries on the text productions may not be unwarranted. Interview and casual conversation as forms of obtaining knowledge are two different discursive practices, which Foucault describes as the basic categories “examination” and “confession”. The fact that the interview is generally more a method of obtaining knowledge by objectifying people (“examination”) can pose a problem when somebody from the “community” conducts the interview: in the interview, one essentially has to take the outsider’s position. This act of positioning is often rated as a betrayal, of “selling out” to the community, of crossing the borderline between “us and dem”.14 Generally one might say that what constitutes the observer’s paradox for casual conversations is actually required for the interview. In actual fact, however, the two forms of discursive practice are often mixed in that they contain elements of both “examination” and “confession”. An informal interview in an informal atmosphere conducted at home allows respondents to switch into a conversational style. In a Hymesian sense (cf. Chapter 3.3.1) one might describe the interview as a speech event integrated into a specific speech situation (at home, in an institutional setting, etc.) and consisting of various elements, of speech acts like question/answer sequences, jokes, story telling elements, etc. The interview as a rather formal situation-type in a diglossic situation has the H-variety as the “most appropriate” code. Code-switching does occur, however, in several interviews. In Myers-Scotton’s framework of a “markedness-model” (cf. Chapter 3.3.3), Standard English would here be the unmarked choice (with a predominantly referential function), whereas switches to Creole would then form the marked choice for more specific interactional purposes. The interviews were led along the following lines:

 Chapter 4

– – – – –

Respondents’ first experience in Britain, either as an immigrant or growing up in Britain. Their attitudes towards British society. Respondents’ own evaluation of their contact with West Indian culture, their social circle and friends. Respondents’ own judgement of their abilities to speak Patois/Creole. Their associations, evaluations and uses of Patois/Creole in Britain. Responses to language political issues (school, media, etc.). Responses to and comments on Patois/Creole in writing (which will then feature in Chapter 5).

The respondents Respondents have not been chosen so as to form a representative sample of South Londoners of West Indian heritage. However, their composition does, to some extent, reflect more general patterns, e.g. the proportion of people with Jamaican family affiliation versus people with other family background, or the fact that interviewees in their twenties and teens are all British-born. A table in Appendix A. gives some more information on respondents’ sex, country of birth and family affiliation. The recruitment of interview partners and people willing to participate in casual conversations drew on two different social networks, as well as on public institutions to ensure minimum variety: Network A: neighbours, friends, acquaintances of my host family in Lewisham; Network B: neighbours, friends, acquaintances (including members of a church congregation) of my research assistant; Public institutions: Deptford Green school & the Calabash Centre for Senior Citizens. As the general approach is one of qualitative ethnographic research, no attempt will be made in the analysis to give a quantitative summary of the interviews. Rather than large-scale results, the very nature of qualitative research requires a focus on examples from the interviews which will be given to highlight some general patterns and points. The idea of core examples or contrastive cases in qualitative interview analysis (cf. Kelle & Kluge 1999) is applied. Rather than relying on chance selection of representative cases as in quantitative research, qualitative research requires contrasting of cases according to those criteria that are relevant for the research question. The analysis in the following section will focus on both content (what was said about Creole/Patois) and form (which code was used when and for what purpose). Drawing on examples from the body of more than 35 interviews and casual conversations, it will be shown that the development of “staging identity” runs opposite to the development of “performing identity”, i.e. overt pos-

From speech community to discourse communities 

itive attitudes towards and alignments with Patois turn out to be in inversion to its actual use. Furthermore, it will be demonstrated that this is not so much a decrease in Creole usage, but rather a change of the communicative purpose (micro-function) and situation Creole is employed for. .. Identity politics and the birth of the West Indian: The first generation The following is an excerpt from a casual conversation with a group of respondents, all of whom came to Britain in the 1950s. In casual conversations with first generation West Indians of different island affiliations, mutual economic and practical help is a topos and the collective identity as West Indian formed in the diaspora is often stressed. This phenomenon has been referred to as the “birth of the West Indian” (Lamming 1984: 214) in the diaspora.15 Mutual support in cases of assault is the topic in the following casual conversation: R316 In nineteen-fifty-seven, fifty-eight, in Battersea, right? You know, what dey d/dis ting? dey get platcard and dey write ‘Small island go back where you come from’ I lie? R2

No, I remember, man. Talk to//

R3

//‘Walk, small island go back where you come from’, and different contshries dey read the ting and dey (0.1) useta/ De boys dey useta stone and ting (*****). But dey useta protect me. As soon as *** cos I useta have to walk down cos I couldn’t tek de living inside de hospital and (****) And as I comin down and dey was standing dere de boys say ‘Walk sis, doh look back, we doh let dem come an touch you’. Yes, the people used to live together and don’t care what country you came from. You see? But some of us, now, we get so prejudiced//

R2

/Dat’s right//

R3

/you hear me.

Apart from the alleged solidarity among West Indians in 1950s London, two points can be demonstrated with this initial example of first generation casual conversations. Firstly, there are switches and shifts between two codes, a distinct Caribbean English-lexicon Creole – Trinidadian in the case above – and Standard English, and secondly, Creole is the unmarked form in the casual conversation.

 Chapter 4

i. Identity Politics and Attitudes towards Creole From the interviews of those who came to England in the 1950s/1960s as an adult it becomes clear that the idea of speaking Patois or Creole does not seem to play a large role in their identity formation and self-image as Caribbean persons. Surprisingly, there is often no acknowledgement at all of speaking Creole or Patois, even against all evidence in their language use in the conversations and interviews. When asked in a mixed casual conversation session whether they had to adapt their way of speaking when they first came to England, these first generation respondents made clear that they thought the very question quite absurd. R3: They [the British, S.M.] pretended they had, dat dey could not understand but I made dem to understand de same language, we’re speakin de same language. // But dere was some people really, from Grenada and aders, St. Vincent and what not, dey had an accent, you see? Because dey aks me where I learn how to speak English and I say de minute I born. R2: Well, I go to a shop once, at Loampit Hill,17 and I order a paper, (0.3) a newspaper, a pack a red paper, and a half ounce o’ tobacco. De man serve me. Him said to me ‘What language do you speak?’ I said de language I ordered dem inna. Him said what language I speak? I said de language I ordered de paper, de tobacco and de red paper inna.

Note that in these casual conversations, the unmarked (referential) choice is Creole, and shifts to Standard English are made for specific purposes, e.g. for the quotation in R2s narrative (“What language do you speak?”), cf. also 4.3.2 (ii). Quite the opposite is the case for the use of the two codes in the interviews, as shall be seen in the following example. Here, Standard English is the unmarked choice. The communicative purposes for which R1 (Jamaican-born, female, 78 years old) uses Creole in the interview will be analyzed in more detail. That Patois is not associated with positive values among the first generation becomes evident in R1’s evaluation of her own and her family’s speech back in Jamaica. The interview with R1, who came to England as an adult in 1957, will be quoted at some length as a first generation core example for both a content analysis and a code-switching analysis, of “staging” and “performing identity”. Part I: 1 I:18 What do you speak, do you speak Patois or Creole or, what do you think you speak? R1: Mus’ be Creole, I don’t know. But, you see, I was not


5 I: R1: I: R1: 10 I: R1: I: 15 R1: I: R1: 20 I: R1: I: 25 R1: I: R1: I: R1: 30

35

40

educated, or very limited education, so I don’t know what I speak but I try to speak (0.3) English, Creo-English. And do you think it is still significantly spoken by West Indians. Yes// // Among/ is it a generation thing, or/ It IS a generation thing. It IS a generation thing, (0.2) because mh (0.5) people dat born in de West Indies – a tink some of dem speak betta den some dat is born in England. Right, yeah, it’s true// //From black parentage. Mmh People dat come from de West Indies speak betta dan dat is born in England of black parents That’s true. Do you think that speaking Patois or Creole can be an advantage or a disadvantage? I think in England, it’s a disadvantage, I think so. Why, why do you think that? Because (0.3) if you, if you, if you speak English, (0.2) you have a better way to approach people and they understand what you are saying to them Right, ok. Would you regard Creole or Patois or whatever you call it as your mother tongue? (0.3) No Not? No Ok. Because I was growing up with my grandfather and grandmother and there was (0.1) there wasn’t young people. And they speak proper – proper English. One day I talk about (gran pupa) and my grandfather say ‘WHAT?!!’ and de grandmother dey speak proper English because they they useta keep a lickle shop and dey old people. When my grandmother died, she was one hundred and tree. And my grandfather died at eighty-five, but he was well-spoken, well-spoken (0.3) Looking back, in de West Indies, few people was older like his family. Because one of dem useta drive a (Poggy) and to give out work, you know, work with the public work, they call him Scotch, the way he speaks, yeah! Well spoken, and his children dem. (0.1) But my grandfather now, well-spoken, yeah and he could read, he could write (0.3), yeah.

For this respondent, speaking Patois is clearly associated with a lower social status than she and her family held in Jamaica. Since she is familiar with the various levels, registers and styles of Jamaican Creole as they are spoken in Jamaica, she makes a clear social distinction between her own speech and a more

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Chapter 4

basilectal Jamaican. She also distinguishes between her own speech and the Patois spoken by the second and third generation, which is marked by some phonological and grammatical features of JC. R1’s identity as a Jamaican West Indian does not have to be underlined by an overt association with the language. Other social and cultural practices (“machete”, below Part III.) are more important for her than language. She also comments on her own use of Creole: Part II. I: When you speak Patois, do you speak it all the time or only sometimes, do you speak it especially when you’re angry, or/ 55 R1: /No, when I am talking with the children I: With the children. R1: With the grandchildren, yes. I: What about with your friends? R1: No 60 I: No? R1: Not even in Jamaica. I: Really? R1: No, because, you know, mi neighbour always says to me [in high pitched voice] ** cot di bread man, talk and I say, no – why should I? 65 [Short interruption because of telephone ringing] I: So you speak it to your grandchildren? R1: Yeh mi tell dem joke, tek de mickey out (0.1) an I joke and I laugh I: Do you think Patois is more or less – does it express more (0.1) than English? 70 R1: I shouldn’t think so. I No? R1: No, because (0.5) we were born in Jamaica, dere is no ader way, ader language what you learn but English. You get what I mean? You go to church, in dose days de pastor was an Englishman. 75 I: Right. R1: You know? Everyting was English, yu go to de bank, it was English people. You goes to de (0.2) post office, because it was all English people working in Jamaica in dose dehs. You have to talk to dem. I: Mmh. 80 R1: You know what I mean. I: But I mean, like, when you’re telling stories to them, would you, would you// R1: //You know, my grandfather never talked Jamaican, *** you know Anansi story or anada. 85 I: Really? R1: No. Dey never tell us any. An I don’t know none.


I: Ok. R1: We hear about Bredda Nansi and Bredda (0.4.) Bredda something anada? I don’t remember. But to explain a story, you know people die an all (0.1) all 90 sing, sit up all nai-night an all dose tings, we were not allowed (0.2) to go. I Right. R1: The only place we were allowed to go is some of the singing dat *** if you want to tek dat prayer suit (0.1) an you have to come back and, know what I 95 mean, you could not allow to go, yu wasn’t allowed to go deh.

Apart from the negative value in terms of social status, this respondent also rejects Creole in utilitarian terms. Her amazement and slight amusement that people could be interested in learning Patois is connected to this view. The language of “some of de children that was born here, how dey talk” is linked to Patois but is disapproved of and seen as different from the speech behaviour of earlier generations. One could speculate on the nature of the false start in line 117/118 “more than being (0.1) more than talking Patois” (cf. below), whether “talking Patois” among the younger generation is almost synonymous with “being rude or misbehaved” for her. Part III. I Right. (0.5) So you think it’s useful or not to speak Patois. R1: (0.3) I think so. Because (0.4) I don’t like to hear some of the children that was born here, how dey talk. You know, I don’t like it. I: Right. 100 R1: Me have to seh, I don’t like it. I: And, (0.4) do you think that people who are not from the West Indies should learn more about it? R1: If they want to. But dey mus all learn ’n do what dey know. I: 105 R1: If dey WANT to, cause it fascinates some people. I: So, right wha%, what is happening right now is that a lot of the Education Departments, the schools, are making sure that children learn, like, Anansi stories and so on, like (0.2) they’re bringing in the language, you know Patois and so on. 110 R1: Really? I: Yeah. Do you agree with that? R1: NO! Where are they going to use it? (0.2) Where are they going to use it? I: Apparently, especially for children who are coming from countries where English is not their first language, so to make them feel more a% home, and 115 also it’s meant to make the white children know more about other cultures – that’s the overall aim. R1: They can know more about other cultures more than being (0.1) more than talking Patois. I: Yeah. 120 R1: Because as a girl I have mi machete, dat is a culture, dat is my culture. But

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 Chapter 4

dey never talk about how resourceful I am, using the one machete to chop, dig and plant. Dat is a culture, because we couldn’t afford better we never have to have the implements, it’s all de reason, ‘member dat was all when I was a child and we worked all in – dat is all eighty, in a sense seventy years 125 ago. I: Mmh. R1: You know? And it was all – we were planting a lickle garden, we chop and we plant – and we dig up wid de machete, dat what we, dats what we have I: Yeah. 130 R1: You get what I mean. So dat is a culture.

R1 is rather pessimistic about the survival of Creole in Britain because she sees it as uprooted rather than transplanted, it lacks the cultural “background” that she as a first generation West Indian has. Lack of institutional and financial support is also noted. However, she does not include herself in the group which could create such support when she uses “they” rather than “we” (line 153): Part IV. I: So do you see a future for a continued presence of Creole or Patois in Britain today? R1 No, unlest, unlest, people have money that they could raise up a thing like how de Indians have a – what de place down London dat dey have – 155 I Sou/ R1 Sout-hall! I Yeah R1: Dey have a lickle congrege/ a lickle contry like dat, a lickle district like dat for dat for dat kind of ting 160 I: Yeah. It could die out though. R1: It must die out, because, it’s, it doesn’t have the background!

ii. Functions of Creole in the Text R1 herself shifts between a form of Standard English and a variety with phonological and grammatical features of Jamaican Creole. Standard English as the less marked choice in the interview setting is used in a predominantly referential function. Even though the respondent does not overtly associate herself with Creole and does not see much use for it, she switches to Creole for quite a number of different micro-functions: a. metalinguistic: e.g. when used for emphasis, reiteration: Ex: Line 120

[. . . ] I have mi machete dat is a culture, dat is my culture.

Similar to the repetition in line 9 and 15, the emphasis of the statement is increased by the switch.


b. directive: e.g. self-directed switch19 Ex: Line 133–13420 [. . . ] I listen to Radio 4, they have one on (0.4) what de neem? – (0.3). well. Interestingly, the switch here indicates an addressee change, without any change in the situational variables, i.e. no other person comes into the situation. The question is not directed to the interviewer, but rather, to the respondent herself. The fact that participants in a verbal interaction may take on different roles has been emphasized in Goffman’s work (cf. also 3.3.1). Such a change of frame within the conversation is often accompanied by at least a change of paralinguistic features or, as in the present situation, a code-switch, as Goffman explains in his concept of footing: “A change in footing implies a change in the alignment we take up to ourselves and the others present as expressed in the way we manage the production or reception of an utterance. A change in our footing is another way of talking about a change in our frame for events” (1981: 124). Another instance where such a directive switch occurs, is when the respondent suddenly addresses the interviewer as a different persona, not in her role as an interviewer but in her role as the daughter of a friend (cf. Appendix B.): Ex.: Line 141–44 I:

Right, yeah – and (0.2) have you ever seen Patois in writing? R1: Your father deh have a book. I: Really? R1: Yes, (0.2) with some Anansi story and I when I useta come dere I, I saw it [. . . ]

A last example of a directive switch (line 154) may be the question “what de place down London dat dey have”, either as a self-directed question or directed to the interviewer as an acquaintance: Ex.: Line 151ff I:

So do you see a future for a continued presence of Creole or Patois in Britain today? R1: No, unlest, unlest,21 people have money that they could raise up a thing like how de Indians have a – what de place down London dat dey have – I Sou/ R1: Sout-hall!

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c. expressive: e.g. switch into narration: Ex.: Line 72ff. R1: No, because (0.5) we were born in Jamaica, dere is no ader way, ader language but English. You go to church, in dose days de pastor was an Englishman. I: Right. R1: You know? Everyting was English, yu go to de bank, it was English people. You goes to de post office, because it was all English people working in Jamaica in dose dehs. You have to talk to dem. I: Mmh.

Unlike in b. where the persona of the addressee changes, an expressive change indicates a change of persona of the speaker: the respondent here turns from her role as an interviewee to a narrator, from interviewed “object” to speaking subject. Another illustration of an expressive switch, an indication of a change of speaker is in direct or indirect quotations of other speakers, e.g. Ex.: Line 89 R1: but to explain a story, you know people die and all (0.1) all sing, sit up all nai night an all dose tings, we were not allowed (0.2) to go.

The switch here seems to be an indirect quotation of a real or imagined person disagreeing with the singing, dancing and storytelling activities that are connected with the ritual nine-night.22 Again, the speaker slips into the persona of a different, an absent speaker (= “animator” rather than “author”, in Goffman’s terms). Even more evident is such an expressive switch in the direct quotation of the respondent’s neighbour (cf. above). d. poetic: for humour, aesthetic value, etc. R1 does not actually switch to Creole for poetic purposes in the interview. However, it is the one function for which she herself claims to use it, when joking with her grandchildren. The switch in this line is itself, however, more an expressive one, which indicates a change of social role (interviewee versus grandmother). Ex.: Line 67: R1: Yeh mi tell dem joke, tek de mickey out (0.1) an I joke and I laugh.

e. phatic: e.g. interjections, greetings, etc. There are no phatic switches to Creole in R1’s talk. Her phatic interjection

From speech community to discourse communities 

Ex.: Line 80: R1: You know what I mean?

does not indicate a switch to Creole23 (unlike, for instance, R3’s interjection “I lie?” in the casual conversation at the beginning of this chapter). In contrast, as shall be seen in the discussion below, the phatic function, used to establish and continue communication, is the one function where Creole expressions are used most extensively in the third generation of Creole users. From these examples it becomes clear that Patois/Creole is used for very diverse communicative functions in conversations of the older generation West Indians, even in a rather formal situation. In casual conversations, such as the one cited at the beginning of this section, Creole is the unmarked choice, fulfilling the referential function, whereas Standard English is employed for various communicative purposes. However, Creole is not used to overtly signify and emphasize the identity of first generation respondents as Caribbean persons in Britain. Thus, Creole is “performed”, i.e. used more unconsciously, rather than “staged”, i.e. employed in a self-reflexive manner. .. Identity choice and ethnicity: Non Afro-Caribbeans Identity constitution and the idea of transitional identities, i.e. changes in the self-identification in the life of a person or in the dynamics of a social group, have received a lot of attention in recent works in postcolonial studies (e.g. Rutherford 1990; Hall & du Gay 1996). Caribbean-British cultural critic Stuart Hall (1990) generally sees two positions one can take with regard to “cultural identity”. The first rests on the assumption of one, shared culture, “a sort of collective ‘one true self ’, hiding inside the many other, more superficial or artificially imposed ‘selves’, which people with a shared history and ancestry hold in common” (Hall 1990: 223). In the second view, cultural identity is a more dynamic process, “a matter of ‘becoming’ as well as of ‘being”’ (Hall 1990: 225). As he explains, identities come from somewhere, have histories, and, “like everything else that is historical, they undergo transformation and are subject to ruptures and discontinuities”. Winston James (1993: 231–287) describes this “birth of the West Indian” in London, as Lamming has referred to it, as shaped by the common experience of hostility in the metropolis. Thus, different island loyalties, shades of skin colour and even ethnicity (Afro-Caribbean versus Indo-Caribbean), all important markers of contrast in the Caribbean, have lost

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a great deal of their importance in the diaspora since, as Indo-Caribbean writer Samuel Selvon once pointed out, “to the English, as long as you were not white you were black” (1987: 18).24 Notwithstanding shared experiences of hostility from the host society, the process of identity formation and transformation in the new environment has been more complex for Caribbean immigrants of Indian descent. In Britain, the terms “West Indian” or “Caribbean” are almost exclusively associated with Afro-Caribbean, thus neglecting a large proportion of people with a different background. Drawing on data from the 1981 British census, Vertovec (1993: 171) suggests that a percentage of 30–40% of those born in Trinidad and Guyana are Indo-Caribbeans, which then amounts to a rough estimate of 4,900 to 6,500 Indo-Trinidadian immigrants, and 6,500–8,700 IndoGuyanese. Multiplied by two (according to West Indian population pattern in the Labout Force Survey of 1986), Vertovec’s figures amount to 22,800–30,400 Indo-Caribbeans in Britain. He adds that this might be an under-estimation, since it does not take into account an unknown number of Indians from other islands as well as illegal immigration. While they were uniformly seen by the whites as part of the mass of “coloured immigrants”, their loyalties were often torn between a newly-found positive affirmation of black identity and an association with the large Indian community from the subcontinent. Thus, one of the consequences of this shift from a heterogeneous conglomerate of different island communities to a “black London (Birmingham, etc.) community” is that of an almost exclusive association of Caribbean culture with Afro-Caribbean culture. This works to such an extent that other ethnic groups, Indo-Caribbeans – not to mention smaller groups like Caribbean-Chinese – have become largely invisible or, as the title of Steven Vertovec’s article (1993) suggests, “overlooked, miscategorized, misunderstood”, both in public awareness25 and in academic inquiry. Because of this neglect of Indo-Caribbeans in academic inquiry, not least in former studies on language attitudes and language use in the urban diaspora, there are no detailed accounts of the linguistic and evaluative effects of such an identity negotiation, which, according to Vertovec (1993), has developed in various phases: Some young Indo-Caribbeans took up wholly ‘West Indian’ identity and its Rastafarian manifestation during the 1970s, while today many have adopted a kind of pan-British Asian ‘youth culture’ while seeking to explore their roots in subcontinental culture (for example, through learning Hindi or Indian music and dance). Overall, most young British Indo-Caribbeans seem much readier to adopt a general ‘black’ political identity than their parents, and in practice,

From speech community to discourse communities 

they have emerged as a truly ‘multicultural’ generation. (Vertovec 1993: 177–178)

That this identity transformation was largely influenced by an orientation towards Jamaican language and culture may partly be explained by the numerical majority of that first generation group. Such a “Jamaicanization” becomes evident, for instance, in Foner’s (1979) study on Caribbean migrants in London, when she reports that her “respondents generally use the term “black”, “coloured”, “West Indian”, and “Jamaican” interchangeably (many times in the same sentence) when speaking both informally and in answers to direct questions, about their position in English society” (1979: 144). This fact is explained by one of her respondents: “I think most of my friends feel Jamaican. The English helped us to do it” (Foner 1979: 143, italics in the original). One of the effects of this complex situation is that, for the research purposes, one may only approach those East Indian West Indians who are clearly associated with the Afro-Caribbean community. Thus, for people of Indo- or Chinese Caribbean heritage, identity formation and transformation is even more a matter of choice and negotiation, a matter of being visible in a (presumed) “West Indian community” or not. Their language attitudes and language choices, therefore, become more conscious “acts of identity”, as alignments with or against what in the diaspora is usually perceived as AfroCaribbean culture. Among my respondents, there were only four Indo- and Chinese Caribbean persons, i.e. just over 10 percent of the overall sample. This is almost certainly an under-representation, for reasons given above, especially since there is no single respondent from the third, i.e. British-born, generation. All four of them displayed highly different ways of staging and performing Creole identity, thus confirming that there is no indication of a stable pattern that is linked to ethnicity. Rather, interviews and conversations with these respondents suggest a considerable idiosyncrasy of such an identity choice. Respondent No. 6, a 58 year old Indo-Trinidadian Muslim, sees himself well-connected within a Caribbean community. He displays quite a number of shifts to Creole in the recording, but he does not subscribe to the concept of speaking Creole, i.e. he performs rather than stages Creole in the interview: I:

When you were growing up, and you had, like, introductory schooling, what kind of language was taught in school? Was it Creole English, Patois, what was it ?

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R6: We have, I mean in the West Indies we all speak a kind of a broken English, you know what I mean? But different countries like Mauritius and thing they speak a kind of French Creole. They have Patois26 speakers in Trinidad, dose are *** di older ones dere, dey have di French dat was dere, de Spanish was dere, den di English. A tink it’s dem, more or less like in Jamaica. I: When you’re talking to certain people, maybe like close family members or friends or playing a game of dominos, do you switch into, you know, language from back home? R6: Yeah, yeah, y’know what I mean, if you dere speak, de way you dere speak.

Respondent 12, on the other hand, 49 years old and of Chinese-Guyanese origin is very consciously linked to a larger West Indian community and makes a strong point of speaking Creole among other West Indians. For her, Creole is the language of intimacy, affection and expression. She recalls that, on a recent visit to Guyana, “hearing the language undiluted” was one of the most enjoyable aspects of her trip: R12: I went home and stayed with my brother, and I was saying to friends that I was very struck (0.1), they speak Creole all the time. And it was lovely to hear the language again in its right context, undiluted, it was really quite beautiful to listen to it. The expressions are so rich (0.1) and I realized that I had sort of forgotten a lot of it. I: /So do you/ R12: So that the most enjoyable aspect of my visit home (0.1) to hear the language being spoken, it’s very sweet, it’s lovely, musical and full of expression. I: Do you find it more expressive than E/ R12: /I find it extremely expressive (0.1) because I grew up speaking it and I understand, and emotionally, it kind of stimulates me a lot. (0.1) One of the things you forget (0.1) because of the aversion to Creole people think of it as a crude, base language, an ugly language but in fact, it’s quite a beautiful language. When people are being very courteous to each other in it, and very loving, like my family, it’s very beautiful.

Respondent 15, of Indo-Trinidadian origin and in her early forties, makes her independence from the West Indian community an issue. She sees her social network to be self-chosen rather than influenced or even determined by sociocultural factors. She reports that she does not speak Trinidadian any more, not even with intimate family members. Her only switches to Creole in the

From speech community to discourse communities 

interview are for expressive functions (quotes). In more casual conversation with other West Indians, however, she does occasionally perform a switch to Creole for phatic or metalinguistic functions. R15 likes the idea of kids speaking Jamaican Patois and sees this development as independent of Jamaican or Caribbean community ties: I:

So your children don’t [speak Patois, S.M.] really, but there are a lot of children who do, so do you think that it’s a disadvantage or do you think that they will have problems with either/ R15: /I don’t think so, I think that we underestimate children, right, because, children learn and they learn so much, but it’s like on the outside they, whatever they learn, when they come back home it’s like, they’re versatile, so what you think your child didn’t know he’s already (0.1) or she’s already known. So in a conversation you’re talking and it’s ‘oh yeah, this is this or that it that’. So you gather from that conversation that this child knows, I don’t think that this is a disadvantage because I believe they know. Because, as I’ve said, I’ve noticed that children (0.1) English children, they ALL and this is the white English and the black English, they know of the Patois, the Jamaican/ I: Oh, alright. R15: Yeah, they do know. When you think that children don’t, they all communicate, it’s one thing I’ve noticed with children there’s no prejudice about them, it’s only adults instill that in them, and they have a good communication there with each other, so the white English is learning and the black English is learning, so they all, they know.

For her, obviously, Patois or Creole is seen much more as part of the wider (English) society rather than confined to the boundaries of an (Afro-) Caribbean community. It is, however, not part of her self-identification, not part of her “staging identity”. .. Identity choice and linguistic transformation: The second and third generation Jamaicans were dominant, not only in terms of numbers, but also in terms of cultural attractiveness. The rise of popular music with Jamaican origins, such as reggae, toasting and dub, as well as the association of Rastafari with that particular island culture can be seen as adding to the alleged “Jamaicanization” of West Indians in Britain. This identity transformation had important linguistic consequences, as many second generation respondents, who grew up in Britain

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describe. The following is and excerpt from an interview with Respondent No. 20, a 38-year-old-man who was born in Grenada and brought up in London: R20: Now, in this country, as far as language is concerned, the main, the main dialect which is (0.2) spoken peculiar to Caribbean persons is Jamaican – and that’s by virtual force of numbers, mmh and to some extend even us, from Grenada, with Grenadian background, growing up in this country have, in a way, having friends from Jamaica, going to Jamaican parties, listening to reggae, listening to all the other activity where Jamaicans are prominent, we, naturally, you just fall into line, you speak, you speak Jamaican Patois, so, I remember, as I was growing up in my late teens you could flip backward and forward, from wan dialec’ to di next, quite easy, when you’re at school with English people you sort of speak di natural English, among Jamaican friends you speak Jamaican Patois, if I go to like places where Grenadians are populated, South, or Shepherd’s Bush then you revert back to Grenadian dialect, (0.1) unfortunately I don’t speak di Patois,27 French, French Creole but we have our own dialect, and we have our own way of speaking, vocabulary, in a sense.

Therefore, language contact between Jamaicans as the most dominant Caribbean group and other West Indians has led to a linguistic transformation, with Jamaican as the most influential contributor to a new variety.

i. The creation of London Jamaican Mark Sebba, in his study on Creole in London, describes the linguistic impact of Jamaican Creole as a role model for the speech of second and third generation West Indians in London. He notes that the high proportion of Jamaicans among West Indians has played a role, but “even where they do not [form the demographic majority, S.M.], it is Jamaican which provides a focus for the Creole of black youth” (Sebba 1993: 9, italics in the original, S.M).28 In consequence, among the younger generation, there is no widely spoken form of Trinidadian, Guyanese or Bajan, etc., nor do these speakers use Jamaican as their parents and grandparents from Jamaica did. Rather, this new contact situation has produced a variety which has been called “London Jamaican” ever since the 1980s (cf. Rosen & Burgess 1980, LePage and Tabouret-Keller 1985, Sebba 1993). This variety, which draws on elements of Jamaican Creole, as well as elements from Standard British English, London English and Jamaican Standard English, has undergone significant transformations in form and function com-

From speech community to discourse communities 

pared to the heritage languages the first generation immigrants brought with them. London Jamaican or Black London English29 defies a straightforward homogeneous description and should not be mistaken as an internally coherent and consistent system, but rather, as LePage & Tabouret-Keller (1985: 180) describe it, as “a set of norms to be aimed at.” Their concept of “focussing”, i.e. the establishment of rather narrow norms within a speech community, and “diffusion”, i.e. the weakening of norms which allows for a greater diversity, may serve here as a descriptive model. Diffusion, a process attributed to situations where speakers of different languages or language varieties are in contact, can therefore be seen as a natural stage of language development. LePage and Tabouret-Keller thus conclude that Speakers behave as if there were a language called ‘Jamaican’, but often all they do (perhaps all they know how to do) is to make gestures in the direction of certain tokens associated with Jamaican Creole which have a stereotypical value. In other words, the ‘idealized’ London Jamaican is a language close to the ‘deepest’ form of Jamaican Creole, and is identified as such by all those features above the level of awareness which distinguish Jamaican Creole from Standard English (with minor exceptions, noted below). In practice, most speakers cannot achieve the ideal. The result is a variety of speech which is (a) highly variable from speaker to speaker, (b) highly variable internally, (c) tends to ‘revert’ to London English – i.e. speakers often seem to find difficulty maintaining London Jamaican over long stretches. (LePage and Tabouret-Keller 1985: 180, italics in the original, S.M.)

Despite this high variability, some characteristic features of London Jamaican can be pointed out. These are, in fact, salient features of Jamaican Creole, maximally distinct from Standard English. They are thus the primary target for the non-native speaker of Jamaican to symbolically highlight switches to Creole. These salient (most distinctive) features include:30

Phonological features. Sebba (1993: 49) distinguishes between “(1) features involving a phonemic contrast, in other words, points where the sound systems of two varieties, rather than just the sounds themselves, are different”, and “(2) points of pronunciation where the systems themselves are not different, but the sounds representing a particular phoneme are substantially different” (italics in the original, S.M.). Examples of (1) would be the phonemic contrast between consonants: JC SE LE (London Engl.) truth, think /t/ – /tru:t/, /tI]k/ / b/ – /tru:b/,/Θı]k/ /f/ – /tru:f/, /fI]k/ this, bother /d/- /dIs/, /bada/ / ð/ – / ðIs/ /b%ð6/ /v/, /d/ – /dIs/, /b#v6/

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Sebba (1993: 157) remarks on the complexity of the three-way contrast between the different realizations of TH in the different systems: The TH of think may be realised as /f/ [in London English, S.M.], while the TH of bother may be /v/, giving rise to two commonly cited examples of stereotyped Cockney pronunciation: ‘fink’ and ‘bovver’. Word-initially as in THough, TH may be realised as ‘any of [ðIs, ðIs (sic), dIs, lIs, ‘Is]’ (Wells 1982: 329). JC and LE may thus agree on the pronunciation of this (as [dIs] while diverging dramatically on the pronunciation of think ([tI]k]/[fI]k]) and bother ([bada]/[b#v6]).

An example of (2) would be, for instance, differences in vowel length and quality, e.g. in –

a two-way contrast where JC differs from both Standard English (British Standard English – RP – as well as Jamaican Standard English) and London English: JC SE LE e.g. “talk” /a:/ /f : / /f : /

–

a three-way contrast where JC, SE and LE are realized differently: JC SE LE e.g. “choice” /aI/ /fI/ /oI/

–

a four way contrast where there are distinct realizations in JC, RP, JE and LE JC JE RP LE e.g. “face” [iε] [e:] [εI] [aI] e.g. “goat” [uf ] [o:] [6~] [%~]

A central phonological feature of LE is glottaling, i.e. the replacement of /t/ by a glottal stop. Glottaling is not a feature of Jamaican Creole nor of Standard English:31 JC SE LE e.g. “matter” /t/ – /mata/ /t/ – /mæt6/ [‘] – /mæ‘6/

Further prominent phonological features include (cf. Sebba 1993: 158–159): –

initial H-dropping, which is both a feature of most rural Jamaican Creole varieties and can also be found in London English (Wells 1982: 322). Initial H-adding where a word starts with a vowel is a prominent feature of hypercorrection in Jamaican Creole.

From speech community to discourse communities 

–

palatal and labial-velar glides: Palatal glides /j/ appear after /k/ and /g/ and before open vowels in Jamaican Creole: /kja:r/ for “car”, /gjal/ for “girl”. The labial-velar glide /w/ may appear after /p b f v m/ before certain vowels, e.g. /bwai/ for “boy”, /fwa:ti/ for “forty”.

Grammatical features. Some of the most prominent grammatical features of JC which are then highlighted in London Jamaican are as follows: (1) The pronominal system of JC has no case distinctions or distinctions for possessive pronouns. Gender is often not distinguished so that im may, in fact, refer to the 3rd person singular in general. One distinction made in JC, which is not, in fact, made in English, is that between the form of the 2nd person singluar and plural. Sing. 1st mi 2nd yu 3rd im/i/she

Plural wi unu dem

(2) The tense/aspect system is one of the most studied areas in Creole syntax. For a more detailed description of Jamaican, cf. Bailey (1966). Prominent tense/aspect markers in JC include a. Non-obligatory tense marking in simple past, e.g. Him come back yesterday – He came back yesterday b. Preverbal tense markers en (also – more commonly found in LJ – bin, did), and e.g. Mi en write – I have written c. Preverbal aspect marker a: e.g. Mi a write – I am writing (3) Plural marking with affix -dem e.g.: Di uman-dem – the women (4) The use of the copula depends on the type of construction (cf. Sebba 1993: 151): a. Auxiliary verbs are not used to form tenses or aspects of the verb in Jamaican, but the translation of SE sentences like these would require the JC particle a: mi a rait, etc. b. The JC equative verb is also a: mi a di tiicha, im a di dakta. c. JC has a separate locative verb de: wi de a London, mi waant de ya. d. No copula is required in adjective constructions as adjectives form a special class of verbs in JC grammar and take the same

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tense/aspect marking particles as verbs: disya buk uold, mi taiad nou, dem bin fat. (5) Negation: JC allows multiple negation (e.g. neva – notin; nobadi – neva) (6) Prepositions: JC uses often the preposition a where English uses different ones (in, at, to) Sebba (1993: 148 ff.) notes that among the grammatical features, 2a) and (5) are comparable in form between JC and LE. For most other grammatical features, LE is roughly equivalent to Standard British English (RP).

Lexical features. Words and phrases are perhaps the most adaptable and flexible elements in London Jamaican. They are also the most prone to change quickly, especially when expressions are connected to special in-groups among adolescents. Generally, the vocabulary is drawn from three different sources: they are either taken from (1) general (standard) English and extended or changed in their meaning (hard, soft, etc., meaning the opposite), they may (2) have their origin in the Caribbean and/or relate to Caribbean concepts (duppy – “ghost”, bambaclat – derogatory expression) or (3) they are new lexical inventions (diesel – “great”, expression of approval, cack – “rubbish”). Special expressions used in various youth peer groups: whaÁappen whaÁgwaan diesel break beat cack bambaclat

greeting greeting expressions of high approval (SE “great”, “brilliant”, etc.) same as “diesel” opposite of diesel and break beat – (SE, “rubbish”, etc.) derog. expression

The phonological, grammatical and lexical features outlined above must be seen as a resource pool, from which, according to competence and context, the London Jamaican speaker creates his or her variety. The highlighting of some few basilectal features of Jamaican in its diaspora form works contrary to the value system of first generation West Indians. Thus, it seems small wonder that older speakers like respondent No. 1 (cf. 4.3.2) approve neither of the way London or British-born descendants of West Indian parents speak nor of the purposes they use it for.

From speech community to discourse communities 

ii. Situational and symbolic switches For bilingual speakers, complete situational switches, i.e. switches that are initiated by change of addressee or other extra-conversational variables, are often the norm rather than the exception (cf. also interview with R14, Appendix). Such situational switches may be observed in the following exchange of a second-generation London-born speaker (R17) in conversation with her mother (R5), a (first-generation) Jamaican, and another person (I, non-Jamaican) present. The topic of the conversation is about doctors in the neighbourhood: 1 R17: Dr. Parson’s come back dey mos probably cyaan cope up dere. He does, like, surgery once a week, I think most of the day (at them out). He’s retired now but he’s back at the surger/ R5: Me no like him// 5 R17: //How you mean, Mama? R5: He cyaan handle di// R17: To I: //He looks after you he looks after kids, he doesn’t look after the elderly, he forgets about them. To R 5: Him look after children fantastic , no problem. Elderly people (0.1) he forgets you. [. . . ] 10 R17 to I: Dr. Parson HAS (0.1) if you think about it (0.1) he watched Sandra being born and Sandra’s son and watched both of them grow up which is // I: /Well, that’s quite / R17: /that’s quite a few. If you think about it. (0.2) To R 5: Dr. Parson watch Sandra grow op// 15 R5: De one up deh high up? R17: Yeah Dr. Parson took up **** and Leon. R5: So what about de young docta at di hospital an R17: Oh, he deliver at home. Oh yeah, he is a very young doctor, early twen/ mid-twenties, I think and the old one must be with us for thirty years. 20 R5: An di uman dere must be// R17: //Excuse me no – since Sandra barn – that’s 34 years.

One can observe several situational switches in the speech of the (bilingual) 2nd generation speaker R17. They occur in instances of addressee change, when she directly addresses either her Jamaican-speaking mother (e.g. line 8, line 13) or the Standard English speaking participant (e.g. line 7, line 10). Conversational switches like, for instance, in line 21 (self-directive) can also be noted. R17’s chief motivation for the switches here is to accommodate to the verbal behaviour of the respective addressee and to be understood by them. Often, a complete change of voice, a change of speaker persona can be perceived in switches of bilingual 2nd generation speakers. This was observed,

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for instance, in the speech of a black London bus driver trying to get a (black London) car driver to leave the bus lane: B: Excuse me, sir – excuse me – I’m afraid you can’t park here. [no reaction from the car driver] B: Sir, this is a bus lane. You’ll have to remove your car. [No reaction from the car driver] B: [to herself ] Stap dis arseness, man. Who de hell he tink he is. <passengers laughing> (field notes) The switch here was directed both to the bus driver herself and to the passengers as “audience”, in the majority black Londoners who watched the scene with amusement. The significance of the switch, however, lies first of all in the complete “change of voice”, including pitch and even non-verbal elements like posture and facial expression (which the transcript cannot capture). Secondly, it is a switch from “voice of authority” to “private voice”. It is important to emphasize, however, that for most second to third generation speakers, a form of British English is their first language. As noted above, their uses of Creole/Patois are often quite restricted; thus London Jamaican is always used in conjunction with British English in a code-switching style. Their bilingual competence may vary to a great degree, but their awareness of operating with two cultural codes is much greater than that of the first generation. As Gumperz (1982: 65) points out: What distinguishes bilinguals from their monolingual neighbours is the juxtaposition of cultural forms: the awareness that their own mode of behaviour is only one of several possible modes, that style of communication affects the interpretation of what a speaker intends to communicate and that there are others with different communicative conventions and standards of evaluation that must not only be taken into account but that can also be imitated and mimicked for special communicative purposes.

As for most second and third generation speakers English is the mother tongue, the referential aspect of communicating in Creole is not as important as its symbolic significance as a marker of black identity. Sebba identifies the use of Creole, or “talking black” as a social rather than an informational activity, which is highly dependent on the speakers’ own perceptions of their language rather than on a purely formal identification of linguistic features: [. . . ] in London ‘talking black’ or ‘chatting Patois’ can be seen as a social act where speakers, coming to the conversation with similar models of the stereotyped ‘Creole’, but different degrees of competence in it and different amounts

From speech community to discourse communities 

of motivation, negotiate a language which they agree is ‘Patois’/‘Creole’/‘black talk’ etc. Each party to the conversation uses as many ‘Creole’ tokens as s/he feels comfortable with. That the result is regarded as ‘Creole’, ‘Patois’ etc. by the speakers is the result of a social rather than linguistic process, in which two ‘opposing’ codes, ‘ordinary English’ (i.e. British English, usually London English) and ‘Patois’ are construed to exist in the repertoire of speakers. Thus two speakers who normally use hardly any Creole forms might feel they were ‘chatting Patois’ when they were actually using fewer Creole tokens than two heavy Creole users who felt they were speaking ‘ordinary English’. (Sebba 1993: 18–19)

The extent to which Creole is used is highly dependent on the speakers’ own perceptions of their language, rather than on a purely formal identification of linguistic features. Thus, for second and third generation West Indians, Creole is no longer the mother tongue, which fulfills most communicative functions, but a (variable) set of phonological, lexical and grammatical features which are used out of choice to negotiate and symbolize black identity and culture. In most interviews with second and third generation respondents, Creole is valued as a positive asset, which should be kept alongside with Standard English (cf., for instance, sample interviews (R14, R33) in the Appendix. The mix of Patois and London English features, so characteristic of London Jamaican, may be observed in casual conversations among adolescents: R37: Sometimes the words though, what they’re saying (0.1) t’s just certain songs that make sense and some don’t. R34: A doh like dem tune dere where de man say ** ‘Do dis an dat’ to you, they’re very rare. Dem tunes are qui%e rough, ge%in (******) you can sit down, listen to and dance to, dat’s wha% I like. (Group of adolescents, 12 and 13 years old, talking about music)

For those young black Londoners, speaking Patois is important as a cultural symbol, as a token relating them to their “cultural roots”. By using Patois, they are staging their identity, as a conscious expression of their belonging to a group. The actual competence is of secondary concern, it is the symbol that matters. That is also why phatic uses of Creole like the greeting “wha‘appen” is often enough to stake one’s claim of “talkin black” and belonging to a certain group. Lexical choice – similar to clothes, choice of music, and other symbols – is often decisive in determining group belonging:32 As respondent No. 34 explains, words like “diesel” or “cack” would be used by people listening to jungle or hiphop, whereas words like “bambaclat” would not be used by them and are attributed to reggae listeners.

 Chapter 4

The distinction between competence and symbolic value also becomes evident in the following exchange among students at Deptford Green school: when asked whether they actually understood Jamaican Patois as it is spoken by Jamaicans in Jamaica, most of them said that they actually had difficulties, but, at the same time, that “it runs in the blood to understand it”. R34: When I went Jamaica at first I couldn’t understand a word dey were sayin. And after a while, I would say about two weeks you just understand the broken English there, sometimes they say cer%n words like (0.6) oh, I’ve forgotten now, but it’s like (0.1) you understand it. Some black (0.2) you just feel that that’s where your base is, your natural home, Jamaica/ R37: //Yeah cos your family’s from there, your own, innit. R34: And it’s like (0.1) it runs in the blood to just understand that language.

For these adolescents, the connection with their “ancestral language” symbolizes their heritage, independent of real linguistic competence. Their interpretation of an “organic” link between language and culture notwithstanding, Patois, for quite some time now, has been spreading beyond the blood bonds of West Indian heritage, as the following discussion shows. .. Creole-crossings and the creation of new (“imagined”) communities The symbolic value of Creole has a further effect, another Creole transformation, which this time reflects the group of its users: while in the first generation creole was spoken exclusively by West Indians of all ages and ethnic groups, Creole in Britain has since become the language of Afro-Caribbeans and, more generally, of black youth culture. On the other hand, cross-cultural use of Creole by adolescents of non-Caribbean heritage has become quite common. Although there are no detailed studies of Patois spoken by adolescents of African background, observation suggests that this is a customary practice, especially in peer groups of both African and Afro-Caribbean adolescents (cf. also Alexander 1996). Roger Hewitt describes in his study (1986) the use of Patois by black and white youths in two London neighbourhoods. The fact that Creole in Britain has been such a prominent part of popular youth culture has the effect that Creole features are employed for prestige in the speech of adolescents of different (non-West Indian) backgrounds. In fact, some of these Creole users go beyond mere imitation: Hewitt’s (1986) ethnographic study on communicative practices between adolescents of AfroCaribbean parentage and white working-class adolescents in two areas of South


London makes clear that language contact does not exclusively affect minority language speakers only but that this contact also leaves its marks on the majority language. The use of Creole by white youths in areas where they are exposed to it may therefore be seen as an inevitable result. The choice of white adolescents to actively use Creole and to be seen as a Creole speaker may, however, involve not only demographic factors, but a more complex set of determinants, including gender roles, solidarity and distance to their black peers (Hewitt 1986: 150–99). Because Creole in Britain is inscribed as the language of black culture, any cross-ethnic use of Creole is highly marked and has to be seen again as a symbolic act of identity.33 In this sense, the notion of a “West Indian speech community” cannot be limited to ethnic identifications any more or as a mere reference to the language of origin of speakers’ ancestors. If one wants to use the concept of a speech community at all, it has to be in the sense of Robert LePage’s and Andrée Tabouret-Keller’s notion of speech as both individual and communal acts of identity in which “the individual creates for himself the patterns of linguistic behaviour so as to resemble those of the group with which from time to time he wishes to be identified, or so as to be unlike those from whom he wishes to be distinguished” (LePage/Tabouret Keller 1985: 181). The question remains, however, whether or not this verbal behaviour is accepted by the group. Independent of individual proficiency, white Creole use such as described above is often regarded with suspicion and hostility by the group the white adolescents want to identify with. This becomes evident in a statement by a 20 year-old black Londoner: Sometimes, when you hear a white guy doin it, when they say some%n like ‘Wh’appen’ or something, I didn’t really like it, I thought it was offensive, like they’re taking the piss out or something, you know what I mean? (field notes)

Others, like respondents 34 or 37 (13 and 12 years old), thought that it is ridiculous when white people try to sound Jamaican: R34: Certain English people find it amusing, like they find it, like they say, ‘Yeah, that sounds * the way they talking but some people just don’t like it// R37: //Some like it and try and copy it as well. Doesn’t sound// I: Have you ever heard that? R37: Yes//



 Chapter 4

R34: Yeah, you would hear it, an dey would say som%n like [in a very stilted voice] ‘Oh, bambaclat’< everyone laughs 0.3> or ‘What a raas’ <more laughter 0.2> . I: Why would they do that? R35: They try and/ R34: //They just sort of/ R37: They like to try out the language and ** and they sound like they’re taking the piss or somepn.

These statements reveal the value of Creole as a “we-code”, as an in-group language, as Gumperz (1982: 66) describes it: The tendency is for the ethnically specific minority language to be regarded as the ‘we-code’ and become associated with in-group and informal activities, and for the majority language to serve as the ‘they-code’ associated with the more formal, stiffer and less personal out-group activities.

Though Sebba and Wootton (1998) point out that, for most British-born black speakers, both Creole and a British form of English are actually “we-codes”, it becomes clear that, where Creole is concerned, they see white Creole use as associated with “stealing the language”, with derision, intervention and impersonation (cf. also Hewitt 1986: 161). In its representation of black culture and identity Creole use may also – especially in adolescent contexts – in a more general way stand for the Other culture, a counter-culture to the mainstream with “subversive” potential. This emerges from the one case where white Creole use is commonly accepted by their black peers: when it is used to defy and obscure communication, as an “anti-language”:34 A common use of creole by white secondary school children, and one which excites no objections from their black friends, is where it is used deliberately to exclude and mystify teachers and other adults in authority. It is, of course, a form of positional employment in which the value of creole as a ‘secret language’ becomes taken up into the pupil’s felt conflict with those with obvious power. (Hewitt 1986: 154)

This association of Creole with an opposition to authority is also documented in Rampton’s study on cross-ethnic language use among adolescents. The speakers in his group of respondents, mainly school children of East Indian background, seem to incorporate Creole features in their speech for oppositional purposes, too (Rampton 1995: 112–137). It is interesting to note, however, that among the three codes available to his informants, (i) Stylised Asian English, (ii) Punjabi, and (iii) Creole, Rampton found that the latter worked

From speech community to discourse communities 

as the most flexible one: Creole was used both in communication of pupils with their teachers and in peer-peer interaction (Rampton 1995: 118–119) and was “more closely incorporated with those elements of everyday discourse that were counterposed to the values associated with adult, white and/or class dominance” (Rampton 1995: 120). Thus, this Creole use has a further transformational effect: while reduced in function and changed in form, the interaction potential of Creole has enlarged with the crossing of the boundaries of an “organic” notion of speech community based on genetic ties.35

. Creole discourse communities in the diaspora In three generations of Creole/Patois use in the diaspora, Creole has undergone many changes: (1) linguistic transformations, in the creation of London Jamaican and similar varieties, (2) micro-functional changes in the purposes it is used for in different generations and (3) it has created new affiliations and alignments, has found and formed new communities of speakers who identify with it. In its structure, in its function and in its evaluation, it bears little resemblance to the language of the passengers of the Empire Windrush some fifty years ago. While many of the first generation have tried to disconnect themselves from the negative prestige of the varieties brought with them, others have deliberately adopted it in order to symbolically reconnect with these ties or to undermine conventional authority. Such negotiations, therefore, are not only restricted to a West Indian migrant community – in the sense of a genealogical tradition of the first generation immigrants – but also have important consequences for the larger society. As cultural theoretician Homi Bhabha (1994: 164) describes the effect of postcolonial migration in The Location of Culture, these “wandering peoples [. . . ] are themselves the marks of a shifting boundary that alienates the frontiers of the modern nation”. This phenomenon is not entirely new, nor is it restricted to postcolonial migration alone, as the following statement by T.S. Eliot reminds us: The migrations of modern times [. . . ] have transplanted themselves according to some social, religious, economic or political determination, or some peculiar mixture of these. There has therefore been something in the removements analogous in nature to religious schism. The people have taken with them only a part of the total culture [. . . ] The culture which develops on the new soil must therefore be bafflingly alike and different from the parent culture: it will be complicated sometimes by whatever relations are established

 Chapter 4

with some native race and further by immigration from other than the original source. In this way, peculiar types of culture-sympathy and culture-clash appear. (Eliot 1949: 62)

Even though T.S. Eliot’s statement above refers to settler colonies, the essence of it also holds true to postcolonial migration.36 One may thus question traditional conceptions of the nation as a convenient framework for the exploration of language prestige. Inasmuch as the concept of “one language” belongs to the idea of the nation state of the eighteenth/nineteenth century, the contemporary nation must be described as polyphonic with its many linguistic transformations, shifts, losses, appropriations and adoptions. Today, Creole forms part of the contemporary British multilingual reality. In the British diaspora, Creole has not only undergone linguistic transformations, but has also been used in many cultural forms (literature, music, soap operas, radio programmes, etc.) which form part of general British social discourse. And, in times of increasing mobility and cross-national interaction, one may see this Creole discourse in a “distant community” not as an isolated phenomenon, but as related and interacting with Creole discourse in the Caribbean.37 There is no single West Indian speech community in the London diaspora. Rather, there are many communities, each with their distinct socio-rhetorical patterns and evaluations. The affiliations with these groups, while not completely arbitrary, are more a matter of choice today than when the first generation of West Indians came. They may be seen as discourse communities rather than speech communities in the sense Swales defines them, as related yet distinct concepts: in the former, “the communicative needs of the group, such as socialization or group solidarity, tend to predominate [. . . ] The primary determinants of linguistic behaviour are social” while in the latter “the primary determinants of linguistic behaviour are functional” (Swales 1988: 24). The changes from social to socio-rhetorical membership are important shifts, which are marked by this distinction between speech and discourse community. There are different degrees of membership in such self-enacted communities. As Bex (1996: 65) remarks, “[. . . ] it seems likely that the degree of identification with particular groups will depend partly on the frequency with which individuals interact with each other in the pursuit of common aims, and partly on the perceived strength of external threats”. Whatever its form and functions, Creole is here to stay in the diaspora and will continue to be used by various discourse communities for various communicative purposes. The kinship of these communities is one that does not rest on historicity, but on imaginative and performative acts (cf. Bhabha

From speech community to discourse communities 

1994). That these must be continously re-enacted, re-staged and changed gives these communities their dynamic strength. While travel and migration are certainly responsible for much linguistic contact beyond geographical confines, they are by no means exclusive. In times of technical advancement and globalization, language contact has long ceased to be restricted to personalized face-to-face encounters or to the original locus of a language. Lawrence Grossberg (1996) describes the effect of globalization as a “deterritorialization of culture” (Grossberg 1996: 169) which “challenges culture’s equation with location or place.” While much of the debate on globalization focuses on the influences from centre to periphery,38 the reverse direction, which Orlando Patterson calls “the extraordinary process of periphery-induced creolization in the cosmopolis” (1994: 109), is often not acknowledged. While the term “creolization” in the statement used above refers to a more general process of cultural hybridization, the discussion in this chapter merits the conclusion that the same holds true linguistically: Caribbean Englishlexicon Creoles have influenced metropolitan culture through migration and other features of globalization.39 What is more, unlike common general patterns of language shift for immigrant communities, they are no mere temporary phenomena but have left a deep imprint on the society they were transplanted to. This does not mean that they remain in precisely the same forms, functions and are used by the same groups as in the original society. Linguistic processes of code-switching and language mixing have resulted in new language forms which are used for innovative functions. Psychological processes of identity transformations and resistance have created new groups of speakers, while others are submerged in the majority language. If the modern nation is described as an “imagined community”, “that special kind of contemporaneous community which language alone suggests” (Anderson 1983: 132), in post-modern times these “imagined communities” are formed under different premises, including both the global and the local: The boundary that marks the nation’s selfhood interrupts the self-generating time of national production and disrupts the signification of the people as homogeneous. The problem is not simply the ‘selfhood’ of the nation as opposed to the otherness of other nations. We are confronted with the nation split within itself, articulating the heterogeneity of its population. The barred Nation It/Self, alienated from its eternal self-generation, becomes a liminal signifying space that is internally marked by the discourses of minorities, the heterogeneous histories of contending peoples, antagonistic authorities and tense locations of cultural difference. (Bhabha 1994: 148, italics in the original, S.M.)

 Chapter 4

If Standard English was once established to symbolize a modern (homogeneous) nation, then Creole may well serve as a symbol for the contemporary heterogeneity and diversity of communities. The deterritorialization of Creole, its use in new functions and for new meanings is not restricted to geographical shifts of location. As we shall see in the following chapters, writing and translation also serve as productive fields where Creole discourse is engaged in an ongoing process of renegotiating language prestige.

Notes . A common general pattern for immigrant communities is to move from monolingualism in the minority language (first generation) to a bilingual competence in both the minority and the majority language (second generation) to monolingualism in the majority language (third generation) (cf. e.g. Appel & Muysken 1987: 42). . Note that the term diaspora originally means (Greek) “dispersion” but has later also been used to refer to “settlement” (especially with reference to the Jewish context). It therefore encompasses both the displacement and the stable presence of a community. . Cf., for instance, Alladina & Edwards (1991). Note, however, that the relevant section for CELC speakers in Britain is called “The Afro-English creole speech community” (Dalphinis 1991) and not “The West Indian (or Caribbean) speech community”. The significance of a distinction between Afro-Caribbeans and Indo-Caribbeans in their identification with their CELC language heritage will be discussed in some more detail in 4. 3. 3. . He states that “Caribbean net migration since 1959 constitutes approximately 29 percent of all voluntary international migration – legal and illegal” (Segal 1987: 45). . “The Caribbean is the only region to export people to three continents [sic]: North America, South America, and Western Europe” (Segal 1987: 45). . “Patois” is used here for CELC languages and their transformations, not for the Frenchlexicon Creole spoken in St. Lucia and Dominica. In the sense employed here Patois is derived from the colloquial term for Jamaican Creole, the main source for the British transformation of Creole (cf. 4. 3. 4). It should be noted, however, that the two meanings sometimes get confused by people of different island affiliations: Jamaicans tend to use “Patois” to mean English-lexicon (Jamaican) Creole, whereas people from the Eastern Caribbean often associate it with French Creole. . There has been a stable black presence in Britain at least since the 16th century when the Atlantic slave trade started and some merchants brought Africans back with them as “exotic” paraphernalia for their households. Some researchers also date the arrival of Africans in Britain back to Roman times. However, the postwar migration is significant in terms of number and the formation of black communities in Britain. For a comprehensive account on black history & politics in Britain, cf., for instance, Fryer (1984) and Gilroy (1987).

From speech community to discourse communities  . Patterson (1969: 11) notes that “it is often claimed that coloured immigrants live concentrated in ‘ghettoes’ or ‘little Harlems’. In fact, the 1961 Census showed that there were no boroughs in Britain in which more than 11 % of the population were coloured immigrants and only ten with rations of over 4%”. . The matched-guise samples consisted of recordings of four children of roughly the same age (1st year of secondary school): a) Bidialectal Barbadian girl born in Britain (working class Reading accent and “moderate” Creole), b) Working class English boy (working class Reading accent), c) middle class English boy (RP), d) recently arrived Jamaican girl (Jamaican basilectal Creole). The recordings were then played to judges, twenty student teachers in Reading, who had to evaluate these samples according to status, behaviour, academic potential and desirability of the speakers. . Most of the fieldwork material was collected during a 2-months stay in a London Jamaican household in Lewisham, South London. . The varieties may not even be mutually intelligible, as the following account of a woman of Jamaican parentage may show. Brought up with Creole as her home language in Britain, she claims to be fluent in both English and Creole. Yet, when seeing a play on a visit to Jamaica, she reports that “we could not see the funny side only because we could not understand what they were saying. I am saying that although Creole is the language that I speak, I still find it difficult to understand at times” (in Harris & Savitzky 1988: 6). One may add that comprehending puns and jokes also involves a reasonable amount of pragmatic and cultural knowledge, beyond the mere understanding of words and sentences. . It is clear that this distinction is somewhat crude since migration patterns vary a lot. Generally, first generation immigrants will be defined as those West Indians who came to Britain as adults. Second generation may therefore be British-born or Caribbean-born and brought to Britain during childhood. Third generation and subsequent ones will be usually British-born and have parents who spent most of their lives in Britain. . Lewisham and its neighbouring districts: Deptford, New Cross, Brockley. The area has been a destination and settlement for West Indians ever since the arrival of the SS Empire Windrush, the steamboat which first brought 492 West Indians to London in 1948 (cf. AnimAddo 1995: 88ff.). . The rhetoric of “us and them” as codes of social relationships and as constructions of identifications has been commented on in Gumperz (1982). It also plays a significant role in work on language ideologies which, as Schieffelin & Doucet (1998: 286) point out, “are likely places to find images of ‘self/other’ or ‘us/them’. “Us and dem” also echoes the title of a poem by British Dub Poet Benjamin Zephaniah which captures this dichotomy. . “It is here that one sees a discovery actually taking shape. No Barbadian, no Trinidadian, no St. Lucian, no islander from the West Indies sees himself as a West Indian until he encounters another islander in foreign territory. It was only when a Barbadian childhood corresponded with the Grenadian or the Guianese childhood in important details of folk-lore, that the wider identification was arrived at. In this sense, most West Indians of my generation were born in England. The category West Indian, formerly understood as a geographical term, now assumes cultural significance” (Lamming 1984: 214).

 Chapter 4 . R= respondent, cf. Appendix A. For anonymity reasons, respondents are given numbers instead of citing their names. For transcription conventions cf. section “Abbreviations and transcription conventions”. As will also be shown in the discussion on Creole and writing in Chapter 5, written representations of spoken language are always somewhat insufficient and crude, except for in extremely detailed phonetic transcriptions. For reasons of legibility, the decision on the transcription conventions was made on the basis of importance of features which indicate a shift or switch, i.e. in the underlined passages are one or more phonological (only phonemic, not phonetic, cf. 4. 3. 4) and/or grammatical features of Creole. . One of the major roads in Lewisham. . I = interviewer. . Note that this type of switch has been called phatic by e.g. Appel & Muysken (1987: 119). Since both the directive and the phatic function focus on the speaker addressee relationship there may be a case for both interpretations. However, I would like to stress the idea of an addressee switch – from the interviewer to the speaker herself – because it places emphasis on the different roles people take in the interview situation. An interpretation as a phatic switch, on the other hand, would mean that the utterance what de neem? has merely the function of keeping the channels of communication open between the speaker and her addressee, which, in my opinion, is not a sufficient explanation for the switch into Jamaican Creole. . Cf. full transcription of interview, Appendix. . This shift presents a hypercorrection rather than a conversational code-switch. . According to Cassidy & LePage (1980: 321), nine- night is “the celebration that concludes the nine-day period of funeral activities: there are singing, dancing, games, storytelling, ring-play, etc”. . Note, however, Sebba and Tate’s (1986) findings that the younger generation of British black speakers use the expression in a different way from the general British usage and from the older generation of West Indian speakers in that for them, it is not used to elicit agreement but to mark agreement. As Sebba (1993: 71) remarks, however, “the agreement marking use of ‘you know what I mean?’ seems to be confined to people under the age of about 30, which makes it likely that misunderstandings, if they occur, will be inter-generational”. . Cf. also LePage & Tabouret-Keller (1982) for a detailed discussion of models and stereotypes of ethnicity. They also cite an interesting result of a questionnaire survey with British and non-British students on ethnic classifications they used and the criteria they based these classifications on. It appears that the British students tended to use more crude colour categories (Black, Coloured, White) and more crude regional categories (Chinese and Indian) than their non-British colleagues. They also based their classifications more frequently on physical criteria than the non-British students. Unfortunately, LePage and Tabouret-Keller do not state the year the survey was conducted. . V.S. Naipaul, born in Trinidad of Indo-Caribbean parentage, gives a highly illuminating autobiographical example for such miscategorization and confusion, when he describes an encounter which he had in an airport lounge in London in the early 1950s: “There was another Indian in the lounge [. . . ]. ‘You are coming from –?’ I had met enough Indians from India to know that this was less a serious inquiry than a greeting, in a distant land, from one Indian to another. ‘Trinidad,’ I said. ‘In the West Indies. And you?’ He ignored my

From speech community to discourse communities 

question. ‘But you look Indian.’ ‘I am.’ ‘Red Indian?’ He suppressed a nervous giggle. ‘East Indian. From the West Indies.’ He looked offended and wandered off to the bookstall. From this distance he eyed me assessingly” (Naipaul 1972: 30). . The confusion over terms like Creole and Patois is a frequent source of misunderstandings in the interviews: depending on speakers and island affiliation, both can refer to either exclusively French-lexicon Creole or English-lexicon Creole. The terms frequently had to be adapted to the situation in the interviews. . Again, a typical misunderstanding between people of Eastern Caribbean origin and Jamaicans: for Trinidadians, Grenadians, Vincentians, etc., “Patois” means French Creole. For Jamaicans, “Patois” signifies “Jamaican” or English-lexicon Creole in general and “Creole” may be understood as “French Creole”. . As an outstanding example, he cites an unpublished study (Tate 1984) of a group of Rastafarians of Dominican descent in Bradford, who used Jamaican Creole as their in-group language authentically enough to pass for Jamaicans in Jamaica, according to the Jamaican researcher. . For a discussion of the two terms and concepts, cf. Sebba 1993, ch. 4 & 5. . For a more detailed description, cf. Sebba 1993. . However, as Wells (1982: 584) notes, it is known in the West Indies in the speech of Barbadians. . Cf. an example given by Alexander (1996: 30) how group membership and the very identification of “being black” depends on sociorhetorical choices and strategies: When two of her respondents met for the first time, one is discredited as a ‘black man’ by his choice of words: “Shane ventured into the kitchen, and approached Darnell, ‘So, where are you chaps from then?’ Darnell glared at Shane disdainfully, sucked his teeth and turned away. He later said to me with some degree of scorn, ‘Where did you find these guys, then? Nobody says “chaps”. He ain’t no black man.”’ . There are, to my knowledge, no systematic studies on the use of Creole by adolescents of African background. My observation would suggest, however, that there is a significant amount of African Creole use among adolescents and that this is the most accepted form of Creole use of non Afro-Caribbeans. A recent literary example of this can be found in Diran Adebayo. Some Kind of Black. London: Virago Press, 1996. . Halliday (1978) uses this term to describe verbal strategies used by low-prestige groups to create a strong group identity. The typical features of such an “antilanguage” are deliberate difficulty and unintelligibility to outsiders. . Such cross-over is also particularly visible/audible in speech forms employed in the contemporary pop music scene, especially Bangra cross-overs with uses of Indian languages and Jamaican. Another example may be “Cheshire Cat”, an Anglo-Saxon DJ from Cheshire who uses Jamaican Creole alongside with English. . One might even see an ironic resonance to postcolonial migration, as Bhabha (1996: 54) suggests. . An example of such an interaction would be e.g. the British-produced soap opera “Desmond’s” which centres on a West Indian immigrant family in Britain and their imme-

 Chapter 4

diate West Indian/British/African social circle. Patois is used extensively in this late 1980s series which also became a success in the West Indies (where otherwise American soap operas predominate). British-produced West Indian literature would be another, more consistent example of such an interaction which will be the centre of discussion in Chapter 5. . Interchangeably called North to South direction. . E.g. the export of carnival (Nurse 1999), pop culture including music, literature, etc.

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The imposition and maintenance of a register in a position of dominance over others is achieved in struggles between the dominant cultural forces in an institution – the cultural power holders – and the dominated forces. (Fairclough 1988: 115)

Chapter 5

From badge of authenticity to voice of authority Changing Creole representations in writing

. Creole transmediated: Writing and language prestige The ties between the Caribbean and its diasporic communities outlined in the previous chapter were not least upheld by writing and, more specifically, the production and consumption of West Indian literature. The “relevance of West Indian literature to Caribbean heritage people living in Britain” (Figueroa 1986) is highlighted by the fact that the majority of Caribbean writers in the post-war period lived and worked in the diaspora. Further relevance to look at changing forms and functions of Creole in the written medium lies in its potential, not only to uphold and strengthen ties between diasporic communities, but also to reach beyond Creole-speaking communities. But most of all, it is the medium itself which merits special attention in any discussion of language prestige changes. Writing is one of the most important socio-cultural domains in determining language prestige. In the majority of societies, the variety which has been codified for written usage is synonymous with the variety carrying the highest prestige (e.g. Standard English, High German1 etc.). In the history of most European languages, an increased use in writing and a subsequent eventual codification of a particular form of English, Dutch, French, German, etc. marked the end of dominance for the then hegemonic writing language Latin.2 What significance, then, does writing and its prestige factor bear for the CELC language situation? In multilingual situations, the language used for writing is invariably the H-language. As Milroy & Milroy (1991: 55) point out, “the most fully described and codified forms of language are those appropriate to public, formal and, especially, written usage”. One may add that, even in contemporary public perception, writing is often the key feature which grants a variety its legitimacy as a “language”: many uncodified varieties

 Chapter 5

are customarily referred to as “dialects” or “vernaculars”, regardless of their structural autonomy. As we have seen in Chapter 1, the status of codification, i.e. whether or not there are fixed norms for written usage including norms of orthography, is a crucial point determining the linguistic status of a language and, indeed, one of the distinguishing features between “Standard” and “Creole” in the Stewart model (cf. 1.5.1). On the other hand, this idea no longer corresponds to sociolinguistic realities since many “Creole languages”, such as Papiamentu or Haitian, have become standardized. Again, this poses one of the notorious problems in the categorization of Creoles as a “type” of language and exhibits it as practically absurd. However, Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles have not been standardized yet as pointed out in Chapter 1. They have neither changed their status of codfication, nor have they succeeded the H-variety Standard English in its function as the main writing language. Despite many proposals for a standardization of individual regional varieties, like Jamaican, Trinidadian, Guyanese, etc. by linguists (cf., for instance, Cassidy 1961; Cassidy & LePage 1967/1980; Devonish 1991; Winer 1990), such efforts have so far received little political and public support. Chapter 5.2 will discuss some of the main problems connected with standardization and choice of orthography in the representation of Creole on the page. It is hitherto undisputed that English continues to be the main writing language in the Anglo-creolophone Caribbean. This does not mean, however, that CELC languages are not written languages – and this is an important distinction from the notion of the (official) writing language – in fact, they have by now a fairly long tradition written use, for various purposes and in various contexts. Chapter 5.3 will explore the use of Creole in different genres of writing and the purposes it is employed for in the different texts. It will be argued that the way Creole is used there, i.e. the micro-functions of Creole representations, has changed considerably over the last decades. One of the effects arising from writing a particular variety, through the change of medium, is “elite-creation”, adding importance and visibility to it at the expense of others. Additional consequences for the variety in question are of a more conceptual nature and deal with the very functions and technology of writing. The depersonalization of communication in the act of writing establishes what has been called “context-free”3 language or “autonomous” discourse, “discourse which cannot be directly questioned or contested as oral speech can be because written discourse has been detached from its author” (Ong 1982: 78). The very authority of writing derives from such detachment; it is also connected to the distance in time and space between communicators, i.e.

From badge of authenticity to voice of authority 

the fact that the act of decoding/reading is not tied to an immediate presence – as in oral communication – but can be done years or centuries later or miles apart from the act of encoding/writing. While the spoken word is elusive and ceases to exist the moment it is uttered, writing gives language a stable presence, it records and creates norms of usage. Bex (1996) draws on these notions when he states that written texts are interventions into a communicative interaction which necessarily preceded them and which will continue after they have been discarded. They therefore contribute to, and are shaped by, the broad ways in which society speaks to itself (i.e. its discursive practices) and validates some communications as meaningful and others as meaningless. (Bex 1996: 67)

Because of the lack of context in written (as opposed to oral) communication, written language requires different strategies: writing relies more on the organization of discourse itself rather than on pragmatics and, as Ong (1982) suggests in his discussion of the psychodynamics of orality versus literacy, it tends to be “subordinate” rather than “additive” in structure. He points out that written discourse needs and consequently develops more elaborate and fixed grammar than oral discourse does: “to provide meaning it is more dependent simply upon linguistic structure, since it lacks the normal full existential contexts which surround oral discourse and help determine meaning in oral discourse somewhat independently of grammar” (Ong 1982: 37–38). Thus, writing itself requires an elaboration of linguistic structure, an important notion in the discourse on Creole languages, as they often carry the stigma of having a “simple structure”. This aspect of lexical and syntactic elaboration in writing will be dealt with in more detail in the last chapter on Creole and translation (Chapter 6.3) where the importance of translation for register elaboration will also be taken into account. The notion of “register” as a situation-type and its relationship to social structure and power (cf. Fairclough 1988) will feature in the present discussion on Creole and its representation in writing.

. Modes of representation: Creole orthography choice as a form of social practice The question of how to encode a variety or language is not a simple and straightforward one. As noted in Chapter 4, all forms of written transcription are ultimately quite insufficient and poor recordings of spoken language. However, except for detailed linguistic analyses, it clearly is not the primary func-

 Chapter 5

tion of writing to record spoken language. Writing, rather, is an abstraction of speech, a system of signs different from (spoken) language, with rules and conventions of its own, which is used for a number of functions that speech cannot as readily fulfill (e.g. mnemonic function, distancing function etc. cf. Ong 1982). Thus, the question of how to represent a language in writing should be a mere technicality, of no more or less concern than the symbols to describe a chemical reaction. The reality, of course, is different. The choice of writing system, script and orthography4 is a highly sensitive socio-political issue often accompanied by heated public discussions. Debates on orthography and orthography changes frequently result in ideological battles, as has recently been shown in the German orthography reform. Here, the question of whether Chicorée may be spelled as Schikoree or Philosophie may even be represented as Filosofie had the nation divided into pro- and anti-reformists. What is at stake in such debates is not so much the linguistic-technical issue, but rather the socio-psychological question of attitudes towards the representation of the language. How can the strong emotional value attached to writing systems and orthography be explained? From a historical perspective, this may be a reflection of the one nation/one language concept: after all, standardization became important only in the rise of the (European) nation state. A homogeneous writing language thus symbolically mirrors a united (homogeneous) nation state (cf. also Milroy & Milroy 1991; Grillo 1989a). From a (synchronic) socio-political perspective, the choice of writing system and spelling cannot be seen in isolation, but as choices of alignments and resonances with other codification systems. This may best be illustrated by examples where changes in the writing system or script mark cultural and political affiliations. As a demonstration of (political and cultural) autonomy, Koreans invented their own writing system at the expense of traditional Chinese word writing, the change from Arabic to Roman Alphabetic script in Turkey in 1928 demarcated the move to a secular and more Western orientation of the country, so did the change from Cyrillic script to the Roman Alphabet in many former Soviet Union states after their independence. Serbian and Croatian today are divided not so much by differences in language structure as by their different choice of script (Cyrillic versus Roman). Likewise, the choice of orthography may be seen as associating or dis-associating the spelling of a language with other orthography traditions. Thus, the abandonment of spellings such as Chicorée in the German orthography reform was seen as denying their French origin, and, more serious even, a (suggested) spelling like Filosofie was often quoted of “betraying the great Greek tradition”.5

From badge of authenticity to voice of authority 

Therefore, as Schieffelin & Doucet point out in the following statement on the Haitian context, orthography debates are themselves sites for competing views on the national and cultural representation of a language: We suggest that arguments about orthography reflect competing concerns about representations of Haitianness at the national and international level, that is, how speakers wish to define themselves to each other, as well as to represent themselves as a nation. Because acceptance of an orthography is based more often on political and social considerations than on linguistic and pedagogical factors, orthographic debates are rich sites for investigating competing nationalist discourses. (Schieffelin & Doucet 1998: 285)

Drawing on Benedict Anderson’s notion of nation as an “imagined community”, Shieffelin and Doucet see orthographic choice as a way of “‘imagining’ the past and the future of a community” (1998: 285). The graphic representation of a language, the alliances which are made with other writing languages, the way lexical enrichments from other languages are dealt with in orthography – all this bears testimony to the cultural importance of writing. At the same time, it also reveals the linguistic-cultural relations of a language, its vicinity and distance to other writing languages. .. Encoding Creole: Negotiating language autonomy Questions of representation in writing are of particular relevance when the languages concerned are non-standard languages. One of the reasons, of course, is that here the lack of existing rules provides a greater freedom of choice, whereas already existing spelling systems are notoriously difficult to change. Furthermore, the representation in writing offers an opportunity to varieties which have to negotiate their legitimacy as separate languages, i.e. languages which are autonomous from a cultural-sociological point of view, but are at the same time in close linguistic relationship with a high-prestige language which is traditionally used for writing (cf. Kloss’s concept of “roofed languages”, 1952), i.e. in a typical diglossic situation. As discussed in Chapter 2.3.1, the autonomy of a language is related, but not restricted to, structural distance alone to another language. Rather, language attitudes and socio-cultural factors play a prominent role and, in language development, also influence a widening or narrowing of Abstand. Kloss’s distinction between Abstandsprachen,6 languages where autonomy is given in linguistic structure alone (e.g. Basque), and Ausbausprachen7 where this autonomy is achieved by socio-cultural development (e.g. Czech and Slovak) shows

 Chapter 5

very clearly that autonomy is not necessarily given but, rather, that it can be created and negotiated. Standardization and choice of orthography are two of the most important aspects in the creation of Ausbausprachen, which is why they matter so much in the negotiation of Creole language prestige. Regardless of the attestation of linguistic autonomy by linguists, it is the perception of autonomy which CELC-languages often lack (as mere “variants of English”), after all, and which is at stake here. Thus, orthography choice for Creole languages is no trivial matter and has indeed proved to be the most problematic point in the various attempts of standardizing Creole languages, and, particularly (though not exclusively), the CELC languages. As Romaine (1994a: 2) points out with regard to Hawaiian Creole English, “nothing prevents the codification of a standard orthography for Hawai’i Creole English or for that matter any other language. This is a purely technical problem which is easily remedied”. However, as she adds, “the emergence of standard languages, as well as literary forms, is intimately connected with socio-political context”. According to Mark Sebba (1994: 3) the predicament lies in the function which orthography has in the visible representation of a language: Orthography, itself a symbol of standardisation and a highly visible representation of language norms, is likely to be one of the most contested aspects of standardisation. For many users, after all, “the language” is the standard written language and that alone. (italics in the original, S.M.)

What exactly is the nature of this contest, what aspects are fought over in Creole orthography? In the following discussion, two points merit special attention: –

–

As outlined above, CELCs are no Abstandsprachen and have to achieve and create their autonomy via functional elaboration. However, any elaboration of functions of Creole as a writing language must be closely connected to its standardization. As Kloss (1952: 27) remarks in his model on Sprachausbau, “the achievement of a higher developmental level is, of course, partly dependent whether or not there is a standardized orthography and a standardized form of writing” (my translation, S.M.).8 The interdependences of (perceptions of) autonomy, elaboration and standardization make it difficult to disrupt this cycle (cf. also Romaine 1996). The diglossic situation, as well as the low degree of perceived autonomy, makes English the “natural” model for a CELC orthography, as Sebba (1994: 1) remarks: “Standardisation of a vernacular necessarily takes place with respect to an already existing standardised model (normally the com-

From badge of authenticity to voice of authority 

munity’s “high” language) which it will eventually equal and possibly replace”. A close affiliation with and modelling on English orthography may thus be the most “natural choice” for a Creole orthography but, at the same time, this choice is the most problematic one with respect to autonomy. In such a graphic representation, the distance to the lexifier is even more narrowed because only specific and marked features are thus highlighted in the orthography. Consequently, Creole continues to be perceived in its (often stereotypical) deviance to English. Other, less prominent regular differences to Standard English are not graphically marked, neither are semantic distinctions, which are not perceptible in form but only in meaning. Nevertheless, these strategies (cf. examples 5.2.2) are the most dominant ones in writing CELC languages, strategies which have usually been applied rather idiosyncratically by Caribbean authors. It would therefore be difficult to turn these idiosyncratic choices into a consistent and systematic body of rules. In contrast, a more pronounced graphic distance from the English spelling system could be achieved in various ways: a. The most radical – though not very likely – solution would be the choice of a completely different writing system such as word writing, for instance. Far-fetched as this idea may seem in practice, it would theoretically offer the advantage that the basis of codification is not sound-oriented,9 but focuses on a different linguistic unit (e.g. syllable, word), thus making the socio-political decision of which sub-variety to chose for standardization (e.g. Kingstonian Jamaican etc.) superfluous. b. A less radical way of achieving greater graphic autonomy is the choice of additional graphemes which are not part of the English spelling system. This is actually done in the orthography of Krio,10 where two symbols also used in the IPA (f and ε) alphabet are used alongside the letters from the Roman alphabet. For example, the title of the New Testament translated into Krio reads as “Gud Nyus Ff flman. Di Nyu Tεstamεnt”. This relatively uncomplicated device is just enough to mark the orthography’s independence. It may, however, pose technical problems, especially in the new media like the internet where special symbols are often not transferable. c. A third strategy of achieving greater autonomy in Creole orthography is to base the codification more closely on the sound system of the language, as a consistent (quasi)-phonemic representation of the variety. This is, in fact, the choice most linguistic standardization attempts have made and,

 Chapter 5

for writing CELC languages, the most propagated alternative to the “traditional” idiosyncratic spelling based on English orthography conventions. Both alternatives, the traditional and the phonemic way of writing Creole, will now be looked at in more detail. For reasons of comparability, examples for both types will be given from Jamaican Creole texts. .. Maintaining traditions: English-based orthography The fact that there are no fixed rules for the traditional practice of writing Creole, based on English orthography conventions, does not mean that there are no models to imitate or adopt. The text below, cited here as an example, is a poem by Louise Bennett, the great Jamaican pioneer of performance poetry: sample text 1: 1

So yuh a de man, me hear bout! Ah yuh dem sey dah-teck Whole heap o’ English oat sey dat Yuh gwine kill dialect!

5

Meck me get it straight Mass Charlie For me noh quite undastan, Yuh gwine kill all English dialect Or jus Jamaica one? (“Bans o’ Killing”, in Bennett 1966: 218–219)

When Louise Bennett started to perform her poetry on stage in the late 1930s, her work was often not considered serious art, nor was her writing seen as serious literature when she started to publish her poems in newspapers and in books. Frequently, it was not even regarded as “writing” at all because it was conducted in “dialect” (a term which she herself used frequently to refer to the language she used).11 In his introduction to a collection of Bennett’s poetry, Mervyn Morris quotes her on this: “From the beginning”, Louise Bennett has observed, “nobody ever recognized me as a writer. ‘Well, she is ‘doing’ dialect’; it wasn’t even writing you know. Up to now a lot of people don’t even think I write”. Later in that interview she resisted characterization as “a performing artist primarily”; she pointed out that her work, being “oral in its tradition”, lends itself to performance – but not before remarking significantly: “I did start to write before I started to perform”. (Morris 1982: xi, quoting Bennett)

From badge of authenticity to voice of authority

In retrospect, her first poetry collection in print, published in 1942, must be seen as a milestone in the transformation between the oral and the written Creole form. At that time, there were not many models of writing in Creole she could herself could draw upon.12 However, Bennett did not perceive the lack of standardization of Creole as a problem, but rather as a creative challenge, declaring that “if the Jamaican dialect were to become a standard language in her life-time, she would ‘still write in the free expression of the people [. . . ] a manner of speaking unhampered by the rules of (Standard English) grammar, a free expression – a dialect”’ (as quoted in Nettleford 1966: 9). This, of course, obscures the fact that Creole does have grammatical rules despite the lack of prescriptive rules for writing it on the page. Still, her affirmative use of Creole certainly contributed a lot to changing at least some of the negative attitudes associated with it.13 In the poem cited above, “Bans O’ Killing” she explicitly states her view that the “Jamaican dialect” is on equal footing with “other dialects of English”, when she writes “Yuh gwine kill all English dialect, Or jus Jamaica one?” (line 7 to 8). The poem continues as follows: sample text 1 (continued): If yuh dah-equal up wid English 10 Language, den wha meck Yuh gwine go feel inferior, wen It come to dialect? Ef yuh kean sing “Linstead Market” An “Wata come a me y’eye”, 15 Yuh wi haffi tap sing “Auld lang syne” An “Coming thru de rye”. Dah language weh yuh proud o’ Weh yuh honour and respeck, Po’ mass Charlie! Yuh noh know sey 20 Dat it spring from dialect! [. . . ] An mine how yuh dah-read dem English Book deh pon yuh shelf For ef yuh drop a “h” yuh mighta 40 Haffe kill yuhself.

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 Chapter 5

Bennett’s use of Creole had not only the effect of making Creole visible on the page, but also served as a model for later spellings, thus creating a tradition which is based on conventions rather than on fixed rules. Jamaican poet Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze points out the pioneering effect of Louise Bennett’s writing when she says, “I’ve always read Jamaican fluently, I mean I grew up reading Louise Bennett from the page and that would certainly have been my exposure to Jamaican on the page. So I would think, a lot of my spelling would come from how Louise spells” (in interview with Döring 1995). But Louise Bennett’s writing has not only become a source of inspiration to creative writers, but also a resource to linguists and lexicographers. Frederic G. Cassidy and Robert B. LePage (1980 [1967]) in their Dictionary of Jamaican English, a classic which has itself influenced later standardization projects, cite Bennett’s work as a source of information. Apart from the Creole-affirmative content of the poem cited above, the orthographic negotiation of distance and vicinity to Standard English is of interest here and merits more detailed attention: – –

–

Lexical differences appear few and far between. The title “Bans o”’ (SE: “A lot of ”) may be cited as one example. Grammatically, some prominent features of JC are marked in writing, e.g. the preverbal marker for the progressive form of the verb in the present tense:14 dah: line 9 “dah-equal”, line 37 “dah-read”; the negation with noh: line 6; plural marking with free morpheme dem: line 37 “dem English Book”; the use of the complementizer sey: line 19; the invariant 1st person singular pronoun me: line 1, line 6. Phonological features are marked rather extensively in the text. The problem here lies not so much with the recognition of phonological differences between SE and JC as with the English spellings system itself, on which this type of spelling JC is ultimately based. English orthography is highly inconsistent in its phoneme/grapheme correspondence. Markings of “deviations” must therefore be inconsistent as well. Examples for such phonological markings are:

1. Dental plosives /t/ (graph: t) and /d/ (graph: d), stand for the TH-fricatives in SE, realized in SE graphically as th both in its voiced and voiceless form. 2. The reduction of final consonant clusters is marked, e.g. in respeck: line 18, undastan: line 6. This is done inconsistently, as the spelling of dialect: line 4, which is to rhyme with teck, reveals.

From badge of authenticity to voice of authority 

3. Similarly, word initial consonant cluster reductions are marked by letter omission, e.g. tap for SE stop: line 14). 4. Vowel length and quality are marked by adding and changing letters such as in teck for SE take: line 2, meck für SE make: line 6. 5. Interestingly, some of the markings are not motivated by real phonological differences at all, such as in the spelling of yuh or in the marking of the initial consonant in kean: line13 (but come: line 12). These markings seem to have no other purpose than to increase the graphic difference to SE, i.e. to create Abstand. It is precisely because writing is an abstraction of speech that orthographic decisions can be made to reduce or increase autonomy. This can be seen as an approximation to Standard English or as a distancing and alienation to the H-prestige model. The orthographic choice thus becomes a choice of how to represent a variety, as an autonomous or deviant form. .. Creating Abstand: (Morpho)-phonemic orthography Most linguistic proposals for CELC orthographies are based on a closer and more consistent phoneme/grapheme correspondence than the one described above (cf., for instance, Hellinger 1986, Winer 1990, Devonish 1991, also: LingLIST discussion on Creole writing in Appendix C. 2.). For the sake of regularity and readability, a morpho-phonemic system is often advocated, i.e. one that is not strictly phonemic system, but ignores variations in the phonemic shape of morphemes, such as plural s in English (realized phonemically as /z/ or /s/ according to phonemic environment). Pioneering in the creation of such a (morpho)-phonemic spelling system for a CELC language was Jamaican linguist and lexicographer Frederick Cassidy, who in his Jamaica Talk (1961) first described his suggestions for Jamaican Creole (cf. also Cassidy & LePage 1980: xxxvii ff.). Even though the codification of the language in a dictionary may have had little immediate effect on the consciousness of the average language user – after all, the phonemic system used by Cassidy was not intended for popular usage but fulfilled mainly scholarly functions – the psychological significance should not be underrated. That the status-raising efforts of lexicographers are often met with little response by the public is not necessarily confined to the case of Jamaican Creole, as Ong points out: When a present-day linguist laboriously works out a more or less adequate way to transcribe a previously unwritten language, few if any of the speakers of the

 Chapter 5

language normally learn to write it. The script figures in linguistic journals but not in the language speakers’ lives. Often the speakers of the language are even incredulous about its writability, believing that only certain languages, not including their own, can be written. (Ong 1984: 5)

The proposals made for a Jamaican Creole orthography (Cassidy 1961, Cassidy & LePage 1967/80) have been taken up by a number of writers and are used in the following way: 1. Elimination of “silent letters” (e.g. t in listen in SE orthography) 2. Elimination of double letters for consonants (ss, tt, etc.) 3. Elimination of some graphs which either stand for consonants with diverse phonemic realizations (c becomes k or s) or can be represented by other letters or sequences of letters (q becomes k or kw, x becomes ks, g becomes j when representing a voiced alveopalatal fricative) 4. Elimination of “silent e” as indicator of vowel quality (e.g. time, line) 5. Vowels are represented by a eight (or ten)15 -symbol system corresponding to Jamaican phonemes: a – short, open, central, unrounded (e.g. wan) aa – long, open, central, unrounded (e.g. taak) e – short, mid-front, half-open, half-tense (e.g. dem) i – short, high, lax, front, unrounded (e.g. bizniz) ii – long, high, tense, front, unrounded (e.g. piipl) o – short, centralized or mid-back, half-rounded (e.g.kolcha) u – short, high, back, rounded (e.g. du) uu – long, high, back, rounded (e.g. chruu) 6. Other combinations of vowel symbols are used to represent diphthongs and palatalizations: ai for taim; ei for wein (“way in”), ie for niem, uo for buot. The advantages of such a quasi-phonemic orthography clearly lie in its distancing effect which then has socio-psychological consequences, as Hellinger remarks: A genuinely creole orthography will strengthen the structural and psychological identity of the creole; it may in fact initiate or support a recreolization process; it will provide a source for higher prestige and may therefore facilitate native speakers’ identification with the creole language and culture. (Hellinger 1986: 67)

The difference between the two systems of orthography used for Creole writing may best be illustrated with a side-by-side comparison. The following example

From badge of authenticity to voice of authority 

is a weekly newspaper column, “(W)uman Tong(ue)”, in the Jamaica Observer, where such a juxtaposition is made by the author Carolyn Cooper.16 She uses both the “informal” way of spelling Jamaican in the Louise Bennett tradition (called “Chaka-chaka spelling” by the author) and the more phonemic spelling according to Cassidy’s proposals (“Misa Cassidy spelin”): sample text 2: Britain no want join die EU fi true Chaka-Chaka spelling

Misa Cassidy spelin

Mi know seh mi no fi fast inna di people dem business. After all a ongle cotch mi a cotch inna England fi couple month a use dem library, an mi a gi few talk bout fi wi culture a one an two a di university dem. Mi not supposen fi a count no cow. Mi fi ongle drink di lickle mad cow milk an gwaan. But me cyaan help i. Mi a read newspaper an a watch tv an mi ha fi leh go mi tongue.

Mi nuo se mi no fi faas ina di piipl dem bizniz. Aatta raal a ongle kach mi a kach ina Ingglan fi kopl mont a yuuz dem laibri; an mi a gi fyuu taak bout fi wi kolcha a wan a tuu a di yuunivorsiti dem. Mi nat supouza fi a kount no kou. Mi fi ongl jrink di likl mad kou milk an gwaan. Bot mi kyaan elp i. Mi a riid nyuuzpiepa an a wach tv an mi ha fi le go mi tong.

Tek for instance di way nuff a di people dem inna Great Britain a big up dem chest like seh dem great fi true. Becausen Massa God put dem one side pon di map, dem a gwaan like seh dem no ha fi lean pon dem other one dem inna di Europe Union fi mek i. Mi no undersand i. [. . . ]

Tek far instans di wie nof a di piipl dem ina Griet Britn a big op dem ches laik se dem griet fi chruu. Bikaazn Maasa Gad put dem wan said pan di map, dem a gwaan laik se dem no ha fi liin pan dem ada wan dem ina di Yuurop Yuunyan fi meck i. Mi no andastan i. [. . . ] (Jamaica Observer, 15.11.96)

In comparison, the advantages and disadvantages of the two systems may be brought to the point:

“Chaka-Chaka spelling” (based on English orthography conventions): –

–

This spelling is easier to read for people who are familiar with English orthography. Since English is the medium of education, this concerns all literate Jamaicans.17 Etymological and morphological relations remain transparent.

 Chapter 5

– –

It is inconsistent and reinforces negative ideas of Jamaican as “not being rule-governed”. It decreases rather than increases autonomy.

“Misa Cassidy spelin” (based on a close phonemic representation): – – –

– –

This spelling strengthens the autonomy vis-a-vis Standard English and makes systematic phonological differences transparent. The phoneme/grapheme correspondence is more consistent which makes it easier to learn for reading beginners. For English-literates, the orthography has to be learned anew, a fact which increases the level of threshold for its usage. Seemingly familiar words such as university, newspaper or Europe Union appear in their close-to phonemic image rather alien as yuunivorsiti, nyuuzpiepa or Yuurop Yuunyan. Etymological and morphological relations become less visible. The closer sound correspondence makes it inevitable that particular variants, e.g. in pronunciation, are favoured over others.

The main disadvantage of the phonemic orthography – that readers literate in English find it difficult to get accustomed to – is the main reason why Cooper uses this “dual system” rather than the Cassidy orthography alone. She describes initial reactions to the phonemic version that “people were vexed because they could not read it. They have this notion that Jamaican is ‘our language’ and one shouldn’t have to struggle reading it” (Cooper 1997).18 This also became evident when the respondents in the London fieldwork (Chapter 4) were shown examples of both types of Creole in writing. One text was an Anansi story by Louise Bennett, written in the style as described in 5.2.2, the other text was an academic paper by Guyanese/Jamaican linguist Hubert Devonish (1994), entitled “Kyaribiiyan ruuts langgwij, nyuu taim sapii and fiilinz fo neeshan/Caribbean vernacular languages, technology and national consciousness”, spelled in the Cassidy orthography”. While most respondents had no difficulties reading the former story, almost all confessed their puzzlement over the second one. The reactions to this type of writing Creole were extremely mixed, from amusement to rejection. An example of the response of a Guyanese-born Londoner (aged 49) may illustrate this best: I think he exaggerates it, you know. (reads 0.4) I can’t understand it all. I have to stop and think. (reads, stumbles over the word ‘neeshan’) You see, I wouldn’t say ‘nation’ like that – ‘neeshan’ (reads /ni: /). We don’t say ‘niishan’ in Guyana – it’s nation – who would say ‘niishan’ – Jamaicans? (0.3) It looks like Dutch to

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me. He’s Guyanese. But we wouldn’t say ‘niishan’. I can’t think of any Guyanese group who would (0.3) I don’t agree with the way he’s writing. (0.2) He’s inventing, you know, his own thing here partly. But he is definitely *** he’s making up a language.

This response illustrates two points. Firstly, the interference of the conventions of the English orthography in the decoding of the phonemic one – the respondent reads /i:/ for the “long e” which the author had intended – , and secondly, that in establishing phonemic orthography, the reader is likely to insist on his or her own variety and would not readily accept deviations from their own pronunciation. There is certainly no easy solution at hand of how “best” to represent Creole in writing and there seems to be a strong divide on this matter between “experts” and “users” (cf. also Sebba 1998). However, what becomes clear in the debate over how to represent Creole is that orthography choice must be seen as a discursive negotiation of language prestige, an encoded view point on Abstand and Ausbau, (cf. also Mühleisen 1999). This ideological battlefield of Creole representation in writing is thus a very visible and immediate one – and one that continues to be fought over.19 These points also become evident in a recent vigorous debate on Creole and writing, documented on the CreoLIST20 (cf. documentation in the Appendix C.1). In this jokingly entitled “verbal war” on the use of written Creole on the internet, some of the common positions among users as to whether and how to write Creole have re-emerged. The following is an extract from the discussion among Guyanese (internet and Creole) users, where the Creole writing of participant 1 is met with irritation and frustration by participant 2: Participant 1: Norm, ah like how yuh ketching de bways pun de hap. Ah gun trow de ball in, but yuh gat fuh wait till weekend fuh a moh detail wuk as ah lil busy right now. Well I do not agree fully that slavery has decultured the Africans Wha’happen to qweh-qweh, cookup, ah lil’ obeah, ‘nancy story, bush medicine etc. They all have similarities in many parts of Africa today.

Participant 2: I was born in Alberttown British Guiana and am 100% Guyanese. My friends I know that you all mean well, by writing in Creoles therefore keeping our culture in view, but to me, I find it most irritating, trying to decypher the jargon, I can speak the Gt. Creoles but to read it, is a pain in the butt. So guys please help me out by sending me a english copy. for after a few lines of reading the Guybonic scripts, I delete the mail in frustration.

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The controversy over whether and how to write Creole among “experts”, on the other hand (cf. Appendix C. 2), also shows the continuing relevance of the topic as well as the strong emotions attached to it. But however strongly the issue is debated, most important is the fact that Creole is being used in writing and continues to be, whether on the page or on the screen.

. Written representation in Creole texts: A diachronic functional perspective The politics of how to encode Creole and the discourse on the graphic shape of linguistic representation is only one side of the coin. The other side relevant to our topic will now be addressed: what functions is Creole used for in different texts? Such a functional approach includes two aspects: a) what is the macrofunction of the text in which Creole is used? (i.e. what type of text, what genre does it represent?), b) for what (micro-) functions is Creole employed in cases where it is used alongside English? The following discussion argues that changes in both macro-function and micro-function can be diachronically observed, i.e. there has been an enlargement of both the textual genres which employ CELC languages and of the purposes that Creole writing serves. The former claim will be substantiated by a look at genre development in Creole writing with particular reference to the traditional oral/scribal divide of the diglossia. The main focus will be on literary genres as the earliest forms of Creole use in writing.21 As an example of the latter development, Creole uses in the novel – which is the literary genre where written Creole has featured most prominently – will be analyzed across some decades, from the 1930s to the 1980s. It will be argued here that the function of Creole has changed from “representing authenticity”, by imitating Creole in its oral usage, to “expressing authority”, by its employment on different levels of the text. .. Texts and genres: The oral/scribal divide It is no coincidence that the Creole text sample cited in 5.2.2, Louise Bennett’s poem “Bans o’ Killing”, had its origin on the stage, rather than on the page. After all, it is one of the characteristics of a diglossic situation that the L-language, i.e. Creole in the CELC situation, is used primarily in an oral form. Not surprisingly then, there is a long tradition of what is sometimes referred to

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as “oral literature”22 in the Caribbean, i.e. literature that has its origin in oral communication.23 In its long history of colonization and external domination, the oral/scribal divide has been demarcating lines of power relationships. As a number of historio-linguistic studies (cf. Todorov 1985) have amply demonstrated, language in general, and written language in particular, was instrumental in colonial conquest, both as a semiotic field of power and in its technical capacity of organizing the empire. It is important to note, however, that even under imperial rule, the written medium of a European language never was unchallenged but had, in fact, to contend and defend itself against the “oral languages” which it tried to dominate. Therefore, “oral literature” and its elements of proverbs, jokes, tales, songs, rumour and gossip have become functional as sites of popular resistance, subverting the semiotic power of the written language (cf. J. D. Scott 1990). Such subversion is often an intended method used in postcolonial literatures, as has been observed by Ashcroft et al. (1989: 7), when they state that “language becomes the medium through which conceptions of ’truth’, ‘order’, and ‘reality’ become established. Such power is rejected in the emergence of an effective post-colonial voice”. Language choice as strategies of “abrogation” or “approximation”, as forms of distancing from or approximating to Standard English, thus becomes a form of social discourse on language. This is why, in Caribbean literature, no simple lines between an oral and a literate tradition can be drawn, especially when they are seen in connection to language choice (Creole versus SE), because this assumption proceeds on too static a notion of culture. One must not underestimate the actual interrelations of the two domains, nor underrate the possibility of changing their parameters of power. Therefore, distinctions between conceptions of “popular culture” versus “high culture” (traditionally often used to distinguish between African versus European traditions) are becoming obsolete as the forms are mixed, imitated, challenged and renegotiated (cf. Mühleisen 1996a, Roberts 1997). From a historical perspective, one may nevertheless distinguish between different degrees of oral and literate forms, degrees of vicinity or distance to spoken language.24 This becomes particularly relevant when we look at the diachronic development of Creole use in writing. On the one end of the continuum are the “most oral literatures” as the traditional and earliest forms: proverbs, riddles, folk poetry and story telling practices (like Anansi stories) have been transmitted verbatim from generation to generation since the days of plantation slavery, and some of these continue to be practiced as a form of oral art.25 Many historical sources from the plantation society like Long (1774) or Edwards (1794) comment explicitly on the

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loquaciousness and verbosity of their slaves.26 As Roberts (1997) remarks in his discussion on oral culture in the slave population, cultural activities, like story telling, were not only a welcome diversion from the harsh reality of plantation work, but also served additional social purposes like cultural maintenance, education and subversion of the existing power relationships: Storytelling was for the slaves one of the main ways of educating the young and of passing on their culture, beliefs and values. It involved play-acting, audience participation, formulas, proverbs, expressions and words for special items of culture, flora and fauna. The subject matter in the cultural expression of the slaves was characterized by battles between the strong and the weak, in which very often the weak managed to outwit the strong. This was of course in part a fantasized reversal of reality. (Roberts 1997: 43)

These oral cultural activities are often dialogic in nature. Thus, for instance, the imagined dialogue with the implied hearer in Louise Bennett’s “Bans o’ Killing”, “Mass Charlie”, a character who appears frequently in her work. As a matter of fact, her poems represent the oral tradition of gossip and social comment. Like “Miss Lou”, the poetic persona of Louise Bennett, this tradition often takes the form of narratives in a first person speaker perspective and bears characteristics which Ong (1982) describes as “psychodynamics of orality”, e.g. in the preference for additive rather than subordinative structures. Oral literatures tend to be “aggregative”, i.e. they are inclined to rely on formulas to implement memory, and they often use situational examples rather than abstract theorems. On the other side of the continuum are non-literary genres which have emerged fairly recently in Creole writing (cf. also Mühleisen 1996b). Examples for this can be found in the print media, like the Cooper columns “(W)uman Tong(ue)” cited in Chapter 5.2.3. Even though they also rely on a story telling structure with a first person narrator – there are no less than ten uses of first person singular pronoun mi in the first introductory sentences printed bold in sample text 2 – they are less disposed to using formulae. In academic articles and essays, a very late development in Creole writing (cf. Cooper 1993: 91– 95, Devonish 1994, 1996), such first person involvement is even more reduced and replaced by a detached narrative. Its use of complex sentence structures and specialized vocabulary place them at the extreme end of the oral-literate continuum. The dependence of syntactic elaboration on the evolution of textual genres has also been discussed by Raible (1994: 118 ff.). He places the scale of techniques for what he calls “junction” – the relation between two propositions –

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on a dimension of aggregation versus integration. High degrees of integrative junction, Raible demonstrates for the development of French, are linked with conceptual scripturality, whereas techniques of aggregation (e.g. simple juxtaposition) are linked with orality (cf. also Chapter 6. 3).27 An elaboration of textual genres and the use of a variety in different registers means an elaboration of institutional access and, ultimately, an elaboration of socio-cultural power, as Fairclough (1988) reminds us with Halliday (1978). How socio-semantic changes are shaped by and re-shaping text and situation will now be explored in the following analysis of Creole use in the novel. .. Changing functions of Creole in the novel The novel is the genre where Creole use has reached its widest readership and it is placed somewhere between the two ends of the oral-literate continuum. Its specific structure as well as its popularity make the novel particularly interesting for an analysis of the changes in socio-linguistic choices. But there are also some general points which distinguish this literary genre from others. Unlike drama, poetry, or even short stories, the novel is not meant to be reproduced orally, a fact which may be attributed mainly to its length but, partly, also to the individualistic ideology associated with its rise in eighteenth century Europe. As a literary genre, the novel is traditionally thought to be part and representative of a high literate culture. But as pointed out above, this commonly held notion is somewhat artificial if not obsolete. It has been shown for literary narratives in general that they are subject to aesthetic and structural constraints similar to those of oral narratives.28 The novel’s complex structure with its various levels of discourse results in what Mikhail Bakhtin calls “the polyphony of the novel”, where a multitude of voices and varieties of language are artistically organized. For this reason variations of style, register, language or dialect are likely to be found in the novel, just as the language of various interest- or age-groups, professional jargon, languages of authority and varieties of socio-political relevance. Bakhtin sees this internal fragmentation of a homogeneous (national) languages as a necessary condition for the genre: the novel orchestrates its subjects, its entire illustrative and expressive world of objects and meanings in the social multitude of languages and its resulting individual multitude of voices (cf. Bachtin 1979: 157). This polyphony (in his later writings: heteroglossia) is by no means non-competitive in the Bakhtinian view of the social world represented in the novel. Each character in the novel thus becomes the bearer of a particular variety of language, one of many that are in competition, striving for social sig-

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nificance and a wider general application as the one distinctive language in a heteroglot world (cf. Bachtin 1979: 221). The polyphonic nature of the novel is exactly why the choice of Creole and SE in the novel rarely is an either/or decision – in most Caribbean novels, both codes are used side by side –, but a decision of how they are meaningfully employed at the various levels of discourse. At the same time, this polyphony is related to the strong traditional claim of the novel genre to represent “reality”.29 The linguistic choices of a novelist are therefore influenced by realistic sociolinguistic situations,30 and the social context no less than historical conditions have certainly left their mark on the writing. These must be taken into consideration, as well as the expressive potentials of the speech community in which a literary work is created. After all, the author does not write in a social void, but is part of a community he or she can be critical of, but not easily detached from. Sociolinguistic patterns and pragmatic rules are encoded in a language, they reflect interpersonal experience and social relationships in the community. Especially in a more or less bilingual community, like the Caribbean speech community, where language choice is a highly sensitive issue, the individual user can be assumed to have clear ideas when to use which code for what purpose. Tobago-born author Marlene Nourbese Philip comments on the complexities of the situation for the Caribbean writer when she writes (1993: 84) that “for the writer from the Caribbean, language must always present a dilemma”. Authors’ choices, in the most simple solution resolved in an either/or dichotomy, are therefore “often seen as a political choice”, she concludes (1993: 84). Mair, in his framework on nonstandard in fiction, describes what he calls the “motivation for using nonstandard” (1992: 122) on a dimension between mimesis and symbolic gesture, and he makes a strong point about the importance of the valuation of nonstandard language in literature: In order to explain the overall effect achieved by the use of nonstandard language in literary work, research in the sociology of language and language attitudes will often be helpful. The value attached to a particular nonstandard variety of speech in a literary work may be the same as in society in general. [. . . ] However, while overt prestige is clearly associated with the written and literary standard in modern societies [. . . ] nonstandard varieties have “covert prestige”, as expressions of social and emotional ties that do not hold throughout society in general but only in individual sub-groups. (Mair 1992: 107)

But the “choice” the author makes is not necessarily a conscious one; many linguistic patterns follow directly from the purpose, context and medium of com-

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munication. That literary and natural discourse underlie similar constraints has also been noted by Fowler: Types and stages in the development of the novel manifest different structural selections from the universe of available discourse; different novelists have their individual styles of writing – we can parody them – but it would not be true to say that they create their personal languages out of a vacuum, for even the creative, conscious artist in written language is influenced and limited by what is available in the language at large. So we should not be surprised to find that some kinds of discourse structure which linguists find interesting in non-literary situations have their significance in novels, too. (Fowler 1977: 113–114)

That the novelists’ linguistic choices in their work are not entirely their own, but are indeed linked to a wider social discourse on language, must also be seen in the light of the “gatekeeper” function of publishers.31 The “discursive practice”, i.e. the production, distribution and consumption of the text is therefore much more complex than in the conversations and interviews which were analyzed in Chapter 4. After all, literature needs to be published and the selection process of what language forms are acceptable for the target readership – Caribbean and/or international – lies ultimately in the hands of the publishing company.32 How public acceptance and awareness changed in the 1960s is illustrated by Anne Walmsley. She writes that, when she first turned in a selection of Caribbean writing she wanted to publish as an anthology to the Publication Branch of the Jamaican Ministry of education in 1961, they rejected it on the grounds that “the use of the vernacular creates a problem, as it is not the policy of the Branch to produce books containing dialect” (Walmsley 1990: 5). The anthology, The Sun’s Eye was then eventually accepted and published by Longman in 1968. The strong dependence on a readership outside the Caribbean as well as the change in publishing practices was also pointed out by Jamaican writer Olive Senior: [. . . ] we are entirely dependent on metropolitan publishers and all that it entails – though obviously so are the writers in exile. It does mean though that the perceived marketability outside your own country of what you write is what determines publication. Nowadays metropolitan publishers are more accepting of the language in which we write; my publisher never suggested any changes at all to Summer Lightning but in earlier days it meant that writers had to make concessions, compromises to suit foreign tastes. (Rowell 1988: 486)

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Given that, on the one hand, the language use and in particular the use of Creole forms in literature are subject to acceptance by the wider society and that, on the other hand, the prestigious ‘institution’ literature can provide a forum to further the acceptance of previously stigmatized language forms, it follows that this relationship has important implications for the study of language attitudes towards Creole. It means that literary texts can serve both as an indicator of language attitudes and as a catalyst of attitude change. It is in this way that written texts function interactively and have an effect on socio-semantic change: they can be seen as the battlegrounds on which the struggles between social forces are fought in order to establish new codes. In order to substantiate this claim, a number of novels by Caribbean authors from the 1930’s to the 1990’s (Mendes 1935, Naipaul 1957, Lovelace, 1979 and Powell 1994), will now be taken as examples for analysis.

i. Representing authenticity: Creole use as mimesis Black Fauns by Alfred Mendes was published in 1935, around the time when the first wave of local literature emerged in Trinidad in a circle of politically committed artists and intellectuals, the Beacon-group.33 One of the aims of the writers involved was to cross boundaries of race and social class. It can certainly be said without exaggeration that their publications shocked Trinidadian society at the time, but so paved the way to more drastic socio-political changes in the late 1930s. Even though most of the writers, like Mendes himself, were middle class, they held deep sympathies for the life of the black lower social class, which is portrayed in their writing. Black Fauns is a so-called barrackyard novel typical of this time, which centers on the every day life and troubles of a group of washer women in a backyard in Port of Spain. The dialogue of the women, which makes up a large proportion of the text – some chapters are almost entirely in dialogue – is in Creole. The women’s language is meant to represent a mesolectal Creole – then definitely a marker of lower social class – and the novelist wanted to capture the nuances and the tone in an “authentic way”. It is noteworthy that upon writing this novel Mendes actually did some fieldwork research. He reports this experience in an interview: What I did in order to get the atmosphere, to get the sort of jargon that they spoke – the vernacular, the idiom – what I did was: I went into the barrackyard that was then at the bottom of Park Street just before you came into Richmond Street, and I lived in it for about six months. I did not live completely there, but I ingratiated myself. They knew of what I was doing; they knew what I felt about their way of life – that I was sympathetic towards it. So I was persona very grata. I slept there frequently, and a lot of the incidents that

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appear in my second published novel, Black Fauns, were taken almost directly from my experience with the barrack-yarders. (as quoted in Cobham 1984: xi)

Accordingly, the characters in Black Fauns are carefully portrayed through their speech, and differences in their social standing and aspirations are expressed in different varieties, e.g. the pompous speech of Mr de Pompignon (the rent collector), the Standard English of a white doctor, the “fresh-water yankee” speech of Snakey, the son of one of the women who is coming back to Trinidad from New York. sample text 3: Speech samples in Mendes (1935): Ex. 1 – Ma Christine: ‘Mister Pompom, speech does flow out of you mouth jest like it use to out of Mister Jardan Wellington mouth, my husband dead an’ bury these long years. An’ I wants you to know Mister Wellington was a schoolmaster, sir. He was a edicated man, sir, jest like youself ’. (p. 96) Ex. 2 – Ethelrida: a) ‘You say, old lady, that God make all of us. All right. God make us so. We can’t help that. Some women born in big house with a lot o’ silver spoon in their mouth. Other women born in the La Basse an’ they got to take what they can grab to live. I ain’t blamin’ nobody for livin’ as they got to; but when I see dis bitch here, dis Mamitz as you calls her, . . . even her name sounds like it ain’t all right, is jamet34 name . . . ’. (p. 28) b) ‘You ever see t’ing like dis! A white doctor! De man must be well frighten Miss Mart’a!’. (p. 97) Ex. 3 – Mr. de Pompignon: ‘It is my pleasure and my sorrow. . . .My pleasure because it is a long time now I wanted to visit Miss Mart’a an’ my sorrow because I find her sick’. (p. 95–96) Ex. 4 – White doctor: ‘Did you get wet recently, young woman?. . . You’ve caught a chill’. (p. 97) Ex. 5 – Snakey: a) ‘That looks like somep’n to me, somep’n I know somewheres in Trinidad. How you call it again, Mama?’. (p. 220) b) ‘For the time being, Mama,’ Snakey was saying in his fascinating American accent, ‘I going to take a room in this place, I guess. I reckon I wants to be near you. I been far away from you long enough, I reckon’. (p. 221) Ex. 6 – Narrative voice: a) That was enough for both Ethelrida and Mamitz; for, strangely enough, there’s nothing a native woman fears more than a policeman. (p. 38)

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b) The negroes sat about, some on the door-steps, others in the yard, gobbling the savoury food and punctuating their mouthfuls with eulogistic comments on the dead man. (p. 108) c) But always he had money, and everybody knew his luck at whéwhé (a game of chance introduced into the island by the Chinese). (p. 31)

In his discussion of functions of nonstandard dialogue in the novel, Norman Page (1988) singles out a number of purposes an author may want to follow in his or her use of a nonstandard variety in character speech. The aim Mendes tries to achieve could be characterized as mimetic, i.e. what Page (1988: 98) describes as “realistic speech”, where the attempt is made to suggest with some precision certain features of speech encountered in real life and appropriate to the character in question, but subject to the qualifications made in earlier chapters with regard to the possibilities of true “realism” in fictional dialogue. Whether or not Mendes meets this aim “with some precision” is a different question. In its micro-function, however, Mendes’s use of Creole in his dialogues is mainly expressive, as a characterization of the (fictional) speaker in the novel. Mendes’s written representation of Creole speech in the dialogues is largely idiosyncratic and reminds us to some extent of Louise Bennett’s Creole writing. He uses some syntactic (e.g. habitual does), morphological (e.g. no marking of past tense) and phonological (t or d for th) marking, which is, however, quite inconsistent (there is no reason why it should be they but dis in Ex. No. 3). The contrast with Standard English phonology is further marked with an apostrophe as a symbol of omission, e.g. in cases like t’ing or Mart’a or even at the end of words where in English consonant clusters occur, such as an’ or blamin’. Once again, this strategy is used rather inconsistently. Differences between Creole and Standard English pronunciation are additionally marked in some rather arbitrarily chosen representations of words like jest or edicated. On a lexical level, words which are not derived from the English vocabulary, like e.g. the French Creole word jamet, are always glossed in the text, with 28 glosses altogether. The most interesting point is not the precision or lack of precision by which the Creole voices are presented,35 but the relationship between the narrative voice and the character speech. After all, in narrative literature we must not underestimate the power of point of view, which may function as a representation of attitudinal stance, what Fowler calls “discourse as ideological commitment”: The second meaning of ‘point of view’, attitude towards or opinion about the object of representation, is of fundamental importance in the structure of

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fiction. Inescapably, a narrative text implies through its wording a narrating voice, the tone of an implicit speaker taking a line on his subject and adopting a stance towards his readers. (1977: 75)

The narrator in Black Fauns seems to occupy a curious position towards his subject. In Standard English throughout, even when reflecting thoughts and feelings of the characters, the narrative voice is formally clearly distanced from the speech of the main characters. This distance is even more increased when rather pompous expressions appear in the narrative text (like sotto voce) or when rather explicit explanations of customs and expressions concerning Caribbean culture are given, for instance about the game whé whé (Ex. 6 c). This mediating voice assumes an explanatory part (“there’s nothing a native woman fears more than a policeman”, Ex. 6 a), the role of an ethnographer and participant observer, who describes and explains an alien culture to outsiders (compare the rather exotistic description Ex. 6 b) and who, for authenticity reasons, lets his informants provide large parts of the account in the language he considers characteristic of them. The function of Creole in the character speech is therefore mainly an expressive one, to characterize and give a voice to those who, in the 1930s, were certainly largely unheard in Caribbean literature.36

ii. Representing society: Creole use as symbolic tool In the 1950s, West Indian literature gained new momentum and many pioneering Caribbean writers, like V.S. Naipaul, Samuel Selvon, George Lamming and others, appeared on the scene, this time also entering the international market. It is perhaps no coincidence that almost all of these Caribbean novelists had themselves left the Caribbean region and belonged to the first generation immigrants in the urban diaspora (cf. Chapter 4). The second example, V.S. Naipaul’s novel The Mystic Masseur (1957), was written in this period, when the old colonial order was about to break up and chances for social upward mobility were within reach. The novel satirizes the success story of Ganesh Ramsumair, first a teacher then a masseur without talent, finally a successful mystic masseur. But above all, the novel satirizes the awe held in colonial society for the printed word as a sign of education, however mysterious and fake it might be. Language, education in Standard English and literacy as prerequisites of social upward striving are therefore core topics of the story told.

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sample text 4: Speech samples from Naipaul (1957) Ex. 1: One day he said, ‘Leela, is high time we realize that we living in a British country and I think we shoudn’t be shame to talk the people language good.’ Leela was squatting at the kitchen chulha, coaxing a fire from dry mango twigs. Her eyes were red and watery from the smoke. ‘All right, man.’ ‘We starting now self, girl.’ ‘As you say, man.’ ‘Good. Let me see now. Ah, yes. Leela, have you lighted the fire? No, just gimme a chance. Is “lighted” or “lit”, girl?’ ‘Look, ease me up, man. The smoke going in my eye.’ ‘You ain’t paying attention, girl. You mean the smoke is going in your eye.’ Leela coughed in the smoke. ‘Look, man. I have a lot more to do than sit scratching, you hear. Go talk to Beharry.’ Beharry was enthusiastic. ‘Man, is a master idea, man! Is one of the troubles with Fuente Grove that it have nobody to talk good to. When we starting?’ ‘Now.’ Beharry nibbled and smiled nervously. ‘Nah, man, you got to give me time to think.’ Ganesh insisted. ‘All right, then,’ Beharry said resignedly. ‘Let we go.’ ‘It is hot today.’ ‘I see what you mean. It is very hot today.’ ‘Look, Beharry. This go do, but it won’t pay, you hear. You got to give a man some help, man. All right now, we going off again. You ready? The sky is very blue and I cannot see any clouds in it. Eh why are you laughing now?’ ‘Ganesh, you know you look damn funny.’ ‘Well, you look damn funny yourself, come to that.’ ‘No, what I mean is that it funny seeing you so, and hearing you talk so.’ Rice was boiling on the chulha when Ganesh went home. ‘Mr. Ramsumair,’ Leela asked, ‘where have you been?’ ‘Beharry and me was having a little chat. You know, Beharry did look real funny trying to talk good.’ It was Leela’s turn to laugh. ‘I thought we was starting on this big thing of talking good English.’

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‘Girl, you just cook my food good, you hear, and talk good English only when I tell you.’ (p. 72) Ex. 2: Every day Leela became more refined. She often went to San Fernando to visit Soomintra, and to shop. She came back with expensive saris and much heavy jewellery. But the most important change was in her English. She used a private accent which softened all harsh vowel sounds; her grammar owed nothing to anybody and included a highly personal conjugation of the verb to be. She told Suruj Mooma, ‘This house I are building, I doesn’t want it to come like any erther Indian house. I wants it to have good furnitures and I wants everything to remain prutty prutty. I are thinking about getting a refrigerator and a few erther things like that.’ (p. 150)

As in Mendes, the character speech is given largely in Creole forms, whereas the narrative voice stays consistently in SE. The choice of orthographic representation of the Creole forms is quite different in Naipaul’s text than in Black Fauns and lacks the phonological marking; syntactically and morphologically, it is clearly marked as a form of Trinidadian Creole. It is only in the second example, towards the end of the story when Leela tries to change her pronunciation to what she perceives to be features of “good” English, that phonological differences are identified. Also, in contrast to the earlier text, lexical items of non-English origin are merely marked in italics, but not explained or glossed. On the whole, the Creole forms given in the character speech are less contrasted with Standard English orthography.37 This does not mean, however, that they are less carefully employed by the author. On the contrary, the function for which Naipaul uses his Creolespeaking characters is one of satirical exploitation, what Page (1988: 98) describes as “speech as parody: the use of dialogue in which certain features of speech well-known outside the work of fiction are exaggerated for purposes of comedy or satire”. Again, the position of the narrator is of crucial importance, especially when we look at how the comical effect is achieved. If we accept that the reader adopts the attitudinal stance of the narrative voice (cf. quote above, Fowler 1977: 75), then the relationship between the narrator and the reader is highly significant. The ironic account of the characters’ struggles to master the English language presupposes a mutual understanding between narrator and reader, a silent coalition. If we look at the first text sample where Ganesh tries to improve his speech and “talk good”, first with his wife Leela, then with his friend Beharry, the passage is calculated to be extremely funny – if we see it with the

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same ironic detachment as the third person narrator. In the use of Creole in the text the metalinguistic function is predominant;38 Ganesh’s achievement is contrasted to his linguistic non-development, and the social aspirations of the hero become even more ridiculous and unjustified because of this contrast. Thus, in the first of the two text samples, the mimicry, inability and inappropriateness of their attempts to speak SE becomes symbolic of what Naipaul39 perceived to be the “half-bakedness” (Naipaul 1981: 133) of colonial society. In the second text sample, Leela’s hypercorrection – the mis-application of rules like the third person singular ‘s’ in wants or the plural form in furnitures which are deemed prestigious – further serves to illustrate this. Again, the narrative voice assumes a silent understanding of the reader, in a conventional violation of the Gricean “maxim of quality”, when he introduces the passage with the ironic “Every day Leela became more refined”. If Mendes’s motivation for using Creole in the dialogue was more on the mimetic side (cf. Mair’s model 1992), then Naipaul’s use clearly ranges on the opposite side, with Creole as a symbolic field which metonymically stands for Trinidadian (or West Indian) society.

iii. Representing authority: Creole use on the narrative voice level For the last part of the analysis, two texts (Lovelace 1979, Powell 1994) will feature as examples of yet a different way of employing Creole in the novel. The earlier of the two was written another 22 years after Naipaul (1957), again part of a different and significant generation of West Indian literature. Lovelace’s The Dragon Can’t Dance (1979) was published at a time when the wider discourse on Creole had been influenced by a) the academic discourse on Creole, i.e. the establishment of Creole as a system in its own right, and b) the sociopolitical discourse, i.e. the association of Creole as a marker of a common AfroAmerican identity. By that time, a lot of previously accepted social norms had been questioned, and Standard English as a sole ideal of “correctness” was one of these. It is perhaps no coincidence that in the same year, 1979, Edward Kamau Brathwaite’s famous lectures on “The development of nation language in anglophone Caribbean poetry” were delivered, which not only established the term nation language for Creole, but also document the awareness of the use of Creole by Caribbean writers. Such influences also feature in Lovelace’s use and representation of Creole in the text.

From badge of authenticity to voice of authority

sample text 5: Speech samples from Lovelace (1979): Ex. 1 – Aldrick: You know, I use to say to myself: ‘Aldrick, you living the life. If it have one man in the world living the life is you – no wife, no child, no boss, no job. You could get up any hour of the day you want to, cuss who you want. Anywhere you go people like you. You is a favourite in the world. Anybody will give you a dollar just so. And for Carnival you’s the best dragon in the whole fucking world’. (p. 101) Ex. 2 – Narrative Voice: On Carnival Saturday night, he had got over it, he thought, fêting at Legion Hall with Philo and Reggie and another calypsonian named Bomb, and four jamette women. It was a great fête. The bands playing, Trinidad All Stars Steelband, and Norman ‘Tex’ Williams. And, Norman ‘Tex’ was hot. This was their season, their time. This was their night: they was ripe. They was ready. They had a fast beat, a not exactly calypso beat, a kinda rock-swing, old bee-bop slowed down, kinda like a hallelujah humming in the background at a Baptist meeting while the tune going on up front where the preacher preaching; [. . . ]. (p. 116)

Lovelace’s choices in representing Creole in the The Dragon Can’t Dance are not too different from the ones Naipaul adopted in his 1957 novel, i.e. there is little phonological marking, the Creole forms are mainly realized by selecting a few grammatical features, while lexical items with sources from French Creole (“jamette”) or Bhojpuri, etc. are marked by italics. The major difference lies in his representation of Creole in the narrative voice. The Dragon Can’t Dance is by no means the first novel to use Creole on that level. Creole narratives have been a marked characteristic of Samuel Selvon’s works40 in whose tradition Lovelace ultimately places his own texts. The narrators in Selvon’s prose, however, are chroniclers of the events who often themselves feature in the plot; they are involved narrators, story-telling figures who address the reader directly and sometimes appear in the first-person form.41 As so-called homodiegetic narrators, they are not so reliable and omniscient figures as their detached, i.e. heterodiegetic “god-like” alternatives, the powerful authorial voices whose authority is not limited.42 The effect of employing one or the other strategy results in what Mair (1996: 239) describes as “dialect literature” versus “modernist attempts”: If literary Creole serves as the general medium of narration, we are either dealing with vernacular or with dialect literature – often down-to-earth, folksy,



 Chapter 5

traditional and given to comic – or with a modernist attempt to dislodge standard literary English from its privileged position.

Whether or not it is realized as a concrete figure, the narrator always occupies a crucial position in the complex web of discourse relations in narrative fiction – between author and reader, narrator and implied reader and between the characters.43 These discourse relations can by no means be seen as non-hierarchical ones: especially in novels where the narrator is not a character on the level of plot, but has an omniscient point of view, the position of the narrative voice is one of power and authority. Using Creole on this rather powerful level of communication, as Lovelace does in this novel, it ultimately gains a form of authority. The narrator functions as a mediator between the characters in the plot and the reader. The relationship between a narrator using the standard form and the characters using a non-standard form can achieve different effects. On the one hand, it can affirm the outsider position of the narrator, the standard can be used as an explanatory voice, approximating the implied reader’s (assumed) language, or it can even be used to create a silent complicity of irony between reader and narrator, exploiting the non-standard-speaking character roles for comical effects. In the handbook Style in Fiction, the role of non-standard language in the narrative is seen that way: One of the factors to be reckoned with is the distancing and stigmatising effect of non-standard forms of language including deviant spellings. The very fact of using such forms of language implies that the character deviates from the author’s own standard language. Hence non-standard speech is typically associated with objects of comedy and satire: characters whom we see from the outside only. (Leech & Short 1981: 170)

It may be this association between the third person narrative voice and the author’s norms and standards which makes it extremely difficult to employ non-standardized and Creole forms on that level and examples of this emerge rather late in the development of the West Indian novel. One of the most recent examples is in the work of Patricia Powell. Born in Jamaica in 1966, Powell emigrated to the United States in 1982. Her first novel, Me Dying Trial, was published in 1993, followed by a second one, A Small Gathering of Bones in 1994. Both novels use Creole extensively on the character, as well as on the narrative voice level. A Small Gathering of Bones centres on the homosexual relationship between Dale and Nevin and a strange disease which has befallen Dale’s friend Ian. The narrative voice here is a detached chronicler of the events:

From badge of authenticity to voice of authority 

sample text 6: Speech Samples from Powell (1994): Narrative Voice and Character Speech: When Ian Kaysen first come down with the offensive dry cough, Dale did have to tell him one Saturday morning, as him watch Ian stumble into the kitchen rubbing his chest, back hunched over: ‘Ian Kaysen, I don’t mean to interfere in your personal prerogatives, but that rattle in that back of your throat not any little play-play cold. You going to have to do something about that coughing. Maybe your resistance is low. Eat more fruit and vegetables. Quit the blasted cigarette smoking!’ Dale cry out, voice a little bit on edge, as him raise off the couch where him spend the night, and follow the long slender fellow into the kitchen. ‘Sleep in your own bed when night come down! Stop hackle-hackle your body!’. (p. 1) The eye water burn behind his nose. Up ahead more old people and women with enormous bellies crowd in. Dale feel them eyes, questioning. Him think about Ian inside the room stretch out, white sheet pull up to his chest, silver tubes running in and out each nostril, machines blinking red and green, pointers drawing squiggly lines across grey screens. (p. 33)

The Creole forms the novelist employs, both on the level of dialogue and on the narrative level are mainly marked grammatically (verb forms, reduplication, pronouns), less lexically (e.g. eye water for ‘tears’) but hardly orthographically. The crucial point, however, is her approximation of the omniscient narrative voice to Creole and the switches between the voices. As Mair (1996: 242) points out, “assigning specific passages or sentences in the story to either one voice or the other, however, is very often difficult”, and he sees this as an important difference between traditional literature and the new writing using Creole. Powell’s writing clearly belongs to the latter category. Placed on the level of authorial discourse and at the same time challenging this authorial discourse, Creole is also given a form of authority. The “distancing and stigmatizing effect of using non-standard forms of language” (Leech & Short above) does not arise in Powell’s text, because the implication that “the character deviates from the norm of the author’s own standard language” and “hence from the central standards of judgment in a novel” (Leech & Short 1981: 170) does not apply here. By using Creole on this rather powerful level of communication – a reliable, sincere and omniscient narrative voice on a par with character speech44 – it is not only credited with authority, but also established as an unmarked form of communication, the “unmarked code” in the sense Myers-Scotton uses the

 Chapter 5

term in her matrix model of code-switching. Consequently, Standard English, whenever it is used in the dialogue, is established as the “marked choice” in this setting, marked by its deviance from the Creole voice of narrative authority. The micro-function of Creole in such a textual setting is therefore neither predominantly expressive – as a means of creating authenticity – nor metalinguistic and ironic. Instead, I would argue, it does not signal a “marked” or special function anymore and is used for general referential purposes.

. Creole as a written language Surely, an author’s individual values, personality and individual motivations play a role in his or her choices of Creole in the novel. But as argued above, these choices are nevertheless placed in a historical and social context and are not oblivious of the wider social discourse. As Page (1988) points out, the success of the fictional nonstandard use made by an author are dependent on the publisher and, ultimately, the reader’s acceptance: What needs also to be taken into account, however, is the nature of the readers’ response to the representation in fiction of different dialects. This response is likely to vary in a rather complex way according to the prevalent social attitudes and assumptions in different generation, as well as with the experience of the particular reader. (1988: 56)

Novels in particular and published written texts in general, are therefore an important field for the wider social discourse. The above analysis of texts is not representative in numbers, nor does it attempt to be exhaustive. What it does show, however, is the functional development Creole has undergone in this type of text, its career as a literary code, from “badge of authenticity” to “voice of authority”. It is highly doubtful whether a novel like Mendes’s Black Fauns would be acceptable today, with its patronizing narrative voice versus the expressive Creole character dialogue. Nor could the malicious and ironic narrator in Naipaul’s Mystic Masseur any longer be regarded as appropriate in his metalinguistic presentation and merciless exploitation of the Creole-speaking characters. Equally, it would have been unthinkable to have a referential employment of Creole, such as in Powell or even in Lovelace in the 1930s, when the West Indian novel made its first steps on the road to world literature, and the legitimization of Creole use in writing was not yet established. Thus, I would hypothesize that these texts in their form and function could not have been written in the reverse order. The changes in the relationships between the var-

From badge of authenticity to voice of authority 

ious levels of discourse are, of course, not limited to West Indian literature but must be seen as part of a general development in narrative fiction – after all, the authority of the narrator in postmodern fiction is of a highly questionable nature. This does not limit the point in its application to West Indian fiction, which is not cut off from general literary developments: the function of Creole as the “unmarked code”, its use by both narrator and characters and the shifts between the roles of these narrative levels thus must be seen in a general diachronic perspective of narrative conventions. The above analyses have served to demonstrate that, first of all, the codification of Creole (5. 2) is itself a site of negotiating competing views on the language, whether the graphic representation on the page aims at a model of autonomy and rule-establishment or stays within a tradition of idiosyncratic spelling. While there are no definite and commonly accepted models of writing in Creole in sight, Caribbean writers have long transgressed the boundaries of the oral/literate divide and the Creole/Standard English divisions, thus making the “language of orality” not only a written language but also an (unofficial) literary and increasingly textualized language. The increasing diversification of written Creole use in various text types and genres over the last six decades, ranging from folk poetry to academic articles, reflects such a textualization process. The examples of four Caribbean novelists from different generations show that the form and function of their Creole uses in the text are certainly related to the socio-historical context of their works, but also forms a powerful and constructive force in the wider social discourse on Creole. The analysis of Creole in a literary context may indeed provide some answers as to how a sociosemantic change of a particular variety comes about. The following statement sums up the questions which are here at stake: How does a social group whose members have been excluded (qua members of the groups) from one situation-type come to establish its own ‘voice’ within it, how are struggles between social forces expressed in and constituted by changing relationships between their voices in various situation-types, and under which social conditions do social groups transcend the limitations of particular situations to establish their own code. This range of issues [. . . ] reflects, in Halliday’s own words ‘symbolic conflicts which are no less real than conflicts over economic interest [. . . and which] contain the mechanism of change. (Fairclough 1988: 125)

Once again, the model of diglossia with its simple dichotomy of H- versus Llanguage and its respective allocation of different functions proves too narrow a concept to capture contemporary interactions and changes within domains

 Chapter 5

and (macro)-functions. Two final examples from “practitioners” may illustrate this best. On the one hand, Creole today is not only a written language, but also a second language learned for that purpose by some writers. This became evident in a discussion with contemporary novelists of British-Caribbean background.45 While one of the older generation authors (a Jamaican writer living in Britain) stressed the fact that he had to learn SE in order to have access to literature, a younger generation author, born in the Caribbean, but raised in Britain, stated that she uses Creole almost exclusively for her writing, that she tries to “reclaim” the language by using it in that function. If this indicates a general trend, then the “language of orality”, the “vernacular” has good chances to establish itself even more as a writing language. On the other hand, the authority of written versus spoken language has not remained unchallenged, especially in the light of the increasing importance of electronic media. Many contemporary prestigious discourse types like audiovisual media resemble spoken language rather than written texts.46 Some types of written texts (e.g. e-mail) are closer to spoken communication than more traditional genres (e.g. the letter). The fact that spoken language is taking over public spheres formerly dominated by writing may be part of a general restructuring of the boundaries between formal and informal, high and low prestige domains. Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze’s comment seems to suggest as much: “You see, it’s an assumption that power is with the book and not with the tapes and not with the videos that the language that’s coming out of us, that’s reaching the most people is already Jamaican. It’s the book trying to catch up with popular culture” (Döring 1995). The mechanism of socio-semantic change is thus also a change in the type of situation or register Creole is used in, in the (dynamic) sense Fairclough points out: rather than regarding texts as representing registers, they should be seen as “products of speakers’ adaptation of old resources to new situations” (1988: 112). [. . . ] the social institutions are so many [. . . ] sites of struggle, directly and immediately between institutional forces, but indirectly and ultimately between classes. These struggles are expressed and constituted in ideologically conflicting registers and changing relationships of dominance between registers, and their outcome includes the strengthening or weakening (and loss) of the capacity of dominant forces to maintain the socio-linguistic order of the institution. (Fairclough 1988: 115)

The mechanisms of change, as exemplified in the latter two examples, may thus work from either side, towards an increased establishment of Creole in both prestigious oral and written communication.

From badge of authenticity to voice of authority 

Notes . This is particularly patent in the expression Schriftdeutsch (“Written German”) which is often used as a synonym for High German. . Cf. also discussion on bible translations (Chapter 6) which, in fact, initiated this process. . The notion of writing as “context-free” may have to be restricted in the sense that written texts are also embedded in situation types and usually comply with specific formal characteristics of the respective genre they represent, etc. From these clues the experienced reader will create a context for the written text. The immediacy of situation and direct presence of the author, features of unmediated spoken situations, is nevertheless lost in written communication. . The terms are sometimes used interchangeably. Here, a distinction will be made between a) writing system as signifying the type of linguistic unit which is encoded (word writing, syllable writing, alphabetic writing), b) script as the type of symbols used within the writing system (e.g. Roman alphabet, Greek alphabet, Cyrillic alphabet, etc.) and c) orthography or spelling system as the rules and conventions a particular language or variety uses within that script (e.g. [i:] is often realized as “ee” or “ea” in English orthography, whereas in German orthography it is likely to be realized as “ie” or “ih”, etc.). . This example easily reveals the illogical nature of the argument: after all, the spelling of the word is not “Philosophie” in Greek either but is, of course, spelled in the Greek alphabetic script. . Kloss’s definition of an Abstand language is that of “a linguistic unit which a linguist would have to call a language even if not a single word had ever been written in it” (Kloss 1967: 29). . Kloss 1967: 29: “The term Ausbausprache may be defined as ‘language by development’. Languages belonging in this category are recognized as such because of having been shaped or reshaped, moulded or remoulded – as the case may be – in order to become a standardized tool of literary expression”. . “Die Erreichung der höheren Entfaltungsstufen hängt naturgemäß z.T. davon ab, ob es einheitliche Rechtschreibung und eine einheitliche Form der Schriftsprache gibt”. . It is understood that most alphabetic writing systems are far from being phonemic – let alone phonetic – and that they encode morphological relations as well. Furthermore, in many alphabetically encoded languages, orthography rules have not followed up changes in the phonological development of the spoken language. This is best exemplified in English orthography which has many rules reflecting the sound system of the language before the Great Vowel Shift. Even though the phoneme/grapheme correspondence is certainly very inconsistent in such “historical orthographies”, it can be maintained that originally, the most important linguistic unit of alphabetic codification is the sound. . An Atlantic Creole language spoken in Sierra Leone. . Hönisch notes that when Louise Bennett started to publish her work in the late 1930s, “the Jamaican public perceived her as an entertainer, versatile and skilled, but of limited local and cultural appeal. This image was shaped to a large degree by the fact that she used

 Chapter 5

Jamaican ‘dialect’, or creole, in her poems and prose; spoke about everyday experiences or common people; placed her work in the context of folk culture; and chose orality as her medium of expression”. Then, it seems, the cultural divide between a ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture was large enough to make her use of Creole in a public medium as a “somewhat exotic ‘native’ culture, which remained outside the sphere of what was considered literature” (Hönisch 1993: 181–182). . There is earlier use of written Creole in poetry (e.g. Claude McKay’s Songs of Jamaica, published in 1912) and also in novels, as will be discussed in this chapter, (e.g. in Alfred Mendes. 1935. Black Fauns, whose use of Creole in the fictional dialogue is analyzed in 5. 3); cf. also Winer & Rimmer 1994. . Morris (1982: xii ff.) notes on changing attitudes towards Jamaican that, at one of Louise Bennett’s early performances in the 1940s, someone called out: ‘A dat yuh modder sen yuh a school fa?’ In public debate, her use of Jamaican continued to be controversial well up to the 1970s. It was her popularity, however, which gave JC a forum in print and in radio stations and made it more acceptable in public spheres. . “Da” as a present tense progressive marker is sometimes quoted as a by now archaic form in JC (cf. Adams 1991). . Two options which are not proposed by Cassidy but nevertheless used by writers such as Devonish are “ee” for long, mid-front, half-open, tense vowel (e.g. neeshan, cf. Devonish 1994), and “oo” for long, centralized or mid-back, half-rounded vowel (e.g. stoorii, cf. Devonish 1994). . Cooper started this column in response to a negative comment in The Jamaica Gleaner in October 1989, “Corruption of language is no cultural heritage” by Morris Cargill, senior columnist for more than forty years with the Jamaica’s oldest newspaper. A part of this comment by Cargill is quoted in Chapter 2. . As Cooper (personal communication) reports, however, reading beginners (e.g. children) tend to find the more consistent Cassidy-spelling easier to learn. . Audio-recorded from her talk (1997) – hence no page number. . The Creole debate between the columnists Cooper and Cargill lasted until Cargill’s death in May 2000. In one of his last columns on the topic, “Creole talk again”, he once again corroborates his views on Creole in writing: “Carolyn Cooper, a very bright lady, tries to put all Creole into the same pot. She also tries to make it into a written language, which makes it incomprehensible to all except a few of her friends. It also drives proof readers round the bend. As Dwight Whylie has pointed out the main trouble with Creole is its variability although it all comes under the heading of “speaking badly.” I find this variability sometimes irritating. Every now and again I find myself having to say to someone, “speak properly if you expect me to understand what you are saying.” Upon which the speaker ninety-nine times out of a hundred immediately starts to speak to me in quite passable English, which makes me think that a lot of Creole is just plain laziness. Certain sounds are more difficult than others. ‘Th’ and ‘dr’. So a lot of people prefer dis and dat to this and that or gyve to drive. Speech, like everything else, is an important discipline and I therefore cannot help feeling that a good deal of Creole speech is mere slackness. In any case as good standard English

From badge of authenticity to voice of authority 

could be called rather clumsily the Lingua Franca of our world, it seems rather silly to try to invent a new written language confined to the tiniest of minorities. [. . . ]” (Cargill 2000). . The main web-forum for linguists dealing with Creole languages. . It may be relevant to note here that the need of literary expression, the poetic function, formed the beginning of standardization for most languages, e.g. German in its struggle against the earlier medium of writing – Latin – was first to be found in literary texts. . Note that Ong (1982) rejects the term “oral literature” and dismisses it as oxymoronic. However, many of his statements on orality presuppose a primary orality, i.e. societies untouched by the technology of writing. This clearly has never been the case in colonial or post-colonial times in the Caribbean. Rather, as I have argued elsewhere (Mühleisen 1996a) the power divide in colonial domination went along lines of an oral/scribal dichotomy. . Roberts (1997) provides a comprehensive account of the development on the road from an oral to a literate culture in the (British) West Indies during the colonial era. . Note that these processes did not always move along colour lines. As Roberts (1997: 108) points out, “as the creolization and acculturation of the slaves advanced, the slaves drew closer to the literate methods of communication which characterized European societies and as their language grew closer to the language of literacy, they were able to benefit from as well as to be indoctrinated by written information”. On the other hand, “in the white society, paradoxically, the native vernaculars of the white creoles moved further and further away from the language of literacy as they increasingly moved nearer to the language of the blacks. The colour codes in the system, which preserved privilege for the ruling whites, provided little incentive for most of them to pursue any further advantages through literacy”. . Present-day examples for such continuation of oral art is, for instance, the ritualized verbal duelling in particular forms of ex-tempo Calypsos, the highly popular work of story teller Paul Keens-Douglas (Trinidad), as well as many others. . Cf., for instance, Long’s statement on their linguistic creativity, which he ultimately sees as an imitation of the whites’ speech: “The better sort are very fond of improving their language, by catching at any hard word that the Whites happen to let fall in their hearing; and they alter and misapply in a strange manner; but a tolerable collection of them gives an air of knowledge and importance in the eyes of their brethren, which tickles their vanity, and makes them more assiduous in stocking themselves with this unintelligible jargon” (Long 1774, 2: 426–427). Edwards (1794, 2: 83), on the other hand, is more positive about this particular quality when he states that “among the propensities and qualities of the Negroes must not be omitted their loquaciousness. They are very fond of exhibiting set speeches, as orators by profession; but it requires a considerable share of patience to hear them throughout; for they commonly make a long preface before they come to the point; beginning with a tedious enumeration of their past services and hardships”. Cf. also Roberts 1997: 45 ff. . Ludwig (1994) applies this dimension, between orality and scripturality, in his study on syntactic and pragmatic elaboration in French-lexcion Creoles. . Cf., for instance, Pratt (1977: 38–78), who discusses aesthetic and structural similarities between natural and literary discourse on the basis of William Labov’s work on oral narratives.

 Chapter 5 . It is understood that the extent to which this claim is intended or achieved in the novel differs in various literary periods. . Note that Winer & Rimmer (1994) use nineteenth century Trinidadian novels for sociohistorical and socio-linguistic analysis. . As Malena (1999: 2) points out with regard to Francophone Caribbean Narrative, “literature is then considered here as an a priori dialogic construction in turn promoting and furthering dialogue. Francophone Caribbean literature will not be read as isolated or marginalized, nor as constituting some kind of cultural laboratory, but as a dynamic societal production issuing diachronically, reflecting and refracting synchronic relations between cultures”. . Note that Louise Bennett’s works were all published in Kingston, Jamaica, where her fame in the media, radio and the daily paper The Gleaner made her language choices acceptable. . The Beacon was a literary journal, edited by Albert Gomes and published between 1930 and 1933. It had tremendous influence on triggering off local literary creativity and bringing it into publication (cf. Sander 1978). The name of an important publisher of Caribbean literature (Port of Spain and London), the “New Beacon Press” resonates in the name of this journal. . “Worthless woman’s”. . I agree with Mair’s (1996: 238) estimation that “the issue of speech-realism in fiction is exaggerated”, as far as the representation of non-standard speech in writing is concerned. As he continues, “both skillful and inept renderings of non-standard English in fiction rely on the same strategy – extremely selective and inconsistent deployment of a few orthographic and grammatical clues throughout the text” (ibid). . Compare, however, Winer and Rimmer’s (1994) discussion of a number of nineteenth century Trinidadian novels which do use Creole (both English and French Creole) in the dialogues. But as Winer points out, “these novels have only recently been ‘discovered’; none have received any literary or linguistic attention” (Winer & Rimmer 1994: 226). Thus, though interesting socio-cultural and historical documents, their role as a catalyst on the wider social discourse on language may have been limited. . A fact which may also have been influenced by publishers’ practices for reasons of acceptability to an international audience. . The metalinguistic employment of Creole in Naipaul’s work is not restricted to The Mystic Masseur but features prominently in much of his early work: In Miguel Street (1959), for instance, a bright young man called Eddoes fails his exams because of “litricher and poultry”, the poet B. (= Black) Wordsworth dies without ever having written a poem. Creole in Naipaul’s writing hence becomes symbolic as an obstacle for achievement of the Creole society. . It is understood that the narrative voice is not the author’s voice. However, as Short (1996: 258–259) points out, “authors do tend to use third-person narrations to narrate attitudes with which they sympathise, for example, but they don’t have to”. (italics in the original, S.M.) In the case of The Mystic Masseur, I would be inclined to see Naipaul as sympathizing with his narrator.

From badge of authenticity to voice of authority  . Most prominently in his 1956 novel of immigration, The Lonely Londoners. . Compare also Olive Senior’s use of Creole in the narrative voice (cf. Mühleisen 1996a) or the Creole narrative voice in Guyanese author Joan Cambridge’s novel (1987) Clarise Cumberbatch Want to Go Home. . Cf. also the distinction between personale versus auktoriale Erzählhaltung, i.e. involved versus authorial point of view. . Compare also Short’s (1996: 257) model of the classical three-level discourse model in the novel. . This is, in fact, not only the case in Caribbean literature but more generally a feature of postmodern interrelationships between the narrative levels (cf. also Malena 1999: 2). . This discussion took place during the “Migrant Voices” Festival, Berlin 1994. The authors cited are James Berry and Amryl Johnson. . Cf. also the layout of printed texts following the techniques and aesthetics of electronic texts, for instance, Brathwaite 1995.

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Translation is a highly manipulative activity that involves all kinds of stages in the process of transfer across linguistic and cultural boundaries. Translation is not an innocent, transparent activity but is highly charged with significance at every stage; it rarely, if ever, involves a relationship of equality between texts, authors or systems. (Bassnett and Trivedi 1999b: 2)

Chapter 6

From invisibility to register variation Changing Creole representations in translation

. Creole translated: Translation as cultural representation The third and last of the “discursive force-fields” in which changes of Creole prestige and its communicative functions shall be explored is translation. The act of translation moves Creole not only beyond the boundaries of location (as in Chapter 4) and medium (as in Chapter 5) but, in fact, beyond the language itself. Thus, one may legitimately wonder whether translation might be relevant for the prestige and prestige changes within a language. After all, translation seems to be the discursive force field that is furthest removed from the original locus of language. What effect, then, might translation have for the image and self-image of a linguistic code? Translation is a means to transgress the boundaries of a language without leaving neither the cultural space nor the sociolinguistic complexities of that language behind. The fact that this has to be negotiated in translation means that the act does not leave either of the languages involved unaffected. If one sees translation as a kind of language contact not tied to immediate encounters or temporal constraints one may appreciate the “expanding” potentials and challenges translation research has to offer in the Caribbean language context. This chapter will explore the question of Creole prestige and translation from two different angles. On the one hand, a closer look at Creole as a source language in translation can reflect the status and changing textual functions of Creole writing which, despite the long tradition of Creole as a written language, is not formally standardized yet. An investigation into Creole as a target language in translation, on the other hand, may help to explore the potentials of expanding the language itself, what has been labelled in other contexts as the “modernization” or “intellectualization” (Havranek 1932) of a language, i.e. the development of new registers and styles as well as the structural equipment needed for this process.

 Chapter 6

The first part of this Chapter (6.2) will argue that translation is a powerful agent in the cultural representation of a language or variety, a “representation of representation” that is by no means self-evident, timeless or unaffected by social and political changes. This point is also made by Doris BachmannMedick (1997: 1): Whenever texts are translated from one language into another, there is more to it than a mere transmission of language. Analyses of translation have to take into account a cultural, in fact a cultural-political framework as a reference point before any translation comes into effect; an expanded horizon which inserts the transmission of texts into a larger context of a translation from and between cultures.1 (my translation, highlighted in the original, S.M.)

As the diachronic-functional analysis of translations of Anglo-creolophone texts will show (Chapter 6.2.3), translators’ choices in their representation of Creole in the target language vary considerably over time and indeed reflect the “cultural-political conditions” Bachmann-Medick is referring to in her statement above. Translation may thus be seen as a reflection of wider discursive changes, but it also plays an active and constructive role in bringing such changes about. Bassnett and Trivedi (1999b) stress the idea of translation as an ongoing process and the constructive force translation plays in the creation and re-negotiation of meanings: [. . . ] translation does not happen in a vacuum, but in a continuum; it is not an isolated act, it is part of an ongoing process of intercultural transfer. Moreover, translation is a highly manipulative activity that involves all kinds of stages in the process of transfer across linguistic and cultural boundaries. Translation is not an innocent, transparent activity but is highly charged with significance at every stage; it rarely, if ever, involves a relationship of equality between texts, authors or systems. (Bassnett & Trivedi 1999b: 2)

The inequality of translation was a central prerequisite of the colonial enterprise, as Greenblatt (1991) has convincingly shown in his study of the semiotic conditions of the colonial encounter in the New World. In fact, quite a number of publications in recent years (e.g. Niranjana 1992; Bachmann-Medick 1997; Bassnett & Trivedi 1999a) stress the role of translation in addressing and, potentially, reversing power relationships in postcolonial texts. As BachmannMedick (1997: 1) remarks, the question of literary translation loses its philological innocence when faced with the severe inequality of languages and cultures, as well as with the production of new World Literatures beyond the Western centres.

From invisibility to register variation 

The second part of the Chapter (6.3) will look at such a reversal of power roles when Creole becomes the target language in translation. Because of the special relationship CELC languages have with the high prestige language English and the importance of English as the main writing language, there are few examples of translations into Creole. Chapter 6.3.3 will examine some of these and their effect on the creation of new linguistic and textual norms in writing. As has been shown for other varieties (cf. Gonzalez 1992), and indeed for other Creole languages like Papiamentu (cf. Eckkrammer 1996), translation proves to be an important catalyst for Ausbau and modernization of a language. Lexical expansion and specialization, syntactic elaboration and the creation of new registers are tools in such a process of language elaboration.

. Representations of Creole in translation We have seen in Chapter 6 that Creole has by now a long tradition as a writing language. Particularly in literary prose narratives like the novel, its popular use reaches back at least to the 1930s, less well-known examples dating back well into the nineteenth century. Does it follow from this continuous increase in textualization that there is also a long tradition of translating Creole into other languages? As we shall see below, this is not the case – and for a good number of reasons too, as I shall suggest with reference to translations into German, which serves as a case in point here. Notwithstanding this special focus on German translations here, the questions of Creole representation that are raised by looking at these examples are of a more general nature and might also be transferred to Creole translations into other languages such as Italian or Danish. Despite a long tradition of translating and a high proportion of translated works available on the German publication market,2 surprisingly few translations of eminent West Indian authors like Samuel Selvon, George Lamming or Roger Mais, who have considerable success in the English-speaking world, have been published for a German audience. The problem of how to deal with Creole in translation3 may well have been one reason for this neglect. There is a marked absence of translations of genres other than novels and short stories, which may not be surprising, since prose has a much larger readership than poetry or drama. It does, however, bear important implications for the translation of this “polyphonic” genre (cf. also Chapter 5.3.2) and sets a particular challenge to the translator of postcolonial literature. How does he or she deal with authors who make use of “varieties of English for which a German-speaking

 Chapter 6

audience lacks a reference standard because no comparable varieties exist in the German speech community”, Mair (1993: 219) sums up the difficulties which exist for many translations of African, Caribbean or Asian literatures written in English, and he adds the (rhetorical) question, “can such works be translated at all?”. Many postcolonial works are translated, of course, but, as he also shows in his analysis of a German translation of Nigerian author Soyinka’s work, the challenge for the translator is to “recreate the many-layered complexity of the Englishes found in the original” (Mair 1993: 223). The translator’s special predicament therefore is due to the sociolinguistic status of Creole, its relationship with Standard English and the effect of Creole uses in the original text. There is, of course, nothing intrinsic in the structure of Creoles that would cause particular difficulties for a translation. If there were something like a fully standardized Caribbean English-lexicon Creole, the problems of translating it would be no greater or smaller than of translating, for instance, French or Swahili. As we have seen in Chapter 5 in the discussion on Creole and the novel (5.3.2), the sub-genre most likely to be translated, Creole hardly ever constitutes the exclusive code of this type of text but is employed in conjunction with and in contrast to Standard English. The specific sociolinguistic relationship between the two codes forms a powerful semiotic potential, which is often used as a vehicle for meaning in Caribbean literature. The textual functions of Creole and their potential in creating different meanings and effects are subject to historical changes, as has been shown in some detail in Chapter 5 (cf. also Mühleisen 1996a). How does the translator deal with this task of creating these changing effects and meanings in the target language? In the following discussion, some general problems of dealing with nonstandard language in translation will be outlined (6.2.1) before focusing on the more specific case of Creole translations (6.2.2). In a close analysis, translations of West Indian novels into German will be looked at diachronically, with a focus on the different strategies of representing Creole in the German text (6.2.3). .. General issues of nonstandard varieties in translation Not only with regard to Creole, but in all heteroglossic writing, it is the specific relationship between standard and nonstandard varieties that is used to create particular effects; for instance, to characterize certain figures, describe the social structure of a specific community, etc. Several examples from the English literary canon may be cited here such as the translation of Charles

From invisibility to register variation 

Dickens’s or D.H. Lawrence’s novels which make extensive and meaningful use of regional dialects and set them off against Standard English (for examples of such use of nonstandard language in literary translations, cf. also Czennia 1992a; Stein 1992). Notwithstanding the fact that Creole languages are not “dialects” in the sense of regional varieties of their lexifiers, the social relationship between standard and nonstandard variety is to some extent comparable: 1. Nonstandard varieties are generally much more particular in their connotations than standard varieties are. Associations with setting (e.g. urban, rural) or stereotypical qualities of their speakers (e.g. wit, coarseness) are often made with nonstandard varieties so that a distinct regional variety in the target language with a similar semiotic potential can rarely be found.4 2. The social indexicality of nonstandard varieties versus standard may differ to a great extent in the source language and the target language. For example, in Britain many nonstandard forms are clearly related to social class. This is not necessarily so in Germany where some regional dialects (e.g. Bavarian, Swabian) show little social stratification and are therefore not sociolects. 3. Standard, as well as nonstandard writing, is never an accurate representation of speech. The non-standard variety in the written text is usually made visible by highlighting a few representative deviations from the standard: certain (often stereotypical) phonological features and/or grammatical features are selected and marked graphically. The selection of these features differs as does the proportional distribution of the codes, and both these qualitative and quantitative choices may have to be considered by the translator (cf. also Stein 1992). A glaring example of a translation which neglects the points outlined above (particularly point 1) shall illustrate the problem. The following is an excerpt from a classic of Black American literature, Zora Neale Hurston’s 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God and its 1993 translation into German. The narrative voice is in Standard English, but the narrative consists in large part of character speech which, in the source text, is clearly marked as Black American English. In order to evoke the lifestyle of black women in the rural American South of the 1930s, the author selected a high density of stereotypical phonological, lexical and grammatical features in the dialogue which visibly suggest the distance to the Standard English of the authorial narrative voice. The following are two excerpts of character speech in this novel:

 Chapter 6

sample text 1:5 Zora Neale Hurston. 1937. Their Eyes Were Watching God. Ex. 1 – Nanny: If you don’t want him, you sho oughta. Heah you is wid de onliest organ in town, amongst colored folks, in yo’ parlor. Got a house bought and paid for and sixty acres uh land right on de big road an . . . Lawd have mussy! Dat’s de very prong all us black women gits hung on. Dis love! Dat’s just whut’s got us uh pullin’ and uh haulin’ and sweatin’ and doin’ from can’t see in de mornin’ till can’t see at night. Dat’s how come de ole folks say dat bein’ uh fool don’t kill nobody. It jus’ makes you sweat. Ah betcha you wants some dressed up dude dat got to look at de sole of his shoe everytime he cross de street tuh see whether he got enough leather dere tuh make it across. You can buy and sell such as dem wid what you got. In fact you can buy’em and giv’em away (p. 41–42). Ex. 2 – Phoebe: Naw, Ah thank yuh. Nothin’ couldn’t ketch me dese few steps Ah’m goin’. Anyhow mah husband tell me say no first class booger would have me. If she got anything to tell yuh, you’ll hear it (p. 13).

The dialogues in sample text 1 are marked by a number of AAVE features which contain a. graphic highlighting of phonological differences to SE (e.g. /ð/ → /d/, /aI/ → /a:/, /]/ → /n/: Sample text 1

wid

dat

Ah

mah

haulin’

SE orthography

with

that

I

my

hauling

including oversignalling: Sample text 1

ketch

yuh

tuh

SE orthography

catch

you

to

b. grammatical features: double negation nothing couldn‘t, lack of subjectverb agreement you is, you wants, and c. lexical choice: e.g. to tote (not in the passage cited). How does the translator reconstruct this particular polyphony, which involves not only a dimension of language and culture but also historical period? The German translator uses the dialect of the Ruhr area, a conglomerate of urban centres in the West of Germany, which used to be associated with a coal

From invisibility to register variation 

miner’s working class to represent the African American English (AAVE) used throughout the original dialogue. Like the source text, the translation employs a combination of lexical and grammatical as well as phonological markings to represent this dialect: translation 1:6 Zora Neale Hurston. 1993 (Translation Barbara Henninges). Und Ihre Augen Schauten Gott. Ex. 1 – Nanny: Wennsden nich wills, dann solltsde aber. Von alle farbiche Leute in unse Stadt bist du die einzichste mit ne Orgel in die gute Stube. Du has ein Haus, wat gekauft un bezahlt is un zwei’nhalb Hektar Land direkt anner Landstraße un . . . Erbarmung! Dat isset ja ebent, mit watse uns schwarze Fraun immer alle am Wickel kriegen. Mit diese Liebe! Genau dat isset ja, warum wir machen un tun un schleppen un schwitzen von zappenduster am Morgen bis zappenduster am Abend. Drum sagn die alten Leute auch, Dummheit hat noch kein umgebracht. Bring dich bloß zum Schwitzen. Ich wett, du hätts gern son piekfein Pinkel, wo immer erst seine Schuhsohle ankucken muß, eh er über die Straße geht, obber auch genuch Leder dran hat, datter bis nach drüben kommt. Die Sorte kannsde doch geschenkt haben, so wie du gebaut bis. Krichsde sogar nachgeschmissen. (p. 39) Ex. 2 – Phoebe: Mich holt niemand nich auf die paar Meter. Mein Mann, der sach sowieso, kein Nachtkrapp, wat* auf sich halten tut, will mich haben, sachter. Wennse euch wat+ zu erzählen hat, krichters schon noch zu hörn. (p. 11)

The dialogues in the translation are marked in a specific regional dialect of German (Ruhrpott-Dialekt) a. by graphic highlighting of phonological differences to standard German: e.g. /x/ for /g/, /t/ for /s/, including final consonant cluster reduction /n/ for /nd/: Translation 1

farbiche

einzichste

wat

isset

un

SG orthography

farbige

einzigste

was

ist es

und

English

colored

only

*who (rel. pron.)

is it

and

+something (indef. pron.)

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b. grammatical features: double negative niemand nich (‘nobody not’); use of auxiliary “tun” (‘do’) wat auf sich halten tut (‘who takes pride in himself ’, here: ‘first class’); use of rel. pronoun wat (‘what’) or wo (‘where’) for der (‘who’), and c. lexical choice of dialect words: zappenduster (‘dark’, here: ‘from can’t see in de mornin”), piekfein Pinkel (‘dude’) This translator’s choice is well-intended and also well-meaning. As she explains in a rather extensive comment on language and the historical figures of Afro-American culture, she perceives more similarities than differences between Black English and German ”Mundarten” (dialects) and supports this by comparing a number of characteristics (“spontaneity, inventiveness, verbal play”) and grammatical principles (“double and triple negation”, “double plural”, “preference for the progressive verb form”, “exchanges of persons and cases”).7 While some of these analogies may generally apply to varieties which are used primarily in an oral fashion, others seem to neglect important linguistic insights and differences – phonological differences to the standard, after all, are not “lazy contractions” but are differences due to the complex history of the origin of AAVE. But the greatest danger here, I suggest, lies in a universalization of nonstandard varieties. Equating the two varieties in question, which even includes a comparison of grammatical features, clearly fails to recognize the particular evocation of stereotypical images from any specific socio-historical context. The focus on an assumed equivalence in linguistic representation thus proves to be a problematic choice, and particularly so since the nonstandard variety is used on a mimetic rather than symbolic plane. The function of the nonstandard variety in this case is the location in a specific cultural setting. This is not only lost, but rather absurdly uprooted and transplanted. It follows that any quest for linguistic or socio-cultural “equivalence” is an illusory undertaking when it comes to the representation of non-standard varieties in literary texts. The very idea of equivalence in translation has been given up in more recent approaches in translation theory. The question is no longer one of “equivalent/non-equivalent”, “correct/incorrect” or “right/wrong”, but how much of the effect of these nonstandard forms in the source language can be rendered in the target language. As Venuti (1995) reminds us, translations are normally judged acceptable if they are as invisible as possible, if they are not recognizable as translations at all, “when the absence of any linguistic or stylistic peculiarities makes it seem transparent” (1995: 1). This makes it a difficult task for the translator of texts with nonstandard forms: how much visibility

From invisibility to register variation 

can the peculiarities of the source text be allowed in the target text? And how necessary are they for a reconstruction of the meaning of the source text? With regard to the translation of heteroglossic writing, I would argue, a functional approach8 is needed, because the same variety may have very different evocations in different literary texts. These evocations or micro-functions, exemplified in Chapter 5.3.2, may be categorized in the following way: 1. The non-standard variety may serve to refer to a specific cultural setting of a text (referential function) – as in the sample text above 2. It may be needed to identify and give voice to individual characters in the fictional plot as well as characterize relationships between one another (socio-expressive function) 3. It may function as a symbolic tool which is essential for the interpretation of the text as a whole (symbolic function). This categorization follows Mair in his description of the continuum of “motivation[s] for using nonstandard” (1992: 122) which he places on a dimension between mimesis and symbolic gesture. Mair reminds us of the importance of language attitudes for the effect achieved by the use of nonstandard language in literary works. Since the value attached to a particular variety in literature may be crucially linked to its value in society in general, Mair argues (1992: 107), an exploration of the language sociological foundations is often helpful to explain the overall effect of the use of a particular variety. The task of the translator as a mediator between languages and cultures would thus be to research both the sociolinguistic context of the source text as well as that of the target language, usually the translator’s mother tongue. .. Creole-specific issues in translation While the skillful play with different codes is not restricted to the constellation Standard English/Creole but may also be found in other standard/nonstandard combinations, the case of Standard English/Creole writing is highly specific in its social semiotic potential. After all, Creole is not merely a geographical ingroup variant of the standard language but a distinct variety with a very complex sociohistorical relationship to its lexifier. Furthermore, Creole is not a “public language” in the sense that there are not many institutionalised second language learning opportunities for a nonnative speaker. While this may superficially not pose any serious grammatical and semantic problems to the translator – the written Creole presented in prose fiction is only a very abstract and reduced representation of its oral version –

 Chapter 6

the specific pragmatic and cultural knowledge is not available to translators whose usual business is to translate English (cf. also Winer 1999 for a discussion on linguistic and/or cultural competence in the decoding of Caribbean literature). With increasing demand, publishers are becoming more aware of this want with respect to translations of African-American fiction where similar predicaments apply.9 There is nothing like a Creole with a German lexical base.10 This makes the representation of Creole in German translation especially difficult, since the very concept of a Creole with its particular connotations and stigmatisation is not part of the social reality of the German reader. But even if there were a German-lexicon Creole the same precautions as in a “dialect-to-dialect translation” would apply: it may be doubted whether a translation of the work of an author using Hawai’ian Creole English into French could simply use Haitian Creole to substitute the Hawai’ian Creole parts of the original. Such a translation may work in cases where a similar cultural environment and background is assumed, as for instance in the Jamaican/English translation of Haitian author Pierre Clitandre’s Cathédrale du mois d’août (English: Cathedral of the August Heat). In the translation, such a cultural background is, in fact, emphasized by a use of Creole in dialogues where it is not present in the original. The following example of the voice of one of the women characters in the translation shall illustrate this: sample text 2: Clitandre, Pierre. 1982. Cathédrale du mois d’août.

Translation 1987 (Bridget Jones).11 Cathedral of the August Heat.

– On doit aller plus loin, dit Dorismé, car on n’est pas de ceux qui vont laisser pourrir leur cadavre au fond du Troude-Jésus, ni de ceux qui acceptent de crever avec un vieux bâton, en allant raconter leurs misères devant la port de la cathédrale ou devant le comptoir des vendeurs de harengs, des boutiquiers et des marchands de toile. On doit aller plus loin pour vaincre la faim de nos enfants et l’errance de la famille des déracinés. Rappelle-toi les flamboyants des mornes. La rivière sur le sable noir. Regarde cette poussière, cette crasse.

– Plenty more to do, said Dorismé. All a we just bones to rot in Jesus-Grave? We not going to give up and dead slowly, leaning on a old stick, telling we troubles at the cathedral door, or in the market to them saltfish seller. Must do more to fill the pickney empty belly and stop them turning we people out a door. Flame tree bloom strong in the hills. The river run cool on the black sand. Nothing not here but dust and filth. Must keep heartful or just fold up and dead. Everything against we, even these flies. Nothing to lose,

From invisibility to register variation 

On doit aller jusqu’au bout, sinon mieux vaut crever piteusement. Tout est contre nous, même l’armée des mouches. Nous n’avons riens à perdre . . . et tout à gagner!

man. . . plenty to win! (p. 100)

Such translation matches are rare, however, and their viability has to be carefully examined on a case-to-case basis. Generally, the particular evocations and evaluations of Creole in the source text have to be considered for the translator’s choice of whether and how to mark it in the target text. In addition, the contrastive use of SE versus Creole expresses an asymmetrical relationship not only within the society (region, class) but also between different societies or cultures, typical for post-colonial situations. BachmannMedick (1997: 3) explicitly addresses this situation, which, she explains, requires a cultural focus in translation, rather than a narrow representational theory of language, such as has long been favoured by translation theory. The fact that translation has long been a site for perpetuating unequal relations is demonstrated in Niranjana (1992), who examines translations of colonial and postcolonial texts from the eighteenth century to the present: In a post-colonial context the problematic of translation becomes a significant site for raising questions of representation, power, and historicity. The context is one of contesting and contested stories attempting to account for, to recount, the asymmetry and inequality of relations between peoples, races, languages. (Niranjana 1992: 1)

Niranjana points to the fact that these relations are not fixed but are shaped and re-negotiated through political and economic changes, which have their impact on the prestige of postcolonial linguistic and cultural groups. But she also stresses the discursive nature of literary texts and their translations: they are not merely a product, but most of all an active agent in re-forming and changing this relationship. The choices of the translator are thus meaningful not only as a reflection and interpretation, but also as a constructive force in the process. The translator, like the author, becomes part of the discursive practice. .. Strategies in translations of Creole/Standard English texts: A diachronic functional perspective In this light, what are the choices made in German translations and what are the meanings they seem to construct? The following list of examples is by no means exhaustive but shall serve to illustrate and qualify some of the general claims

 Chapter 6

made above. Particular attention will be paid to the predominant function of Creole in the source text, the choice the translator made in the target text as well as the overall effect of these choices on the representation of culture.

i. Domestication The easiest way out of the problem would simply be to ignore the Creole in the literary source text. This seems to have been the most popular strategy in early translations such as in the 1960 German version (by Curt Meyer-Clason) of Samuel Selvon’s Turn Again Tiger (1958), or Janheinz Jahn’s translation (1956) of George Lamming’s The Emigrants (1954). In both examples, the Creole use in the dialogues of the source texts are completely discarded in the translations: sample text 3: George Lamming. 1954. The Emigrants.

Translation 1956 (Janheinz Jahn). Mit dem Golfstrom.

‘Lis’en chum, we all know it an’ if I says ‘tis only because there ain’t not’ing else to say; but every man wants a better break, and you know what I mean by that. ‘Tis why every goddam one o’ we is on this boat tonight: You says to yuhself ‘tis no point goin’ on as you goin’ on back home. [. . . ]’ (p. 37)

“Hör mal, Kollege, wir sind uns ja nun darüber einig, und wenn ich es sage, so sag ich’s nur, weil man ja gar nichts anderes sagen kann. Jeder will eben ein besseres Leben haben. Ihr wißt ja alle, was ich damit meine. Das ist der Grund, warum jeder von uns hier auf dem Schiff ist. Du sagst Dir eben, Kollege, so wie es zu Hause gegangen ist, so soll’s nicht weitergehen. [. . . ]” (p. 43)

The fictional character speech in Janheinz Jahn’s version is given in Standard German and does not even show much register variation. The only exception may be the use of the lexical item Kollege (‘colleague’) as a form of address (for chum) sounds rather archaic in contemporary German use, but is certainly meant to mark the informal character of the situation. The strategy of disregarding the Creole parts in the source text becomes problematic, however, when they are not only ignored but also not understood by the translator. The following are two excerpts from Selvon’s novel and its translation into German:

From invisibility to register variation 

sample text 4:12 Samuel Selvon. 1958. Turn Again Tiger. Ex. 1: ‘Tall Boy, I always thought you was hep, that you on the ball, that you is a real creolise Chinee. The way you does get on, people would think that you is a born Trinidadian. But tonight you letting me down bad, real bad.’ ‘How you mean, Joe? You know that I just like one of you, what the hell you mean?’ ‘The night young,’ Deen said ‘But all the rum finish,’ Tiger said. (p. 15)

Ex. 2: Tiger went over to Soylo. ‘Rum and wine don’t mix’, he said. ‘You see me drinking rum?’ Soylo said, gasping from the long draught, his eyes red. [. . . ] It can’t happen nowayelse, only in Five Rivers. Why the people here so cheap?’ ‘It ain’t that they cheap, is just that they poor. But still is a damn shame. Tomatoes take a lot of work to make grow. I hope Deen don’t play powerful foolish and sell for less that twelve cents.’ ‘Who Deen?’ ‘Oh, the fellar I had to leave in charge of my garden till I go back home.’ (p. 24–25).

Translation 1960 (Curt Meyer-Clason). Kehr Um, Tiger. Ex. 1: “Ich habe immer gemeint, Langer, du wärst einfältig und auf den Kopf gefallen, so’n richtiger unvermischter Chinese. Wenn man aber sieht, wie du vorwärts kommst, könnte man meinen, du seiest ein waschechter Einwohner von Trinidad. Aber heute abend enttäuschst du mich wirklich, du enttäuschst uns alle.” “Was meinst du bloß, Joe? Du weißt doch, daß ich euch gerne leiden mag, was zum Teufel soll das Gerede bedeuten? “Die Nacht ist jung”, sagte Deen “Aber der Rum ist zu Ende”, sagte Tiger. (p. 26) Ex. 2: Tiger ging zu Soylos Tisch hinüber und setzte sich. “Rum und Wein vertragen sich nicht”, sagte er. Siehst Du etwa, daß ich Rum trinke?”, fragte Soylo, nach dem langen Schluck Luft holend, die Augen blutunterlaufen und entzündet. Ich rühre das Zeug nicht an.” [. . . ] Sowas kann dir nurnoch in Fünf Flüsse passieren. Warum sind die Leute hier so erbärmlich?” Sie sind nicht erbärmlich, sie sind eben arm. Trotzdem ist es eine Schande. Tomaten machen verdammt viel Arbeit. Ich will nur hoffen, daß Deen keinen Unsinn macht und meine Tomaten nicht für weniger als zwölf Cents verscheuert.” “Wer ist Deen?” “Ach der Bursche, der sich um meinen Gemüsegarten kümmert, bis ich heimkehre.” (p. 43–44)

In the first excerpt, the translator’s lack of linguistic and cultural competence results in a complete mis-interpretation of the situation. Not only are hep and on the ball turned into the opposite and rendered as einfältig – ‘simple-minded’ and auf den Kopf gefallen – ‘to be slow on the uptake’, the creolise Chinee is

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also turned into a ‘pure Chinese’ (unvermischter Chinese). Furthermore, an expression like to get on (‘behave’) is translated with ‘making progress’ (vorwärts kommen) and the preposition like of the original (I just like you – SE ‘I am just like you’) is mis-interpreted as the verb ‘to like’ (daß ich euch gerne leiden mag). These translator’s errors may be partially explained by a serious shortage of access to linguistic and cultural information13 – after all, in 1960 no pioneering publications like Jamaica Talk were on the market. On the other hand, the carelessness about cultural background information may also be seen as evidence of a translator’s approach: throughout the text, cultural information from the source text is not just lost but almost completely erased. In the German translation the Creole used extensively in Selvon’s dialogues is hardly marked – if at all, a few colloquialisms are produced by lexical choice (e.g. verscheuert, Bursche). Place names (Fünf Flüsse for Five Rivers) and proper names are literally translated (Langer, lit. ‘Tall One’ for Tall Boy or Fauler Kopf , lit. ‘Lazy Head’, for More Lazy). In addition to the literal translations, cultural concepts are equally adapted to German. For example, in the original text Tiger just goes over to Soylo, whereas in the translation, he sits down on Soylo’s table – as he would in a German Kneipe (‘pub’) but certainly not in a Trinidadian rum shop. The rendering of garden as Gemüsegarten, (‘vegetable garden’ as opposed to ‘flower garden’) is again such a “germanization” as in the Trinidadian context, garden would always refer to a patch of land to grow fruit and vegetables. In order to determine whether or not this translator’s choice risks a significant loss in meaning, we have to consider the contrast relation between Standard English and Creole in this specific text. As long as the function of Creole works more on a mimetic than a symbolic level, it is merely the reference to the specific cultural setting that is lost with this strategy. As there is no (or hardly any) variation in the character speech according to social or racial or personal characteristics and no larger textual function of Creole, I would see its predominant function, similar to example 1, in terms of providing the authentic cultural setting (referential function). Thus, the problematic aspect of this translation is not the fact that Creole is not marked, but rather that it does not allow any cultural or linguistic differences at all and therefore entirely appropriates the foreign text. The crucial question for any translation is to what extent the target language text is permitted to be recognized as a translation. By erasing all cultural or linguistic difference this translation entirely removes the Trinidadian text into the German context and thus continues a tradition of translation described by Venuti (1995: 20) as the “domesticating method, an ethnocentric re-

From invisibility to register variation 

duction of the foreign text to target-language cultural values, bringing the author back home”. This is opposed to the alternative, the “foreignizing method, an ethnodeviant pressure on those values to register the linguistic and cultural difference of the foreign text, sending the reader abroad.” Criticism of the domesticating method has long been raised in translation theory, by philosophers such as Friedrich Schleiermacher, Walter Benjamin (cf. Benjamin 1977) or in poststructuralist philosophy. Thus, the appeal to the translator to allow his language to be “powerfully affected by the foreign tongue” (Schleiermacher, quoted in Benjamin 1977: 61), instead of preserving the state of one’s own language, is a familiar one. In actual practice, however, this strategy may turn out problematic, too.

ii. Foreignization This may best be illustrated by taking a look at two examples where the translators have attempted to apply the opposite strategy, the “foreignizing method”. The first example is an excerpt from a novel by V. S. Naipaul, The Suffrage of Elvira, first published in 1958 and translated in 1975 (by Werner Peterich). The other one is a more recent example, I Been in Sorrow’s Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots (1992) by Susan Straight and its 1996 translation (by Cornelia Holfelder-von der Tann). In both examples, it would be much more problematic to ignore the Creole voices of the characters than in the previous examples. The Suffrage of Elvira is set in 1950s Trinidad where independence is about to dawn and the inhabitants of the rural village Elvira are faced with the new rules of democracy. Naipaul’s skillful employment of Creole in his satire on Trinidadian society operates more on a symbolic level as the difference between the protagonists’ linguistic “corruptions” and their aspirations is meaningfully exploited by the author. sample text 5: Naipaul, V.S. 1958. The Suffrage of Elvira.

Translation 1975 (Werner Peterich). Wahlkampf auf karibisch. Oder: Eine Hand wäscht die andere.

Ex.1: ‘Must have a loudspeaking van,’ Baksh said. ‘The other man have a loudspeaking van. Come to think of it, you could use my loudspeaker.’ He looked hard at Harbans.

Ex. 1: “Brauchen Lautsprecherwagen”, sagte Baksh. “Anderer Kandidat hat auch Lautsprecherwagen. Wenn ich’s überleg – könnten eig’lich meine Lautsprecher nehmen. “ Er sah Harbans eindringlich an.

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‘And you could use my van.’ Harbans looked back hard into the darkness. ‘What you saying, Baksh? You ain’t got no loudspeaker.’ Baksh stood up. Foam stopped tacking. ‘You ain’t got no loudspeaker,’ Harbans repeated. ‘And you ain’t got no van.’ Baksh said, ‘And you ain’t got no Muslim vote.’ (p. 18) Ex. 2: Dhaniram shouted, ‘Doolahin, candidate here. We want some tea. What sort of tea you want, eh Mr Harbans? Chocolate, coffee or green tea?’ ‘Green tea,’ Harbans said distractedly. ‘What happen, Mr. Harbans?’ Foam asked. Harbans locked his fingers. ‘Can’t understand it, Foam. Can’t understand it. I is a old old man. Why everybody down against me? (p. 45)

“Un’ mein Wagen.” Harbans blickte genauso eindringlich zurück in die Dunkelheit. “ Was sagen, Baksh? haben doch gar keinen Lautsprecher.” Baksh erhob sich. Foam hörte auf, mit der Nadel zu hantieren. “Haben doch gar kein Lautsprecher”, wiederholte Harbans. “Un kein Wagen.” Baksh sagte: “Un Sie kein Moslem-Stimmen.” (p. 23) Ex. 2: Dhaniram rief: “Doolahin, Kandidat is da. Brauchen Tee. Was für Tee möchten, Mr. Harbans? Schokolade, Kaffee oder grünen Tee?” “Grünen Tee”, sagte Harbans, ohne richtig bei der Sache zu sein. “Was passiert, Mr. Harbans?” fragte Foam. Harbans verschränkte die Finger. “Kann nich verstehn, Foam. Kann einfach nich verstehn. Ich alter Mann. Warum mit einmal alle gegen mich?” (p. 65)

The translator of The Suffrage of Elvira makes an interesting attempt to create a variety of German not related to any specific regional dialect by trying to imitate genuine structural elements of Creole, like the deletion of the copula (e.g. Ich – 1st pers. pron. alter – adj. ‘old’ Mann – n. ‘man’, lit.: ‘I old man’14 ) or the use of an invariant form of the verb (e.g. haben ‘have’, sagen ‘say’, möchten ‘want’, brauchen ‘need’) where, in “genuine German”, an inflected verb form is required, together with the use of a personal pronoun (Ich brauche ‘I need’, here: ‘must have’; was sagst Du? ‘What do you say’, here: ‘what you saying’, etc.). The translation even adds some phonological marking which is not given in the source text, such as final consonant deletion and curious contractions of some German words “eigentlich” becomes eig’lich, and “persönlich” – p’sönlich, which have no dialectal or sociolectal correspondence at all. Semantic differences like the shift of “tea” to a hypernym for hot drinks remain in the translation. Rather than operating on a level of appropriation, of bringing the text to the target language reader, the translation works with the foreignizing method, of sending the reader abroad.

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The problem here, however, is that the foreignizing effect is not sustained. It is, in fact, not foreign enough; it lacks the self-conscious artificiality of a calquing such as has been done in other works.15 Rather, the tentatively creolized German draws too insistently on an already familiar variety, on Ausländerdeutsch – particularly because the translation adds a few grammatical features such as deletion of pronouns, deletion of articles (Anderer Kandidat, ‘other candidate’), wrong case, gender and number marking in possessive or indefinite pronouns (kein Moslem-Stimmen, kein Lautsprecher, kein Wagen, mein Wagen). But the association with this incomplete second language variety of German is evidently ill-chosen in a Creole context, since Creole is, of course, not a learner’s interlanguage like Ausländerdeutsch, but the complete native language of its speakers. Apart from carrying negative connotations of “incompleteness”, German foreigner talk also lacks the tradition and resources to render character speech in postcolonial translations.16 Mair (1993), in his analysis of German translations of West African literature, equally rejects the possibility of using foreigner talk for character speech in Nigerian Pidgin English: [. . . ] German foreigner talk is not a stable variety with its own oral tradition and recognised societal functions. Occasional counter examples notwithstanding [. . . ], its capacity for coining expressions adequate to serious discourse is limited. It would come across as a reduced form of German without an expressive appeal of its own and, worse, also reinforce the prevailing stereotype of the inarticulate savage from the African jungle. (Mair 1993: 226)

For this reason, the choices made in Werner Peterich’s translation above, original as they may be, become the most problematic ones with respect to cultural representation of Creole in German. The translator of Susan Straight’s novel seems to have applied more caution with her much more recent artifical variety of German for the Gullah-speaking main protagonist of the novel.17 Here, too, a simple neglect of the Creole would have caused difficulties since I Been in Sorrow’s Kitchen is a coming-of-age tale in which the heroine’s development is marked by changes in her speech as she moves from the Low Country of South Carolina to California. As Creole is used for character identification, the predominant purpose of its employment here is one of character expression in a social context (expressive function). sample text 6:18 Straight, Susan. 1992. I Been in Sorrow’s Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots. “She mama name Christmas,”

Translation 1996 (Cornelia Holfelder-von der Tann). Die Afrikafrau. “Josephine Mama heiß Christmas”, sagte

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Pinkie said. “Mmm-hmm. Too pretty girl.” Aint Sister said, “Long-long black hair, she braid all round she head. My cousin. She die when Marietta small-small, we beena take the baby fe funeral. Christmas been done buy her a plot in Charleston, say she never come back fe PineGarden even when she dead.” (p. 28)

Pinkie. “Mmm-hmm. Sie hübsch.” Aint Sister sagte: “Lang-lang schwarz Haar. Sie flecht ringsrum in Zöpf. Sie Kusine zu mir. Sie sterb, wo Marietta klein-klein, wir bring ihr Babytochter fe Begräbnis. Christmas kauf Grabplatz in Charleston, sie sag, sie woll nimmer komm fe Pine Garden, nich mal tot.” (p. 41)

The German marking of the Gullah in the characters’ speech contains, for instance, a consistent reduction of the verb in the third person singluar form (heiß, flecht, sterb, bring, kauf, woll, komm). It is different from Peterich’s use of the infinitive verb form in his Naipaul translation, in that Holfelder-von-derTann’s form is used neither by non-native speakers, nor by a group of native speakers of German, it is genuinely artificial. Another prominent feature in her translation is the use of an all-purpose preposition fe as well as zero copula constructions (Sie hübsch) and use of reduplications (klein-klein, lang-lang). The translator thus succeeds in creating a foreignizing effect which does not immediately evoke too familiar clichés of Ausländerdeutsch. If neither strategies of inclusion nor a strategy of exclusion/foreignization seem to provide a satisfactory solution, the dilemma the translator is faced with may well lead to the question of whether the “task of the translator” is to be understood in the ambiguous sense of the German word Die Aufgabe, which means not only ‘the task’ but, as in a famous word play, also ‘the surrender’. This would be too pessimistic an outlook, however, and I would rather like to opt for a third interpretation. “To give up something”, a loss which certainly applies to all translations, but also includes the possibility of some other gain. The loss concerns the illusion that social reality can be translated by either appropriating it into the culture of the target language or by trying to imitate it even. The gain, as will be shown in the next example, lies in the idea that translation opens up the possibility for re-negotiating previously fixed sociolinguistic hierarchies in the target text/society. While the original source text is fixed in the historical context of its production, the translation is flexible in its interpretation. This becomes acutely evident in the fact that many classical works are translated more than once, with new interpretations replacing older versions that seem “outdated” to a contemporary readership. Thus, translations also offer a key to current trends of acceptability and they have, to a certain extent, the

From invisibility to register variation 

power to set new trends, for example in interpreting the social effect of Creole use within the fictional framework. While this may have no immediately measurable reciprocal effect on the source text/society, it is nonetheless part of a wider discourse on the sociopragmatic meaning of Creole which does not stop at linguistic boundaries.

iii. Register marking Most recent translations of West Indian literature, e.g. of works by Olive Senior, Lorna Goodison, Joan Riley, and others seem to have chosen a third option, i.e. a weak register marking of the Creole parts of the texts. This strategy will be shown in the next example, an excerpt from V.S. Naipaul’s The Mystic Masseur (1957) which has already featured in Chapter 5. As suggested there, the author’s use of Creole in dialogue operates not on a mimetic but on a symbolic level. The following is the excerpt in comparison with Karin Graf ’s (1984) German translation. sample text 7: Naipaul, V.S. 1957. The Mystic Masseur. Like many Trinidadians Ganesh could write correct English but it embarrassed him to talk anything but dialect except on very formal occasions. So while, with the encouragement of Street and Smith, he perfected his prose to a Victorian weightiness he continued to talk Trinidadian, much against his will. One day he said, ‘Leela, is high time we realize that we living in a British country and I think we shouldn’t be shame to talk the people language good.’ Leela was squatting at the kitchen chulha, coaxing a fire from dry mango twigs. Her eyes were red and watery from the smoke. ‘All right, man.’ ‘We starting now self, girl.’

Translation 1984 (Karin Graf). Der mystische Masseur. Wie viele Leute auf Trinidad konnte Ganesh korrektes Englisch schreiben, aber es machte ihn verlegen, etwas anderes als Dialekt zu sprechen, außer bei sehr feierlichen Gelegenheiten. Während er also, durch Street und Smith ermutigt, seine Prosa vervollkommnete, bis sie von viktorianischer Gewichtigkeit war, redete er sehr gegen seinen Willen weiterhin wie ein Bewohner Trinidads. Eines Tages sagte er: “Leela, s ist höchste Zeit, daß uns klar wird, wir leben in nem britischen Land und ich mein, s ist keine Schande für uns, wenn wir die Sprache der Leute gut sprechen.” Leela hockte vor dem Küchen-Chulha und entlockte trockenen Mangobaumzweigen ein Feuer. Ihre Augen waren rot und tränten vom Rauch. “In Ordnung, Mann.” “Wir fangen auf der Stelle an, Mädchen.”

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‘As you say, man.’ ‘Good. Let me see now. Ah, yes. Leela, have you lighted the fire? No just gimme a chance. Is “lighted” or “lit”, girl?’ ‘Look ease me up, man. The smoke going in my eye. ‘You ain’t paying attention, girl. You mean the smoke is going in your eye.’ Leela coughed in the smoke. ‘Look, man. I have a lot more to do than sit scratching, you hear. Go talk to Beharry.’ (p. 76–77)

“Wie du willst, Mann.” “Gut. Jetzt laß mich sehen. Ach ja, Leela, zündetetest du das Feuer an? Nee, warte mal. Heißt das oder , Mädchen?” “Paß auf, laß mich mal in Ruh, Mann. Ich krieg den ganzen Rauch in die Augen.” “Du paßt nicht auf, Mädchen. Du meinst, du bekommst den Rauch in die Augen.” Leela hustete im Rauch. “Paß auf, Mann. Ich hab noch mehr zu tun, als hier zu sitzen und Streichhölzer abzubrennen, hörst du. Geh und red mit Beharry.” (p. 85–87)

As becomes evident from the characters’ interaction, it would be acutely problematic to dispense with some sort of marking of the difference between the SE of the narrative and the Creole of the dialogue, as the function of Creole is constitutive for the meaning of the entire text. In Naipaul’s dialogue between the characters, Creole serves not only as a metaphor for colonial society but addresses the diglossic situation metalinguistically: the application of the “high” code Standard English in the wrong context ultimately leads to ridicule and laughter because of its stark contrast to the Trinidadian Creole the characters employ in their “normal” conversation. The humerous effect is created by the clumsy and unsuccessful attempt of the protagonists, not only to use the prestigious code but also to manage what they stereotypically perceive to be phatic conversational conventions of Standard English (“talk about the weather”). As a consequence, Ganesh and Leela come across as colonials (living in a British country) who fail miserably in their aspirations to imitate the colonial rulers (talk the people language good). In Graf ’s translation, Naipaul’s villagers are neither transplanted into a German cultural setting nor are they turned into speakers of incomplete German. The translation strategy here consists of register marking. The dialogue in the German version is characterized by colloquialisms, such as contractions of words (s for es ‘it’, nem for einem ‘a’), lexical choice (kriegen ‘get’ versus bekommen ‘obtain’) or taggings with Mann, but does not try to re-create any grammatical or phonological differences between the codes, as is done in the source text (the smoke going in my eye versus the smoke is going in your eye). Graf ’s register marking is just enough to indicate a difference between the codes

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on a level of formality and domain, while it ignores the particular connotations of “brokenness” of Creole which are so meaningfully employed by the author. As the negative evaluation of Creole is lost in the translation, the comic effect of this scene is entirely at the expense of a rather pompous use of Standard English in an informal context, rather than on both, the “brokenness” of the Creole versus the attempt to “speak good” in the source text. The reliance on mere register marking in the translation thus subverts the somewhat malicious choices the author made in in the late 1950s. The translated version, produced in 1984, converts the relationship between the codes used into a more evenly balanced one. The dichotomy of their use lies purely on a formal/informal dimension and does not reproduce the colonial evaluation of the varieties which is given in the source text. There is certainly no ultimate and universally applicable solution to “how to translate Creole” since, to a large extent, this will depend on the function of Creole use in the source text. Therefore, translators will have to continue to tackle the problem on an individual basis, relating to the meaning created by the use of the different codes. As the source texts change – for instance in novels where literary Creole serves as the general medium of narration and thus removes Standard English from its privileged position (e.g. Powell 1994) – the translator will have to cope with just any “normal” difficulties in rendering the meaning of the text in the target language. .. Translation and re-evaluation That the translator’s choices are meaningful themselves also becomes manifest if we look at the examples of Creole in translation from the 1960s to the 1980s as reflections of their time. They highlight how Creole culture and language are interpreted and represented from a German point of view: from a complete domestication or germanization to an attempt at foreignization to a strategy of register marking which rests on levels of formality without overstating differences. The latter strategy is, in fact, the most commonly used strategy in the majority of translations of the 1980s and 1990s, making the foreignization attempt in the translation of I Been in Sorrow’s Kitchen as a rare example. “Since reality is a social construct, it can be constructed only through an exchange of meanings. Hence meanings are seen as constitutive of reality”, as Halliday (1978: 191) states. Translators’ choices are certainly part of this meaning exchange and they may not be as innocent as their apparent transparency often suggests:

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The violent effects of translation are felt at home as well as abroad. On the one hand, translation wields enormous power in the construction of national identities for foreign cultures, and hence it potentially figures in ethnic discrimination, geopolitical confrontations, colonialism, terrorism, war. On the other hand, translation enlists the foreign text in the maintenance or revision of literary canons in the target-language culture, inscribing poetry and fiction, for example, with the various poetic and narrative discourses that compete for cultural dominance in the target language. Translation also enlists the foreign text in the maintenance or revision of dominant conceptual paradigms, [. . . ]. (Venuti 1995: 19)

This meaning exchange is in flux and will have to be constantly re-negotiated as reality and textuality change. This becomes clear if we look at more recent and radically different cases of Creole used in fiction: in examples where Creole is not used in a contrastive relation with SE (cf. Chapter 5.3.2), the question of “how to translate Creole” would be as difficult or easy to answer as the question “how to translate French” or “how to translate Spanish”. Translations of a (standardized) writing language Creole would still have to deal with what Bakhtin calls the “social polyphony” of the novel (cf. also Chapter 5.3.2), but could ignore and move beyond postcolonial dichotomies of “language of culture” versus “folk language” and oral versus scribal language.

. Translations into Creole: Ausbau and modernization Translation itself may be a key in this development. As we have seen in Chapter 5, the most difficult task in the development from an oral to a scribal language is, apart from orthographic problems, the Ausbau (elaboration), or, more specifically, the intellectualization of a language. The term “intellectualization”, first used by the Prague School linguist Havranek, describes one of the processes that a standard language has to undergo in its cultivation and is defined as “its adaptation to the goal of making possible precise and rigorous, if necessary abstract statements” (in Gonzalez 1992: 301). It has often been claimed that Creole (as other languages which are used primarily orally) lack the vocabulary for academic scientific discourse. But how could a language develop such resources if it has never been used in these particular domains? This vicious circle of cause and effect, arguably, can indeed be disrupted through translation. Reconceptualization and translation are necessary for lexical coding and lexical enrichment by means of, for instance, word coinage or

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Table 11. Development of Bible Translations from 1500 to 1996 Year

Compl. Bible

New Testament

Parts of Bible

Total

1500 1800 1830 1890 1920 1960 1980 1996

5 40 52 104 159 221 275 355

1 15 55 105 147 277 495 880

0 16 50 261 534 667 940 932

6 71 157 470 840 1165 1710 2167

(Source: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft 1998)

loan translation. In addition, translation also affects syntactic elaboration,19 expansion of discourse types and functions. On the road from written language to literate language (cf. Ong 1984), translation has always played a considerable role, as a brief look at the history of many standardized writing languages would suggest. After all, most European languages began to replace Latin as the primary writing language when the Bible was translated into the “vernacular”.20 The linguistic and cultural consequences of this process were overwhelming: the European vernaculars became codified, later standardized languages, which soon superseded Latin in the domain of writing. In the act of translation, not only the religious words but many other concepts which had formerly been restricted to the high prestige language Latin, had to be “invented” in these new writing languages. German is a good case in point: Martin Luther’s Bible translation, begun in 1521, was very influential for lexico-semantic changes (cf. Tschirch 1989: 107 ff.) and new formations in an emerging cross-regional German standard language. Already existing words changed their then purely secular meaning to include a religious dimension;21 German words were created to replace the Latin borrowing,22 illustrative compounds and idioms23 added to and transformed the existing vocabulary. .. Bible translations and Creole The close link between the colonial enterprise and Christian missionary fervour is commonly accepted. Bible translations and their sharp increase in peak times of colonial expansion serve to illustrate this alliance: Colonial expansion in the nineteenth century led to a sharp increase in Bible translations, to a multiplication by more than ten between 1800 and 1920.

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It is therefore not surprising that also for many Creole languages Bible translations were among the first texts that turned them into written form (cf. also Mühleisen 2001b).24 Eckkrammer (1996: 129–149), for instance, stresses the importance of early Bible translations for Papiamentu and notes that no less than 139 translations of a religious nature were produced between 1825 and 1994. Bible translations by Moravian missionaries into Surinamese Creoles reach back as early as the late eighteenth century (cf. Holm 1989). Missionaries were often not only the first to record these “new languages”, but also to overcome the commonly held view that they could not be written. It is understood that they did not act in altruistic sociolinguistic awareness, but for their own motives of bringing the Christian message to the people. As a Victorian missionary once remarked “souls must be saved at any sacrifice of linguistic purity” (Cust 1886: 24). The consequences for language documentation and translation are nevertheless of great importance. However, there are hardly any Bible translations into CELC languages. The reason for this neglect must be seen in the nature of the diglossic situation where English has so far occupied the space of “language of the church”. It is only now that new Bible versions into CELC languages are being produced, among them, a Bible translation into Jamaican and Gullah. At the beginning of this chapter, the importance of translation was stressed for the elaboration of a language, as a means to produce the registers and styles necessary to cover the full range of written production. The focus of the discussion will now be on the question of what relevance Bible translations could have in such a process for CELC languages today. What are the consequences of Bible translations for the expansion of the functional and stylistic range of the languages? In order to explore this question, we will now look at an excerpt from a recent translation of the Luke Gospel into Gullah25 in 1994: sample text 8: De Good Nyews Bout Jedus Christ Wa Luke Write (1994) Dey Say Jedus Mus Die on de Cross 13 And Pilate, when he had called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, 14 Said unto them, Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the people: and, behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things where-

13 Pilate sen fa da leada dem ob dem Jew priest. An e call fa de tority dem wa da rule an fa de people. E call um all fa come tageda. 14 E tell um say, “Oona done bring dis man yah ta me, tell me dat e da stir op de people, pit wod een dey yea. Bot wen A quizzit um befo oona, A see dat e ain’t done none ob dem ting wa oona say e done.

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of ye accuse him: 15 No, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him; and lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him. 16 I will therefore chastise him and release him. 17 (For of necessity he must release one unto them at the feast.) 18 And they cried out all at once, saying, Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas: 19 (Who for a certain sedition made in the city, and for murder, was cast into prison.) 20 Pilate, therefore, willing to release Jesus, spake again to them. 21 But they cried, saying Crucify him, crucify him. 22 And he said unto them the third time, Why what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him: I will therefore chastise him, and let him go. 23 And they were instant with loud voices, requiring that he might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed. 24 And Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required. 25 And he released unto them him that for sedition and murder was cast into prison, whom they had desired; but he delivered Jesus to their will.

15 An Herod ain’t see nottin bad wa Jedus done needa, so e done sen um baak ta we yah. Oona kin see dat Jedus ain’t done nottin fa make me habe dem kill um. 16 Cause ob dat, A gwine jes habe dem whip um an den leh um go. 17 (Cause ebry yeah wen dey habe de Passoba feas, Pilate haffa free one man wa de Jew people want.) 18 Bot wen Pilate say e want fa free Jedus fa um, all de people holla say, “No. Habe dem kill dis man an free Barabbas fa we!” 19. Barabbas de man wa dey done pit een jail cause e been a leada befo, wen de people done riot een de city an one poson been murda.) 20 Pilate beena want fa free Jedus, so e taak ta de people gin. 21 Bot de people keep on a hollarin, tell Pilate say, “Nail um ta de cross! Nail um ta de cross!” 22 Pilate tell de people gin. Dat make tre time. E aks um say, “Wa fa? A ain’t see nottin dat e done fa make me habe dem kill um! Cause ob dat, A gwine habe dem whip um an den leh um go.” 23 Bot de people keep on a hollarin louda an louda, say Pilate oughta habe de sodjaman dem kill Jedus on de cross. An cause de People holla sommuch an cause ob de leada dem ob de priest, Pilate change e mind. 24 So e done wa de people want um fa do. 25 E free Barabbas, de man dey aks fa. E de one wa done been een jail fa de riot an fa murda. Den Pilate tell e sodjaman dem ta take Jedus an do wa de people beena want um ta do.

The passage above is Luke 23, 13–25: Pilate negotiates with the people the release of one prisoner – Barabas or Jesus. The well known episode is itself a scene where cross-cultural communication (between the Romans and the Jews) takes place, and it is a scene where authority is negotiated via language. When a language is used primarily orally, the range of stylistic choices is naturally limited to those which suit the purposes of oral communication. One

 Chapter 6

of the most important tasks in language elaboration or modernization is, therefore, to extend the scope of registers available in that language. This concerns not only the selection of vocabulary but also syntactic options, as for instance the range of techniques which allows us to establish and express relations between two propositions. Translation may again be helpful in this enterprise, in that it involves creative solutions to transport subtle stylistic distinctions from the source language to the target language. Nothing much can be said for lexical innovation here, as the words needed for relating the scene are not highly specialized (except for Passoba feas as a specification that is not given in the English version). The majority of content words, nouns like priest, sodjaman, jail or verbs like free, kill, habe can be taken to be part of the general word stock available in the variety. The point here is that the biblical text itself has its roots in an oral tradition which it has never left behind. The most explicit oral features are the many dialogues, which make up a large proportion of the text and which, in the Gullah version, are given predominantly in direct speech. But also the narrative distinctly reveals structures which, according to Ong (1982), are characteristic of an oral mode of communication (cf. discussion Chapter 5.3.1). If we consider the translated text above, we may recognize some of Ong’s oppositions: the sentence structure is co-ordinate rather than subordinate, the information structure is additive rather than analytic. There is a limited range of junctions (cf. Raible 1994) to express temporality (wen, den), conditionality (cause) or concessivity (bot). But this limitation is not due to an inability of Gullah to increase the scale of techniques; rather these structures are already given in the source text. The Bible, in fact, is a prime example for Ong’s further features of orality: the many enumerations and genealogies are redundant and copious, the parables are close to the human lifeworld, etc. Consequently, when it comes to increasing the range of registers used in written communication, Bible translation is not the most suitable medium to achieve this goal. More than a century ago, Victorian missionary Robert Cust (1886) presented this hopeful vision on the effects of bible translations into the “young hybrids”, languages with “mixed origins” (cf. also quote in Chapter 2.2.2). The task of the colonial missionary to collect, document and hereby preserve languages is illustrated in his collector’s pride, which is of similar spirit to his contemporary biologists or zoologists: “already specimens are being collected and arranged. Some will strike shoot, and be the Vernaculars of the future. Once let the Bible be translated into them, and their future is secure” (1886: 49–50), he writes.

From invisibility to register variation 

Codification and standardization, a side-effect of European colonial missions for many languages, is as important as ever for their survival. However, Cust’s optimistic view may no longer have the same effect as a hundred years ago. While translation, and with it functional elaboration, can indeed serve as catalysts for language modernization, Bible translations may not be the most suitable media to achieve this end. The vocabulary created in these texts is too archaic, the stylistic choices are too close to an oral style to equip languages with the necessary means to compete as a contemporary written medium. Indeed, it is the vocabulary of science and the stock market, the registers used in the internet, newspapers and academic texts that are needed to prevent the “specimens collected” from existing simply as display objects in the museum of languages. .. Text and register: Examples of translations into Creole In his discussion on Ausbau languages and the conditions needed for language elaboration, Kloss (1967: 33) stresses the requirement of non-literary prose. He claims that “in our age it is not so much by means of poetry and fiction that a language is reshaped (and perhaps salvaged) but by means of non-narrative prose”. Therefore, it is not just the quantity of textualization but also the variety of text types, which has to be considered in the development of a written language. “Achievements in the realm of information, not of imagination, lend lasting prestige in our age to standard languages old and new” (Kloss 1967: 33). This shall now be illustrated with examples of various text types, where some sort of translation process has been involved.

i. Folk poetry There are not very many models of genuine translations into CELC languages. One example which has achieved some fame in linguistic circles addressed the question posed in 6. 2. 3. in the reverse: how could other languages, for instance, German texts be translated into Creole? This question was not only posed but also answered by Görlach (1991) who had Max & Moritz, a wellknow German children’s story, translated into four different P/Cs. The following is an excerpt of the original with a translation into Jamaican Creole by Jean D’Costa (in Görlach 1991):

 Chapter 6

sample text 9: Wilhelm Busch. 1865. Max und Moritz He, heraus, Du Ziegenböck Schneider, Schneider, meck-meckmeck! Alles konnte Böck ertragen Ohne nur ein Wort zu sagen Aber wenn er dies erfuhr Gings ihm wider die Natur

Translation (D’Costa) Cho, com out, man! Show we ‘Bock’! Tiela een deh? Mock-mock-mock!” Bock no easy man fi vex; tek juok betta dan de nex bot when dem call im out fi ‘bock’, like ram-goat fasten eena mock, (in Görlach 1991: 188)

That these translations work rather smoothly is not surprising since the nineteenth century folkloristic story of two naughty boys and their vicious practical jokes draws on a rhetoric and style which seem familiar from existing Creole texts. Görlach remarks on the ease with which proverbial expressions and local comparisons are introduced in the Creole versions. He illustrates this with a few examples from the Jamaican translation (Görlach 1991: 186). Some of these work particularly well in their transfer of metaphors and similes to a local imagery: 1. The boys’ stubbornness is expressed by coke-nat saafa dan dem head (line 9) 2. The strings laid out by the boys for stealing chickens are like Nancy-web spin a night (line 42) 3. The tailor is torn with pain like mango eena son-hat ripin (line 194) 4. Teacher Lampel’s head is clean nuh cricket-ball (line 263) 5. As Görlach notes (1991: 186), “the finest series of comparisons comes in Badness Nomba Six, when the sooty boys are said to be black nuh jangcrow dress fi tong (346); then the flour-covered boys present an impression woss dan day-ghos’ out fi walk (350); finally, when they are covered with dough, the author finds: nat a church-yaad h’angel stay / whita dan de bway dat day (357f.)”. Although lexical items, idioms and metaphors have to undergo a transcultural translation – e.g. in the Jamaican version the tailor is torn with pain like “mango eena son-hat ripin” – it stays very much within the boundaries of the postcolonial dichotomies of “folk culture” versus “high culture” and oral vs scribal language.

From invisibility to register variation 

ii. Newspaper Comment It is to be expected that in texts which belong to the “realm of information”, as Kloss (1967: 33) put it, lexical innovation is of greater importance than in sample text 6 and 7, especially when contemporary information is concerned. News and newspaper reports thus prove to be ideal testing grounds for lexical enrichment. There are a number of different general strategies which can be followed in the enlargement of the lexical stock of a language: a. b. c. d.

borrowing from another language circumlocution metaphorical extension derivational morphology.

The danger for Creole use in a more formal register is extensive borrowing from the lexically related language where the concepts required in the particular register are already established. Even though the easiest and “most natural” strategy – after all the Creole user familiar with the register is likely to be familiar with it in the high prestige language – this method achieves exactly the opposite of Ausbau, by further decreasing the Abstand to the lexically related variety. Lexical innovation other than borrowing requires conscious effort, as becomes clear in the following examples given by Cooper (1997), who comments on her and her colleagues’ experience of translating serious news for a weekly news programme, “Big tings las week”, in Jamaican some years back.26 Cooper stresses the importance of translation to actually capture this particular register in Jamaican when she states, “we were not creating, thinking in Jamaican, back to the original problem I had with the Lionheart Gal paper.27 But translating is a quite legitimate activity and so we decided we will translate” (1997). Cooper recounts that the main problem they had was the generation of lexicon, to “create new words rather than importing words”. Lexical innovations were required, for instance, for news from the international finance market which are “not in your everyday Creole speaker’s vocabulary” (Cooper 1997), e.g. “stocks and bonds” becomes tie op money.28 Other abstract concepts were similarly imaginative metaphorical extensions and required some “fieldwork”, for some abstract words like “environment”, the translators used circumlocution: I’d once written a column where I was trying to translate “orgasm” I ended up with ripe op an buss and I asked people [. . . ] because in Creole you don’t have a word in that same kind of way. I talked to one fellow who said he remembers a story about some woman telling him that she dance with a fellow and she just “buss” with her partner on the dancefloor. Environment – how

 Chapter 6

do you translate “environment”, we don’t have a word in Creole for that kind of abstract sense, so we talk about the wata, and the land and we had to end up saying about five or six words to convey the concept of the environment. So it was an interesting experiment. (Cooper 1997)

iii. Academic articles (Cooper & Devonish) The translation of news into Jamaican Creole is not the only experiment of this kind. Both Cooper (1993) and Devonish (1986, 1994, 1996) have engaged in a noteworthy experiment of Creole use in yet a different register, in academic articles and papers. This is, of course, a deliberate language policy project, where the motivation Cooper describes as to counter arguments that “Creole will not do in certain situations”, that certain registers require Standard English. As Alleyne (1994: 16) points out, “creole speakers generally have not had the chance to develop styles, registers or strategies of discourse such as political speechmaking or presentation of papers before professional societies or corporate board meetings, all of which require planned, deliberate discourse”. By introducing a Jamaican voice for her literary analysis of Lionheart Gal, a Jamaican text, Cooper endeavours to undermine the hierarchy of Standard English, as she phrases it, by “seeking to narrow now the social distance between the language of the stories and the language of textual analysis, I wish to engage in an experimental Jamaican subversion of the authority of English as our exclusive voice of scholarship” (Cooper 1997). In Hubert Devonish’s academic papers (1994, 1996) presented both in Jamaican and Standard English, the former variety has to be shaped according to the needs of the text and many linguistic terms have to be created in Creole. The following is a short excerpt from Devonish (1994): sample text 10: Kyaribiiyan Ruuts Langgwij, Nyuu Taim Sapii an Fiilinz fo Neeshan

Caribbean Vernacular Languages, Technology and National Consciousness

Fo Staat Aaf [. . . ] Hou piipl taak iz wan ting doz prapa mek dem fiil se dem biilaangs togeda. Huu taak laik matii doz fiil se dem iz matii. An huu doz doon taak laik dem, no dem matii. Nof taim, wan set a piipl doz mek op dem main se hou dem taak speshal. An den, dem

Introduction [. . . ] Shared speech is a very important means of creating common identity. The absence of shared speech, on the other hand, serves to exclude those who do not belong within the common identity. It is very often the case that a group of people come to regard their speech as in some way special. They

From invisibility to register variation 

doz staat biiliiv se a no jos di taak wa speshal bot di piipl wa taakin, to. An az fo huu no taak speshal taak, dem no speshal niida.

(Devonish 1994: 1)

begin to transfer this feeling of specialness from their language to themselves, its speakers. As for those who are not perceived as sharing the special common speech, they come to be regarded as the very opposite of special. (Devonish 1994: 1–2)

By using the existing lexical stock in new and more specialized meanings, Devonish succeeds in creating an academic register in Creole. Micro-structures which are characteristic of an academic text (e.g. the “subtitling” of the text: ‘introduction’ – fo staat aaf) are transferred into Jamaican and so establish a pattern in that variety without reverting to the H-language English as a source. Examples of lexical innovation in the complete text include: –

– –

compounds: nyuu taim sapii (p. 1) for ‘technology’, langgwij paat-aaf (p. 3) for ‘diglossia’, langgwij sheed-aaf (p. 7) for ‘continuum’, langgwij stodii29 piipl (p. 9) for ’linguists’ semantic extension: neeshan parabl (p. 5) for ‘national motto’, pik-out (p. 8) for ‘selection’ circumlocution: wen yu taakin frii insaid (p. 9) for ‘private informal interaction’, we dem bilin sentens laik / hou di word-dem yuuz fo bil sentens (p. 9) for ’syntax’

Syntactically, it is notable that many concepts which are expressed in SE as modified nouns or compound nouns are often expressed in a noun phrase (hou piipl taak (p. 1) versus ‘shared speech’, to fiil se dem iz matii (p. 1) versus ‘common identity’). Nevertheless, the Creole text is much shorter than the SE text. One reason for this is that many of the rather formulaic expressions and conjunctions which make up the conventions of an academic text in Standard English are not given in the Creole text. Where they are given, the Creole expressions are shorter and less formulaic (From wa hii se for ‘according to his analysis’, p. 4–5, plos for ‘in addition’, p. 4–5). Cleft constructions, a typcial syntactic feature of CELC languages, feature prominently in the Creole text: Iz main doz mek wan langgwij (p. 2), An iz di raitin fo Ingglish, di hai-langgwij doz raint dong (p. 6). These constructions are often resonant in the SE text, giving credit to the idea that the SE text is actually the translation in the process. Even though the Creole text is given as the original and the English part is cited as the translation, it can be assumed that the author had to conceptualize some of the more specialized vocabulary in the established academic language

 Chapter 6

English first before transferring it into Jamaican. A good illustration of such a reconceptualization is given in Devonish (1996) where the author himself describes this process: sample text 11: Kom groun Jamiekan daans haal liricks [sic]30 : memba se a plie wi a plie.

Contextualizing Jamaican ‘Dance Hall’ music: Jamaican language at play in a speech event

Mek me shuo unu wa mi miin. Wa dem kaal speech event ina Ingglish, mii kaal ‘taak seshan’. Ina Jamiekan, wen piipl miit tugeda fi lisn myuuzik an daans an ting, dem se a wan ‘seshan’ dem hav. So, mii tek di wod an jain i wid ‘taak’ fi mek op ‘taak seshan’. An fi Ingglish translate, mi yuuz ‘kraas uova’. Mi jain op ‘kraas’ (cross) and ‘uova’ (over), far a dat yu a du wen yu tek sompn ina wan langgwij to taak i ina wan neks langgwij. Mi fain out se dis-ya jain op bizniz a wan gud fi taak ina Jamiekan dem langgwij stodi sinting we kyan taak ina Ingglish.

Let me illustrate. The English term, ‘speech event’, I translate into Jamaican as taak seshan. When people gather to hear music and dance and so on, speakers of Jamaican often describe the event as a seshan (‘session’). I, therefore, took this word and combined it with taak (‘talk’) to produce the Jamaican compound form, taak seshan. And, for the English word ‘translate’, I use kraas uova. This is also a compound form, this time consisting of kraas (‘cross’) and uova (‘over’), which accurately represents what takes place when ideas initially expressed in one language come to be expressed in another. I discovered that compounding was a very productive source of new Jamaican terms to deal with the host of new concepts being imported from linguistic terminology in English. (Devonish 1996: 205).

(Devonish 1996: 204)

Despite Devonish’s claim31 that the Creole text was, in fact, the source text, I would like to go along with Gonzalez’s argument that many concepts used in academic discourse can only come into the expanding language via translation from a language with an established academic register: [. . . ] the expanded use of the developing language into domains hitherto reserved for the colonial language demands the creation of registers (discourse about specific fields) in that language. This creation depends to a large extent on a source language, since academic talk is based on a tradition of scientific discourse which is of relatively recent provenance. (Gonzalez 1992: 307)

From invisibility to register variation 

In his foreword (1996) Devonish explains the difficulty of finding Creole translations for expressions such as ‘speech event’, ‘translate’ or ‘short circuit’, for which he came up with taak seshan, kraas uova and tek shaat kot an laas. Linguistic terminology like “compound” is given as jain op bizniz and simply introduced in the text itself. Such word-formation in this highly specialized field is yet again an example of the productive force of translation in creating new registers.

. Creole as a translated language There is no doubt that the examples given in 6. 3. are the exception rather than the rule, they are linguistic experiments which reach only a limited audience. A more effective and far-reaching register elaboration would require at least some degree of conscious language planning, for instance in the creation of educational material. What the examples achieve, however, is to illustrate that and how this can be done, and why it is important to engage in translation projects into Creole. If translation is a site for negotiating power relations (cf. Niranjana 1992: 1), then the target language is usually on the winner’s side. Clearly, there are far more translations into the world’s powerful languages than into the powerless ones, as speakers of “minority languages” are usually expected to use the more dominant languages in the respective registers. Translations into CELC languages are therefore symbolic acts: acts which stress the idea of both Abstand and Ausbau by creating a lexical stock for technical terms not based on borrowing and by creating the textual norms which go along with register formation. Translations into CEL Creoles are still few and far between and there is probably little reason to expect a change – the lexifier English is too dominant in the Caribbean as well as internationally. What experiments by linguists such as Devonish, however, show is that now there is a Jamaican word for “to translate”, so one may well take up the challenge and explore the potential such a process of intellectualization offers. Translations from Creole/English texts into other languages, on the other hand, are steadily increasing. The social practice of translating Creole should not be underestimated in its effect of representing language and culture. It is certainly a fact when Fishman (1994: 86) states that “only very few cultures have experienced the translation of the lion’s share of their conventionalized and ritualized verbal repertoire [. . . ] into another language, a startling departure from the normal relationship between language and culture”. Whether or

 Chapter 6

not this relationship is “normal” is not at stake here. The point is, that again the most powerful languages experience such a translation process, thus bringing the cultural practices represented in those languages across linguistic boundaries. It is no coincidence that, in the Western world, much more is known about Anglo-American cultural practices than, for instance, about Hungarian or Eritrean (or many other a) culture. Hence Bassnett’s and Trivedi’s (1999b: 5) remarks that “we can now perceive the extent to which translation was for centuries a one-way process of exchange. European norms have dominated literary production, and those norms have ensured that only certain kinds of text, those that will not prove alien to the receiving culture, come to be translated”. By the steady increase of postcolonial translations, the effect is not only felt in the receiving culture, the target culture in translation. As Homi Bhabha reminds us, we should remember that it is the ‘inter’ – the cutting edge of translation and renegotiation, the in-between space – that carries the burden of the meaning of culture. It makes it possible to begin envisaging national anti-nationalist histories of the ‘people’. And by exploring this Third Space, we may elude the politics of polarity and emerge as the others of our selves (Bhabha 1994: 38–39)

It is here that the power of translation lies, in this “Third Space” of its cultural representation. In the case of CELC translations, the cultural representation of Creole has changed from an invisibility to a re-evaluation of the relationship with Standard English, thus acting as a potent agent of discursive change.

Notes . “Wenn Texte aus einer Sprache in eine andere übersetzt werden, handelt es sich um mehr als um bloße Sprachübertragung. Übersetzungsanalysen sind darauf verwiesen, den kulturellen, ja kulturpolitischen Bedingungsrahmen als einen vor jeglicher sprachlichen Übersetzung wirksamen Horizont in den Blick zu nehmen: ein erweiterter Horizont, der die Übertragung von Texten in den umfassenderen Handlungskontext der Übersetzung von und zwischen den Kulturen einblendet” (Bachmann-Medick 1997: 1). . It should be noted that, despite a long-standing indigenous literature, Germany has always had a rather positive attitude towards translations – unlike the anglophone world where translations are often seen as an inferior version of the original, something “not quite real”. Currently, approximately 70 % of the annual publications on the German book market are translations (versus ca. 3 % in Britain). While these figures no doubt partially reflect the international dominance of English on the publication market, they are also the result of a high acceptance of translations by the reader.

From invisibility to register variation  . Similar sociolinguistic complexities of postcolonial translations have also been pointed out with regard to anglophone African literature (cf. Mair 1993). . The earliest translation of Dickens’s Pickwick Papers, for instance, used Berlin dialect for the Cockney parts of the book (cf. Czennia 1992b: 112), arguably one of the better correspondences because both seem to share a number of connotations, such as the urban context or the ready wit of their users. Such correspondences are rare, however, and should not be over-estimated. . Underlined parts are those which are cited as examples below. There are, of course, many more markers of AAVE in the text. . Underlined parts are those which are cited as examples below. There are, of course, many more markers of the Ruhrpott-dialect in the translation. . [. . . ] not only spontaneity, images, inventiveness, [. . . ] but also grammatical principles like double and triple negation, double plural, a preference for the progressive verb form, lazy contractions and slurs, exchanges of persons and cases and much more. Furthermore, idioms and narrations of Black American folklore in the rural South are to some extent strangely familiar, due to a merging of African and European customs (my translation, Henninges in Hurston 1993: 277). . Cf., for instance, Reiss & Vermeer’s (1984) functional model of translation. . African-American critic Anne Adams, who works as a consultant to the German translator of Toni Morrison’s novels, has recently given an example of an earlier translation of one of Morrison’s works where the expression “to lighten the blood” became in the German translation “to make the blood less heavy”, obviously because of the translator’s unawareness of specific cultural practices and traditions of partner choice according to skin colour (personal communication). . Apart from German-lexicon Pidgins like “Unserdeutsch” which were spoken at the beginning of the twentieth century in the German colonies in the Pacific and which are now extinct. This would not be a useful choice, mainly (though not exclusively) because “Unserdeutsch” is completely insignificant in a German cultural context. A more significant variety would be Yiddisch, a language which also developed out of a contact situation and uses elements from different linguistic sources. It is, however, not categorized as a Creole and, more importantly for the translation aspect, it is too specific in its historical, cultural and social connotations. . It should be noted that, in the translation, the assistance of Caribbean author Valerie Bloom and of Marie-José Nzengou-Tayo are acknowledged, a fact which also demonstrates the complexity of a polyphonic translation process. . Underlined parts are cited as examples below. . Even though some of the errors are not restricted to Caribbean or Creole specificities, the expression “to be on the ball”, for instance, is general (colloquial) English. . This is, of course, the one construction where the copula is used in Creole. . Examples for this would be the works of Nigerian author Gabriel Okara or the Irish English palimpsest in the writing of J.M. Synge.

 Chapter 6 . Note, however, that the speech of a younger generation German foreigner talk (“Kanak Sprak”) is beginning to establish itself in writing (cf., for instance Zaimoglu 1995). It is, however, too much of an anti-language to be used for either NPE or Creole, except in cases where it is evidently the author’s intention to use an anti-language. . With regard to the criteria outlined in Chapter 2, Gullah would not be a CELC language in the strict sense. The example will nevertheless be included for the sake of illustration of the translation strategy. . Underlined parts are cited as examples below. . Cf., for instance, Ludwig (1994) for a discussion on syntactic and pragmatic elaboration of French-lexicon Creoles. . Cf. also more recent Bible translation projects, e.g. into Krio (Jones et al. 1992). . E.g. Arbeit ‘work’, Beruf ‘profession’, Glaube ‘belief ’. . E.g. Richtschnur for Kanon ‘canon’. . E.g. Blutgeld, lit. ‘blood’ + ‘money’, Denkzettel lit. ‘think’ + ‘note’, Feuereifer ‘fire’ + ‘zeal’, Dorn im Auge lit. thorn in one’s eye’. . Much to the disgust of many contemporaries, as the following quote by a Victorian traveller shall illustrate: “It is not very satisfactory to look forward even to the bare possibility of such a caricature of our tongue becoming an established language. Should this ever be the result, translations into it of our classic authors will become a necessity. Shakepeare and Milton turned into Pigeon English are fearful even to think of. [. . . ] The Missionary “pigeon” will also in due time demand a translation of the Bible into this very vulgar tongue. Death has many consolations, and to the number may be added this new one, that before the consummation foretold above can be realized, we will have passed away, and our ears will be deaf to the hideous result” (Simpson 1873: 47 as quoted in Bailey 1991: 147–148). . Again, Gullah will serve as an example as the Jamaican translation is not available yet. . The programme was, in fact, a forerunner to her weekly column in the Jamaica Observer (cf. Ch. 5). . An academic article on Sistren. 1986. Lionheart Gal. Life Stories of Jamaican Women. London: The Women’s Press. Cooper translated parts of this article into Jamaican (cf. Cooper 1993). . Cooper credits this lexical innovation to Hubert Devonish, her colleague in the team. . Note that in Devonish (1996) “linguistics” is rendered in a slightly different spelling, as langgwij stodi, cf. text below. . Note that the spelling of “liricks” in the title does not conform with the Cassidy orthography. Since it is spelled differently (liriks) anywhere else in the text, I suspect that this is either a typo or an editor’s error. . Personal conversation.

CLL24[v.20020404] Prn:8/08/2002; 10:17

F: CLL24CDE.tex / p.1 (261)

The discursive practices of a given society always contain traces of the history of that society [. . . ] and therefore contain traces of the struggles which have allowed one kind of discursive practice to dominate over another. But history is a continuing process and new discursive practices are developing which will challenge the existing order. (Bex 1996: 60)

Conclusion

Creole discourse continued In any work which explores dynamic and discursive processes, the most difficult task is, in fact, to find an ending. It is in the very nature of such processes that they are ongoing and that they will continue into the future; the negotiation and change of the language prestige of Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles will, after all, not come to a halt with the completion of this work. What follows is that there is no stable “result X”, as one is used to finding in studies with a hypothetico-deductive approach. Instead, the potential merits of this study may emerge in a two-fold perspective. Firstly, its call for a theoretical re-orientation of research on the prestige formation and change of CELC languages has led to the proposal for a respective theoretical framework (Chapter 1 and 3). Discourse has been the key concept here which, on the one hand, served to explain the formation of objects (such as “Creole” as a linguistic classification) in a Foucauldian sense and to place them into a historical epistemological and situational perspective, like the “conception of Creole” (Chapter 2). On the other hand, the discursive approach also helped to analyze re-orientations in the link between (linguistic) form and social meaning. The methodological emphasis for the analysis of ongoing prestige changes was therefore laid on the connection between macroforces (social practices) and micro-functions (code-choice) in discourse, rather than on other types of analyses, such as those of H/L dichotomies in domain configurations. Secondly, this study has given empirical evidence of prestige changes in three important discursive fields, where micro-functional changes of Creole form a productive force in the negotiation of language prestige: 1. in intergenerational changes of the speech of West Indians in the London diaspora, 2. in the changing representations (in form and function) of Creole in writing, 3. in the representation of Creole in translation. These three fields are in no way exhaustive and many others – such as changes in the form and function of Creole in music, soap operas, etc. – could have been added. However, the

 Conclusion

fields chosen for this study are in no way arbitrary; they also provide evidence from three different textual modes – spoken, written, and translated language – which can be ordered on a scale of vicinity and distance between producer and recipient. The inclusion of these processes of text production, distribution and consumption are seen as important in that they highlight the link between social practices and the text material itself. The incorporation of a wide range of sources – from historical text material of eighteenth century travel reports and plantation histories (Chapter 2) to the twentieth century diachronic analysis of spoken, written and translated material (Chapter 4, 5, and 6) – is programmatic for the approach of the present study. In taking such a wide view of the subject, emphasis has been placed on the continuities and links between discourses on Creole language prestige rather than their boundaries, the mutual effects and intertextual references between the form and social meaning of Creole in various fields. This also means that national boundaries (e.g. Jamaican, Trinidadian, Barbadian, etc.), which formed the framework for previous work on status, function and attitude, have been transcended for this research in favour of discursive fields. Benedict Anderson’s (1983: 6) claim that “communities are to be distinguished [. . . ] by the style in which they are imagined” has been taken up to explore discourse communities, new “imagined” communities, rather than national ones. The analyses conducted in the “empirical chapters” (Chapters 4, 5, and 6) have given a number of important insights into the mechanisms, motivations and directions of language prestige change: 1. The analysis of the speech of three generations of West Indians in the urban diaspora has shown that there is no single West Indian speech community in the London diaspora. Rather, there are many communities, each with their distinct socio-rhetorical patterns and evaluations. The affiliations with these groups, while not completely arbitrary, today are more a matter of choice today than when the first generation of West Indians arrived. The change from a social to a socio-rhetorical membership are important shifts, which have led from “speech community” to “discourse communities”. The qualitative sample analysis of the recorded material focused on both content (what was said about Creole/Patois) and form (which code was used when and for what purpose). Drawing on examples from the body of more than 30 interviews and casual conversations with respondents of different age-groups, the discussion showed that the development of “staging identity” runs opposite to the development of “performing identity”, i.e. overt positive attitudes towards and alignments with

Conclusion 

Patois must be seen in inversion to their actual use. However, it was also demonstrated that this is not so much a decrease in Creole usage, but rather a change in communicative purpose (micro-function) and situation Creole is employed for. Creole is here to stay in the diaspora and will continue to be used by various discourse communities for various communicative purposes. That kinship among these communities is not restricted to genealogical ties with the Caribbean as the locus of language is shown by the fact that Creole is also used by White, Asian and African adolsecents. Thus, the affiliation with Creole does not rest on historicity, but on the imaginative and the performative (cf. Bhabha 1994). That these performative acts have to be constantly re-enacted, re-staged and changed is exactly the dynamic strength of these communities. 2. The socio-cultural significance of writing as a prestige factor made the diachronic analysis of form and function of writing Creole a highly relevant issue. It was shown here once again that the model of diglossia, with its simple dichotomy of H- versus L-language and its respective allocation of different functions, proves to be too narrow a concept to capture contemporary interactions and changes within domains and (macro)-functions. Despite their lack of standardization, CELC languages have long been used in writing. A close and diachronic analysis of various types of texts and registers highlighted formal and functional changes. With regard to the former, it has been argued that in the choice of orthographic form, autonomy (Abstand) of Creole versus vicinity to English is being negotiated. Orthographic choice thus becomes an ideological choice. In a close analysis of texts which employ one or the other principle the advantages and disadvantages have become evident. With regard to the latter, it has been demonstrated that notions of orality and scripturality are of particular importance in a diachronic analysis. Creole use in the novel was given special attention in the micro-functional analysis of four texts from different periods of West Indian literature. Here, it was demonstrated that Creole employment on the narrative voice level plays a particularly productive role in the move from “badge of authenticity” to “voice of authority”. The examples of the works of four Caribbean novelists of different generations show not only that the form and function of their Creole use are certainly connected to the socio-historical context of their texts, but also constitute a powerful and constructive force in the wider social discourse on Creole. The analysis of Creole in a literary context may indeed provide some answers as to how a socio-semantic change of a particular variety is achieved.

 Conclusion

3. Translation was the third and last field of exploring prestige changes. It has proved a particularly fruitful area where changes in the socio-cultural meaning of the code become most visible. There are always two sides of a coin in translation. Firstly, the translation from English/Creole texts into German has been explored with regard to changes in the representation of Creole in the target text. It was found that translation strategies moved from a complete invisibility of the code, via employment of highly stigmatized forms to weak register variation. It is clear that the employment of Creole in the source text influences the translation choice. However, it has also been shown that a change in social evaluation may require a reevaluation of a code in a later translation. It is here that translation not only reflects processes of wider social discourse but also becomes part of them. Secondly, translations into Creole have been explored with regard to their potential of elaboration (Ausbau) and new register formation in the language. Translations into Creole feature far and few between and may often not go beyond linguistic experiments. Nevertheless, they should not be underestimated in that they demonstrate the role of translation in the creation of specialized vocabulary and syntactic features which are required for specialized textual genres. The analysis of a range of texts, from biblical narratives to academic articles in linguistics has thus shown that a conscious and deliberate effort of creative word-formation is necessary in such a translation process if a narrowing of autonomy (Abstand) is to be avoided. Each of the analyses of the three discursive fields might have merited studies in their own right to which they undoubtedly could have been expanded. This would have meant, however, to either go far beyond the scope of the present work, or to abandon the emphasis placed on the continuation and links of discourses for the sake of a single analysis. The second choice, however, could not have done justice to the extensive theoretical discussion provided in the first three chapters. The solution this study has sought to realize lies in the combination of a wide view on discursive interactions with particular close analyses in the selected discursive fields. As mentioned at the outset of this conclusion, exploring language prestige formation and change by means of a discursive approach is a vast and fruitful field and many more areas of research which would have been of interest could not be covered here. For reasons of time and scope, the whole francophone Caribbean with their similar, yet distinct, history and tradition was almost completely neglected. The limitations of this study are therefore recog-

Conclusion 

nized, but not without the hope that this study might inspire further research on the dynamics of the socio-cultural meaning of CELC languages or expand the research approach to include other varieties as well.

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Appendix

A. Documentation of Field Work in London: Demographical Background of Respondents (Ad Chapter 4):1 No.

Initial

Sex

Age

Born

Family Affiliation

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Ne Ro Pi Tr Tre Ma Ma M. Vi Ste Mi Tr N. Ja So Cl Ma D. Pa Gl Do Sta Ok Sa Wi We Ar Ma Du Au Be Mi Cl

F M F M F M M F F F M F F M F F F F M M F M F F F F F F M M

78 75+ 75+ 75+ 70+ 58 57 55+ 55+ 55+ 54 49 46 42 40+ 40+ 38+ 38+ 38+ 38+ 34 30 30 25 24 23 23 22 21 20

Jamaica Jamaica Trinidad Tobago Jamaica Trinidad Jamaica Dom Jamaica Jamaica Jamaica Guyan. Jamaica Jamaica Venezuela Trinidad Britain Britain Britain Grenada Britain Guyana Britain Britain Britain Britain Britain Britain Britain Britain

Jamaica Jamaica Trinidad Tobago Jamaica Trinidad Jamaica Dom Jamaica Jamaica Jamaica Guyan. Jamaica Jamaica Trinidad Trin/Grenada Jamaica Jamaica Jamaica Grenada Jamaica Guyana Jamaica Trinidad Jamaica Barbados/ Netherlands Jamaica Jamaica Jamaica Jamaica

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 Appendix 31 32 33 34

Ja Do Ke Je

F F F M

19 16 16 13

Britain Britain Britain Britain

35 36 37

Cl Da Ma

F M M

13 12 12

Britain Britain Britain

Jamaica Jamaica Jamaica East Africa/ Jamaica Jamaican/St. Lucia Jamaica Jamaican

B. Documentation of Field Work in London: Interview Samples (Ad Chapter 4. 3.) The following are a few examples of interviews conducted with respondents of different age groups. As full-length documents, they are meant to supplement the close analyses in Chapter 4.3 and give an impression of the interview structure.

B.1 Age group 1 Interview with R1, Jamaican-born, female, 78 years old I: Ok, when did you first come to England, and from country did you come? R1: I came from Jamaica, from ****. I was born in Seaport, about 1919. Children my children was born dere, go to school dere an den we came here. I: And when did you come here R1: Nineteen (0.1) fifty-seven, (0.1) twenty-eight of August. I: Right. And what do you remember most about first coming to England? R1: The first thing that struck me was the black houses (0.1) dey was looking so (0.4) considering the fact that ***** in Jamaica dey was shining on dere. (0.2) Anyhow. I: And do you have (0.1) lots of family that is back in Jamaica or are most of them here? R1: In dose days dere was lots of family (0.2) but now the people dere dey are all gone. I: Right R1: And then I hadn’t any *** because I was growing up with mi grandmother and grandfather and were gone when I was *** when I was seventeen! I: Have you been back to Jamaica since? R1: Yes. I: Many times? R1: Only twice. I: Only twice. yes. (0.1) Are you involved in any cultural activities here in London? R1: No.

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Appendix 

I: R1: I: R1:

I: R1: I: R:

I: R1: I: R1: I: R1: I: R1:

I: R1: I:

No? I mean, are you involved in any activities with other people of, you know from the West Indies? Sometimes I used to be involved because I useta go to dis ting you know dis black mhm Caribbean centre. But not // //Not anymore. No because ahm (0.1) dey make dem BIG plan and den dis and dey was sponsered by the Home Office. And then this, after and the chri years it finishes and ** they couldn’t get more sponsoring and then it stopped. Ok. Do you think that here, in terms of jobs and so on, are there big differences between black and white? I didn’t think so but after hearing people dem talk, I think there is. What do you like about England? The thing I like about England. (0.2) What do I like about England? (0.1) First it was the job, that people get a job because I have never worked in the West Indies. Had the children then I had to work so hard, raise goat, raise cow, raise pigs, raise everyting I was in ***. But (0.1) here you could come and get a job. It was cheap and (0.1) you couldn’t make a living out of it. But you could exist.(0.1) You just exist. (0.2) I think familiarity breeds content, you just carry on because you’re here and you couldn afford di money to go back. If I could afford di money to go back when I came here I would have gone It’s chruu, when I came here if I could afford di money to go back, I’ll gone, I would take de oda ship back. Right. Because, here wasn’t (0.2) before people here wasn’t living, there wasn’t (0.2) the poor people was just like (0.1) I’ve never seen// //Poverty like that. It was not// //No. It wasn’t// like that in Jamaica. Because when I came here Jamaica was British-ruled, everything was clean, everything was, you know? Mmh. People worked for themselves, it’s not like now, people work for demselves and the better part was indedendent, nobody beg dem days, everting was clean, everyting was decent, (Lord Hall) dere was up to date, everyting was alright. But nobody could get a job. You YEARN for a job to do. And I decide I’m NOT going to work with people for tree pound a week and two pounds a week and four pound. Know what I mean? Yeah. But, apart from the living condition, Jamaica was excellent (0.1) excellent. Yeah. ok. What do you dislike about England? Is there anything?

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 Appendix

12

5

15

20

25

R1: Dislike. I dislike (0.1) the handout. People should work, people should work that you can maintain yourself. People children should learn to do things. And I dislike dis people depending on di government, de government when dey come and dey talk about de government, ‘dey put me here and dey do dis to me’ and dat sorta talk, we were not accustomed to that in the West Indies. We prefer to live in a house and buy try to buy a little piece of land and try and make up your house and you live independent. Nobody (0.1) peep ova you shoulder and watch you what you do (0.1) I: Yeah, yeah. R1: I was accumstomed to that. And I hate that, that (0.1) if you if you have to go and get money and you have to go and tell them your business tell dem dis tell dem dat and I HATE that. I: Yeah, the loss of pride. R1: LOSS OF PRIDE! Loss of dignity. I: Yeah. R1: I HATE that, I hate it. I: Yeah. (0.1) Let me ask you some questions about language. What do you speak – do you speak Patois or Creole or (0.1) what do you think you speak? R1: Mus’ be Creole, I don’t know. But, you see, I was not educated, or very limited education, so I don’t know what I speak but I try to speak (0.3) English, Creo-English. I: And do you think it is still significantly spoken by West Indians. R1: Yes// I: // Among/ is it a generation thing, or/ R1: It IS a generation thing. It IS a generation thing, (0.2) because mh (0.5) 10 people dat born in de West Indies – a tink some of dem speak betta den some dat is born in England . . . I: Right, yeah, it’s true// R1: //From black parentage. . . I: Mmh R1: People dat come from de West Indies speak betta dan dat is born in England of black parents I: That’s true. Do you think that speaking Patois or Creole can be an advantage or a disadvantage? R1: I think in England, it’s a disadvantage, I think so. I: Why, why do you think that? R1: Because (0.3) if you, if you, if you speak English, (0.2) you have a better way to approach people and they understand what you are saying to them I: Right, ok. Would you regard Creole or Patois or whatever you call it as your mother tongue? R1: (0.3) No

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Appendix 

I: R1: I: R1: 30

35

40 I:

45

50

55

60

R1: I: R1: I: R1: I: R1: I R1: I: R1: I: R1: I: R1: I: R1: I: R1:

65 I:

Not? No Ok. Because I was growing up with my grandfather and grandmother and there was (0.1) there wasn’t young people. And they speak proper – proper English. One day I talk about (gran pupa) and my grandfather say ‘what?!!’ and de grandmother – dey speak proper English because they they useta keep a lickle shop – and dey old people. When my grandmother died, she was one hundred and tree. And my grandfather died at eighty-five, but he was well-spoken, well-spoken (0.3.) Looking back, in de West Indies, few people was older like his family. Because one of dem useta drive a (Poggy) and to give out work, you know, work with the public work – they call him Scotch, the way he speaks – yeah! Well spoken, and his children dem. (0.1.) But my grandfather now, well-spoken, yeah and he could read, he could write (0.3), yeah. Do you recognize the background of other West Indians from their speech? So, would you be able to tell. . . Yes. Can you? Yes, (0.4) Am, sometimes I get Trinidadians mixed up. With, with what? No, some of them speak plainer than (0.2) what, Barbadians you must know all dem Mmh An dem (0.4) Guyanese? Guyanese, you know them, as dey talking you know who they are. When you speak Patois, do you speak it all the time or only sometimes, do you speak it especially when you’re angry, or/ /No, when I am talking with the children With the children. With the grandchildren, yes. What about with your friends? No No? Not even in Jamaica. Really? No, because, you know, mi neighbour always says to me [in high pitched voice] ** cot di bread man, talk and I say, no – why should I? [Short interruption because of telephone ringing] So you speak it to your grandchildren?

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 Appendix

70

75

80

85

R1: I: R1: I R1:

I: R1:

I: R1: I: R1: I: R1: I: R1:

90 I R1: 95 I R1: I: 100 R1: I: R1: I: 105 R1: I:

110 R1: I:

Yeh mi tell dem joke, tek de mickey out (0.1.) an I joke and I laugh Do you think Patois is more or less – does it express more (0.1) than English? I shouldn’t think so. No? No, because (0.5) we were born in Jamaica, dere is no ader way, ader language what you learn but English. You get what I mean? You go to church, in dose days de pastor was an Englishman. Right. You know? Everyting was English, yu go to de bank, it was English people. You goes to de (0.2) post office, because it was all English people working in Jamaica in dose dehs. You have to talk to dem. Mmh. You know what I mean. But I mean, like, when you’re telling stories to them, would you, would you// //You know, my grandfather never talked Jamaican, *** you know Anansi story or anada. Really? No. Dey never tell us any. An I don’t know none. Ok. We hear about Bredda Nansi and Bredda (0.4.) Bredda something anada? I don’t remember. But to explain a story, you know people die an all (0.1) all sing – sit up all nai-night an all dose tings – we were not allowed (0.2) to go. Right. The only place we were allowed to go is some of the singing dat *** if you want to tek dat prayer suit (0.1) an you have to come back and, know what I mean, you could not allow to go, yu wasn’t allowed to go deh. Right. (0.5) So you think it’s useful or not to speak Patois. (0.3.) I think so. Because (0.4) I don’t like to hear some of the children that was born here, how dey talk. You know, I don’t like it. Right. Me have to seh, I don’t like it. And, (0.4.) do you think that people who are not from the West Indies should learn more about it? If they want to. But dey mus all learn ‘n do what dey know. If dey WANT to, cause it fascinates some people. So, right wha%, what is happening right now is that a lot of the Education Departments, the schools, are making sure that children learn, like, Anansi stories and so on , like (0.2) they’re bringing in the language, you know Patois and so on. Really? Yeah – Do you agree with that?

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R1: NO! Where are they going to use it? (0.2) Where are they going to use it? I: Apparently, especially for children who are coming from countries where English is not their first language, so to make them feel more a% home, and also it’s meant to make the white children know more about other cultures – that’s the overall aim. R1: They can know more about other cultures more than being (0.1) more than talking Patois. I: Yeah. R1: Because as a girl I have mi machete – dat is a culture, dat is my culture. But dey never talk about how resourceful I am, using the one machete to chop, dig and plant. Dat is a culture, because we couldn’t afford better we never have to have the implements, it’s all de reason, ‘member dat was all when I was a child and we worked all in – dat is all eighty, in a sense seventy years ago. I: Mmh. R1: You know? And it was all – we were planting a lickle garden, we chop and we plant – and we dig up wid de machete, dat what we, dats what we have I: Yeah. R1: You get what I mean. So dat is a culture. I: Okay (0.3.) Have you seen any TV programmes or radio – have you heard any radio programmes where Patois or creole has been spoken? R1: No, because I don’t listen to them. I listen to Radio 4, they have one on (0.4) what de nem? (0.3). well. I: But you haven’t heard any, any. . . R1: No because I don’t listen to them I Right R1: when I turn the radio, I turn into Radio 4 I: Okay R1 LBC I Right, yeah – and (0.2) have you ever seen Patois in writing? R1: Your father deh have a book. I: Really? R1: Yes, (0.2) with some Anansi story and I when I useta come dere I, I saw it. But I never see any o** I: Ok, I’m gonna show you am, show you something. [Short interruption while R1 looks at the written text] R1: Ok, If I had, when I had seen (0.1) I wouldn’t read it because it give me problem reading it// I: //It’s too hard R1: It’s too difficult, too difficult. I: So do you see a future for a continued presence of Creole or Patois in Britain today?

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 Appendix

R1 No, unlest, unlest, people have money that they could raise up a thing like how de Indians have a – what de place down London dat dey have – 155 I Sou/ R1 Sout-hall! I Yeah R1: Dey have a lickle congrege/ a lickle contry like dat, a lickle district like dat for dat for dat kind of ting 160 I: Yeah. It could die out though. R1: It must die out, because – it’s – it doesn’t have the background! Interview with Respondent 7, Jamaican-born, male, 57 years old I. R7: I: R7: I: R7:

I: R7: I: R7: I: R7:

I: R7: I: R7: I: R7:

When was the first time – when did you come to England first? I came to this country in 1964. And what do you remember about your passage here (0.1) getting here? I came by the first generation (0.2) jet planes – which is a 707 plane – I came on de first one. And was it excit/ where you excited. Well, it was the first time I flew, yes, I was fascinated by the flight, a mixture of fear and all sort of things and when de plane dip into the air pockets and drop out of de sky about thirty feet and den it would pick up again an drop anoda six feet and rise, and food and everyting was on de floor and people were crying and people hanging on to oda people’s legs and ting (0.3) I’ll never forget that, as part of my first experience. Ok. And you came from which country? Jamaica. Came from Jamaica. Landed in Heathrow. And (0.2) have you been back to Jamaica since? Yes, at least three times. Ok. What was it like in Britain when you first arrived. What are your first memories? It was very damp and very cold in a November evening. When I came outa de plane and saw the houses I thought I landed in a grey sugar estate. (0.1) An the houses dey look like out * sugar (0.2) sugar mills to me somthing like that. Somebody else I talked to said that she noticed that the houses were all close together and that she’d never seen that in the West Indies. yeah, yeah. That’s how she remebered it. (0.1) Currently, do you have mainly friends from the West Indian community or not? Yes, because (0.1) I don’t have any English friends. Why? I associate with English people only (0.1) only at work. So I have * English people at work who I would appear to be friends with but dat just out (of purpose).

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Appendix 

I: R7: I: R7: I: R7:

I: R7:

I: R7:

I: R7:

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Are you involved in any cultural activities in the West Indian community (0.1) or have you been? I have been in the past but at the moment I am not (0.1) doing anything in particular. And would you say that there is still a big difference between black and white in Britain? Yes and there will always be. Why do you say that? Well, because I just think the race issue is too big an issue (0.1) hmm (0.1) and I can’t see anything that will sort of unify the races because as long as the two distinct colours remain, the differences will remain. Ok. yes, ok. And would you say you can translate that into black people being more disadvantaged in terms of jobs and things like that. Yes, I mean I think that will exist as well as anything. I think that black people will survive and will climb the social ladder nevertheless, they will still be at the bottom of the ladder. Right. If there is in fact a disadvantage - do you think that i% has improved over a certain amount of time, or (0.1)? Yes, I think it has improved over a certain amount of time and over (0.2) subsequent generations. (0.1) For example I expect my children to do better financially than I do. So, I can see that (0.1) black people as a race will improve themselves. Nevertheless, they will still be what I say at the bottom of the ladder. Is like comparing social conditions of the twenties with social conditions now. Social conditions in the twenties in this country was very poor. It’s still very poor but it’s at a higher level of poverty. Mhm. What do you like about England? I think that England is one of the best countries OR the best country in the world for black people and the cause of this is (0.1) to a great extent the welfare state. ** that its racist tendencies mainly not in terms of government but in terms of di ordinary people, there are racism involved. Nevertheless I think is de most ** country for ethnic minorities. And any dislikes. (0.2) Any immediate dislikes? Yes, the cold when it’s cold. And (0.3) racism when it beats you, you know, dat kind of affect you. Right. What about language? Do you think Patois is still significantly spoken by West Indians? Ahm, that’s a very difficult one. (0.2) Yes and no (0.2). In terms of Patois being broken English, I would say yes because there’s significant amount of people with sort of cultural dialect, with pockets of cultural dialect which are (0.2) you have to be within that clique to know what they’re talking about. Mhmm.

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R7: So, I would say, yes, ahm. (0.3) Nationally, mhm. I don’t think that Patois is significant, say from, from people from the Caribbean, particularly Jamaicans, I: Right. R7: By Patois I am just speaking about English which is broken. English which is not standard English, rather than Patois which is a contrived way of culture in speech. I: Right. Do you think that language is important in the way how other people see you? R7: Yes. (0.2) yes because mmh I think if you are a people and you haven’t got a language you are impoverished. I think. I: So, yeah, do you think that Patois is being significantly spoken is an advantage or a disadvantage? R7: I think it’s a disadvantage. I: Why? R7: Because success is based on standard English. I: Right. R7: Therefore (0.3) if you chry ta impose Patois because a minority have tried to impose Patois in an arena that should have standard English, or standard language, then we’re going to be at a disadvantage. I: Ok. I assume that you can speak Patois? R7: (0.2) Yes. I: And// R7: //I wish, you should bear in mind that Patois, as I said my understanding of Patois is broken, is broken any language, so I’m talking about broken English whereas Patois from St. Lucia would be broken French. So they’d be different. I: And would you regard it as your mother tongue? R7: No, I wouldn’t. I: Because why? R7: Because, when I was a child in Jamaica, Paotis was being spoken but it is not an established language. I: Mmmh. R7: So I wouldn’t, I couldn’t call it mother tongue. My mother tongue is English. I: Right. Would you recognize the background of other West Indian people from their speech?, I.e. Guyanese, St. Lucian (0.3) R7: Not, not in all cases but in some cases yes. I: And, if you speak Patois, when do you use it, is it at specific times?, Specific emotions, recounting a story, or (0.2) R7: All of, all of that. At specific times, in general. I hardly speak Patois, occasionally the odd word or two, mainly when I’m trying to recollect something from Jamaica or having a rapport wid somebody who is also from dere and I am talking about.. So it’s based on specific times. I: And, would you speak it with your children?

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R7: (0.3) Again, but to the same extent. Just the odd word, know what I mean. My children aren’t particularly in Patois. I: Ok. When meeting a person that might be of West Indian background. Would you approach him or her in Patois? R7: It depends who the person is. If, the person is some (0.3) not my clique, and you need to be, and I need to be, say, jovial, yes, you could. But, in most cases, no! Because, (0.2) as I said before, Patois for me is reserved at specific occasions. I: Do you see it as being more or less useful than standard English? R7: No. I: How about expressive, does it express more or less than standard English? R7: I wouldn’t say so. To be honest. I haven’t (0.1) haven’t studied Patois. I don’t even know if the construction of Patois is so established that you can compare its beauty with standard English. I wouldn’t say, I wouldn’t say so. I: Well, how do you feel about children who are learning both Patois or Creole and standard English. Do you think they have problems with either one? Switching between// R7: //Yes, I think, I think that can be a problem and you can see that illustrated, I’ve seen that illustrated in Jamaica. (0.4) Success, in a society, whether it’s Jamaica, or it’s England or it’s Canada or America, is based on some form of standard English or standard language. It’s a good thing for children to learn to speak Patois. But they will also have to have some sort of dual language facility. Because if they’re going for an examination or a job (0.1) an interview, the interview isn’t going to be conducted, written in any form, in Patois. I: Yeah. R7: It’s going to be in standard English. And if they’re not successful, they’re not going to achieve in what they want. So, they have to have the ability to be able to shift from Patois to standard English, to know when to use which. I: Do you think that people, I mean society in general, whether that means white people, or whatever, people should learn more about it? R7: Learn more on Patois (0.5) I: Yeah. R7: I don’t think society in general have an invested interest in learning Patois. I think people from the Patois in speaking Patois. I think people from the Patois-speaking societies have more invested interest in getting people to recognize that Patois is theirs and they want to, to push it a bit. I don’t think most countries have any invested interest in (0.2) Patois. Unless, again, in the certain circumstances, like few years ago, when the police in this country was having great trouble understanding some of the black boys that they were arresting, and so they sent delegation over to Jamaica to learn, leran their language, their Patois language and their Patois speaking. because obviously, they (0.2) was well using the Patois language and their broken, broken speech to shut the police out. And so they wanted to understand it. So from that point of view, yes, I could aks some interest but in

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general, I wouldn’t say so. Right. Do you think that Creole or Patois, the Patois culture should be more visible and audible in the media? Mhm. (0.2) I have problem wid dat one. No, I don’t think so. Because(0.2.) I don’t want to see Patois pushed unless (0.3.) we pushing for a dual language ability. Cos as I said before, standard English is the form adapted for all interviews, jab an success in a society like this. And there is no point in pushing Patois, so that you have children learning Patois and then they can’t cope with standard English. If you’re going to push both, fair enough, I mean, I think, I personally see standard English as a mother tongue and Paotis as something on the fringe, which you should learn and could learn, but you don’t necessarily have to learn. It’s not organizing in that fashion. So I would say no. Do you know any programmes on TV or radio where it’s been used. In the past, yes. But usually, do you think it’s more a sort of entertainment and humour, rather than academic or cultural. It hasn’t been, as far as I’m concerned, elevated to the status of a academic improvement. Yeah, some people try to push it on certain programmes, in the past, but I don’t think it has been elevated to that standard yet. (0.3.) It’s whenever Patois appeares, it’s more likely entertainment, like ah comedy shows like Lenny (0.2) Show and tings like that, I mean Lousie Bennett used to do it in terms of (0.2) trying to show its value and trying to give it some body but it’s not as elevated to that (0.2) as far as I know. Have you ever seen Patois in writing and what do you think about it? Yes, I have seen it in writing and it’s hard to read. I’m gonna show you a piece in Patois and want your response. [Short interruption while R7 is looking at the written text] What do you think about it: I think it’s alright, it’s not strange to me, it’s written in Patois, as I said before, it’s hard to read but it can read, I can understand it. It would take me some time to go right through the article but I can can read it if I have to read it. Now do you see a continued presence of Patois in Britian, or the use of Patois in Britain? Yes, yes. I do see a future for it I don’t know if I’m gonna go (0.2) the future that I see for it is for the people who uses Patois, Patois to determine the use of it, to establish its presence and its construction and find then use for using it.(0.5) I’m very dubious about a black education body in our schools, ** putting up courses for Patois, and hyphen off children who can’t cope with standard English into a Patois trap. I’m very dubious about that. OK. Thank you.

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B.2 Age Group 2 Interview with R14, Jamaican-born, British-raised, of Jamaican parentage, 42 years old. I: R14: I: R14: I: R14: I: R14: I: R14: I: R14: I: R14: I: R14: I: R14: I: R14:

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So were you (1.0) you were born in this country, right? No. In Jamaica? In Jamaica. Oh, I thought you were born here. So how old were you when you came to// //Three. Three. Ok. So, not many// /No, not many/ //memories. That’s true. Have you been back since? Yes, I was back about (1.0) when was it? Beginning of June. Beginning of June? Oh, so that was your first time. Yes, yes, yes Oh, alright, oh that must have been an interesting experience. Yes, very interesting Aha. That’s (1.0) what did you find strikingly different in terms of// [Someone comes in. Interruption of about 10–12 sec.] Sorry. What struck you as most (0.1) interesting. I don’t know (0.1) it was many things. For me, it was many things, cos it was my first time after years, I’ve been to other Caribbean countries but it was for me my first time, like going home. And it was, well, I suppose it was just (1.0) the people, and the scenery and then just being a part of it. Probably my most (0.2.) lasting memory. I guess that so much has been transported through family history, your mum talking about places which you finally then get to see. I didn’t see all the places. But it is strange, your memory plays tricks on you and you believe you’ve been some place * but you can’t definitely remember that you’ve been there but you think you’ve been. Did you have a feeling, like a homecoming feeling? Yes, yes, I did, especially when I was coming to land at the airport, there was very much this feeling like I was coming home. Especially as I’d made plans to go at least two times before and this was the first time I keep (0.1) my plans have actually gone in fruition that I’d actually gone there. It is strange it’s it’s the way they something I cannot actually in this short space of time, actually put into words// /Yeah I guess it’s a very emotional/

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R14: //Yes, yes very and it is many things about Jamaican, lets say the people, the scenery and the way they do things, you know, that’s// I: /Would you say that people in Jamaica are more friendly than in Britain? R14: Mmh, yes, yes I: When you grew up here, ok, you said that you spent most of your time at home, studying and so on but did you mix mainly with other West Indians? R14: No, not really. I think it (0.1) it varied. To a certain extent. When I was growing up, I’m not so sure about that now, mmh, the friends you had after school were normally the good friends you had in school as well. I: Mmh. R14: I suppose that up until I was about (2.0) twelve, twelve, thirteen I could say that probably my best friend, my best friends were English (0.2) but then after that my mmh my peers were mostly from the West Indies although they weren’t necessarily from the same West Indian island than myself. My good friend is from Guyana, another good friend was from Grenada. I: Could you detect any differences in the way they speak, would you recognize a Guyanese person, would you recognize, let’s say a// R14: /Trinidadian/ I: /Yeah, a Trinidadian I: Definitely, definitely, Trinidad definitely, they speak I: Yeah I think they speak very distinctively R14: A Bajan, obviously Jamaican as well (2.0) the other islands, the islands like St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Grenada, I’d probably have more difficulty, more difficulty in recognizing it. I’m not sure that I could (1.0) point out a Guyanese * definitely the strongest ones, definitely. I: The Guyanese, really? R14: No, no, no, no no, I couldn’t , the Guyanese but definitely Trinidadians, obviously Jamaicans and the Bajans. I: Do you find that West Indians still speak Patois or Creole a lot, like also the younger generation, what is your perception of that? R14: My perception the younger generation tend to speak it less. The would more stick to English and then they would use whatever part of the Creole dialect they were using and interject it into sentences. I: Do you use it (0.2) Creole// R14: /Yes/ I: /You’re competent in Creole and Standard English. R14: Yes, I do, but normally only to people who speak it, obviously to my family and close friends but others only if they speak it to me. I: If they approach you, like if you met someone in a shop and they approached you in Creole, you would answer in Creole. R14: Yes, I would respond in Creole. I: Mmh.

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R14: Otherwise I would respond in English. I: Have you heard white people speaking Creole? R14: I have yet to meet anybody. Or I have yet to hear it that would convince me. There is a lot of the youth they have a lot of street talk, a lot of that street talk has interjecting a lot of snippets, statements, just general sayings, things like, for instance like ‘wicked’ in the Creole dialect is actually the opposite as what it means in the dictionary and that has actually gone into the street talk, in fact ‘feisty’, in English, a feisty person is, I suppose just very direct, in Creole it would be more somebody just the opposite and that’s also crept into the street talk as well. Those sort of things you would hear (0.2) not necessarily just in where there’s large Afro-Caribbean populations and they would pick up these things and they would have it in their general discussions, and then obviously there is the more obvious swear words that they also pick up but then that is universal . I: Would you swear in Creole rather than in English? R14: I’d probably swear in English, to be honest I R14: Yes, because I think I’ve never really sworn in Creole, we didn’t swear at home, we just couldn’t get away with it. I: Ok, ok. R14: We probably, (0.2) I think the friends that we grew up with, their parents didn’t particularly allow them to swear either and we didn’t really swear outside. I suppose it depends on the circumstances as well. I: Could you think of any other purpose you would use Creole for (0.1) you said you would use it with your family, or if someone outside your family approached you in Creole. R14: (0.3) There’ll be situations where a statement or sentence in Creole would for me best express how I felt at the moment, at the point in time but normally it would be probably an extreme situation either (0.2) I would perhaps be enjoying something a great deal, like somebody like in a show or something would crack a really good joke and you would fall about laughing or I couldn’t think of a strictly English statement that would actually express the way I felt at that time. So then yes, and the reverse is, if you hear really bad news, again, an English expression like ‘Oh my God’ probably probably wouldn’t suffice. I: Ok, the emotional/ R14: /Yes, it probably wouldn’t carry the emotional expression or the emotional feeling that you felt at the point in time. I: Would you say on the whole that Creole is more expressive than English? R14: (0.2) Yes, I would. I: Would you say that it is more beautiful? R14: To me, yes, definitely, definitely because (0.2) I will always prefer to speak it. I: Is it the language you feel more comfortable with?

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R14: Yes. I: Would you say that you make more of a conscious effort with standard English? R14: No, I don’t really have to make an effort but a lot of it actually depends where I am and who I’m with and (0.1) because I said, my mother brought us up speaking Creole, although we when we grew up we did watch a lot of television and obviously we went to school here, we spoke English but I mean there was still a strong Creole-speaking background at home. So I continue that and I would normally in my teens, early twenties, if I met another person I perceived to be from the West Indies I would always naturally speak Creole. I: And you would also approach them in Creole. R14: Yes, yes, but as time went by mmh I found there were many instances where I would approach somebody in Creole I assumed was either from the Caribbean or Caribbean heritage and they would look at me strangely or they wouldn’t respond in Creole therefore (0.1) over time, now I always approach them in English and if they then respond in Creole or something happens what makes that they normally speak Creole then I would also speak Creole. I: Would there be any clues that// R14: It’s difficult, nowadays I don’t really try and guess, I just do it, I just approach them in English. I: Do you think that it is also a matter of education, what kind of jobs they hold, whether they speak// R14: It may have something to do with it (0.1) it may depend on the person’s perception of how they feel that either their work mates, the friends they’re with may feel if they went straight into English. But I think it depends on the person, because (0.1) snippets of Creole, I actually hear quite regularly nowadays because there is a lot of Reggae and Reggae-type music actually played on popular radio and it is not uncommon to see a Reggae artist on the tv or on the radio. I: Mmh. Also speaking. R14: Yes, oh yes, very much nowadays. I think it’s mostly down on the perception of the person. I mean personally I wouldn’t have any problem in approaching any person I mean not even only from the Caribbean like I’ve had quite a few African friends and I spoke to them in Creole and they understood me usually without any difficulty at all. So that used to be the way I would/ but nowadays, over the years, you know, I suppose, automatically, most of the people I meet are in work situations and I just say, I just approach them in standard English and (0.1) if the situation came up and it was like a jovial conversation and they speak in Creole, then so would I. And then normally our relationship would continue in Creole conversation, so that means that the next time I meet them I would just normally speak Creole to them. I: That’s interesting, if I imagine the situation now, where would be a point where you switch into Creole?

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R14: It would depend entirely on the situation. Again, the situations I’m envisaging from (0.1) work would be normally I would request somebody to do something or request some information and usually to get the best out of somebody is not like a direct order, is a request like ‘Can you do that for me please?’ and many people would respond ‘Yeah, fine’ and (the next’d say) ‘Yes, later’ and that would then although it is a standard English expression// I: /It would express that they/ R14: /Yeah, it would express that they are conversant or willing or would normally talk Creole, another black person. I: Since you mentioned the media, there seems to be quite a lot going on in the media, too. Would you like to see that encouraged? Like, programmes like Desmond’s or Douglas, or. R14: Yes, I would like more of it but I would also like to see, like, the quality somewhat improved. I: Also for other types of programmes, or just comedies? R14: Yes, definitely, definitely, yes. And I would, I mean, the media over here imports a great deal of their material, and there are fairly good quality shows, not just *** from the Caribbean countries, I mean, for instance there is (0.2) I’ve forgotten his name now but there’s some rather well known Caribbean artist (0.3), they put on shows and videos and I mean it’s only very rarely that they get shown on tv. I: Mmh. R14: So, you know, there could obviously be much, much more of that. And I think the appeal would be wider than just, you know, the black audience. I: Could you also imagine things like documentaries about the Caribbean where the presenter talks in Creole? R14: I could imagine that but I would suspect that they would get subtitled. I: Really? Do you think that the majority of the English audience would not understand it? R14: I don’t know about the majority but I think they would understand it as much as they would understand somebody from Wales with a strong Welsh accent or with a heavy Scottish accent. (0.2) But I mean there have been documentaries where they’ve gone to Caribbean countries and the people respond to them obviously, they spoke in Creole what they do every day of the week (0.2) and invariably, invariably, there’s been subtitles. I: Oh, ok. R14: Even on films (0.1) they are actually being produced in the Caribbean, mmh by Caribbean producers, even they put subtitles (0.1) maybe it’s part of their acceptances for worldwide distribution and they put English subtitles on. The problem is, the meaning of what they’re saying doesn’t necessarily translate into standard English, so some of the (rapport) between two individuals in Creole is actually lost whenever there is translation. But I mean yes,

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if there were more, I mean documentaries in Creole, I would virtually guarantee that all the major tv-stations would put subtitles on. That’s interesting. I guess most Creole speakers would understand English but I guess it has something to do with how widely it is spoken. Would you also say people should encourage children to speak (0.1) I don’t know, do you have children// /Yes, yes, yes/ Do you speak Creole to them? I speak it to them all the time but (0.2) the problem is, none of them speak Creole to me. Why is that? Mmh. I’ve often pondered this question and I’m not actually sure. Because I mean I’ve *** all my school days but I’ve still maintained my Creole dialect and speak it as well. But I mean although all my children they’ve always heard Creole at home (0.2) I mean I’ve never spoken to them in standard English apart from (0.1) greeting or something (0.1) or reading from a book, like for composition where you’ve got to read, I read it to them in standard English, to get them to understand the words and the pronunciation but apart from that, in general conversation ‘go and do this and do that, have you done this, have you done that’ it is all in Creole. But they’ve grown up speaking English and they have no difficulty understanding Creole, none at all. Have you ever had (0.1) I mean, as a child growing up in a Creole speaking family, have you ever encountered any problems because of that, I mean when you first came to schol, was it difficult? I (0.2)/ /Probably difficult to remember that/ I don’t think we had any problems. You were sort of bilingual from the beginning? Yes. I mean, the only thing I could think of why, why the kids obviously can’t understand and actually speak English, I mean I believe they were brought up in a, where the community, everybody in the community speaks Creole, so they will speak Creole as well. I guess it may have something, something to do with going to school, well, I think in relation to my children, we didn’t grow up in nurseries and went to school at 4 ½ or 5 and I think nowadays almost invariably they’re going to some sort of *** six month to a year and obviously it will be English all the time (0.1) and then they go to day nursery from about 2 ½ for half a day, and then maybe nursery full time from three and then in school from five, that is the only real difference. In school, I can’t remember having any difficulties, there were many difficulties in the teachers understanding us but we never had any difficulties understanding the teachers. Would you like Creole encouraged in school?

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R14: Yeah, I personally would like everybody to learn about it, especially those who have a history or ancestry connected with the Caribbean. (0.2) Most people like, for instance, many Americans in the States, keep their ancestry very strong. I: To also learn about the heritage R14: Yes, yes, exactly I: Have you ever seen writing in Creole? R14: Yes, yes I: Can you remeber any? R14: Well (0.2) there’s some books of poetry Glenda had (0.2) I: Do you find it difficult to read? R14: Yes, initially. I did find it very difficult to read. [I shows R14 a book of poetry by Louise Bennett] I: Do you find that difficult to read? R14: No. I: Could you read just a few lines? R14: [reads a few lines of Louise Bennett Anansis Story] “Hear im: Mi waa come out. Breda Tic seh ‘Wha’ happen, Anansi?’ Hear Anansi. . . ” I: Have you ever seen academic writing in Creole? R14: No, I don’t think so. I: Well, there isn’t much around. But I’d just like to show you something and I’d be curious what you think of it. [Shows Devonish 1994, interruption of some seconds] I: Different orthography (0.3), this is, in fact a more regular one. Do you think it could work, academic writing in Creole? R14: I can’t see why not. (0.2) The main problem here, I suppose, is that he’s given an English translation. And I think that’s probably what will happen, they’ll do it in Creole and then somebody will have to translate it into English. So it’s almost like double work each time. I: True, but that’s the same for other languages as well. R14: Ok, well that’s true. I: Well, ok, thank you for your time.

B.3 Age Group 3 Interview with R32, British-born, of Jamaican family affiliation, 16 years old I: R33: I: R33: I: R33: I:

Keisha, how old are you? I’m sixteen. And, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself? I was born in England, and I’m a student. Are your parents from England? My parents are from Jamaica, both of them are from Jamaica. Have you ever been to Jamaica?

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R33: Yeah, but when I was little. So I don’t remember it that well. I: Are you still in contact with that country, like, do you have family there? R33: Yeah, I have a lot of family, my grandparents are from, well. they built their house back there recently and I have other relatives living there. I: What was it like when, well you’re still growing up, so tell me what it is like growing up in Britian, I mean as a black person. R33: Well, ah is quite interesting, cos, when you’re at school or at college, or wherever, people ask you how you feel about being black in Bri%n and when you say like you don’t consider yourself to be English cos you’re black and you have reached from the Caribbean they’re like Why? Why don’t you see yourself as being English? What’s wrong with being English? And it’s different for us I think because if you’re black I don’t think you could be English as such you’d be British because to say you’re English is kind of like to deny the roots and all the struggles that the people have been through, to get you into this country. I: Right. What are your friends, do you have friends mainly from the West Indian community or not? R33: Well, because, I go to church I have two groups of friends. But the friends from church are mainly black, from the Caribbean or Black British, but my friends from school are quite mixed. I: And your close friends, what are they? R33: Mixed. I: Are you involved in any cultural activities in the West Indian community in London, have you ever been involved in any? R33: Yeah, kind of poetry evenings and cultural evenings, social events. And Alison and I went to the Lawrence (0.2) the Lawrence memorial service. I: That’s Stephen Lawrence, the black teenager who died. R33: Yes. I: Do you think that there is quite a big difference between black and white in Britain? What do you think about that? R33: Wha% I think is large in the sense that you can see that there is a difference. Bu% you hear people saying that it’s ge%ing better all the time bu% as you go on through your life, you can see that there are differences like in economical advantages that white people have over black people in Bri%n and they can get jobs easier and all this. I: Do you believe that it’s gonna improve, the relationship between, yeah between black and white and what do you think? R33: I should hope so, I mean the new government, they’re going on about bridging the gap and the new housing secretary is going to do stuff about the mmh the Stephen Lawrence case, so if they’re sincere about it, then it should improve but it’ll take somebody to cooperate. I: What do you like about England. It’s you’re only home right? R33: Yeah, basically.

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You don’t know Jamaica, do you No. So, what do you like about England? Mmh (0.3) Oh, as you said, I don’t really know anything else but (0.2) there’s running water, there’s you know, housing if you’re in the right place at the right time if you do grow up by the (0.2) where people have made it, am, I suppose if you’re lucky and you’re black then you’ve got it going but if you’re in the inner city areas with large concentrations of black people (0.2) and there is a lot of violence around you then I suppose it wouldn’t be something that you’d like. Is there anything you dislike about England? Mhm, racism (0.3) Do you think that Patois is still important for West Indians? By the way, is it spoken by your parents? Is Patois spoken by your parents? Very rarely. They don’t speak it much but I know they do sometimes. And do you think that it is significantly spoken by other West Indians? Yeah, yeah, among their own people. Cos I know that some white people would take exception to black people speaking Patois, like in a job situation. Cos I was just reading the other day mmh (0.1) how like news reader, one of the news readers on ITV was being (0.2) disciplined? No, not disciplined but he was being made (0.1) as an example by other black people who were saying that this is the black man who’s being kind of cloned or shaped by the mainstream white majority into speaking the English way and (0.1) he is kind of ignoring his roots and stuff. Right, but you, do you see any advantages or disadvantages in speaking Patois? I see it as a disadvantage if you want to get somewhere. Bu% I don’t see any disadvantages in speaking it amongst your own people cos then your ge%ing your roots, aren’t you? Right. Can you speak Patois? No I try. I s’pose, I can’t really speak it that well cos I don’t hear it much, although I hear it bu% I don’t hear it much in my own home and so I haven’t really grown up with it. What about musicwise, though. Well, I do listen to Reggae, occasionally. And Hiphop bu%, unless you grow up with it, I guess it’s kind of hard to imitate it. You understand it though, when it is being spoken to you? Maybe, yeah. OK, Would you recognize the background of other West Indian people from their speech? Not really, although you can sometimes hear Trinidadians and Barbadians

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I: If you were to use Patois, where would you speak it? R33: Mhm, informal setting, amongst my own black people unless I was acting or something. I: Do you think that Patois is more or less beautiful than standard English? R33: I think they are equally beautiful but they are beautiful in different ways. I: How about expressions? R33: Well, you can get some things across in Patois that can’t be gotten across in English. Like some of them Maxims and sayings that my parents tell me about. You can only get the full meaning across in Patois and it doesn’t have the same ring to it as it does in English. I: So, basically you think (0.2) that it really is useful to speak Patois. But just in particular settings, not if you want to get somewhere in the mainstream environment, yeah? R33: Yeah, basically. I: Do you think children who learn both Creole or Patois and standard English are disadvantaged, do you feel that they might have problems with either one? R33: No, I don’t think so, cos then you have the best of both worlds. I: Do you think the mainstream should learn more about it, that whites should learn more about it. K. Yeah, and they should also learn not to (0.2) stereotype people use it. Not to (0.1.) just pack people into a certain form just because they speak a certain way. I: Right. Should Creole be more visible or audible in the media, i.e. newspaper, tv, radio. K. Yeah, I think so because there are cer%n people who like to use. But I myself, when I see Creole wri%n, (0.3.) it’s hard to understand you kind of, if, if you don’t grow up then its hard to (0.2) take, when you see it on paper and relate to what you hear. I: Do you know any programmes where Patois or Creole is spoken, either on tv or radio or whatever. R33: Mhm, there is a programme on radio 4 but I can’t remember what it is called. I: Does it come on late at night? R33: I think so, (0.3) there’s on the (A force) on Channel 4, I: Brothers’ Resistance R33: And the Skirt an Blouse and Shirt, or something or whatever it is called, and Desmond’s and Porkpie. I: What do you think about it? Do you think that it’s overdone or fine or? R33: It depends what it is used for. Although, if you’re trying to attract a certain audience, like ** in Desmond’s was, Desmond’s was just aimed towards the black community, so I think it helped to attract the interest. But if you’re just doing it to take the mickey or whatever, then I don’t think you should use it. I: Ok, R33: Cos it’s a language in its own right.

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C.

Right. Have you ever seen Patois in writing? Yes, I have. And, what did you think about it? First time I saw it, I thought it was like Dutch or something but , I read it and then it made a little bit more sense but I had to read it a couple of more times before I understood it. Do you see a future for a continued presence of Creole in Britain? Yeah, I do. so the younger generation that is coming up behind me, can know where they come from, cos it helps to know where you come from, cos if you don’t know where you come from then you can’t know where you’re going. Right. I’m gonna show you a Louise Bennett poem. [Short interruption while R32 is looking at the text] You’re laughing, what’s (0.2) why are you laughing? Do you understand it, or Yeah but it will take me a little bit more time .

Creole and writing discussion on the CreoList (ad Chapter 5. 2.)

C.1 “Creole Verbal War”: Internet discussion on Creole and writing among users A. Subject Heading: Re: Indian African Deculturalisation? Extracted from [email protected] Date: Wednesday, September 03, 1997 9:51 PM – Norm, ah like how yuh ketching de bways pun de hap. Ah gun trow de ball in, but yuh gat fuh wait till weekend fuh a moh detail wuk as ah lil busy right now. Well I do not agree fully that slavery has decultured the Africans Wha’ happen to qweh-qweh, cookup, ah lil’ obeah, ‘nancy story, bush medicine etc. They all have similarities in many parts of Africa today. – I was born in Alberttown British Guiana and am 100% Guyanese. My friends I know that you all mean well, by writing in Creoles therefore keeping our culture in view, but to me, I find it most irritating, trying to decypher the jargon, I can speak the Gt. Creoles but to read it, is a pain in the butt. So guys please help me out by sending me a english copy. for after a few lines of reading the Guybonic scripts, I delete the mail in frustration Harold

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B. Subject Heading: Creole verbal war Extracted from [email protected] What has this to do with the “real Facts” Why didn’t you write in creolese to get your point across? Your position is yours, my friend and you can keep it, no skin off my nose. I will retain my position, on creolese. Why re-invent the wheel, just because you can’t make circle proper. Wayne, Norm (yuh deh?) Safraz, doesn’t Harold sound so much like Rudy Luck(son)? You can modify any language you want, most people who do this are the country folk that “can’t talk good”. Are you saying that there is a grave deficiency in our Ministers in Government English is Spelt “ENGLISH”, not “Creolese”. I was born in the capital of Guyana No Harold, you barn in Gargetown, you barn in Albertown. The Capital is by Bank ah Guyana an Booker Stores. If yuh stanup by Bank ah Guyana an listen to the people talkin, an you pass down by Secon’Street an listen again, you going to realize that the people in Albertown does only talk in creole while de people by de Bank talking de w’ite people language. There two ways of doing things the right way and the wrong way..THERE IS NO MIDDLE GROUND!! What do you mean that there is no middle ground? Look at Wayne’s replies-he says Creole is good and English is good and all are bad. Who says that there is no middle ground? (Sorry Wayne-just cooling out) The World is ROUND and it is too late for you to change it, you HAVE to accept it as it is. I was not taught that the world was round, it is more like a sidium when you finish rolling it in yuh hand. There is also, a reason, if you are true to your self that sometimes in a “conversation” with persons you try to speak precise English to get your point across or on the other hand you speak Creoles to get the point over also to Country Folk. . . Harold, like you gat something against the duly elected Ministers of Guyana Government. To spell check Creolese is the pits!!! I don’know weh you get you saf ’ware from,must come from Macao. De people know dat you are only interested in proper English,so they gave you only

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quarter of the software.I have de full package,it does do English an’ creole-I jus’ have to tell it which country creole I want to spell check. (I mus’ visit Macao to see how them fellas aperate) Bad english is bad english anyway you look at it. I was not taught Creolese in school, I never saw “Creolese” on my time table and my butt had some marks from the “wild cane” when I tried to emulate the “country language” Once again Harold I am asking you if you have something against the de Ministers dat does be talking creole all de time pon your television. I am not a “Burnham Boy” I left Guyana because of him, but Burnham and the Queen made us the most resilient nation on earth, we can rival the Japanese if some of us put our hearts into it. So please stop basking the guy for without hin we/you would have remained the world’s best kept secret. Doh talk about de man like that,he is family. Take no notice chaps, just easing up de pressuh an tension pon de lis’ at the moment. Romesh

C.2 “Written Creole: Genuine or Hoax?”: Internet discussion on Creole and writing among experts The following is a US government document (Housing and Urban Development) translated into English Creole. It was brought to the attention of John Rickford and created a heated debate on Creole and writing, some of which will be documented below:

Rezedents Rights & Rispansabilities Yuh as a rezedent, ave di rights ahn di rispansabilities to elp mek yuh HUDasisted owzing ah behta owme fi yuh ahn yuh fambily. Dis is a brochure distributed to yuh cawze Hud ah provide some fawm ahf asistance aur subsidy fi di whole apawtment buildin. As ah pawt ahfits dedication fi maintain di bes pawsible living enviornment fi all rezendents, yuh HUD field affice encourage ahn suppowts: Communication between rezedents, manigement agents ahn prahpati ownas. Promt considarashan ahn resalushan ahf rezedent complaints by ownas ahn manigahs. Rezedent auganizashan ahn pawticipashan in decishans regawding di apawtment building dat ahfek di well-being ahf yuh owme. Along wid yuh owna/manigement agent yuh role is very impowtant in making yuh

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place ahf rezedence, di unit, di grouns ahn di ahdah cammon areas a behta place fi live ahn also elp create a community yuh caan be proud ahf. Dis brochure briefly liss some ahf yuh muos impowtant rights ahn rispansabilities fi elp yuh fi get di muos owt ah yuh owme.

Yuh Rights As ah rezedent in HUD’s Mulitfambily owzing yuh mus become aware ahf yuh rights. Rights Invalving yuh apawtment De right fi live in a destent, safe, ahn sanitary owzing. De right fi ave repairs done in a timely manner, uhpan reques, ahn fi ave a quality maintainance program run by manigement. De right fi get reasonable notice, in writing fi ehni non-imergency inspeckshan aur ehni ahdah entry inna yuh apawtment. Rights Invalving Rezedent Auganizashans Di rights fi auganize as rezedents widowt obstrukshan, ahrrassment aur retaliashan frawm prahpati ownas aur manigement. Di right fi puoss materials in cammon areas fi infawm ahdah rezedents bout dem rights ahn also about apportunities ahf ow dem caan invalve demself in deir projeks. Di right, dat may be subjek to a reasonable, HUD fee, fi use appropriate cammon space aur meeting facilities fi auganize aur fi concidah ehni issue dat ahfek di condishan aur manigement ah di prahpati. Di rights fi recognition by prahpaty ownas ahn manigahs as smady dat ave a seh in rezedenshal community affairs. Rights Invalving Non-diskriminashan Di right fi egual ahn fair treatment ahn di use ahf yuh Building’s services ahn facilities, widowt regard to colour, religion, gendah, disability, familial status (children undah 18), National origin (ethnicity aur language), aur age. Yuh Rispansabilities As a rezedent ahfah HUD assisted projek, yuh also ave Cer’en risponsabilities fi ensure dat yuh buildings remain a suitable owme fi yuh ahn yuh neighbahs. By signin yuh lease, yuh ahn di owna/manigement compny ave entad into a legal, enforcible contrak. Yuh ahn di owna/manigment company rispansible

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fi comply wid yuh lease, owse rules ahn local laws govanin yuh prahpati. If yuh ave any question bout yuh lease aur duont ave a copy ahfit, contak yuh manigement agent aur yuh local HUD field affice.

Rispansabilities to yuh prahpaty owna aur manigement agent. Complyin wid de rules ahn guidelines dat govan yuh lease. Payin de carrek amount a rent pan a timely basis everi muhnt. Providin accurate infahmation to de owna at de certification aur recertification intahview dat fi determin if yuh eligible fi get assistance, ahn also fi yuh agreement to de release ahf infahmation by a turd party dat wi allow fi verification.

Rispansabilities to de projek ahn to yuh fellow rezedents Complyin wid de rules ahn guidelines dat govan yuh lease. Payin de carrek amount a rent pan a timely basis everi muhnt. Providin accurate infahmation to de owna at de certification aur recertification intahview dat fi determin if yuh eligible fi get assistance, ahn also fi yuh agreement to de release ahf information by a turd party dat wi allow fi verification.ezedents. Condukting yuhself in a mannah dat wuhduhn disturb yuh neighbahs. Nat engagin in criminal aktivity inna di unit, common areas aur grouns. Fi kyp yuh unit clean ahn nat littaryn di grouns aur common areas. Fi dispose a yuh gawbige ahn wase in a prapah mannah. Fi comlpy wit local kwodes dat affek de ehlt aur safety ahf di rezedence. Fi maintain yuh apawtment ahn common areas in di same general physical candition as wehn yuh moved in. Fi report ehni defeks inna de building systems, fixtures, appliances ahn ahdah pawts a di unit, di grounds aur related facilities to de manigement.

Yuh Pawticipation is Impowtant Rezedents in de HUD assisted familial owzin play an impowtant rowle in di decishan dat affek dem prokek. Diffrent HUD prowgrams provide fi specifik rezedents. Yuh ave di right fi know undah waht HUD prowgram yuh building is assisted. Fi fyneout if yuh apawtment buildin covad undah enhi a di fahlowing kategories contak yuh manigement agent. If yuh buildin ave a mawgage lown undah sekshan 202 aur is assisted undah sekshan 230,221(d) (3)/BMIR, Rent Suppliment prowgram aur de sekshan 8

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lown Manigement Set Aside Prowgram fahlowin convershan ahf de prowjek from rent suppliment, program assistant yuh ave di right fi pawticipate in aur be notified ahf, ahn comment on di fallowing: An inkrease ahf di maximuhm permissible rent. Convershan ahf a prowjek from prowjek-paid utilities to tenant-paid utilities aur a redukshan in tenant utility ahlowance. Convershan ahf rezedential units inna multifambily owzing projek inna non-rezedential use aur canduhminiums, aur di transfer ahf di prowjek inna cooparative owzing mawgagah caparaishan aur associashan. Pawshal release ahf mawgage sikurity. Capital improvments dat represent substatial additian to de prowjek. Non renewal ahf a prowjek-based [indecipherable]. If yuh buildin is subsidized undah di sekshan 202 aur 811 prowgram ahf di Nashinal Owzing Ahk, yuh ave the right fi notifikashan ahf, ahn to comment pan a reques to HUD fi consent to di prepayment ahf a lown If yuh buildin ave a prowjek-based sekshan 8 contrak dat soon expyah aur bein terminated ahn will naht be renewed, yuh ave a right to a wan year “powtable” Sekshan 8 certificate dat yuh caan use inna ehni buildin wid rents in di allowable range. Yah also ave de right to Appawtunity Kownseling, weh yuh caan learn bout owzing aupshans dat is available to you. If yuh live inna wan building dat is ownwed by HUD dat a sell, yuh ave di right to be notified, ahn comment pan, HUD’s plan fi dispowse ahf di buildin. If yuh fawm aur awreddi fawm a rezedent did auganizashan, yuh ahn yuhfellah tenants caan nigoshiate wid HUD to buy di buildin fi establish karpowrative owzin aur rezedent owned rental units. “Wi ave a pawtnaship wid everi rezedent of HUD-assisted owzing developments: HUD prowtekss di rights ahf di tenants, ahn tenants gauwd dem own right tru rispansible be’aviah. Owah goal is fi guh beyan dat pawtnaship ahn create a sense ahf community by encouraging di rezedents fi bekum more aktive ahn invalve demselves inna de decishans dat ahfek di developmnet ahf deir own owzing developments.” Sekretary Andrew M. Cuomo fella

Addishinal Asistance If yuh need ahni elp aur more infahmashan yuh mus contak: Yuh prahpaty manigah

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Di prowjek manigah inna di Mulifambily HUB aur yuh local prowgram centah. Di owzin counssellin agency inna yuh kummunity (fi ahsistantce, call di HUD Owzing Counsellin Service lowcatah at 1-800-569-4287). HUD’s Nahshinal Multifambily clearin at 1-800-685-8470 fi repowt maintenance aur manigement conserns. De affice ahf de Inspectah General aht line at 1-800-347-3735 aur 202-7084200 fi repowt fraud,waste aur mismanigement.. World Wide Web-http;//www.hud.gov – – – –

HUD Storefront Office-http;//www.hud.gov/storefront/ Community Builders-http://www.hud.gov/combuild.html Fair Housing- http://www.hud.gov/fhe/fheo.html Resident Rights and Responsibilities Brochure http://www.hud.gov//fha/fharent.html

If yuh belive dat yuh ave suffahd from discriminashun aur whud like more infahmashan call 1-800-669-9777 aur cawl yuh lowkal HUD affice ahf Fair Owzing ahn Equal Appatunity. Yuh lowkal govahment tenant/lanlawd ahfair affice, legal services affice, ahn tenant auganizashan may provide yuh wid more infahmashanpan ahdishanal rites yuh ave ahanda lowkal aur state law. Dis broshure bout yuh rite ahn risppansibilities as a rezedent ahf HUD ahsisted multifambily owzin is also avalable in Braille ahn de fahlowing languages, English, Spanish, Mandarine, Chinese, French, Russian, Vietamese, Korean.. Creole, Portugues ahn Ethiopian,Contak yuh lowkal HUD Prowgram Centah aur HUD’s Nahshinal Multifambily Owzing Clearinhowse at 1-800-685-8470

The following is the first comment on this document on the CreoLIST by John Rickford A: Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1999 07:14:40 -8000 From: John Rickford Subject: Re: Written Creole: Genuine or Hoax? JUST IN CASE I WAS MISUNDERSTOOD as opposed to writing in Creole or disseminating information in Creole, I AM NOT. I AM OPPOSED TO STEREOTYPING a particular population in ways that DISCRIMINATE AGAINST them and MAY DISFRANCHISE THEM. Unfortunately when you are interviewed on the phone by a paper, not everything you say, including the education that you provide to the reporter, is reproduced in context or faithfully. I was first asked whether the text is Jamaican Creole. My answer was that, after the reader goes past the eye dialect, he/she can realize that it is an interesting melange of Patwa features, mostly phonological, with good administrative English. It seems to me to be a good caricature of how a Jmaican or Caribbean pronounces common English words which are pronounced differently in North America. One need not use that eye dialect for a text that is meant to be English spoken/read with a particular regional accent. Ultimately, one would have to use eye dialect for every dialect of English in order to capture its accent. (Incidentally I am also personally opposed to abusive uses of eye dialect in literature, where it is not justified, for instance when “was” is represented as “wuz” when the pronunciation is the same in colloquial/nonstandard English under either spelling.) I suggested to the reporter to ask HUD authorities why no similar texts were produced for American White Southern English, or Appalachian English, and the like. I did not see that particular “Creole” text in the same vein as those in Russian and other languages, including Haitian Creole. The ethnographic status of Haitian Creole in the USA is not quite the same as that of Jamaican/Caribbean English in the USA, despite the Caribbean accent of its speakers. One need NOT write in eye dialect for a Jamaican/Caribbean to understand a document that he/she can access in the more conventional spelling. Actually, it probably takes a regular, nonlinguist, Jamaican/Caribbean schooled in “standard English” a longer time to make sense of the HUD text than to read in the more conventional

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English spelling. (I am concerned about cost and benefit here in the usefulness of that particular document, not the question of whether or not written literature in Patwa should not be encouraged.) The question was whether this is one of those cases that promote and justify writing for a particular segment of a population supposed to be integrated without stigmatizing and disfranchising it. And I maintain that this was a stupid and offensive way of suggesting that Jamaicans/Caribbeans do not speak English and need that special form of graphic representation to understand what HUD wanted them to know. NO, I AM NOT OPPOSED TO producing written literature in Creole, especially when the targetted readership has been trained or schooled in it and can access messages in it that could not be understood likewise in an another language variety. Sali. There are many more responses to this discussion (cf. CreoList) which lasted well into December 1999. In one further contribution by John Rickford (21 Nov 1999), the origin of the document is explained: “Apparently the “creole” in the HUD documents was the result of a genuine mixup, not a hoax. HUD wanted a translation into Haitian Creole, but in asking the Government Printing Office to get one, they simply said “creole”, and the Canadian company to which the job was subcontracted (“Cosmos Translation and Interpretation Services, Inc”) came back with a Jamaican type translation [. . . ] which a HUD employee accepted as Haitian (Clearly not a CreoLIST subscriber!)”

Notes . The table is in a chronological, i.e. age-decreasing order. When not entirely sure, a rough estimate is marked, e.g. 38 + = 38 or older. Some of the interviews were conducted in groups, e.g. R2 (at the Calabash centre for senior citizens) & R4, i.e. the actual number of respondents is larger than the number of interviews. . Beginning of close analysis in the main text, hence enumeration of lines starts here.

Name index

A Adams, A. 259 Adams, L. E. 218 Adebayo, D. 179 Aitchison, J. 10, 47, 48, 52, 75 Ajzen, I. 28, 29, 41 Alexander, C. 5, 170, 179 Alladina, S. 176 Alleyne, M. 3, 24, 58, 59, 74, 78, 81, 86 Allport, G. W. 26, 28, 50, 51 Allsopp, J. 70 Allsopp, R. 70, 88, 90 Ammon, U. 9, 26, 27, 29, 30, 35, 47, 50, 60 Anderson, B. 14, 65, 66, 87, 144, 175, 187, 265 Anim-Addo, J. 177 Appel, R. 112, 119, 120, 131, 176, 178 Apperley, A. 97, 100, 101 Argyle, M. 96 Ashcroft, B. 199 Auer, P. 116 Austin, J. 28 B Bachmann-Medick, D. 6, 226, 235, 258 Bailey, B. 90, 165 Bailey, R. 66, 260 Baker, C. 26, 33 Bakhtin, M. 17, 115, 201, 202, 246 Barthes, R. 118 Bassnett, S. 6, 17, 223, 226, 258 Baumann, G. 5, 141 Beckford Wassink, A. 3, 6, 10, 26, 38, 40, 52, 94, 129, 136 Bell, R. T. 44, 45, 46

Benjamin, W. 239 Bennett, L. 190, 191, 192, 196, 198, 200, 218, 220 Berry, J. 221 Bex, T. 124, 125, 174, 185, 261 Bhabha, H. 173, 174, 175, 179, 258, 265 Bickerton, D. 52 Blom, J.-P. 112, 131, 146 Bloom, V. 259 Boas, F. 68 Brathwaite, E. 86 Brathwaite, E. K. 89, 210, 221 Breeze, J. ‘B’. 192, 216 Bridges, G. W. 70 Brown, G. 109 Brown, P. 121 Bühler, K. 28, 118 Burgess, T. 143, 162 Burton, R. 86 Bussmann, H. 109 C Cable, G. W. 70 Calvet, L. J. 60, 67 Cambridge, J. 221 Cargill, M. 61, 218, 219 Carrington, L. 12, 35, 42, 73, 74, 78 Cassidy, F. 5, 16, 90, 178, 184, 192–196 Caxton 65 Cheshire Cat 179 Cheshire, J. 51 Chomsky, N. 131 Clarke, D. 96 Clitandre, P. 234, 235 Cobham, R. 205 Conrad, A. 47, 51

 Name index

Cooper, C. 6, 73, 86, 195, 196, 200, 218, 253, 254, 260 Cooper, R. 47, 51 Curtin, P. 86 Cust, R. 88, 130, 248, 250 Czennia, B. 229, 259 D D’Acosta 69, 70 Dalphinis, M. 176 Davidson, A. 101 Davison, R. B. 140, 141 D’Costa, J. 18, 251, 252 DeCamp, D. 21, 34, 42, 77, 78, 89 DeGraff, M. 19, 42, 52, 67, 68, 86, 88, 130 Dejean, Y. 51, 90 Devonish, H. 6, 18, 19, 35, 36, 78, 184, 193, 196, 200, 218, 254–257, 260 Dickens, C. 229, 259 Döring, T. 17, 73, 192, 216 Doucet, R. 177, 187 Du Gay, P. 157 E Eckkrammer, E. M. 227, 248 Edwards, B. 199, 219 Edwards, V. 140, 142–144, 176 Edwards, W. 80 Eliot, T.S. 173, 174 Escure, G. 90 F Fairclough, N. 7, 14, 17, 99, 102–105, 115, 124, 125, 147, 181, 185, 201, 215, 216 Ferguson, C. 26, 32, 47, 50, 81, 89 Ferguson, M. 64 Figueroa, J. 183 Firth, J. 130 Fishbein, M. 28, 29 Fishman, J. 9, 28, 30, 32, 35, 44, 46, 47, 51, 81, 90, 257, 258 Foner, N. 144, 158

Foucault, M. 7, 8, 13, 64, 67, 87, 93, 97, 99, 100–109, 124–127, 130, 147 Fowler, J. 203, 206, 207, 209 Fryer, P. 87, 176

G Garcilaso el Inca 70 Gal, S. 78 Gergen, K. J. 95 Gilbert 71 Giles, H. 26, 27, 50, 97, 113, 121, 131 Gilroy, P. 176 Goffman, E. 14, 109, 110, 111, 121, 128, 130, 131, 155, 156 Gomes, A. 220 Gonzalez, A. 227, 246, 256 Goodison, L. 243 Görlach, M. 6, 18, 76, 77, 78, 251, 252 Graf, K. 243–245 Greenblatt, S. 17, 130 Grillo, R. 66, 68, 186 Grossberg, L. 175 Gumperz, J. 7, 14, 28, 33, 96, 109–117, 120, 121, 128, 130, 131, 136, 138, 139, 146, 168, 172, 177

H Hall, S. 133, 138, 139, 144, 157 Halliday, M. A. K. 5, 7, 118, 119, 123, 124, 129, 130, 131, 179, 201, 245 Hamann, J. G. 68 Hancock, I. 76 Harré, R. 95 Harris, R. 177 Hasan, R. 118 Havranek, B. 225 Haynes, L. 3, 10, 36, 55 Heller, M. 113, 116 Hellinger, M. 6, 9, 26–28, 30, 31, 35, 78, 89, 193, 194 Henninges, B. 231, 232, 259 Herder, J. G. 66, 68 Hewitt, R. 5, 15, 140, 143, 144, 170–172

Name index 

Holfelder-von der Tann, C. 239, 241, 242 Holm, J. 34, 55, 56, 59, 60, 71, 76, 85, 86, 90, 248 Hönisch, M. 217, 218 Hulme, P. 130 Humboldt, W. v. 11, 68, 88 Hurston, Z. N. 229–231, 259 Hymes, D. 3, 10, 14, 23, 24, 27, 28, 44, 46, 47, 52, 96, 109–112, 119, 121, 128–131, 137, 138, 147 I, J Irvine, J. 78 Jahn, J. 236 Jakobson, R. 14, 119 James, W. 144, 157 Jefferson, G. 96 Johnson, A. 221 Johnson, S. 65 Jones, B. 234, 235 Jones, F. 260 K Kaufman, T. 42, 43, 88 Keens-Douglas, P. 219 Kelle, U. 148 Kelman, H. C. 29 Kemnitz, G. 32, 33 Kloss, H. 12, 16, 26, 27, 75, 76, 77, 81, 89, 187, 188, 217, 251, 253 Kluge, S. 148 L Labov, W. 50, 79, 129, 130, 137, 219 Lafont 51 Lambert, W. 26, 50, 129 Lamming, G. 149, 157, 177, 207, 227, 236 Lawrence, D. H. 229 Leech, G. 212, 213 LePage, R. B. 5, 14, 72, 80, 90, 109, 113, 114, 128, 138, 145, 162, 163, 171, 178, 184, 192–194

Leslie, C. 62, 87 Levinson, S. 121 Long, E. 62–64, 86, 87, 199, 219 Lovejoy, P. 86 Lovelace, E. 17, 204, 210, 211, 212, 214 Lowth, R. 65 Ludwig, R. 82, 219, 260 Luther, M. 247, 260 Lyons, J. 137

M Mackey, W. 9, 25, 26, 27, 42 Mair, C. 14, 84, 128, 202, 210–212, 220, 228, 233, 241, 259 Mais, R. 227 Malena, A. 115, 116, 220, 221 Manley, N. 77 Marshall, D. 139 Martin-Jones, M. 51, 82, 83 McGuire, W. J. 29 McKay, C. 218 McLeod, J. M. 71 McWhorter, J. 19, 49, 52, 59, 86 Mendes, A. 17, 204–207, 210, 214, 218 Meyer-Clason, C. 236, 237 Milroy, J. 65, 183, 186 Milroy, L. 65, 116, 183, 186 Mintz, S. 86 Morris, C. 28 Morris, M. 190, 218 Morrison, T. 259 Mufwene, S. 42, 49, 52, 60, 61, 69, 70, 71 Mühleisen, S. 3, 6, 10, 33, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 55, 79, 82, 94, 95, 136, 197, 199, 200, 219, 221, 228, 248 Mühlhäusler, P. 35 Müller, M. 43, 52 Murray, L. 65 Muysken, P. 4, 112, 116, 119, 120, 131, 176, 178 Myers-Scotton, C. 7, 14, 17, 28, 33, 51, 90, 113, 116–118, 121, 122, 147

 Name index

N Naipaul, V. S. 17, 178, 179, 204, 207–210, 214, 220, 239, 240, 243, 244, 245 Nettleford, R. 191 Niranjana, T. 6, 17, 226, 235, 257 Nugent, M. S. 62, 86, 87 Nurse, K. 180 Nzengou-Tayo, M.-J. 259 O Okara, G. 259 Oldendorp, C. 71, 88 Ong, W. 16, 184, 185, 186, 193, 194, 200, 219, 247, 250 P Page, N. 206, 209, 214 Parker, I. 53, 73, 97, 99, 100 Patrick, P. 7, 78, 80, 89, 90 Patterson, O. 175 Patterson, S. 140, 142, 143, 177 Peterich, W. 239, 240, 241 Philip, M. N. 202 Potter, J. 14, 98, 99, 110, 114, 115, 128 Powell, P. 17, 204, 210, 212–214, 245 Powesland, P. F. 97 Pratt, M. L. 219 Q, R Quashie 77 Raible, W. 82, 200, 201 Rampton, B. 5, 15, 116, 144, 172, 173 Ramsay, Rev. J. 87 Reinecke, J. 23 Reisman, K. 3, 10, 36, 55, 79, 80 Reiss, K. 259 Richardson, B. C. 139, 140 Rickford, J. 3, 6, 10, 36, 37, 55, 61, 78, 94, 136 Riley, J. 243 Rimmer, M. 218, 220 Roberts, P. A. 80, 199, 200, 219 Robinson, W. P. 96

Rodgers, T. S. 50 Romaine, S. 35, 61, 188 Rosen, H. 143, 162 Rousseau, J.-J. 66 Rowell, C. H. 203 Russell, T. 72 Rutherford, J. 157

S Sacks, H. 96 Sand, A. 14, 52, 83, 84, 128 Sander, R. 220 Sapir, E. 68, 130 Saville-Troike, M. 111, 137 Savitzky, F. 177 Schieffelin, B. 177, 187 Schiffrin, D. 109, 111 Schlegel, A. W. v. 11, 67, 87, 88 Schlegloff, E. 96 Schleiermacher, F. 239 Schuchhardt, H. 43, 52, 88, 89 Scott, J. D. 199 Searle, J. 28 Sebba, M. 5, 6, 116, 144, 162–166, 168, 169, 172, 178, 179, 188, 189, 197 Secord, P. F. 98 Segal, A. 139, 176 Seidel, G. 91 Selvon, S. 158, 207, 221, 227, 236, 237 Senior, O. 203, 243 Sherlock, P. 77 Shields-Brodber, K. 83, 84 Short, M. 212, 213, 220, 221 Sidnell, J. 72, 73 Silliman, B. 66, 87 Silverstein, M. 1, 48, 65 Simpson 260 Smith, N. 4 Smith, O. 65 Solomon, D. 90 Soyinka, W. 228 St.Clair, R. 57 Stainton Rogers, R. 95, 96, 98 Stein, D. 229

Name index 

Stewart, W. A. 10, 11, 12, 26, 27, 43–47, 68, 69, 89 Straight, S. 239, 241, 242 Stroud, C. 116 Stubbs, M. 109 Sutcliffe, D. 143 Swales, J. 174 Synge, J. M. 259 T Tabouret-Keller, A. 14, 72, 80, 109, 113, 114, 128, 145, 162, 163, 178 Tate, S. 178, 179 Thomason, S. G. 10, 42, 43, 48, 49, 55, 88 Todorov, T. 199 Traugott, E. 61 Trivedi, H. 6, 17, 223, 226, 258 Tschirch, F. 247 V Van Name, A. 89 Venuti, L. 232, 238, 239, 246 Vermeer, H. 259 Vertovec, S. 158, 159

W Walmsley, A. 203 Watt-Shilling, A. 90 Weedon, C. 99, 100 Weinreich, U. 50 Wells, J. 164, 179 Whetherell, M. 14, 98, 99, 110, 114, 115, 128 Whorf, B. 68 Whylie, D. 218 Winer, L. 6, 184, 193, 218, 220, 234 Winford, D. 3, 6, 10, 25, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 42, 51, 55, 72, 75, 79, 81, 82, 94, 136 Wodak, R. 129 Woolard, K. 4 Wootton, T. 116, 172

Y, Z Youssef, V. 7 Yule, G. 109 Zaimoglu, F. 260 Zephania, B. 177

Subject index

A Abstand 12, 16, 75, 187, 193, 197, 253, 265, 266 see also Autonomy Abstandsprachen 75, 187, 217 Accommodation 141 theory 97, 113, 115, 121, 131 Acts of Identity 144, 145, 171 model 14, 80, 110, 113, 114 Afrikafrau, die (translation) 241, 242 Anthropology and discourse analysis 14, 96, 109, 110–113, 128 “Anti-language” 172, 179 Archaeology of knowledge (Foucault) 13, 101 Attitudes general 26, 50, 51, 93, 98, 114, 115 language attitudes 9, 25, 26, 28ff., 49, 51, 57, 66, 76, 77, 93–95, 99, 113, 123, 126, 136, 187, 204 toward Creoles 3, 15, 35ff., 43, 61ff., 68, 69, 72, 74, 79, 80 83, 141–144, 149ff. Ausbau 12, 16, 18, 75–77, 80, 82, 89, 185, 197, 227, 246, 251, 253, 266 see also Elaboration see also Modernization Ausbausprachen 76, 187, 188, 217 Autonomy 8, 11, 12, 16, 44–47, 72, 74–77, 85, 187, 188, 189, 193, 265

B Bans O’ Killing (poem) 190–193 Beacon,the (lit. journal and group) 220

204,

Bible translations 18, 189, 217, 247–250, 260 into Gullah (example) 248–250 Bilingualism 115, 117, 143, 167, 168 Black Fauns (novel) 204–207, 214 C Cathedral of the August Heat (translation) 234, 235 Cathédrale du mois d’août (novel) 234, 235 CELC languages definition 56, 85 shared prestige features 11, 55, 56 Clarise Cumberbatch Want to Go Home (novel) 221 Classifications of Creole 10, 21, 42 and naming 12 and sociolinguistic attributes 12, 43ff. and social history 60, 61ff. typological 42, 48, 49, 52, 69 Code-choice 14, 40, 79, 80, 113, 116, 117, 120, 263 motivations of 116–118, 121, 122ff., 128, 154–157 in fiction 201ff. in translation 228ff. Code-switching and Creole 144, 147, 149ff., 167–172 general 28, 33, 83, 110, 113, 116, 123, 131, 135 conversational 112, 116, 120, 122, 149–157, 178 situational 112, 167, 168 Codification 183

 Subject index

of Creoles 184ff. see also Orthography Communicative purpose 9, 14, 15, 28, 30, 41, 84, 149, 154–157, 168, 264 see also Micro-function Contextualization cue 113, 130 Continuum model 12, 74, 77–79, 81, 89 Creole and translation 9, 128, 129, 225ff. see also Translation and writing 9, 16, 17, 41, 127, 129, 183ff. see also Orthography see also Writing conception 4, 11, 57, 58, 66, 85, 263 genesis debate 4, 11, 57, 58, 86 in the urban diaspora 9, 14–16, 127, 129, 135ff., 264, 265 attitudes towards 141–144 prototype 47ff., 55 Crossings 170–173, 179

D De facto norms 44, 46 Desmond’s (tv soap) 179 Diachronic analysis 145, 146, 214, 215, 228, 264–266 Diglossia 16, 25, 32, 33, 51, 74, 81–83, 112, 147, 187, 188, 198, 215, 248, 265 Discourse analysis 93, 122, 129, 130 formalist approaches 109, 130 functionalist approaches 109, 110, 130 and linguistics 14, 93, 122 and social sciences 13, 93, 95–99 and social structure 122ff. communities 15, 16, 126, 135, 173–175, 264, 265 Discursive force-fields 7, 8, 12, 14, 84, 85, 126, 128, 225, 263, 264 formations 13, 101ff., 108, 127, 130 of ‘objects’ 102, 106, 263

of ‘enunciative modalities’ 102, 103, 106, 107 of ‘concepts’ 103, 107 of ‘strategies’ 104, 107 and Creoles 105ff. practices 8, 105, 124, 125, 128, 130, 203, 261, 263 Domain See Macro-functions Domestication in translation 236–239 Dragon Can’t Dance, the (novel) 210, 211 E Early nineteenth century ideas of language 67ff., 174 Eighteenth century ideas of language 11, 64ff., 104, 115, 174 plantation slavery 61–64, 86, 87 texts 62, 63, 86, 87 Elaboration of languages see Ausbau syntactic 200, 201, 247, 250, 260 lexical 247, 253–257, 260 Emigrants, the (novel) 236 Enunciative modalities Epistemology 64, 67, 87 and prestige formation 11, 85 “Equivalence” in translation 232, 233 Ethnography of communication 7, 28, 52, 96, 111, 130, 131, 137, 146 Etymology 69ff. Experimental research methods 6, 13, 93, 94, 126, 129 Evolutionary cycle of languages 11, 66–68, 87, 88 F Face 130, 131 Footing 111, 130, 155 Foreignization in translation 239–243 Foucauldian theory 8, 13, 14, 99ff., 130

Subject index 

turn 13, 64, 93, 97 Functions of language 9, 25–28, 50, 83, 118ff., 154, 233 referential 118, 119, 121, 131, 147, 154, 214, 233, 238 directive 118, 119, 121, 155, 178 expressive 118, 119, 121, 156, 161, 206 phatic 119, 121, 156, 161, 178 metalinguistic 119, 121, 154, 161, 210 poetic 119, 156 G Genealogy (Foucault) 13 and the West Indian community 15 Genres in writing Creoles 18, 19, 190, 191, 198–201 in translating Creoles 248–257 media 41, 52, 195 Guyanese Creole attitudes towards 36, 37 H Heteroglossia 115, 201 see also Polyphony H(igh prestige)-languages 8, 83 Historicity 11, 44–47, 57, 60, 85 Homogenicity 8, 11, 12, 44–47, 68, 85 I I Been in Sorrow’s Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots (novel) 239, 241, 242, 245 Idealized constructs in linguistic classification 10, 43, 47ff. Identity 111, 116, 133, 135, 138, 139, 141, 157 and demographic variables 13, 94 ethnic 141, 157ff., 179, 210

“performing identity” 15, 144, 145, 148, 150ff., 157 negotiation 128, 161 see also Acts of Identity “staging identity” 15, 144, 145, 148, 150ff., 157 Imagined communities (Anderson) 14, 15, 65, 66, 144, 170, 175, 187 Indo-Caribbean presence in Britain 15, 157–161, 178, 179 J Jamaican Creole attitudes towards 40, 52, 61, 83, 84, 90, 218 Jamaicans in Britain 140, 141, 161, 162 K Kehr Um, Tiger (translation) 237, 238 L Language and colonialism 59ff. ideology 1, 4, 16, 48, 59, 65, 187, 197, 206 modernization 81, 90 prestige 3, 9–11, 25ff., 113 prescription 65 London Jamaican 162, 163, 179 phonological features 163, 164 grammatical features 164, 165, 166 lexical features 166 Lonely Londoners, the (novel) 211 L(ow prestige)-languages 8, 83 M Macro structure 3, 7, 8, 13, 126, 263 functions 10, 15, 30, 32, 49, 93, 215, 216, 265 Marginality 3, 23, 24, 43, 135

 Subject index

Markedness model 14, 51, 90, 117, 118, 147, 213–215 Max und Moritz (folk poetry) 252 Micro- functions 7, 8, 30, 32, 93, 126, 149, 154–157, 198, 225, 233, 263, 265 see also Functions of Language see also Communicative purpose Miguel Street (novel) 220 Migration and globalization 14, 136, 173–175 Caribbean 139–141, 176, 177, 207 Mit dem Golfstrom (translation) 236 Mixture (as Creole attribute) 12, 44–47, 68, 69, 85, 89 Mixed languages 43, 52, 88 Mystic Masseur, the (novel) 207–210, 214, 220, 243, 244 Mystische Masseur, der (translation) 243–245 Modernization 225, 227, 246 see also Ausbau N Naming 12, 56, 69ff., 88, 89, 108 Narrative voice and Creole in the novel 207, 209–214, 215 Negative prestige 3, 55, 59, 74, 81 Newspaper columns in Creole 195, 196, 253, 254, 260 on Creole 61, 218, 219 Novel genre 201ff., 220 and Creole use 203ff., 228 O Orality 16, 185, 190, 198–201, 215, 216, 219, 249–251 Organic concept language as 68, 69, 88, 170, 173 Orthography 16, 51, 82, 184–187, 217, 265 Creole choices of o. 187–198 English-based 190–193, 195, 196

morpho-phonemic 189, 190, 193–198, 217, 260 P Participant roles (Goffman) 110, 111, 121, 131, 155, 156 Patois as term 71, 72, 88, 89, 176, 179 in Britain 141–145 see also Creole in the urban diaspora see also London Jamaican Performance poetry 190, 191 Politeness theory 121 Polyphony (Bakthin) 17, 140, 201, 202 Prestige and Creoles 9, 13, 16 change 30–34, 82–85, 113, 136, 183, 204, 225, 264–267 general 9, 25ff. “overt” vs. “covert” 36 Q Qualitative research methods 6, 95, 126, 146 Quantitative research methods 13, 94–97, 125, 129, 146 R Reduction 8, 12, 44–47, 75, 81 Register 181 academic 16, 246, 254 formation 16, 17, 82, 185, 216, 225, 253–257 marking in Creole translations 243 variation 73, 78, 123, 225 Romantic Movement and philosophy of language 11, 68 S A Small Gathering of Bones (novel) 212–214 Socio-historical conditions of prestige formation 11 Sociolinguistic theory 6, 7

Subject index

Socio-political conditions of prestige formation 12 Social psychology 13, 129 and discourse analysis 14, 96, 97, 109, 113–115, 128 research paradigms 94–98 Sociology and discourse analysis 14, 96, 109–111, 128 Some Kind of Black (novel) 179 Songs of Jamaica (poetry) 218 Speech act theory 28, 96 Speech community 5, 14, 50, 135–139, 144, 174, 264 Standardization 8, 11, 12, 16, 44–47, 50, 65, 75, 81, 82, 85, 184, 188, 191, 192, 247, 265 Status change 9, 10 of language 9, 25–27, 50 Stewart model 10, 12, 43ff., 60, 68, 69, 184 Stigmatization of Creole 3, 24, 43, 52, 234 Style variation 7, 17, 73, 78, 80, 249 The Suffrage of Elvira (novel) 239, 240 Symbolic function 123, 233 of Creole 15, 210, 243

T Their Eyes Were Watching God (novel) 229–232 Translation

and postcolonial theory 17, 18, 226, 235, 257, 259 general 223, 226 Creole as source language 18, 225, 226, 227, 228, 233–246, 266 Creole as target language 18, 19, 225, 227, 246–258, 266 of nonstandard varieties 18, 228–233 Trans-national approach 4 Trinidadian English Creole (TEC) attitudes towards 37–41 Turn Againg Tiger (novel) 236, 237 U Und Ihre Augen Schauten Gott (translation) 231, 232 Urban diaspora 9, 14 Urban youth culture 5 W Wahlkampf auf Karibisch (translation) 239–241 “We”-code 116, 170–172 West Indian as term 86 community in London 15, 183 writers 17, 183, 204, 207 Writing and prestige 16, 65, 183, 225 and standardization 16, 65 see also Orthography see also Codification



In the CREOLE LANGUAGE LIBRARY series the following volumes have been published thus far or are scheduled for publication: 1. MUYSKEN, Pieter & Norval SMITH (eds): Substrata versus Universals in Creole Genesis. Papers from the Amsterdam Creole Workshop, April 1985. 1986. 2. SEBBA, Mark: The Syntax of Serial Verbs: an Investigation into Serialisation in Sranan and other languages. 1987. 3. BYRNE, Francis: Grammatical Relations in a Radical Creole: Verb Complementation in Saramaccan. With a foreword by D. Bickerton. 1987. 4. LIPSKI, JOHN M.: The Speech of the Negros Congos in Panama. 1989. 5. JACKSON, Kenneth David: Sing Without Shame. Oral traditions in Indo-Portuguese Creole verse. 1990. 6. SINGLER, John V. (ed.): Pidgin and Creole Tense/Mood/Aspect Systems. 1990. 7. FABIAN, Johannes (ed.): History from Below. The ‘Vocabulary’ of Elisabethville by André Yav: Text, Translations and Interpretive essay. 1990. 8. BAILEY, Guy, Natalie MAYNOR and Patricia CUKOR-AVILA (eds): The Emergence of Black English: Text and commentary. 1991. 9. BYRNE, Francis and Thom HUEBNER (eds): Development and Structures of Creole Languages. Essays in honor of Derek Bickerton. 1991. 10. WINFORD, Donald: Predication in Carribean English Creoles. 1993. 11. BYRNE, Francis & John HOLM (eds): Atlantic Meets Pacific: A global view of pidginization and creolization. Selected papers from the society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics. 1992. 12. BYRNE, Francis & Donald WINFORD (eds): Focus and Grammatical Relations in Creole Languages: Papers from the University of Chicago Conference of Focus and Grammatical Relations in Creole Languages. 1993. 13. ARENDS, Jacques (ed.): The Early Stages of Creolization. 1995. 14. KIHM, Alain: Kriyol Syntax. The Portuguese-based Creole language of Guinea-Bissau. 1994. 15. ARENDS, Jacques, Pieter MUYSKEN and Norval SMITH (eds): Pidgins and Creoles. An introduction. 1995. 16. CLEMENTS, J. Clancy: The Genesis of a Language: The formation and development of Korlai Portuguese. 1996. 17. THOMASON, Sarah G. (ed.): Contact Languages. A wider perspective. 1997. 18. ESCURE, Genevieve: Creole and Dialect Continua. Standard acquisition processes in Belize and China (PRC). 1997. 19. SPEARS, Arthur K. and Donald WINFORD (eds): The Structure and Status of Pidgins and Creoles. 1997. 20. RICKFORD, John R. and Suzanne ROMAINE (eds.): Creole Genesis, Attitudes and Discourse. Studies celebrating Charlene J. Sato. 1999. 21. McWHORTER, John (ed.): Language Change and Language Contact in Pidgins and Creoles. 2000. 22. NEUMANN-HOLZSCHUH, Ingrid and Edgar W. SCHNEIDER (eds.): Degrees of Restructuring in Creole Languages. 2000. 23. SMITH, Norval and Tonjes VEENSTRA (eds.): Creolization and Contact. 2001.

24. MÜHLEISEN, Susanne: Creole Discourse. Exploring prestige formation and change across Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles. 2002. 25. MIGGE, Bettina: Creole Formation as Language Contact. The case of the Suriname Creoles. 2003.

Creole Discourse: Exploring Prestige Formation and Change Across Caribbean - English-lexicon Creoles (Creole Language Library)

Creole Formation as Language Contact: The Case of the Suriname Creoles (Creole Language Library)

Mbugu (Creole Language Library)

Exploring the Boundaries of Caribbean Creole Languages

Creoles, Contact, and Language Change: Linguistics and Social Implications (Creole Language Library)

Creolization and Contact (Creole Language Library)

Structure And Variation in Language Contact (Creole Language Library)

Creole Blues

Defining Creole

Kriyol Syntax: The Portuguese-based Creole Language of Guinea-bissau (Creole Language Library)

Kriyol syntax: the Portuguese-based Creole language of Guinea-Bissau (Creole Language Library)

Roots of Creole Structures: Weighing the contribution of substrates and superstrates (Creole Language Library)

Creole Identity in the French Caribbean Novel

Creole and Dialect Continua: Standard Acquisition Processes in Belize and China (Prc) (Creole Language Library)

Creole Fires

Creole Fires

Contact Languages: A Wider Perspective (Creole Language Library)

Noun Phrases in Creole Languages: A multi-faceted approach (Creole Language Library)

Contact languages: a wider perspective (Creole Language Library)

Haitian Creole English Dictionary

Deconstructing Creole (Typological Studies in Language)

Louisiana Rambles: Exploring America's Cajun and Creole Heartland

Louisiana Rambles: Exploring America's Cajun and Creole Heartland

Language Reclamation: French-creole Language Teaching in the U.K. and the Caribbean (Multilingual Matters, 106)

Settler and Creole Re-Enactment

Variation in the Caribbean: From creole continua to individual agency

Creole Economics: Caribbean Cunning under the French Flag

The Making of a Mixed Language: The Case of Ma'a Mbugu (Creole Language Library)

Language in exile: three hundred years of Jamaican Creole

The Emergence of Black English: Text and Commentary (Creole Language Library)

Creole Genesis and the Acquisition of Grammar: The Case of Haitian Creole (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics)

Creole Discourse: Exploring Prestige Formation and Change Across Caribbean - English-lexicon Creoles (Creole Language Library)

Creole Formation as Language Contact: The Case of the Suriname Creoles (Creole Language Library)

Mbugu (Creole Language Library)

Exploring the Boundaries of Caribbean Creole Languages

Creoles, Contact, and Language Change: Linguistics and Social Implications (Creole Language Library)

Creolization and Contact (Creole Language Library)

Structure And Variation in Language Contact (Creole Language Library)

Creole Blues

Defining Creole

Kriyol Syntax: The Portuguese-based Creole Language of Guinea-bissau (Creole Language Library)

Kriyol syntax: the Portuguese-based Creole language of Guinea-Bissau (Creole Language Library)

Roots of Creole Structures: Weighing the contribution of substrates and superstrates (Creole Language Library)

Creole Identity in the French Caribbean Novel

Creole and Dialect Continua: Standard Acquisition Processes in Belize and China (Prc) (Creole Language Library)

Creole Fires

Creole Fires

Contact Languages: A Wider Perspective (Creole Language Library)

Noun Phrases in Creole Languages: A multi-faceted approach (Creole Language Library)

Contact languages: a wider perspective (Creole Language Library)

Haitian Creole English Dictionary

Deconstructing Creole (Typological Studies in Language)

Louisiana Rambles: Exploring America's Cajun and Creole Heartland

Louisiana Rambles: Exploring America's Cajun and Creole Heartland

Language Reclamation: French-creole Language Teaching in the U.K. and the Caribbean (Multilingual Matters, 106)

Settler and Creole Re-Enactment

Variation in the Caribbean: From creole continua to individual agency

Creole Economics: Caribbean Cunning under the French Flag

The Making of a Mixed Language: The Case of Ma'a Mbugu (Creole Language Library)

Language in exile: three hundred years of Jamaican Creole

The Emergence of Black English: Text and Commentary (Creole Language Library)

Creole Genesis and the Acquisition of Grammar: The Case of Haitian Creole (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics)

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