Urban Jamaican Creole: Variation in the MesolectJohn Benjamins Publishing, 1999 M01 1 - 329 páginas A synchronic sociolinguistic study of Jamaican Creole (JC) as spoken in urban Kingston, this work uses variationist methods to closely investigate two key concepts of Atlantic Creole studies: the mesolect, and the creole continuum. One major concern is to describe how linguistic variation patterns with social influences. Is there a linguistic continuum? How does it correlate with social factors? The complex organization of an urbanizing Caribbean society and the highly variable nature of mesolectal speech norms and behavior present a challenge to sociolinguistic variation theory. The second chief aim is to elucidate the nature of mesolectal grammar. Creole studies have emphasized the structural integrity of basilectal varieties, leaving the status of intermediate mesolectal speech in doubt. How systematic is urban JC grammar? What patterns occur when basilectal creole constructions alternate with acrolectal English elements? Contextual constraints on choice of forms support a picture of the mesolect as a single grammar, variable yet internally-ordered, which has evolved a fine capacity to serve social functions. Drawing on a year's fieldwork in a mixed-class neighborhood of the capital city, the author (a speaker of JC) describes the speech community's history, demographics, and social geography, locating speakers in terms of their social class, occupation, education, age, sex, residence, and urban orientation. The later chapters examine a recorded corpus for linguistic variables that are phono-lexical (palatal glides), phonological (consonant cluster simplification), morphological (past-tense inflection), and syntactic (pre-verbal tense and aspect marking), using quantitative methods of analysis (including Varbrul). The Jamaican urban mesolect is portrayed as a coherent system showing stratified yet regular linguistic behavior, embedded in a well-defined speech community; despite the incorporation of forms and constraints from English, it is quintessentially creole in character. |
Contenido
CHAPTER | 3 |
The historical context of urban creole studies | 4 |
The use of quantitative analytical methods | 19 |
Description of Veeton | 37 |
Social class status and occupation | 50 |
Field Methods and Data Analysis | 65 |
The language attitude questionnaire and tests | 79 |
The African substrate | 93 |
Division of speakers into groups by overall verbinflection rate | 201 |
Social distribution of preverbal didneva | 209 |
Pastmarking of nonpunctual verbs for 4 speakers | 215 |
CHAPTER 7 | 223 |
Stativity and anteriority revisited | 228 |
Overall inflection rates by morphological category all speakers | 231 |
Four analyses of interaction in constraints on nonsyllabic verbs | 239 |
Inflection across the mesolect | 241 |
Variation of KYA across the community | 106 |
CHAPTER 5 | 121 |
Types of consonant clusters in JC | 134 |
Principal questions and procedures for the Veeton study | 139 |
Intersecting variable processes | 152 |
Comparative studies of TDdeletion | 162 |
Unity versus lectal variety across the creole continuum | 165 |
Anterior tensemarking in Guyanese Creole basilect | 180 |
A discourse account | 181 |
The use of ben in Veeton | 194 |
Inflection rates of major verb classes 4 Caribbean creoles | 245 |
Inflection rates of major verb classes 3 English SLA varieties | 252 |
Stativity punctuality inflection and the verb have | 256 |
Inflection rates of have statives and nonstatives by group | 258 |
Creole and English translation tasks | 269 |
Social dimensions of variation in a creole continuum | 284 |
References | 297 |
321 | |
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Términos y frases comunes
AAVE acrolect African analysis areas basilectal Bickerton 1975 Bigga Caribbean Caribbean English Chapter clause-type clauses clusters code-switching consonant constraints contrast creole continuum Creole Languages creole speech community creolists decreolization deletion dialects did/neva Dinah distinct factors Figure forms glide grammar Gullyside Guyanese Guyanese Creole inflection interview irrealis irregular Jamaican Creole Jamaican English Kingston Labov language lexical linguistic linguistic variation marking Matty mesolect middle-class Mufwene narrative neva Noel non-statives nonsyllabic norms occur Opal overall past verbs past-marking past-reference Patrick patterns Patwa phonological Pidgin and Creole Poplack pre-verbal markers predictions punctual quantitative regular verbs Rickford Rickford 1986d Rose Roxy rural Samaná sample Sankoff segment semi-weak verbs Singler social sociolinguistic speech community standard English stative verbs status suffix syllabic Table Tagliamonte Tamas TD)-absence TD)-deletion temporal tense tokens unmarked urban Varbrul variable variationist varieties Veeton speakers verb classes verb inflection vernacular vowel Winford