Historical separations
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Renee Blake
Abstract
It is not uncommon to hear Barbadians speak of their existence in terms of the aphorism, “All O’ We Is One,” implying a shared culture and identity. However, this national discourse of oneness is oftentimes contradicted by the sociohistorical discourses and realities of racial separation. In this paper, I discuss divided racial and class boundaries from sociohistorical, demographic and contemporary perspectives on Barbados. I investigate how these perspectives factor into linguistic outcomes regarding the English-related creole, Bajan, in a post-colonial, racially mixed, working-class community. A quantitative sociolinguistic analysis of several morphosyntactic features, including present and past tense copula variability and tense/aspect marking, indicate that black and white populations, despite a perceived ideology of difference, speak the local vernacular in a typically creole manner. The notion of speaker identity and agency, advanced by Singler (2006, 2008) in theorizing creole genesis (cf. Baker 1995), underlies the arguments put forth in this paper.
Abstract
It is not uncommon to hear Barbadians speak of their existence in terms of the aphorism, “All O’ We Is One,” implying a shared culture and identity. However, this national discourse of oneness is oftentimes contradicted by the sociohistorical discourses and realities of racial separation. In this paper, I discuss divided racial and class boundaries from sociohistorical, demographic and contemporary perspectives on Barbados. I investigate how these perspectives factor into linguistic outcomes regarding the English-related creole, Bajan, in a post-colonial, racially mixed, working-class community. A quantitative sociolinguistic analysis of several morphosyntactic features, including present and past tense copula variability and tense/aspect marking, indicate that black and white populations, despite a perceived ideology of difference, speak the local vernacular in a typically creole manner. The notion of speaker identity and agency, advanced by Singler (2006, 2008) in theorizing creole genesis (cf. Baker 1995), underlies the arguments put forth in this paper.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgments vii
- Introduction 1
-
Part 1. The sociohistorical matrix of language contact
- Population factors, multilingualism and the emergence of grammar 23
- The African diaspora in Latin America 49
- The sociohistorical matrix of creolization and the role children played in this process 79
- Creole as necessity? Creole as choice? 101
- Bahamian Creole English 123
- Linguistic commonality in English of the African diaspora 145
- Historical separations 177
-
Part 2. Sources of grammar and processes of language contact
- Some observations on the sources of AAVE structure 203
- Unity in diversity 225
- Krio as the Western Maroon Creole language of Jamaica, and the /na/ isogloss 251
- Number marking in Jamaican Patwa 275
- Variationist creolistics, with a phonological focus 305
- Pidginization versus second language acquisition 323
- Crosslinguistic effects in adjectivization strategies in Suriname, Ghana and Togo 343
- Author index 363
- Language index 365
- Subject index 367
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgments vii
- Introduction 1
-
Part 1. The sociohistorical matrix of language contact
- Population factors, multilingualism and the emergence of grammar 23
- The African diaspora in Latin America 49
- The sociohistorical matrix of creolization and the role children played in this process 79
- Creole as necessity? Creole as choice? 101
- Bahamian Creole English 123
- Linguistic commonality in English of the African diaspora 145
- Historical separations 177
-
Part 2. Sources of grammar and processes of language contact
- Some observations on the sources of AAVE structure 203
- Unity in diversity 225
- Krio as the Western Maroon Creole language of Jamaica, and the /na/ isogloss 251
- Number marking in Jamaican Patwa 275
- Variationist creolistics, with a phonological focus 305
- Pidginization versus second language acquisition 323
- Crosslinguistic effects in adjectivization strategies in Suriname, Ghana and Togo 343
- Author index 363
- Language index 365
- Subject index 367
