Dimensions of style and register in Jamaican Creole

Peter Patrick

Sun. 9-10:40 B

Sociolinguists generally define notions of language style and register primarily as sets of linguistic features, which happen to have "simple social correlate[s, e.g.] formality" in the case of style (Chambers 1995: 5). Registers are distinguished by differences in vocabulary, while also being "typically concerned with variation in language conditioned by uses rather than users and involv[ing] consideration of the situation or context of use" (Romaine 1994: 20). Styles, though rarely explicitly defined, consist of co-varying sets of optional features that may be phonological, morphological, syntactic (e.g., the English sociolinguistic variables (TH), (ING), or the get-passive) or lexical-- in the latter case overlapping the definition of register. These sets are ranged on a formality continuum which presumably also applies to other areas of socially-evaluated behavior (dress, bearing). This tradition of investigating symbolic speech variation differs from that of anthropological linguistics or the ethnography of communication, which primarily focuses on 'ways of speaking' (including styles and registers) as expressing particular social functions, events, or relationships; though it also includes linguistic description.

Notions of style and register have been only lightly explored in pidgin and creole linguistics. Most surveys only mention them in connection with theories hypothesizing origins in a simplified register or foreigner talk (e.g., Arends, Muysken & Smith 1994), or in connection with questions of standardization (Devonish 1986, Shields 1989); a few socially-oriented variationist studies consider them in the first sense described above (Rickford 1987).

This study compares and distinguishes the structure and use of particular varieties of Jamaican Patwa, an English-related creole. Speaky-Spoky (Patrick 1992, Patrick & McElhinny 1993) is a speech style characterized by use of phonological variables drawn from a foreign standard variety: initial /#h/-insertion and the substitution of rounded /oh/ for JC /a/ serve as linguistic claims to social prestige for their speakers. Rasta Talk (Pollard 1982, Patrick & Payne-Jackson) is a register characterized by lexical choice, morphological mutation rules, and rhetorical strategy: terms of Rastafarian origin and association index a set of cultural themes, which serve to empower and identify speakers with a range of rhetorical positions familiar to Jamaicans.

Speaky-Spoky and Rasta Talk are considered as functional codes which share certain properties. Their structural linguistic features are minimal, simple, salient and productive. Both are compatible with, but distinguishable from, other codes fulfilling similar sorts of social functions. They are available to a wide user-base, specifying few social or linguistic prerequisites. Finally, they invoke, and facilitate speakers' positioning on, social dimensions which are widely-recognized and important to Jamaican society.

References

Arends, J., P. Muysken & N. Smith, eds. 1994. Pidgins and creoles: An introduction. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Pub. Co.

Chambers, J. K. 1995. Sociolinguistic theory: Linguistic variation and its social significance. Cambridge MA: Basil Blackwell.

Devonish, H. 1986. Language and liberation: Creole language politics in the Caribbean. London: Karia Press.

Patrick, P.L. 1992. Linguistic variation in urban Jamaican Creole: A sociolinguistic study of Kingston, Jamaica. Univ. of Pennsylvania dissertation in Linguistics.

Patrick, P. & B. McElhinny. 1993. Speakin' and Spokin' in Jamaica: Conflict and consensus in Sociolinguistics. In Proceedings of the 19th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: 280-290.

Patrick, P. & A. Payne-Jackson. Functions of Rasta Talk in a Jamaican Creole healing narrative: 'A bigfoot dem gi mi.' Submitted to Journal of Linguistic Anthropology.

Pollard, V. 1982. Social history of Dread Talk. Caribbean Quarterly 28(4): 17-40.

Rickford, J.R. 1987. Dimensions of a creole continuum. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.

Romaine, S. 1994. Language in society: An introduction to sociolinguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Shields, K. 1989. Standard English in Jamaica: A case of competing models. English Worldwide 10(1): 41-53.