Language, Code, and Symbol: The Changing Roles of Jamaican Creole in Diaspora Communities

Abstract

For the majority of Jamaicans resident in the island Jamaican Creole (locally also known as patois or patwah) has always been the language used most unselfconsciously in their daily activities. In terms of self-perception, and expert linguist arguments to the contrary notwithstanding, the mass of Creole-speaking Jamaicans have nevertheless considered themselves to be members of the world-wide community of English speakers and developed a speech continuum spanning the whole range of varieties from archaic and rural (basilectal) patois to (acrolectal) educated standard English. In many diaspora communities the Caribbean Creoles brought by the immigrants have not withered away but stabilised in somewhat reduced and simplified form. Thus, Mark Sebba (1993) has described London Jamaican linguistically and explored its function as an optional we-code available to English-born descendants of Afro-Caribbean immigrant stock in addition to their native British English vernaculars, and Ben Rampton (1995) has shown how a Creole simplified even further has come to symbolise various types of hybrid identities among young people in the white community. Building on this work, I will discuss the role of written Jamaican Creole in computer-mediated communication (diasporic cyberspace?) - currently the focus of a major research project in Freiburg - and compare and contrast current sociolinguistic reality with the representation of Creole in recent London novels by Diran Adebayo and Zadie Smith.

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