239569 Language Variation in the Caribbean (S) (WiSe 2011/2012)

This class intends to introduce students to the varied history and its linguistic consequences as well as to present (socio-)linguistic situations of one of the most interesting and heterogeneous regions of the anglophone world. More than three hundred years of English in this region, side by side with other European, West African and even indigenous languages, have led to a variety of speech forms and language contact phenomena, which stretch from a ‘Caribbean Standard English’ to language varieties known as ‘Creoles’.
In this class, we will thus look at the colonial past with plantations and slave trade, we will then discuss major theoretical issues in the study of Creole languages and outline some of their major formal features. We will also look at the socio-linguistic situations in some of the Caribbean islands in more detail before we can go on to discuss the use of various speech forms in literature, film, popular music and in the educational system. This will eventually lead us to the use of Caribbean speech forms outside of the Caribbean in urban centres of Britain and North America.

Bibliography

A reader with the required reading assignments for each session will be made available before start of term. Please make sure to get your personal copy before our first meeting.