230166 English in the Caribbean (BS) (SoSe 2012)

Nowadays, linguists and educators resort to the term Englishes to account for varieties of English spoken in diverse regions across the globe. Indeed, diversity is manifest from continent to continent as well as well within a single territory. The Caribbean region is of particular interest for a number of reasons. For one thing, the linguistic diversity of the Caribbean poses enormous challenges in language education since each Caribbean territory has a vernacular co-existing with the official language. Moreover, the stories of English in the Caribbean are closely entwined with those of creolization and have heightened our awareness and understanding of the development of language and language acquisition.
The course will examine the historical, linguistic and social forces that have influenced linguistic outcomes in the English-speaking Caribbean. We will identify and analyse linguistic practices in the Caribbean through cognitive and syntactic perspectives. More specifically, although reference will be made to the widely documented Jamaican and Trinidadian varieties of English, we will draw data from English usage in lesser studied territories, namely the Commonwealth of Dominica and St Vincent and the Grenadines. We will also study morpho-phonological and syntactic features compared to the ‘parent language(s)’. Some discussion will hinge on the degree of innovation identifiable in these variations.