English in the Caribbean
English in the Caribbean
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This book presents an in-depth study of English as spoken in two major anglophone Caribbean territories, Jamaica and Trinidad. Based on data from the International Corpus of English, it focuses on variation at the morphological and syntactic level between the educated standard and more informal educated spoken usage. Dagmar Deuber combines quantitative analyses across several text categories with qualitative analyses of transcribed text passages that are grounded in interactional sociolinguistics and recent approaches to linguistic style and identity. The discussion is situated in the context of variation in the Caribbean and the wider context of world Englishes, and the sociolinguistic background of Jamaica and Trinidad is also explored. This volume will be of interest to students and researchers interested in the fields of sociolinguistics, world Englishes, and language contact.
- Provides a detailed and comparative analysis of English as spoken in two major anglophone Caribbean territories
- Offers comparisons with other varieties of English world-wide and places findings in the broader context of world Englishes
- Provides information on the sociolinguistic background of Jamaica and Trinidad and explores language use in social interaction
Reviews & endorsements
'Corpus linguistics meets sociolinguistics meets creole studies: this thorough study offers fresh perspectives on the intricacies and interdependencies of standards, styles, variability and the creole continuum in Jamaica and Trinidad.' Edgar W. Schneider, University of Regensburg
'This book is a groundbreaking contribution to our understanding of the complex relationships between style, linguistic variation, and emergent standards in the more formal spoken English of Jamaica and Trinidad.' Donald Winford, Ohio State University
Product details
March 2014Adobe eBook Reader
9781139898669
0 pages
0kg
26 b/w illus. 1 map 32 tables
This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
Table of Contents
- 1. Introduction
- 2. The background and context of English in Jamaica and Trinidad
- 3. The sociolinguistics of style and the Creole continuum
- 4. Data and methodology
- 5. Style in Jamaican English: analysis of conversations
- 6. Style and standard in Trinidadian English: analysis of four text categories
- 7. The modal verbs can/could and will/would in Caribbean and other varieties of English
- 8. Conclusion.
