For my research paper, I will be analyzing videos that show what the perception of Trinidadian creole is but also how it plays a role on the individuals who are native speakers and they are receiving criticism and their inputs on wanting to preserve their culture. One of the outside essays I will be using in my paper is “Trinidad English Creole orthography: Language Enregisterment and communicative practices in a new media society” by Solange Anduze James. In James essay, she analyzes the impact and the perception of Trinidadian Creole. In James opinion, she believes that the internet can be used as a platform to eliminate the stereotypes about the creole language. In that sense I can’t but help to disagree with the claim James is making. I believe that the internet becomes an outlet for individuals to more openly voice their opinions on certain languages. In the videos or data, I’ve collected the commenters has no problem voicing their opinions whether positive or negative. The ability of choice to discriminate against a language is something the internet now provides. In one of the videos I chose with the talk show “Loose Women,” we see a panel of white women sharing their opinion on why immigrants should conform to the language of the land they are moving too. In this videos, it goes against what James mentions in her essay and proves the way the internet becomes a way for individuals to voice their opinions without caring what others may have to say because you have the ability to either ignore comments or completely turn off comments.
Author: Alisia Yassin
Blog Post #3
The reason I decided to chose Bahamian creole because it was one of the smaller countries in the Caribbean that I’ve always wanted to know more about. Bahamian creole has over 250k native speakers according to apics. Through my research, the Bahamian creole was related back to the Gullah language in both phonological, lexical and grammatical features. Finding research on Bahamian creole was not the easiest. When I kept trying to look for research it was easier to find research where the creole was briefly mentioned. These were some of the links I was able to find:
- Shilling, Alison. Bahamian English- A Non-Continuum? University of Hawaii and College of the Bahamas. (1975) https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=4QF7sFLlFi0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA133&dq=bahamian+dialect&ots=FQiRQoDDwc&sig=Tk8t1DZ5p9YCOTUYumFXt4h8qs4#v=onepage&q=bahamian%20dialect&f=false
2) Atlas Of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures Online
http://apics-online.info/contributions/12#tsociolinguistic
3) Hackert, Stephanie. Urban Bahamian Creole: System and Variation. 2004
4) Shilling, Watt Alison. 1977. Some Non-Standard Feature of Bahamian Dialect Syntax.https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10125/9912/1/uhm_phd_7903501_r.pdf
5) Avram, Andrei. Diagnostic Feature of English-Lexifier Creoles: A New Look at Bahamian http://bwpl.unibuc.ro/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/BWPL_2013_1_Avram.pdf
6) Oenbring, Raymond. Young Adult’s Attitudes to Standard and Non Standard English in an English-Creole Speaking Country: The Bahamas.
7)McPhee, Helean. Contact Englishes of the Eastern Caribbean. 2003. (29)
8) Donnelly L. Janet. Basilectal Features of Bahamian Creole English. 2008 http://journals.sfu.ca/cob/index.php/files/article/view/28/25
Trinidad Creole: Does the creole language enhance stereotypes.
For years stereotypes about individuals from the Caribbean have grown. Outsiders tend to view the Caribbean as “backwards”. The search for authenticity can stem from the whether or not the creator of the music or skit comes from the country and how they chose to display it. Stereotypes can be the reason for the downfall of how a culture is viewed in the world. For my final project, I will be closely analyzing the lyrics of soca music and skits performed in the Creole language. While observing these videos I will also be looking at the responses people have as certain songs and what they view as authentic to the culture. For the skits, I will closely analyze how the creators of the skits highlight the stereotypes of the culture and how their audience responses to it.
Research Questions:
1)How do commenters on social media react to Trinidian skits and soca music?
2)What defines authenticity in Trinidad creole? How do the music and skits alter the perception of it?
3)How does highlighting stereotypes in skits hurt the messages about the culture being put out to the world?
Some links to videos I will use:
Protected: Essay #2
Blog Post #4
My main contribution to the Trinidadian Creole site was to focus on how Trinidadian creole is used in music, literature and in the media. I narrowed in my research on how the creole language is used and what language class the media and literature fell into. Through my research I came across interesting findings on the lack of creole used within the media and the limited amount in literature; the music seemed to be the only time the dialect was used. To learn more in-depth about the impact Trinidadian creole has on the media, literature and music head over to our page to read more!
Protected: Bahamian Creole Profile
Blog post #2 Sebba
Diglossia-
- the coexistence of two varieties of the same language throughout a speech community. Often, one form is the literary or prestige dialect, and the other is a common dialect spoken by most of the population.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/diglossia
- Diglossia refers to a situation where two linguistic varieties coexist within a given speech community. One variety, labeled the ‘high variety’, is used in formal domains including education, while the other variety, labeled the ‘low variety’, is used principally in instances of informal extemporaneous communication
Inflection-
- : the change of form that words undergo to mark such distinctions as those of case, gender, number, tense, person, mood, or voice
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inflection
- a change in a word form or ending to show a difference in the word’s meaning or use
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/inflection
Lingua Franca-
- any of various languages used as common or commercial tongues among peoples of diverse speech
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lingua%20franca
- language used as a means of communication between populations speaking vernaculars that are not mutually intelligible.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/lingua-franca
While researching the three definitions I chose; I realized that there were multiple definitions for many of them. Some definitions seemed brief or rather short compared to others. Diglossia was the most interesting definition I found especially because the word itself spiked an interest. However, the one thing I noticed with multiple definitions I viewed had in common which was social class. Social class has a large impact one many aspect of the world and after reading so many definition; even language can impact what language can be used in specific social classes.
Alisia Yassin
Hey guys! My is Alisia Yassin. I’m currently a senior hopefully graduating this year and my major is English. I am one of five kids, and would be the second one in my family to graduate. I was born and raised in Queens, New York. My plans after graduation are still undecided; however I would like to pursue my dream of being a teacher if possible.
The language I commonly use is English. This is the language I was raised with. Although English is my first language in certain scenarios like around family and at home I use a variety of English known as Guyanese creole. Guyanese creole often times can be mistaken for “broken English”, because at times the speech and text can be difficult to understand for instance if I was to say “Aye ah how ayuh do?”, the translation for this is hey how are you doing?; to those who you use standardized English this would seem weird or couldn’t be recognized and definitely considered backwards which is a common assumption placed on the language variety .
