Creole plays an important role in these stories that we have read. It gives it am identity and it shows us readers the cultural values and lets us have a better understanding of the literature. Also when the creole part is being read it brings out the characters role in the story. Two short stories that we have read in class that I would like to discuss is “Do Angels Wear Brasseires” by Oliver Senior and “Canada Geese and Apple Chatney” by Sasenarine Persaud. Oliver’s story is in Jamaican creole and Sasenarine’s story is in guyanese creole.  I chose these two texts because I thought they were very interesting to read. I thought they were both similar in a way. Even though one was Jamaican creole and the other was Guyanese creole both had a few similar terms. Also both writes did switch from creole to standard English when it was needed. It wasn’t perfect standard English, but it was understandable. Oliver’s story seemed a bit more standardized than Sasenarines.  

In Oliver’s story, the story focuses on Becca who is always gaining information. She studies the bible but not for religious reasons like her aunt but instead to use the bible knowledge against her aunt. In the story Oliver emphasize on the importance of Archdeacon, an Englishman. That is because it is shown how Aunt Mary does everything just to get the approval of the Archdeacon. Getting the approval is important to Aunt Mary because she wants to be able to impress the Englishman. She was cleaning everything, trying to make everything look nice just to be approved by the standard english culture.

In this story there are many times when the characters and narrator is using different types of dialects. The character Becca speaks in three types of dialects which were acrolect, mesolect and basilect. When Becca speaks to the Englishman she uses acrolect, because that is when it is close to standard english, “What did Adam and Eve do when they were driven out of the garden.” When Becca speaks to the other characters in the story she uses the other “lects”. Through out the story Oliver shows a difference between Becca and the other women in the story. That is because in the story Becca is seen being able to communicate with the Englishman through acrolect, (somewhat standard english) but the other women are only shown speaking in creole. In the story when they are speaking creole there are many words that are similar to english words but are used in different context. “Tek weh mi”, when I read that I’m able to tell it is says “take away me” through how it sounds when I say it even thought it is spelt and pronounced differently from standard english form.

In Sasenarine’s story, we see how immigrants, guyanese in particular in this story face when they come to a new country. This story shows how when people come from their home country they look for a familirity in the new country that will remind them of their homeland. In the story instead of making the traditional mango chatney like they would back in Guyana, they made it with green apples. Sasenarine’s uses a lot of strong dialogues to develop his character. His story represented how people felt when they come to a new place. I thought the “Writerji” part was interesting that is because “ji” means a form of respect and Sasenarine shows that the writer is being respected by putting the “ji” after writer.

What I noticed while reading was the words “dhem”, “dhat”, “dhey” and “dhe”. They are spelt out to be the way it is heard, instead of “th” like standard english it is “dh”. What I also notice in both stories was the word “you” being changed in many different spellings. For example in Sasenarine’s story, “I tell yuh, times were rough,” and “I ain’t gat no wuk yet, you know.” Also in many of the words the letter “o” gets changed to an “a”. For example the word “anybody” got changed to “anybady”, “got” to “gat”, “not” to “nat”. Even the spelling of “chutney” is “chatney” instead. It is interesting to see how many of the word spellings change and how the words are placed in the sentences in creole.

Both authors even though do not use standard english form they are able to successfully give these characters a voice that portrays Jamaican creole and guyanese creole. The characters in both stories express their culture through their language. The characters all move on a  continuum. In both stories it is also shown how characters have to switch their dialect around according to the audience. Just like when Becca switched up her “lect” to communicate with the Englishman. These characters kept switching up. The spoke to outsiders in a way that was more “acceptable”. If they didn’t speak in an “acceptable” way it would be seen as not being educated enough. This is seen in general, people always tend to speak in a different way in front of family than in a educational, business, etc environment. Through their language they want to show how educated they are. It is seen as such a big deal to what is standard or what is the appropriate way to speak. Proper english is seen as such a high status, just like how Aunt Mary wanted to be accepted by the Englishman in Oliver’s story because that Englishman had a high status. As I have already mentioned, Jamaican and Guyanese creole have many similarities. I believe the one main similarity is how both of these creoles have the same phonology and they are spelt the way they sound. Through both stories the authors show us readers cultural value. Though creole is seen as “broken english” and not “appropriate”, it is still used by many people to communicate and to express themselves, because these two authors uses creole in their stories we were able to understand the characters more.

Work Cited:

Senior, Olive. “Do Angels Wear Brassieres?” Kunapipi, 8(2), 1986. Available at:http://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol8/iss2/3

Persaud, Sasenarine. “Canada Geese and Apple Chatney”.

 

Francesca Adonis

Professor Garley

ENG 470

Literature has subtle ways of providing insight and a deeper understanding of a language or culture. Earl Lovelace’s short story “Joebell & America” and Olive Senior’s “Do Angels Wear Brassieres” sheds light on some of the ways that English-lexified Creole varieties are similar across countries and how culture differentiates them. Lovelace’s short story incorporates a Trinidadian creole variety of English about Joebell’s attempt to migrate to America. Whereas Senior’s text includes a Jamaican English variety to tell the story of Beccka’s relationship with the people around her and her path in defying the societal expectations established for a young girl. I chose these specific short stories because I found the context of both to be quite amusing. Both texts use a variety of standardized orthography coupled with phonological features associated with either Trinidadian creole or Jamaican creole.

The linguistic features of Lovelace’s short story are far more standardized than Senior’s short story. One aspect that is consistent throughout “Joebell & America” is the lack of verb-tense agreement. The first of many examples can be found in the first sentence where it states “Joebell find that he seeing too much hell in Trinidad so he make up his mind to leave and go away” (Lovelace 2). The verbs “find” and “make” are not agreeing with their subject “he”. There are no suffixes present that could indicate verb agreement like it would in standard English. Mark Sebba’s chapter on “Contact Languages” reminds us that one morphological feature of a Pidgin or creole language is that there are “very few or no inflections, e.g. no morphologically marked number (singular/plural), case (subject/object), tense, gender or grammatical agreement” (Sebba 39). Another example where the subject does not correspond with the verb states, “Joebell have a record” but the most interesting aspect of the sentence is that as the sentence goes on there are no grammatical errors. In continuation of the previous example Lovelace states “and for him to get a passport he must first get a letter from the police to say he is of good character” (Lovelace 3). Although verb tense is consistently inconsistent throughout the short story, the Trinidadian creole variety aspects shows up in more subtle ways. For example, Lovelace states “leave and go away” which is a repetitive statement that would not normally be used in standard English because it uses different words to state the same concept. Another similar example that Lovelace provides as it relates to repetition states “but the police pardner who he had working on the matter keep telling him to come back and come back and come back” (Lovelace 3). Although this sentence can be considered repetitive it is different from the previous example. In standard English, words and phrases are often repeated for emphasis and in this example, this is the case. Lastly Lovelace states “Fellars’ eyes open big big that night when they see Joebell heading for the poker room” (Lovelace 3). In this example, the word big is repeated twice instead of it being modified by an adverb. This is another feature of a creole variety where adverbs are not included to modify adjectives or verbs. This shows how creole languages are a true variety and that standard English features can be represented in multiple ways. overall this text has more standardized orthographical and syntactic features associated with standard English. As the story progresses the English variety used is similar to African American English vernacular rather than a Trinidadian English variety. Lovelace does not legitimize Trinidadian creole because the text does not accurately represent the features of the language. It can be inferred that he prefers standard English and he modeled his story in a way that readers know which language he thinks is superior.

However, in Senior’s “Do Angels Wear Brassieres” there are more informal orthographical instances when Senior uses direct quotes for the characters in the story; whereas the language features in Lovelace’s short story is more consistent even with direct quotes from the characters. Senior states “Beccka vex that anybody could interrupt her private conversation with God so, say loud loud” (Senior 1) The same aspect of repetition is present in this Jamaican creole text where adverbs are not included to modify the adjective, which is a feature across many English-lexified creole language varieties. but other than that, the sentence seems to follow the rules of standard English grammar. As the story goes on Beccka states, “No. Not praying for nobody that tek weh mi best glassy eye marble” (Senior 1). Senior creates a voice for Beccka and the other characters in the story through their usage of Jamaican creole.  He legitimizes this English-lexified creole variety by intertwining it into his short story unlike Lovelace. Even someone who is not familiar with Jamaican creole can completely understand all aspects of the text despite the direct quotes that is included. Although there are some idioms specific to each text, the reader is still able to understand the literal meaning. Senior makes the text accessible to all readers which is one of the ways that he shows readers that he can navigate through the creole continuum with ease. One aspect that is similar for both stories is that there are sayings specific to each culture. Some examples include “Is like a stick break in Joebell two ears, he don’t hear a word she have to say” (Lovelace 5). This saying is not common to American culture which is a subtle distinction that provides the reader with an understanding of Trinidadian thoughts and sayings. Whereas Senior uses this saying, “Fat Katie have a lot of time to walk bout consoling because ever since hard time catch her son and him wife a town they come country to cotch with Katie” (Senior 2). Not only is this saying not common to American culture, it would be explained in a different way. This short story expresses the author’s voice in this English lexified creole language, he does this through the direct quotes from the characters in the story.

 

Works Cited

Lovelace, Earl. “Joebell and America”. Caribbean Beat Magazine, 23 Feb. 2018, www.caribbean-beat.com/issue-10/earl-lovelaces-joebell-and-ameica#axzz59yqMyMLy.

Sebba, Mark.  “Contact languages Pidgins and Creoles” Ch.2

Senior, Olive. “Do Angels Wear Brassieres”. Kunapipi, 8(2), 1986.  Available at http://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol8/iss2/3

The use of a creole in literature can serve many purposes. The language can help to aid in giving some depth and contrast between characters. It can also help to establish the setting and cultural values of the story in which those characters reside. In our readings this semester, we have learned to analyze these creoles for their various aspects and determine what impact the use of a creole language has on a text. In the two texts that are being analyzed in this essay, the creoles are used in different ways and accomplish different goals but the author’s choice to use creole language is integral the story.

Olive Senior’s short story, “Do Angels Wear Brasseires,” is a story that is written in Jamaican Creole, while Jan Carew’s story, “Tilson Ezekiel Alias Ti-Zek,” is written using Guyanese Creole. I chose these two stories because they show off a varying use of the creoles. Senior elects to write the entire story in the creole, narration and dialogue. Carew, however, chooses to keep the narration in Standard English and only use the creole for dialogue. This is a purely literary choice but beneath the surface, this choice has a influence on how the voices of the characters in the novel are perceived, especially when you take into account the audience that is interpreting the book. By switching from the creole to Standard English, Carew is implicitly acknowledging the difference in prestige of the languages. The author is consciously deciding that, for the story to move along, the use of Standard English is necessary. This choice seems to look down on the creole as something that is only good for talking amongst characters but the power of the omniscient narrator necessitates the use of the lexifier and nothing below it, like the basilectal voices of some characters in the story.

This sentiment is reflected in the story, as well, between characters of different social classes. Ti-Zek, the burglar, and The Inspector, a law enforcement officer, speak very differently. When talking to Ram, Ti-Zek says, “Don’t mek sport. You’ brain an’ you’ frame too slow to keep up with me, pardner” (Carew 618). The author chooses to write the dialogue for Ti-Zek by spelling his speech phonetically. He alters certain words to reflect that actual sound that Ti-Zek is making rather than just using the appropriate signifier for what he trying to say. Words like “mek” and “pardner,” despite being obviously “make” and “partner,” are edited to imbue the character with something to be identified as. This is not just a man, but a man who speaks in a Guyanese Creole dialect. This is a stark contrast to the speech of the Inspector who says, “Come, come, Roberts, old man, a black man and an Indian joining forces to rob a notable landowner? No, sir, that’s politics” (623). The language used by the Inspector is closer to the acrolect and closer to the language of the narrator which gives more prestige to his language, and his character. His language is never phonetically spelled, and the orthography is never edited to denote the creole. This could be seen by some as meaning that his mode of speaking is proper and may shine a light of inferiority on the language of Ti-Zek. Pieter Muysken writes in an article on creole languages that “most regions in which they are spoken are not very wealthy, and there often is an upper class in those regions which speaks something other than the creole” (Muysken 1). This dichotomy is the writing of dialogue and narration does more than characterize Ti-Zek, it also functions to set these characters in their proper places on the socioeconomic ladder of the story. Without overtly revealing their positions in society, Carew is able categorize the characters via the lect that they speak in and its distance from the omniscient narrator who represents the acrolect.

On the other hand, Senior’s story sits around a mesolectal standard for the entirety of the story. The dialogue and narration run along similar lines. This removes any implicit notions about the characters that may arise when there is a difference between the two. Rather than making the narration a tool for characterization, Senior relies solely on the words and actions of his characters. While Carew defines his characters by how they say things, Senior is more concerned with what they are actually saying.

This is most easily identified in the choices that Beccka makes in her speech in the story. The story opens with Beccka speaking in a creole that Senior chooses to spell phonetically. The entirety of the story is written in the creole but there is extra care taken in showing how Beccka speaks in her home environment. She says that she will not pray “for nobody that tek weh mi best glassy eye marble” (Senior 1). The spelling of “take” as “tek and “way” as “weh” put an emphasis on the fact that Beccka is speaking in a certain manner and draws the attention of the reader to her speech. This is proven by scanning the article and finding that, when not used in dialogue, Senior elects to spell “take” and “way” in the Standard English. This illustrates his choice to use the dialogue to characterize Beccka, as opposed to Carew characterizing through expectations that are caused by the difference between the dialogue and narration. This phonetic spelling merely insinuates that she has an accent and does not lead the reader to assume that she is of a lower prestige, like the Carew piece does.

This can be further examined he Beccka’s interaction with the priest. Her speech changes to an acrolect and gets much closer to the lexifier. This shows that the speech of the characters in this story are a choice that they make rather than an intrinsic characteristic. In Carew’s piece, the speech of the character is a part of them and a defining trait. This is especially so when viewed against the backdrop of the Standard English narration. In Senior’s piece however, the speech of the characters are altered situationally and that gives the characters a bit more agency and make them more fleshed out rather than just tropes of the accent that they are prescribed to. One example of Beccka’s change in speech comes from her questioning of the Archdeacon. She asks “What did Adam and Eve do when they were driven out of the garden?” and “Who is the shortest man,” but in this instance her language is much closer to Standard English. This proves that language prestige is a thing and it is used in a performative manner, as opposed to being a part of who the character is (Senior 7). The Archdeacon also calls Beccka, “my dear child.” (Senior 6). This is a stark contrast to the “mi” that Beccka uses in her earlier quote, as opposed to “my.” This difference in use is indicative of the choices that are made in speech and how it is affected by the situation, environment and people that you are talking to in the story that Senior has crafted.

The choices by these authors show the level of hidden messages that can be laid in the disparity between the narration and the dialogue. Differences between the two and how the two are written can lead audiences and readers to subscribe to different beliefs about the characters and ultimately affect how the story is interpreted. Disparity between narration and dialogue leads to inferences about the characters and the distance with which their speech relates to the narration can negatively influence the characteristics of a character and relegate them to a social status without overtly saying it. This tool allows for a multilayered description of a character that does not need to be seen in the text, but rather absorbed via the subtext.

Works Cited

Senior, Olive, Do Angels Wear Brassieres?, Kunapipi, 8(2), 1986.

Muysken, Pieter. (2016) – Creole Languages. The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics.

Carew, Jan. 1985. Tilson Ezekiel Alias Ti-Zek. New England Review and Bread Loaf Quarterly, 7.4, 617-626.

Sanjida Khatun

Professor Garley

Eng. 470

29th March 2018

Creole Languages

            The two short stories I chose to focus on are “ Do Angels Wear Brassieres?” by Olive Senior, and “The Waiting Room” by Zoila Ellis. Senior wrote her story in Jamaican creole, and Ellis in Belizean Creole. Both stories show language learning because the authors show how they navigate between their creole language and Standard English as well as the ways they use the languages. Senior’s story is written more in Jamaican creole, but slowly becomes standardized. Sebba states “ language learning is an activity that takes place after the learner has acquired a first language. Its outcome is much less certain. Learners may progress to the point where they have native-like command of the new language…or may learn only a few words or phrases, poorly pronounced” (55). Language learning is the process of gaining competence. Senior and Ellis both show different ways they learned Standard Language, according to Sebba, he states “ the outcome will depend on a large number of factors, including exposure to the target language”(55). It is evident that Senior chose to write in her native language, and only used Standard English when necessary, while Ellis had more exposure to Standard English. Although, both are using English-lexified creole, Senior’s piece uses more Jamaican creole rather than Standard English that allows it to keep its authenticity to the creole language. Ellis’s piece is written more in Standard English, and distances itself from its English lexified creole promoting the legitimacy of Standard English.

Although the authors are different both represent the creole in their writing. Most of the time creole words they chose to use in their stories are written by how it sounds rather than how words are written in Standard English. Creole languages such as Jamaican creole, and Belizean authors often write words by the way it sounds which is the phonology. In Jamaican creole the non-standard orthography represents the creole phonology. The writing in Senior’s story reflects the sound of language. For example the narrator says “A hear her already’ — this is the righteous voice of Auntie Mary in the next room”(1). In this line rather than spelling “I” in the singular form in Standard English, it is written “a” that is pronounced “ah”.  The word is written differently but the writing of the word is still understandable and has the same meaning. The only difference is that it shows a phonetic representation. The verb “ hear” in this sentence shows how Jamaican creole has no verb inflection, and this is the reason why the there is no distinction between the person and the number. In Standard English, the sentence would be written “ I heard her”, or “ I am hearing her” it would include a suffix ending such as “ ing” rather than write “already”. Another example is “’No. Not praying for nobody that tek weh mi best glassy eye marble.” (1). The word tek , and weh are written the way it sounds. Tek means take and weh means away. The word weh could have been written like a-weh because rather than using a diphthong, which is two vowels, it uses one vowel, and this is called a monophthongization. The sentence uses the “eh” sound rather than the “ay” sound, but the sentence is still gets the meaning across. The spelling in this sentence is irrelevant, and shows how language conveys a meaning with or without the proper spelling. This sentence also uses a different vocabulary that represents different meaning than Standard English. The word best in this case means favorite but best in Standard English means excellent, effective, or desirable. Therefore, using best in this case in Standard English wouldn’t mean the same thing since the word exemplifies a different meaning through the context of the sentence.

In addition, Jamaican Creole combines English words to create compound nouns, adjectives, and verbs that don’t exist in Standard English. For example “  Beccka certainly dont born with no two head or nothing wrong with her. Is just hard ears she hard ears” (Senior 2). The narrator combined hard and ears to form hard ears, which means stubborn. Hard is an adjective in English, and ears are a plural noun. By combining the noun and adjective creates a new meaning. Furthermore, Jamaican creole at times “pro-drops” or omits the subject, which is called subject deletion. For example, Senior writes “ ‘Is true. And you know I wouldn’t mind if she did only get into mischief” (2). The line “is true” should be written, “it is true” to show the subject. Although, the author fails to show Standard English writing, the message or the meaning of her story is still conveyed. The author sticks with using Jamaican creole, and distances her writing from following the Standard English writing. The author shows that Jamaican creole can be understandable even if it isn’t written in Standard English.

In contrast, Belizean Creole written is close to Standard English. It is closer to the acrolect, while Jamaican creole falls in between the mesolect and the basilect. Ellis says, “ she got bored leafing through the magazine and taking a deep breath, she ventured to look up, wanting to see what the other people were doing”(417). The sentence is written in correct Standard English, and the spelling of the words is the same. The author writes in Standardized English because it is more understandable. However, the narrator switches to writing in creole during the dialogues, and still is able to convey the message through the creole. For example, it says “ Miss June. How it gone? You get through?” (419). It uses past tense by using the word gone rather than saying how did it go? It also removes the auxiliary verb “did”.

A similarity between Jamaican creole and Guyanese creole is that they both have similar phonology.  For example, Ellis writes “ well, don’t ask for dat! As far as he concern de mother must bring dem in” (419). The words are written the way they sound. The word dat should be that but Belizean Creole and Jamaican Creole do not use the “th”. It also shows how the singular and plural forms do not correlate, the sentence talks about “he” but then says “dem” which is “them”, in this case “dem” includes the “he”. Furthermore, creole languages tend to use reduplication, which is evident in Belizean creole. Ellis writes, “ She found a place near a women who reeked of what smelled like kush-kush” (417). The word kush is repeated twice to emphasize. Jamaican creole also uses reduplication. The reduplication is used to show emphasis on the word, which grabs the attention of the reader.

Ellis shows her ability to navigate between the acrolect and mesolect. Her writing legitimatizes Standard English rather than the creole but this is unnecessary since the dialogue in creole showed how the message and meaning was still being conveyed. Language is a retrieval process; therefore words don’t need to be spelled a certain way for it to be conveyed. Writing in Standard English for most of the story showed how she viewed Standard English of belonging to a higher class. However, in the story the protagonist isn’t granted a visa just like the other natives. The protagonist has to speak in the creole language showing how this creole language is viewed poorly, and stigmatized. It is possible the author wrote predominately in Standard English to avoid being stigmatized, since those who speak in a creole are said to not have an education and belong to a lower socio-economic class. Therefore, showing the protagonist speaking in creole during the dialogue shows how the creole language shouldn’t be disregarded since the message is still conveyed and the reader can understand. In addition, Senior defies the notion that writing in Standard English is better. He shows that writing in creole should be given the same legitimacy as Standard English.

In conclusion, both the short stories written by Ellis and Senior show similarities in orthography. However, Ellis’s story is written more in Standard English, which furthers it away from its Belizean creole. The only time it uses written Belizean creole is during the dialogues. Senior uses his non-standard orthography to represent the creole phonology, grammar, lexicon, and syntax. Both stories show different levels of exposure to Standard English. Sebba states, “ they will be conscious of the fact that the target language, like their native language, has a large vocabulary but they only know some of it” (55). This is evident in Senior’s piece where the vocabulary he uses isn’t Standard English. Although, both stories show different levels of exposure to the English language and the way it was learned, they both are able to convey their message. The creole language can be used just like Standard English and should be given the legitimacy.

 

 

                        Works Citied

Ellis, Zoila. The Waiting Room. 1957.

Sebba, Mark. Contact Languages: Pidgins and Creoles. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Senior, Olive, Do Angels Wear Brassieres?, Kunapipi, 8(2), 1986.

 

 

Ileana Leon

Professor Garley

English 470

March 29^th, 2018

 

Zoila Ellis’ The Waiting Room and Robert Antoni’s A World of Canes: An Orthographic Analysis

Introduction

The use of the English language in areas of the Caribbean is a result of British control over various countries of the Caribbean, along with most of the rest of the world, throughout history. As a result of this British control, English has either become the national language of these countries or has caused their indigenous languages to be largely wiped out of assimilated resulting in some creoles of the Caribbean, such as Belizean Creole, Trinidadian Creole and Bahamian Creole, being English-lexified. Though these countries were colonized by the British and developed under their control, the people of these countries remain individual vessels of its history and culture, however, the global institutionalization of standardized English disrupts the preservation of language and culture. This can be seen in the compromising of language in Caribbean literature. Zoila Ellis’ The Waiting Room and Robert Antoni’s A World of Canes exemplify the effect standardized English has on the language in the literature being published by Caribbean writers. The characters of both texts use language to show the socio-economic power a use of a more standardized dialect of English has in their given societies, however, Ellis’ conformation to an acrolectic dialect of creole causes her story to lose authenticity as opposed to the similar but more authentic work of Antoni.

Intro to the Texts and Why They Were Chosen

Author Robert Antoni writes A World of Canes as the recounting a woman provides to her child about the formulation of their parents’ relationship. The story begins in the childhood of the narrator and, as the story progresses, the reader learns that she is raped and pursued by an older and wealthier man in her village who then becomes her love interest and father to the child. Zoila Ellis’ The Waiting Room tells the story of an upper-class creole woman’s visit to the United States consulate in Belize in attempts to gain a visitor’s visa. The protagonist listens in on her peers’ conversations about their and their friends’ and families’ own experiences with obtaining their visas. Both stories were chosen for this literary and linguistic analysis due to their accessibility to readers who are familiar with the Standard English lexifier along with the social and economic status assumed by their given main characters and the connection this status has to the language they themselves use.

Accessibility of the Texts for a Reader of Standard English

The accessibility of Ellis’ and Antoni’s stories relies heavily on the positions of the texts’ languages on the creole continuum. The continuum consists of dialect varieties of a creole language. The dialects’ position on the continuum depends on the similarity the dialect has to the lexifier language. On one end of the continuum is the basilect, the dialect variety of the language that is sociolinguistically considered the least prestigious. On the other end of the continuum is the acrolect, the most prestigious dialect variety of the language. The intermediate varieties on the continuum are known as mesolect.

Linguistic Features of the Creole in The Waiting Room

Ellis’ The Waiting Room is a predominantly acrolectic text. The narration of the story is written in a standardized English with the exception of some slight indicators of traditional creole language. Such traditional creole language in the story can be found in its morphosyntax. When describing the protagonist taking in her surroundings, the narrator enforces a dual lexical reiteration or reduplication. The narrator says, “She found a place next to a woman who reeked of what smelled like kush-kush” (Ellis 417). In this sentence, the word “kush” is reduplicated, affecting its syntax and affecting the word’s morphology by altering its meaning. Due to it’s being said twice, an emphasis is placed on the smell as if to say its overpowering. It is interesting, however, that the word “reeked”, also used in the sentence, already gave a sense of this overwhelming scent. The creole language of the text is mainly seen in the dialogue of the secondary characters. The phonemic orthography of said dialogue is, like the rest of the story, heavily based on Standardized English, however, the modification of some spellings of certain words (slight changes in phonemes) are used to indicate a difference in pronunciation of said word. Mark Sebba (1997) notes this same feature in Jamaican creole in his chapter “Continuing Contact: Life After Creolization”. He also notes that these modifications are not always consistent and the omittance of consonants pronounced by speakers using Standard English but who are speaking in creole (208). Most of these phonemic orthographic features can be seen in one of the longest dialogues in the story, Miss June’s. Miss June says, ‘Dat is not the word for it. If me never bring up good and have respect for authority me would tell him some tings dat would make him change colour. Him had the guts to tell me dat I going there to work, dat plenty woman dat go visit never come back. My poor daughter work hard ‘cross there to send plane ticket and bank statement for nothing’ (Ellis 419). In this dialogue, the modification of the word “that” to “dat” indicates Miss June’s pronunciation. The word “across” also gets modified to be spelled with an apostrophe to emphasize the omittance of the pronunciation of “a” (æ/a/ɒ). These modifications are also seen to be inconsistent with Ruthie’s usage of both “de” and “the” in her responses to Miss June. These features provide evidence of a written creole that is heavily based on phonemic principles with slight changes to a Standard English orthography.

Linguistic Features of the Creole in A World of Canes

Robert Antoni’s A World of Canes is a mesolectic text. Similar to Ellis’ story, the narration of A World of Canes is written in a standardized English however, there is a bigger morphosyntactic shift from that of standardized English that is constant throughout the entirety of the text. A mesolectic feature of Bahamian Creole, one of the creoles the story is written in, noted by Hackert (2013) is that of gender distinctions in personal pronouns being marked in mesolectal and acrolectal text. This feature isn’t seen in The Waiting Room can be seen in A World of Canes when the narrator speaks about her cousin’s work. The narrator says, “I had to go up with a cousin of mine to meet with she friend. She friend uses to work at this shop, grocery shop, selling groceries. This shop close at seven o’clock, you know seven o’clock dark. This girl fraid to walk home by sheself come seven o’clock. So we gone to meet with she, you know, keep she with company” (Antoni 1). Unlike in a basilectal text, the gender pronoun is inflected in this small piece of narration. This shows a slight language shift to a more standardized English orthography however, Antoni’s use of the word “she” instead of “her” refutes prescribed morphosyntax found in acrolectic text, such as Ellis’. This infliction of gender also happens for the male characters of the story. In this same piece of narration, Sebba’s (1997) observation of omittance of consonants based on pronunciation is also seen when the “a” is omitted from “afraid” in the fourth sentence. This omittance, however, isn’t replaced with an apostrophe to indicate that a creole being used. A big indicator of creole in Antoni’s story are the lexical entries that pertain to West Indian (more specifically Bahamian and Trinidadian) language. A common example of this in the text is the narrator’s usage of the word “doudou” when addressing her child (1). The word “doudou” is a creole term of endearment (Oxford Dictionary 2018). The narrator also uses the word “ganga” to indicate cross dressing. Lexical entries are also used to indicate traces of oral literature traditions through onomatopoeias. Antoni chooses to write out the sounds that the narrator hears; the most notable example of this being the word “Chups!”, which is not only the sound of someone sucking their teeth but also expresses discontent, frustration or disbelief with ties to Indian language, meaning “shut up” (4). These features give evidence of a written creole that’s similar to a standardized English orthographically but differs morphosyntactically, being written with words spelled in standard English but organized into sentences in a unstandardized way.

Conclusion       

 Though both the orthographies of The Waiting Room and A World of Canes adhere to a standardized English, they both have morphosyntactic indicators of creole within them. Ellis’ usage of creole only in dialogue spoken by natives who clearly made her acrolectic-standardized-English- speaking protagonist uncomfortable ironically backfires. This character was portrayed to have “privilege”, undoubtingly due to her use of standardized English, is denied of her visa unlike some of the natives around her, socially placing her amongst her peers as opposed to the status she once held herself up to. Antoni’s usage of creole in A World of Canes consists of a predominantly standardized English orthography, however, the sentence structure that is constant throughout the text provides a more authentic storytelling. The character who is narrating this story uses her own iteration of English to tell this story.

References

Antoni, Robert. 1996  “A World of Canes” Conjunctions:27 – The Archipelago: New Caribbean Writing http://www.conjunctions.com/print/article/robert-antoni-c27

Ellis, Zoila. 1988  “The Waiting Room.” The Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories. Edited by Brown, Stewart & John Wickham, Oxford University Press, 1999.

Hackert Stephanie. 2013. Bahamian Creole structure dataset.
In: Michaelis, Susanne Maria & Maurer, Philippe & Haspelmath, Martin & Huber, Magnus (eds.)
Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures Online.
Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. http://apics-online.info/contributions/12

Sebba, Mark. 1997. “Chapter 7: Continuing Contact: Life After Creolization. Contact Languages: Pidgins and Creoles. St. Martin’s

Melissa Leal

ENG 470

Professor Garley

Draft 2

March 17, 2018

                           Creole Literature and Orthography

 

    Many authors have been criticized for choosing to write their works of literature in a Creole language. This is mainly because it goes against the standardized language set in place – English – by those in power.  Examples of works of literature that are written in or include dialogue using an English-lexified Creole include “Do Angels Wear Brassieres” by Olive Senior and “Joebell in America” by Earl Lovelace. Both short stories illustrate that the use of Creole by the characters in the text reinforce and symbolize the low social status and illegitimacy of the language.

    In Olive Senior’s “Do Angels Wear Brassieres” there are many instances in the text where characters, as well as the narrator, move across the creole dialect continuum. This means that they use different “lects” when speaking (acrolect, mesolect, basilect). According to the Oxford dictionary, an acrolect is “the most prestigious dialect or variety of a particular language.” Acrolects are closest to the lexifier, in this case – English. A mesolect is “an intermediate variety of a dialect or variety of a particular language.” Lastly a basilect is the least prestigious version of the language but it is often considered more authentic. An example of a character speaking across the continuum is Beccka in Senior’s “Do Angels Wear Brassieres.”

    Becka uses an acrolect form when she is talking to the Archdeacon who is from England. She asks him “What did Adam and Eve do when they were driven out of the garden” (7). This would be considered indistinguishable from standard English. However, earlier on in the short story Beccka tells Cherry ‘No. Not praying for nobody that tek weh mi best glassy eye marble” (1).  Oliver uses non standard orthography to show Beccka speaking in the basilectal level. The phonology of the words take away is /teɪk/ /əˈweɪ/. Oliver spells the words tek weh changing the phonology, meaning the sound or how a word is pronounced. This makes the phonology /tɛk wɛ:/ The word me is also spelled differently – me, mi – although this does not mark a difference in pronunciation, just a difference in grammar. Senior chooses to have Beccka speak across the continuum to show that the creole language is not accepted as a legitimate language amongst people outside of their culture. The only character who has a direct conversation with with someone of another culture is Beccka who is able to switch to “standard” English. She may not always use an acrolect of the language with the Archdeacon, but for the most part she speaks using a prestigious form. Neither Cherry, Miss Katie, or Auntie Mary have conversations with the Archdeacon. They are only seen speaking in their Creole language. By doing this Senior creates a contrast between Beccka and the older women.

    Beccka is able to speak a standardized form of English while the narrator, Cherry, Miss Katie, and Auntie Mary, use a basilectal form of English to communicate. For example in the beginning of the short story Cherry asks Beccka to pray for Auntie Mary. The narrator states: “Beccka vex that anybody could interrupt her private conversation with God so, say loud loud” (1). Three things are shown in this sentence – zero copula, no inflections, and reduplication. Zero Copula is shown when Senior writes “Becca vex” instead of Becca is vex.  An inflection changes the ending of a word to indicate a change in the tense. Although the word vex is spelled correctly, it is not used in the correct tense. In standard English it would be “Becca is vexed…” And lastly the narrator uses reduplication by repeating loud twice to emphasize how exactly Beccka reacted. These elements tend to be characteristics of creole languages, more specifically those who speak on the basilectal level.

    In “Joebell and America,” Earl Lovelace also shows that the legitimacy of a creole language do not matter when it comes into contact with the “standard” English language. The author sets up the short story by using some of the same elements Senior did. For example, throughout the short story, Lovelace uses non standard orthography as well to give a voice to the main character Jobell, but not always through him. The narrator speaks in the same mesolectal dialect as Joebell: “The fellar who fixing up the passport business for him tell him straight… he could get arrest at the Trinidad airport, so the pardner advise that the best thing to do is for Joebell to try to get in through Puerto Rico… where the immigration don’t be so fussy.” The word fellar has a different spelling and pronunciation in standard English. It is the word fellow with the following pronunciation: /fɛloʊ/ versus /fɛlər/. Joebell also says fellar throughout the text. Lovelace is able to give him a voice by also having the narrator speak like him. Narrators usually speak in standard English. By having someone in power speak using a creole to tell the story, Lovelace is showing his audience that it is okay to use the language.

     In Lovelace’s short story, there is a bit of variation throughout the text. The narrator begins by saying “The fellar who fixing…” He does not say “The fellar who is…” This is known as copula deletion or zero copula. The connecting verb is seen towards the end of the sentence: “so the pardner advise that the best thing to do is…” Variations show fluidity throughout the continuum. More specifically – the mesolect and the acrolect levels.

    In the second part of the short story, Joebell gets in contact with two American Immigration officers. To test his “Americanness,” they require him to say the alphabet.  As he is finishing it he says “Zed” instead of the letter Z. This is because this is how the majority of the English speaking world says, it with the exception of the United States of America. Not only is Lovelace showing a different orthography but he is also showing a different phonology. Because it differed from how the Americans say the letter, one shouts “‘Bastard!’ the squirrel eyes cry out. ‘Got you!’” Lovelace shows how the Americans were looking for Joebell to slip up and show who what he truly is – un American. This part of the short story is indicating cultures outside of their own – those in power – will feel the creole language is illegitimate.

Both Olive Senior and Earl Lovelace use their characters to show their audiences how the Creole languages will be criticized for illegitimacy. They also show how characters must switch their dialect to a language that is more accepted when speaking to outsiders. Overall the short stories also indicate that even though the creole languages are not accepted, both will still be used.

Works Cited

Lovelace, Earl. “Earl Lovelace’s Joebell and America.” Caribbean Beat Magazine, 23 Feb. 2018, www.caribbean-beat.com/issue-10/earl-lovelaces-joebell-and-ameica#axzz59yqMyMLy.

http://www.oed.com

Senior, Olive. “Do Angels Wear Brassieres?” Kunapipi, 8(2), 1986.  Available at:http://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol8/iss2/3

Marc Torres

Professor Garley

English 470

13 March 2018

Creole Languages in Short Stories

Both “Joebell and America,” by Earl Lovelace and “The Waiting Room,” by Zoila Ellis are stories that feature written representation of creole languages. Earl Lovelace’s story includes Trinidadian Creole while Zolia Ellis’ story includes Belizean Creole. The reason I chose these stories was because both stories show the complexities of Creole languages. They also both show the types of people who use Creole languages and they both do interesting things to show how languages are connected to social status. Therefore, both stories show how Creole languages are just as valid and rule governed as English, and that they should be represented and used as much as English; both authors also use their stories to reject the negative connotations associated with creole languages.

In “Joebell and America” by Earl Lovelace, there are many examples that show how the Trinidadian Creole language is a complex language with many rules and standards that it must follow, like with standard English. For example, in the story the narrator says: “He make up his mind to leave and go away,” (2). Lovelace is using repetition to show that within the system of Trinidadian Creole, repetition is used for emphasis of something. Here, Lovelace shows how Joe Bell has really made his decision to leave. The fact that the story is also narrated in Trinidadian Creole, shows that Lovelace wants to show how rich the language is. So, right from the beginning we are given a narrator who speaks close to the Mesolect, since it isn’t far from the basilect but is very far from the acrolect (or the language closest to the standard language, which is English). Sebba says that a copula is: “the verb to be, or its equivalent,” (1). In Trinidadian Creole, this verb “to be” is dropped a lot of the times since it is unnecessary to communicate what is meant in the language. For example, the narrator in the story says: “Joebell find that he seeing too much hell in Trinidad,” (2). Here, the sentence should be “Joebell finds that he is seeing too much hell in Trinidad,” however the “s” from finds is dropped and the copula is dropped as well. These two simple actions of dropping the “s” and the copula show how the language does not need the verb “to be,” because the language still gets the overall message across without overcomplicating the sentence. This makes it much easier to learn the language, and still help people who don’t understand the language, understand the overall message because it is a simpler sentence without the copula. This happens again in the story when the narrator says: “He don’t look at Joebell, but everybody know is Joebell he talking to,” (4). Here, the word “is” means something else. This is a case of pronoun dropping. So, “is” in that part of story does not mean “to be,” and instead becomes a representation of “it’s” or “it is.” So while the sentence should be “he doesn’t look at Joebell, but everybody knows it’s Joebell he is talking to,” the sentence cuts the copulas once again and changes the meaning of “is” to the contraction “it’s.” This all shows how complex the Trinidadian Creole language is because of its rules which exist to make the language simple and easy to learn. The narrator in the first part of the story is someone from the same region as Joe Bell and they share the same kind of speech (Trinidadian Creole), that is the mesolect. The author also shows how this type of Creole is spoken by people who don’t have much money by adding in small details about the types of people who gamble with Joe Bell in order to make extra money. For example, the narrator says: “ Was a Friday night. Waterworks get pay, County Council get pay. It had men from Forestry. It had fellars from the Housing Project. Money high high on the table. Joebell favourite card is Jack,” (4). The author shows with reduplication that there was much money and that this money came from a collective of different people who were in different kinds of professions. This shows that the area where they are all from is poor, and that they themselves are poor since they have to gamble to make extra money. The narrator’s voice also does not adhere to the standardized English writing system. Although the author does create a narrative voice that is true to the Trinidadian Creole language. The language the narrator uses contributes to the characterization of Joe Bell and others because it shows how Joe Bell and the people around Joe Bell communicate with one another. By using reduplication with phrases like “high high,” and dropping copulas at times to follow the rules of the Trinidadian Creole language system, the author shows the language in action and how simple but complex it really is. The author’s relationship with the non-standardized language of Trinidadian Creole, is a close one. The author shows that while it is not a completely standardized language, there are things that make it special and stand out. While there are no rules which are written or standardized, there are certain things that people who speak Trinidadian Creole do when communicating via the language. The author is an obvious fan of the language and used his platform of storytelling to show how the language is complex and fairly simple to use at the same time. With this story, the author justifies how using a Trinidadian Creole can be just as hard and as sophisticated as using a language as standardized English. The story also rejects negative connotations associated with the Trinidadian Creole language because the author makes the characters hardworking, smart, and humorous even though they are poor. The story helps authenticate the author’s heritage and connects him with readers from his homeland.

“The Waiting Room,” by Zolia Ellis is written mostly in standard english with some of the dialogue being written in Belizean Creole. For example, one of the characters says: “Dat is not the word for it,” (419). Here, “Dat” means “that,” but is spelled with a “D” to show pronunciation. The “D” in “Dat” makes “that” appear differently because it is spelled differently, however it means the same thing. The author does this to make sure that the pronunciation of “dat” comes through in the story. The author gives very lengthy and detailed descriptions of the characters in order to show their class. In the story reduplication is also used. In the story one of the character say: “pon sale cheap, cheap, cheap,” (420). Here, the author uses what Mark Sebba calls Reduplication. Sebba says Reduplication is: “repetition of a morpheme of syllable, normally to fulfill grammati-cal function,” (3). This is reduplication because the character says “cheap” three times, when they could just say “really cheap” or “extremely cheap.” The “cheap, cheap, cheap,” serves to replace “really” and adds emphasis at the same time. The author shows how nuanced and complex bielizian creole is. Just like Earl Lovelace, Zolia Ellis uses her story to reject the negative connotations associated with creole languages. She makes her characters intelligent, and humble. They’re good people. Sebba says: “The idea that the races of human beings can be, and should be, ‘pure’, has caused a great deal of turmoil and suffering in the twentieth century. Almost as obstinate and damaging an idea is the notion that languages can be,” (4). Ellis shows that even though her native tongue isn’t what people consider “pure,” that it is still a language that deserves to be treated like a “pure” language (much like Standard English). She rejects the negative connotations associated with the creole language by proving there are rules that need to be followed to speak it, and that the people who use it are good people who are intelligent. The story serves to show that the author who is a native speaker can navigate between the mesolect and acrolect. It lets her connect with readers around the world, and with those in her homeland.

Both authors do a great job of handling their creole languages and showing the complexities of them. They also do an amazing job of characterizing the people who use their languages. While they do these things, they also empower themselves as authors and the creole languages by showing that the people who use the languages aren’t bad people, just poor people (most of the time). Both stories make strong cases for why creoles should be used as much as standard english. The stories are both artistic and political.

Works Cited

Ellis, Zolia. “The Waiting Room.” The Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories. Edited by Stewart Brown and John Wickham, Oxford University Press, 1999.

Lovelace, Earl. “Earl Lovelace’s Joebell and America.” Caribbean Beat Magazine, 23 Feb. 2018, www.caribbean-beat.com/issue-10/earl-lovelaces-joebell-and-ameica#axzz59yqMyMLy.

Sebba, Mark. Contact Languages: Pidgins and Creoles. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

 

In Olive Senior Do Angels Wear Brassieres and Zoila Ellis The Waiting Room, both of the authors play around with the notion of language being power. This can be seen through the telling of each story and how both stories are being told through the narrative of the characters Beccka and Elisa. The narrators uses the characters Beccka and Ellis to showcase the speaker’s Jamaican or Belizean Creole language and how the language is portrayed through the characters point of view. The reason why I chose these two piece was because even though Senior and Elise wrote two different types of stories, I liked how both of them focused on the concepts of the characters wanting and believing that by moving on to their idea of “the grass being greener on the other side” their worth would be increased in the eye of their peers, thereby giving them a better sense of accomplishment and importance. In this paper, I will focus on how Senior and Ellis uses their stories to explore the issue many creole language face from class, to identity issue, to the importance of ranking based on status, and lastly to how society tends to separate these groups into difference classes (Acrolect, Basilect, Mesolect) based on their availability to the resources around them.

The story’s Do Angels Wear Brassieres focuses around the main character, a Jamaican Creole speaker named Beccka and her journey toward gaining information, as well as what it meant trying to find it under the living quarters of her self-righteous, smothering Aunt Mary and her religious beliefs. Throughout the story, Beccka can be seen studying the bible, not for the religious reason her Aunt and the other women do in the story but to use it as a weapon to fight back against her Aunt Mary’s views. At one point in the story, Beccka uses her knowledge and clever wits in a series of bible riddles against the Archdeacon that Aunt Mary tried to get the approval of. Senior’s placement of the archdeacon is an important one to the story. Not only are the readers told that Aunt Mary and the women in the neighborhood want the approval of the Archdeacon, we are also told that the Archdeacon is an Englishman. We can see this in the description on page 7 when Aunt Mary is cleaning the house from top to bottom, pulling at the fine dining, hanging up the lace curtains, even going as far as to make the Archdeacon bake goods. In one short passage “Auntie Mary is due this honour at least once because she is head of Mothers Union and though a lot of them jealous and back-biting her because Archdeacon never stop outside their gate even once let them say anything to her face” Senior is able to showcase how important the Archdeacon is to Aunt Mary and the ladies of the neighborhood. This is the key in understanding that Aunt Mary wants to impress and get the approval of the representative from the “dominant” of the Standard English culture. This is also important is showing how Senior uses the character of Aunt Mary, women in the neighborhood to portray how the Archdeacon is rank as being above them not only in authority as head of the church but status as well.

With Ellis’ The Waiting Room, the story began with a Belizean Creole woman named Elisa Barker who is experiencing the process of trying to get approval for a traveling visa to the United States. Ellis makes a point of describing Elisa in the beginning of the story as this arrogant, well- dressed lady from an high-class Acrolect background. Throughout the story, Elisa is portrayed as trying to keep a tight hold onto her image so that her husband and friends can continue to believe that she has a lot of experience with traveling aboard. This is evidently not true because we see that she doesn’t have any of the required documentation with her in order to get a traveling visa to the U.S. During Elisa’s process, Ellis has different conversations going on between the other customer which is key because this is where we see the major of the Belizean Creole taking place. The other customer also complains about the difficulty they face on getting a visa, even though they have come prepared with the important documents that they need, unlike Eliza. In the end however, Eliza is rejected from obtaining her traveling visa because of her family history and her lack of confirming documents, even after she tried to persuade the officer otherwise.

According to Jermaine Allison, most Jamaicans speak Jamaican Creole, however, the country’s official language is standard Jamaican English making a creole continuum exists. Jamaican creole is one of the Atlantic English- lexifier creole spoken, meaning many aspects of Patwa vocabulary, syntax, and phonology are from English. In, Jamaica Creole their vocabulary shares similar feature with that of standard English words but Patwa words doesn’t quite mean the same thing the English words do. Olive Senior showcases many examples of this in the Do Angels Wear Brassieres dialogue and passage. Senior goes on to describe Beccka praying in the beginning of the story as “Beccka vex that anybody could interrupt her private conversation with so, say loud loud (1)”. This passage is important because it points out the character identity without stating it in plain words, by having Beccka explain her emotions as being vex instead of mad. Also, the usage of the word vex instead of vexed shows that Creole language is being used here because in Standard English they used for past tense but in Creole there is not a suffix for past tense. Senior also showcases how Creole languages often repeat adjectives and adverbs to emphasis on words and emotion instead of using words like very or extremely, which is common in the standard British and American English Lexifiers. Senior’s reduplication of the word loud twice was intentional to express the narrator’s voice as being very loud.

Jamaican Creole or Patwa phonology has a sound system that is independent from the English system. The speakers of Patwa do not use the “th” sound in words, also Patwa sometime pronounce the “h” sound in the beginning of a Standard English word. A passage in the story in which Senior shows the absence of the “th” sound would have to be between the conversation between Aunt Mary and her neighbor Fat Katie.  When Fat Katie replied to Aunt Mary’s statement about Beccka being of hard ears she states “Den no so me saying (2), this is used to shows how the author chose to have Fat Katie speak in a Patwa dialect. By Senior having Fat Katie speaking in Patwa it showcases the tradition of Patwa speaker dropping the “th” in their dialect/language to D so instead of “Then” Fat Katie speaks “Den”. In such a short sentence the reader are able to see from the women viewpoint of class, ethic, self-identity wrapped into one. But on the other hand, this is a contradiction against Senior deciding to use Standard English in the passage below it with the dialogue of “That child should be getting blows from the day she born. Then she wouldn’t be so force-ripe now. Another example of Senior using both Patwa and Standard English phonology in the passages is when she writes “A hear her already (1) and “Guess what she asks me the other day nuh (3). In the Patwa dialogue, the phonology of the language would pronounce the word as ear because of the silence letter of the “h” sound, however, it is present here but absent in the sounding of the word huh. The reason behind Senior doing this might have to do with the issue of how the Creole language not being acknowledge for a long period of time so it had to exist along with its language lexifier.  So many languages like Patwa can be seen as being a continuum between the creole and the lexifier language.  This would be a prime example of many Creole languages using something called code-switching which allows for the mixing between the spelling and sounding of standard and non-standard words.

Lastly, as for the orthography inside of Senior’s story, it was stated in Sebba (1996) paper that since there is no official orthography of the written use of creole in Britain, writers can come up with their own orthographic practices when writing with an Creole dialogue. Some example of how Senior made up her own orthographic practices to write this Patwa story is by spelling certain words differently like She wi instead of she will, bus’ instead of busting ass and lastly Aie in turn for Ah.

In the Waiting room, Eliza Barker and the other women waiting to get their visiting visas to U.S are Belizean Creole. Belizean people are said to speak English, Kriol, and Spanish too, however, it is stated that in school Belizean people will often learn the written and reading system of Standardized English.  Wikipedia said that Belizean Creole might best be described as “the lingua franca of the notion making communication between people who do not share a native language or dialect possible”. Like Patwa, English is Belizean Creole lexifier, meaning that most of the Belizean Creole vocabulary comes from English vocabulary and since it exists alongside its language lexifier making code-switching possible too. Ellis uses a combination of mixing between the spelling and sounding of standard and non-standard words in the dialogue of the women talking like” Dat’s good girl. I going to Chicago to my son. I hear it cold over dere but girl, I can’t take Belize no more”. Unlike Senior, Ellis’ passages are mainly filled with standard English, with the only little Creole being shown within the community of the ladies talking to each other. So, Ellis construction of the story being mainly made of Standard English is important in showing the issue that can come with Belizean people only learning in school the written and reading system of Standardized English. So, if the Belizean people are unable to do so like the other women in the story, there will be a separating of people because of the Basilect class inability to get that same learning, so Ellis uses the character the afro women to show Elisa status rank above the other. If not for the other women, Ellis story would have been filled with Acrolect speakers making her story seem less creole writing. Even in the description of the ladies, there is a form of separating of class from Elisa being described as “Her freshly permed hair lopped elegantly around her shoulders. Her makeup was fresh and sophisticated. The only other two women who were describe was given a description of reeking of what smelled like kusk- kush and a fat black woman with a greasy curly afro placing them in the basilect class. Ellis too however, also showcases how a repeat adjectives and adverbs to emphasis on words. This can be seen in passage of dialogue of words like cheap, cheap, cheap and dem hard, dem hard.

Ellis Zoila, The Waiting Room

Olive Senior, Do Angel Wear Brassieres?

https://jamaicancreole.commons.gc.cuny.edu

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belizean_Creole