Test post for quiz

The English Lexifed Creole language I’m doing is Singlish. The reason why I chose this creole language was because it was second choice to me doing Gullah creole. I original wanted to do Gullah because my family is from North Carolina, some still living there where Gullah is spoken. So I always wondered if my grandma pronunciation of the word ‘rench instead of rinse came from back in the day talk or from Gullah. However because other member from the class did Gullah too I wanted to do something different, so I choose the other creole language I was interested in. I found it fascinating that people of Asian distinct have an “creole” language because usually when you think creole language you think of Jamaican patois, Guyanese, and Trinidadian. Finding the resources for this language or finding academic resources for Singlish was as difficult as expected. So I’m using both academic and website resources. As for the spoken form I found from an website dated in 2016 that ” Singlish is a language that the government of Singapore is trying to get rid of, even by putting on events that encourage citizens to “speak good English”. Some other things I learned is that it’s a pidgin language that was the result of British colonization.  Also that Singlish is consist of English, Malay, Cantonese, and Hokkien Chinese.

Resources are the York College library

Hall, Keith. “Simply Singlish.” Verbatim, Spring 2004, p. 7+. Academic OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A119369912/AONE?u=cuny_york&sid=AONE&xid=f71b946d. Accessed 1 June 2018.

https://alphaomegatranslations.com/foreign-language/singlish-a-singaporean-creole-language/

http://www.academia.edu/6050106/A_Comparison_of_Singlish_and_Creole_Languages

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

Negation Marking

• The negator is always a separate word and invariant in form. In the majority of known pidgin and creoles, negation markers occurs before the verb; however, there are some exceptions to this (the negator in Hiri Motu comes after the verb).

Sebba

• Negation is a common strategy in argumentation. In arguing a point of view, it is often necessary to negate an opposing viewpoint, to refute an argument, and to remove misunderstanding through the use of negation. In English, negative markers can be divided into three groups: Not-negator, N-negator (or No-negator) and negative affix.

https://www.ln.edu.hk/eng/rhetoric/Argumentative/Negation.html

Inflectional Morphology

• Process of word formation which mark grammatical relations.

Sebba

• Inflectional morphology is expressed in terms of synthetic terminal desinences which are added to the stems of inflected  parts  of  speech:  nouns,  adjectives,  verbs,  and  most  Inflectional desinences conflate all relevant categories (gender, number,  and  case  for  nouns  and adjectives;  person  and  number  for  non-past  conjugations;  and  gender,   person,  and  number   for past  conjugations)  and  consist  of  from  zero  to  three  morphemes.

Czech

by Laura A. Janda and Charles E. Townsend

© SEELRC 2002

Derivational Marking

• Affects word-class membership and meaning.

Sebba

• Derivational morphology is defined as morphology that creates new lexemes, either by changing the syntactic category (part of speech) of a base or by adding substantial, non-grammatical meaning or both.

Derivational Morphology

Rochelle Lieber

I picked these because they are still a little hard to understand even though I have researched them however I find Sebba definition of Derivational and Inflectional interesting because of how short and simple they are regardless of the fact that many other linguistic still find them to be complex.

I think the class was great. Despite attendance I did manage to do 90 percent of the readings and they were more difficult than the Introductory course. There was so much more detail in terms of terminology and the function of language. I felt as though, that despite having theoretical elements this linguistics course was very technical in the research. The readings I encountered had statistics, phrases, and elements of the phonetic alphabet I didn’t understand. It was during the first paper I understood it would require more effort and attention in writing the papers. I found the first paper to be very difficult to scratch past the basic surface level of Nigerian Pidgin and the basic information about it. However, with assignment two, we addressed literature that was much more intriguing than our regular readings, which were not always intriguing. The literature was interesting because we got to address Creole in form. What I was able to address was the morphosyntax and orthography or creole. My aim was to address the authenticity of both within the writing of Caribbean authors. I was able to get more technical using phonetic sounds to and parts of the mouth to identify why specific words were pronounced the way they are and how they came to be. Finally, I think the final assignment has been the most challenging writing process I have engaged in. Originally, I wanted to do Gurundji Kriol as the focus of my paper but its sample size and presence within Australia is too little as it only has 1000 speakers. However, I did manage to find more information Australian Kriol and will take on an interesting perspective in how media, movies, interviews, and writing separate the AE and AK speakers what the social perspectives will be for both. It should be interesting to see an analysis of the television series Clever Man as the basis for the research.

Looking back on this class, I will have equally fond and distasteful memories. This is no slight on Professor Garley. He is fantastic and if given the chance, I would take another class with him because he is an excellent professor. The nature of linguistic studies just does not mesh well with me. I loved the content of this course, especially as child of Trinidadian immigrants. Many things in this course were eye opening and came so easily to me but at the same time, some of the processes and methods and readings were so alien that I had trouble keeping up. Discussing the articles in class always made them seem so much clearer to me. Reading them home or in the library, by myself? Half the time, I was extremely confused. The mode of having the class analyze and summarize the reading swas perfect because  I definitely learn better when it is presented to me in verbally as  opposed to huge research papers.

Speaking of huge research papers, the final project has been quite the intense undertaking. I am doing the independent research project with Professor McGee and I have been able to throw myself into that research due to it being based in poetry. But the analysis of theoretical frameworks and the appropriate application to other things has proven to be extremely difficult for me. It is hard for me to admit because most things come pretty easily to me but liguistic studies is clearly not the field for me. That is what went wrong. In the case of what went well, I enjoyed being able to explore my own culture for this class. I am sure it was more difficult for those without the benefit of being a native speaker of the languages being discussed. Some of the readings made so much sense to me because it was written in the tongue of my people or people that speak very similarly. In that respect, I enjoyed this class. The research just proved to be difficult. All fo the information and ideas were very intriguing but it was a lot to unpack every week.

The biggest question that this class raised for me was that of language legitimacy. What is considered a real language? What constitutes actual language? Despite being better educated, I cannot promise that I won’t still tell someone that people in Trinidad speak a form of “broken” English. I have larger respect for the idea of a creole or a pidgin. But it is such a hard concept to evangelize and spread to others who have an established idea of what languages are. I believe sociolinguistics is definitely something that deserves its own major but I would hope that it remains a part of the English Major because as people who work in writing and literature, we are inherently working with languages and if you are crafting stories and using dialogues, then speech needs to be a representative of the culture of the character that you are presenting. Language functions as an identifier for many and some knowledge in the field of sociolinguistics will help future story creators.

 

Thanks for the awesome class, Professor Garley.

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.

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:

1. 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)

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=L42oT48bPCEC&oi=fnd&pg=PA29&dq=bahamian+creole&ots=QRsvPOk7bO&sig=uGtk3gAaVRdt8I6edOOzeAQi7Ac#v=onepage&q=bahamian%20creole&f=false

8) Donnelly L. Janet. Basilectal Features of Bahamian Creole English. 2008 http://journals.sfu.ca/cob/index.php/files/article/view/28/25

The analytical framework I intend to use is using the morphology of the assignment and the phonetic differences in the language. What I intend to use is the movie in addition to other media sources to examine the phonetic differences in Australian English and Australian Kreole. In addition to the citation of sources, the main focus will be using the research to asses and analyze spoken word and the attitudes about them. So, the Netflix series Cleverman which is spoken mostly in Australian English introduces a number of characters who speak and move along the continuum between AE and AK.  For example, “Brainwash from English”? Barunga Kriol Speakers’ Views on Their Own Language” by MaÏa Ponsonnet is pertinent to my evaluation of the show in several aspects. It addresses the “brainwashing” and “segregation” of the Australian Kriol speakers and the push to have them become more English and shy away from Indigenous culture including language and customs which rely heavily on unique language of the substrate languages. An assessment of this as I address the politics, language and will be pertinent to my project.

 

 

For Example:

 

 

Even within this video the speaker is attempting to speak fully through in Australian English until the end of the video where there is only a small portion of it where she interacts in Australian Kriol.

 

Analysis of her speech would reflect the articles translations. So, upon listening and distinguishing what is being said it would look different from the written form of English as well.

 

(2) [MT, speaking Dalabon]
[Wurdurd-ngan], wadjbala bulnu kah-didjim

‘[My son] used to teach all these white people’

For the first paper, I chose Bahamian creole. I chose to write my paper on this specific language because when I went to the Bahamas over the summer I was intrigued when I heard the language being spoken on the Island. Another reason why I chose this language because I met many Haitians while I was there and I wanted to find out the reasons behind that. I did not find as many resources as I thought I would for the language. APICs online was really helpful for this assignment but other than that the other sources that I found focused primarily on the history of the island rather than the language. Of course the creole spoken was mentioned but each source I came across made the point in stating that the official language is English. One thing I came across a lot is sites for tourists to explore since so many people travel there for vacation purposes. Bahamian Creole is spoken by about 250,000 speakers in The Commonwealth of The Bahamas. It may be classified as an “intermediate creole” with close historical links with Gullah.

Sources

Hackert, Stephanie. “Bahamian Creole”. In: Michaelis, Susanne Maria & Maurer, Philippe & Haspelmath, Martin & Huber, Magnus (eds.) The survey of pidgin and creole languages. Volume 1: English-based and Dutch-based Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2013.

http://apics-online.info/surveys/12

Hackert, Stephanie. Urban Bahamian Creole: System and variation. John Benjamins Publishing, 1999. Print.

“Talk Like a Bahamian: Island Terms and Phrases”

https://www.nassauparadiseisland.com/talk-like-a-bahamian-island-terms-and-phrases
“The Bahamas-Language, Culture, Customs and Etiquette”

https://www.commisceo-global.com/country-guides/the-bahamas-guide

Bain, Michelle. Language Education and Bahamian students’ compositions. College of the Bahamas Research Journal. 13 , 2005.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/26552669_Language_Education_and_Bahamian_Students%27_Compositions

“Bahamas Islands”

http://www.everyculture.com/A-Bo/Bahama-Islands.html

Donnelly, Janet. “Basilectal Features of Bahamian Creole English” The International Journal of Bahamian Studies, vol. 9, 2008. Pg. 16-20.