PART A: LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS
A. Language can be studied from a physical or biological perspective, as well as from social perspectives. Linguistics is the study of language in general, as opposed to the study of particular languages. It is the scientific or objective analysis of the nature, structure, function and usage of human language. Linguistics describes how languages actually work, how they vary and change, how they are born (or created) and die, and how they may be revived.
Linguistics bridges the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences. Part of the wider fields of semiotics and cognitive science, linguistics has several multidisciplinary theoretical sub-fields, such as phonetics, phonology, morpho-syntax, semantics, sociolinguistics and applied linguistics.
This foundation discipline contributes to several other fields such as literature, education (including language arts and language teaching), communication, psychology, history, law, sociology, anthropology, ethnology, mathematics, computing, biology, physics, medicine, and neurology.
See also UWI, Mona's Explore! Linguistics.
A. Linguistics is foundational to these fields:
Linguistics is valuable in these fields:
Linguistics can be useful in these fields:
See page 3 of UWI, St. Augustine's What Do I Do with a B.A.?
For careers in languages , see the CILT, and MLA websites.
PART B DEFINITION OF TERMS
A. A remark traditionally attributed to Weinreich is that "a language is a dialect with an army and a navy."
In Western thinking, this means that if the speakers of a linguistic variety have the power to govern themselves politically, then their variety is considered a 'language', whereas the linguistic variety of those speakers who do not have such power is considered a 'dialect'.
In linguistic terms, a dialect is a variation or sub-division of a language, which can therefore comprise many dialects, depending on social, geographical and other divisions. See the Ethnologue Introduction , and the problem of language identification, and the criteria they use for what constitutes a "language" and what features define a "dialect."
A. No, 'bad' English (or French or Dutch or Portuguese) does not equal 'good' Creole, and vice-versa. Try asking a non-native speaker to communicate effectively in Creole. Nor is it 'broken' English. People can speak a foreign language 'brokenly', but cannot speak their mother tongue 'brokenly' since nobody has a 'broken' brain. People speak their mother tongue fluently. (Note that semilingualism is a controversial topic.) To speak of someone speaking only a 'broken' language and no other suggests linguistic (and other) incompetence or ignorance or brain damage on the part of the creole language speaker.
Further, creoles are also associated with low socio-economic status. Whereas relatively less money and power might put some limits on an individual's educational opportunities and advancement, and access to the language of education and power, socio-economic status is not an indicator of intelligence or lack thereof. Language attitudes are important. If they are not corrected, non-creole speakers (or even creole speakers) might look down on creoles and their speakers as poor and unintelligent. Money (and therefore power of varying types) 'talks', and makes some languages look better than others.
While English-lexified creoles and English do share a great deal of vocabulary, making English-lexicon creole languages lexically dependent on English (from both a historical and modern-day perspective), they are actually semantically and grammatically independent of each other (to quote Ian Robertson, Islands-in-Between Conference, St. Lucia 2002). This means that they have their own structures, systems and accents, and fulfil or can fulfil all the functions that any language does. Creoles have normally occupied informal contexts, but can occupy any context, once they are allowed to, once the need arises, and once proper language planning and development are in place. Papiamentu and Haitian are 'creole' languages, co-existing with 'non-creole' languages, namely Dutch and French, respectively, and they are increasingly used in a variety of formal domains.
Consider the history of the English language, for example. Once the language of both kings and peasants, it faced serious status issues in the eleventh century, after the Norman Conquest (it was viewed negatively by the conquerors) and again during the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, during the Renaissance (it was viewed negatively by English speakers themselves). English was often negatively compared to Latin and French (even up to recently), and some felt that English did not have the expressive power of French, or the scientific authority of Latin. As David Crystal put it, some (during the Renaissance) felt that English was "not an appropriate vehicle for the expression of the new learning…. It was a language fit for the street, not for the library" (Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language 2003: 60). Now English is the world's lingua franca (and has 'borrowed' or appropriated heavily from both Latin and French, inter alia), and is used in all spheres of communication. It's all about power, position and money (not necessarily in that order). Since creoles have not usually been the language of rulers and conquerors, they and their speakers also face negative attitudes and low social (socio-economic) status, but they are not bound to their history, and things can change and are changing for the good of their speakers.
Some think that creoles are 'just' a mixture of other languages. By that criterion, English is also 'just' a creole. English derives a huge percentage of its vocabulary from Latin and French (which is a Latin/Romance language), and has contributions from many others. Negative attitudes towards creole languages have come about because of their speakers' socially turbulent history. Their more recent development causes some to see them as Johnny-come-lately languages, and as somehow less respectable that the older languages that gave them their vocabulary. Their lack of respectability has more to do with the lower socio-economic status of their speakers, and the fact that these languages are now coming into their own as written languages, many only recently gaining standard orthographies, dictionaries, and other forms of standardisation and codification.
PART C: MORE ABOUT 'CREOLE' LANGUAGES
A. Any language can be written, and creoles are languages, or speech varieties. Several creole languages have their own standardised writing systems. Languages are, in fact, primarily oral — no one is born with a pen in their hands (or mouths!), just a tongue with which to use his/her mother tongue. The UWI campuses of Mona (Jamaica) and St. Augustine (T&T) both offer French-Lexicon Creole in their Linguistics degree programmes (course code — L280, taught mainly by créolophones to mainly non-créolophone students). Mona offers mainly Guadeloupean Creole, and St. Augustine offers mainly St. Lucian Creole, since it is linguistically closer to Trinidadian French Creole (Patois or Twinidadyen) which is still spoken by mainly elderly people in certain mostly rural villages. Many issues are explored in these courses, including standardisation and the accompanying process of codification. St. Lucian French Creole orthography has been informally adopted for Trinidadian, which was the first Atlantic French Creole-speaking territory to produce a grammar of the language (John Jacob Thomas, 1869). With the exception of Jamaican Creole, English-lexicon creoles are not formally taught in the English-speaking Caribbean. Jamaican Creole was taught to Peace Corps volunteers in Jamaica, and is to be taught in Puerto Rico at the Universidad de Puerto Rico. Papiamentu is taught in the ABC islands. See (Fundashon pa Planifikashon di Idioma). For a good overview of the linguistic rights of individuals and communities, see the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights, especially Section II, Articles 23 to 30. The Declaration is downloadable here as a pdf file. A. Most of the written material produced in the Caribbean (novels, poetry, news, theses and dissertations, official government documents, etc.) is produced in the official languages of the respective territories, for historical and social reasons. Many novels include some writing in creole languages, but none has been written solely in a creole, or translated completely into a creole language, with the exception of Papiamentu and Haitian. To some extent, this reflects the sociolinguistic situation and make-up of the region. More and more literature is being produced in some Caribbean creoles. This includes the Bible, which has been or is being translated into several Caribbean languages, at least the New Testament. There are both written projects and oral Scripture projects in progress (see the Hosanna project re: the latter). For St. Lucian Creole, see the Folk Research Centre. An Tjè Nou in St. Lucia also publishes a variety of materials. See also the St. Lucian Creole website. For Haitian, see Emmanuel Védrine's annotated bibliography. Several materials have been produced in Papiamentu. See (Fundashon pa Planifikashon di Idioma). PART D:
MORE ABOUT OTHER CARIBBEAN LANGUAGES A. For EFL, check out the programmes at UWI, St. Augustine , and at UWI, Cave Hill. The three campuses of the UAG, serving the French Caribbean, offer FLE (Français Langue Etrangère).
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