Language Variation on Jamaican Radio

Westphal, Michael

doi:10.1075/veaw.g60

Cited by 25 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 112 publications

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“…At the same time, in parallel to the influences of Creoles on varieties of English in other Caribbean islands (Hänsel, 2021, Irvine-Sobers, 2018; Kraus, 2017; Mair, 2002: 36; Rosenfelder, 2009; Westphal, 2017), standard TrinE has been shown to be influenced by TEC. Direct influences from TEC on standard TrinE are not only reported at the prosodic (Ferreira & Drayton, 2017; Youssef & James, 2008: 334) but also at the segmental phonological level—both with regard to variation in vowels (Leung.…”

Section: The Sociolinguistic Profile Of Trinidadmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…2013 ) and consonants ( Youssef & James, 2008 : 329). Crucially, however, the degree of Creole influences in Trinidad and other Caribbean Creole continua settings is dependent on the specific domain of use and mediated by social and stylistic factors; in more formal contexts, in fact, fewer and more indirect Creole influences may often be observed ( Deuber, 2014 ; Leung, 2013 ; Wilson, 2014 ; see Westphal, 2017 on Jamaican English). In these contexts, as previous research from speech production and perception has shown, standard English may be defined negatively by its distance from Creole—or rather, what speakers may believe to be characteristic Creole forms ( Deuber & Leung, 2013 ; Irvine-Sobers, 2018 ).…”

Section: The Sociolinguistic Profile Of Trinidadmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In these contexts, as previous research from speech production and perception has shown, standard English may be defined negatively by its distance from Creole—or rather, what speakers may believe to be characteristic Creole forms ( Deuber & Leung, 2013 ; Irvine-Sobers, 2018 ). Consequently, in more formal speaking styles, speakers targeting standard TrinE or other Caribbean standard norms have been found to systematically avoid stereotyped Creole features in particular ( Leung, 2013 : 129; Meer, 2019 ; Wilson, 2014 ; see Kraus, 2017 and Westphal, 2017 on other Caribbean varieties).…”

Section: The Sociolinguistic Profile Of Trinidadmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Studies of spoken language use have mostly been concerned with variation at the morphosyntactic (e.g., Deuber, 2014 ; Mair, 2009 ) and segmental phonological level (e.g., Ahlers & Meer, 2019 ; Irvine-Sobers, 2018 ; Kraus, 2017 ; Leung, 2013 ; Rosenfelder, 2009 ) and provided consistent evidence of distinct (often Creole-influenced) features and local innovations, especially at the phonological level, and an increasing reliance on these endocentric forms of English. Nevertheless, accents of standard English in the region are also often characterized by some degree of exonormative influence: while American and British influences have a prominent role in some domains, such as radio newscasting across different Caribbean islands ( Deuber & Leung, 2013 ; Hänsel & Deuber, 2019 ; Hänsel, 2021 ; Westphal, 2017 ), these influences seem to be smaller on a more general level and standard British English mostly tends to be the somewhat stronger exonormative force (see Leung, 2013 on Trinidad; Rosenfelder, 2009 on Jamaica). 2…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The present study will address these questions from the viewpoint of speech production by analyzing pitch level, range, and dynamism in standard TrinE (as opposed to TEC) in comparison to two other varieties of English—Standard Southern British English (BrE) and (Educated) Indian English (IndE)—and investigating sociophonetic variation across these global pitch parameters in TrinE. Given that standard speech in Trinidad (and other Caribbean territories) is usually found in more formal contexts only, with possible domain-specific differences ( Deuber & Leung, 2013 : 311, Meer & Deuber, 2020 : 292–294, Westphal 2017 : 221), the study relies on Trinidadian data collected from one of these domains: secondary school education, which is traditionally reserved for the standard variety and decisive for its inculcation (see Section 2 for details). The varieties of English investigated alongside TrinE in the present paper are important points of comparison.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Trini Sing-Song: Sociophonetic variation in Trinidadian English prosody and differences to other varieties

Meer

Fuchs

2021

Lang Speech

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The current study provides a phonetic perspective on the questions of whether a high degree of variability in pitch may be considered a characteristic, endonormative feature of Trinidadian English (TrinE) at the level of speech production and contribute to what is popularly described as ‘sing-song’ prosody. Based on read and spontaneous data from 111 speakers, we analyze pitch level, range, and dynamism in TrinE in comparison to Southern Standard British (BrE) and Educated Indian English (IndE) and investigate sociophonetic variation in TrinE prosody with a view to these global F0 parameters. Our findings suggest that a large pitch range could potentially be considered an endonormative feature of TrinE that distinguishes it from other varieties (BrE and IndE), at least in spontaneous speech. More importantly, however, it is shown that a high degree of pitch variation in terms of range and dynamism is not as much characteristic of TrinE as a whole as it is of female Trinidadian speakers. An important finding of this study is that pitch variation patterns are not homogenous in TrinE, but systematically sociolinguistically conditioned across gender, age, and ethnic groups, and rural and urban speakers. The findings thus reveal that there is a considerable degree of systematic local differentiation in TrinE prosody. On a more general level, the findings may be taken to indicate that endonormative tendencies and sociolinguistic differentiation in TrinE prosody are interlinked.

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Section: The Sociolinguistic Profile Of Trinidadmentioning

confidence: 95%