Ethnic Variation

Question 1

Pidgin

Answer 1

A pidgin is a language that combined one or two more languages. This enables the members of a group of different speech communities to communicate with each other.

Question 2

Patois

Answer 2

Is English-based creole language with west African influences. It is spoken by the majority of Jamaicans as a native language.
The Jamaican language:
Don’t bother me -> nuh budda mi
Con artist -> ginnal
Girlfriend -> dawta

Question 3

Evoliution of creolised Caribbean English

Answer 3

1960s and 1970s - contract between Jamaican-English young people and white working-class neighbours meant that this generation adopted a development of language that was more of code mixing.
Mixed race relationships meant that people of different ethnic backgrounds were exposed to each others varieties of English.
Speakers with access to London English and Jamaican English may shift from one style to another in different contexts (code switching). This influenced both black and white young people.

Question 4

Ben rampton - covert prestige values

Answer 4

Creole was widely seen as cool, tough and good to use. It is associated with assertiveness, verbal resourcefulness, competence in heterosexual relationships, and opposition to authority.

Question 5

John Pitts -MCUE

Answer 5

Multi cultural urban English - shift towards a resistance identity - back to Jamaican roots as a sense of belonging.

Question 6

Roger Hewitt and mark sebba

Answer 6

Identified a development of 1980s of black cockney - a style rather than a distinct variety - used by black speakers in London

Question 7

Lindsay johns

Answer 7

He does not believe in code switching as a viable option to teach students. Believes they should learn standard English instead as it will benefit them when looking for jobs or in interviews as standard English is ‘universally understood’. Descriptivists who celebrate multi-cultural urban English are people who speak RP, are rich, know standard English, can also code switch

Question 8

Michael Rosen

Answer 8

Believes they should teach children to code switching ‘everyone is capable of being bi-dialectal’

Question 9

Garrard McClendon - AAFE

Answer 9

African American vernacular English - black people in America are the worst performed students in literacy in highschool. African American vernacular English is ‘beautiful’ but in business you have to speak, learn and know standard English. Have to learn to code switch to make it high on the career ladder. Teachers are afraid to correct black students as they’re seen as ‘inferior’.