Caribbean Language Issues, Old & New

Caribbean Language Issues, Old & New

Author: Pauline Christie

Publisher: University of the West Indies Press

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 9789766400156

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CaribbeanLanguage Issues Old and New was conceived as a tribute to ProfessorMervyn Alleyne-who is widely acknowledged as a pioneer in thefield of Caribbean language-on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday. A wide variety of issues are dealt with: phonology, syntax, discourse, creole genesis, language problems in education, among others. Some authors re-visit topics on which Alleyne himself has written, building his insights in many cases, while others explore areas which had not been investigated previously. This work provides access to recent research by Caribbean scholars, and goes some way towards filling a gap, particularly in its usefulness to students of linguistics and teachers of English. At the same time, the uninitiated reader who decides to explore its pages will not be unrewarded, since the the style is simple and direct and the content, for the most part, not highly technical.


Language Issues in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Language Issues in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Author: Paula Prescod

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2015-02-15

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 9027269009

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This collection is a pioneer study of linguistic phenomena in St Vincent and the Grenadines, written by scholars who are both respected in their field of research and connected to the linguistic realities in the geographic area under investigation. This book covers the subfields of sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, ethnography, historical linguistics and syntax. It concentrates on mainland St Vincent and the Grenadine island of Bequia. The volume will appeal to a broad audience including not just specialists in linguistics but also teacher trainers and educators.


Come Back to Me My Language

Come Back to Me My Language

Author: J. Edward Chamberlin

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 9780252062971

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Combining the African sources and British colonial traditions, this poetry shares its roots with rap and reggae and has the same hold on the popular imagination. It discusses the work of more than thirty poets and performers and gives detailed analyses of the major ones.


Complex Processes in New Languages

Complex Processes in New Languages

Author: Enoch Oladé Aboh

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 421

ISBN-13: 9027252572

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In recent years, there has been a new interest in evaluating complex structures in languages. The implications of such studies are varied, e.g., the distinction between supposedly more complex and less complex languages, how complexity relates to human knowledge of language, and the role of the reduction or increase of complexity in language change and creolization. This book focuses on the latter issue, but the conclusions presented here hold of typological complexity in general. The chapters in this book show that the notion of complexity as conceived of in linguistics mainly centres on the outer manifestations of language (e.g., numbers of affixes). This exercise is useful in establishing the patterning of languages in terms of their degrees of analyticity or synthesis, but it fails to address the properties of the inner rules of these grammars, and how these relate to the computational system that governs the human language capacity. Put simply, issues of complexity should not be equated with the complexity observed in surface patterns of grammars alone."


The Languages of the Jews

The Languages of the Jews

Author: Bernard Spolsky

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-03-27

Total Pages: 377

ISBN-13: 1139917145

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Historical sociolinguistics is a comparatively new area of research, investigating difficult questions about language varieties and choices in speech and writing. Jewish historical sociolinguistics is rich in unanswered questions: when does a language become 'Jewish'? What was the origin of Yiddish? How much Hebrew did the average Jew know over the centuries? How was Hebrew re-established as a vernacular and a dominant language? This book explores these and other questions, and shows the extent of scholarly disagreement over the answers. It shows the value of adding a sociolinguistic perspective to issues commonly ignored in standard histories. A vivid commentary on Jewish survival and Jewish speech communities that will be enjoyed by the general reader, and is essential reading for students and researchers interested in the study of Middle Eastern languages, Jewish studies, and sociolinguistics.


The Survival of People and Languages: Schooners, Goats and Cassava in St. Barthélemy, French West Indies

The Survival of People and Languages: Schooners, Goats and Cassava in St. Barthélemy, French West Indies

Author: Julianne Maher

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2013-08-01

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 900418824X

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In The Survival of People and Languages: Schooners, Goats and Cassava in St. Barthelemy, French West Indies, Julianne Maher examines the enigmatic linguistic complexity of the island of St. Barthélemy in the French Caribbean, analyzes its four language varieties and traces the social history which caused its fragmentation.