Table Of ContentThe acrolect in
Jamaica
The architecture of phonological
variation
G. Alison Irvine-Sobers
language
Studies in Caribbean Languages 1
science
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StudiesinCaribbeanLanguages
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Inthisseries:
1. Irvine-Sobers,G.Alison.TheacrolectinJamaica:Thearchitectureofphonological
variation.
The acrolect in
Jamaica
The architecture of phonological
variation
G. Alison Irvine-Sobers
language
science
press
G.AlisonIrvine-Sobers.2018.TheacrolectinJamaica:Thearchitectureof
phonologicalvariation(StudiesinCaribbeanLanguages1).Berlin:Language
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Contents
Abbreviations iii
1 IdeologiesoftheacrolectandEnglishinJamaica 1
1.1 The(Jamaican)acrolect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Sense1:Theacrolectasdefinedbystructure . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 Sense2:Theacrolectastheoutcomeoflanguageacquisition . . 7
1.4 Sense3:Theacrolectasdefinedbyitsspeakers . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.5 Sense4:TheacrolectasanideaofJamaicanEnglish . . . . . . . 18
1.6 Aimsandmethodsofthestudy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1.7 Datacollection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2 PhonologicalvariationintheJamaicanacrolect 29
2.1 Whyconsiderphonologicalvariation?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.2 Thephonologicalvariablesandtheirvariants . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.3 Featurescommonlyidentifiedintheliterature(GroupA) . . . . 33
2.3.1 BasicJCandJEphonemeinventories . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.3.2 Wordinitialglottalfricative/h/ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.3.3 Theinterdentalfricatives/θ/and/ð/ . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.3.4 Thelowbackstressedvowel/ɔ/ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.3.5 Pre-consonantal/pre-rhoticmidtensevowels/e/and/o/ 43
2.3.6 Thewordinitialvelarstops/k/,/g/ . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
2.4 Featuresnotwidelydiscussedintheliterature(GroupB) . . . . 47
2.4.1 Thewordfinalunstressedvowelinwordsthatendin-er 47
2.4.2 Thevowelinthefinalsyllable-tion . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
2.4.3 Thealveopalatalaffricate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
2.4.4 Post-vocalicrhoticity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
2.4.5 Word-finalclusters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
2.5 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
3 SociolinguisticvariationinJamaicanEnglish 63
3.1 Levelofeducation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.1.1 GroupAvariablesandeducation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Contents
3.1.2 GroupBvariablesandeducation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
3.2 Gender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
3.2.1 GroupAvariablesandgender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
3.2.2 GroupBvariablesandgender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
3.3 Parent’sbackground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
3.3.1 GroupAvariablesandbackground . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
3.3.2 GroupBvariablesandbackground . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
3.4 Speakerage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
3.4.1 GroupAvariablesandage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
3.4.2 GroupBvariablesandage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
3.5 HypercorrectionintheJAMPROsample . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
3.6 Constructingtheacrolect,StandardJamaicanEnglish . . . . . . 114
4 SociolinguisticVariationinJAMPRO 121
4.1 JAMPRO:OnesiteofpromotingaSJEideology . . . . . . . . . 121
4.1.1 Jamaicaninstitutionaldiscoursesonlanguage . . . . . . 122
4.1.2 TheJIDC/JAMPRO:TheirconstructoftheJamaicanlan-
guagesituation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
4.2 Frontlinestaff–ThepublicfaceofJAMPRO . . . . . . . . . . . 132
4.2.1 GroupAvariablesinfrontlinestaff . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
4.2.2 GroupBvariablesinfrontlinestaff . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
4.3 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
5 Conclusion 149
5.1 ThearchitectureofphonologicalvariationintheJamaicanacrolect150
5.2 AnendonormativedefinitionofSJEphonologicalfeatures . . . 157
AppendixA:PreparedscriptforallinterviewsofJAMPROinformants 161
A.1 Personaldatacollected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
A.2 Dataonpatternsofworkplaceinteraction . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
A.3 DataonworkingatJAMPRO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
AppendixB:ProfilesofJAMPROinformants 163
AppendixC:Parent’sOccupation 167
References 169
Index 183
Nameindex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Subjectindex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
ii
Abbreviations
AJE AcrolectalJamaicanEnglish
CXC CaribbeanExaminationsCouncil
EBE EducatedBelizeanEnglish
IAE InternationallyAcceptableEnglish
JAMPRO JamaicaPromotions
JIDC JamaicaIndustrialDevelopmentCorporation
JNEC JamaicaNationalExportCompany
JNIP JamaicaNationalInvestmentPromotions
JSA JAMPROStaffAssociation
JTB JamaicaTouristBoard
KMA KingstonMetropolitanArea
MSE MetropolitanStandardEnglish
PJS PutativeJamaicanStandard
SJE StandardJamaicanEnglish
1 Ideologies of the acrolect and English
in Jamaica
1.1 The (Jamaican) acrolect
TheJamaicanlanguagesituationwasdescribedveryearlyonbylinguistssuchas
LePage(1960)andDeCamp(1961;1971)asalinguisticcontinuum,formedprimar-
ilyfromthehistoricalsociolinguisticcontactofspeakersofvariousNiger-Congo
languagesandseveraldialectsofEnglish.Similarcontinuahavealsobeeniden-
tified in Guyana, Belize, Trinidad and Barbados (see the discussion in Winford
1997: 233–236). The polar varieties of this theoretical construct, the continuum,
arebasilectalCreoleand“standard”English(discussedbelow),whichhavebeen
treatedasseparatelinguisticsystemsbysomelinguists(forexampleBailey1971
(Jamaica); Devonish 1978 (Guyana), and more generally Alleyne 1980 and Win-
ford1997)andwhicharelinkedbyaseamlessrangeofintermediatelectsidenti-
fiedasthemesolect.
These intermediate varieties have been explained in a number of ways. They
havebeenattributedto:decreolization(Bickerton1973;DeCamp1971),duetothe
targetingofEnglishbyCreolespeakerswithvaryinglevelsofaccesstothepres-
tigeorhighvariety;ortobasilectalizationbroughtaboutbyincreasingnumbers
of West Africans arriving over time and acquiring approximations of approxi-
mationsofEnglish(Mufwene1996;2001)1;ortothesocialstratificationofplan-
tation communities from the earliest stages of language contact (Alleyne 1980).
Thiscontinuumisdepictedas
…acontinuousspectrumofspeechvarietieswhoseextremesaremutually
unintelligible, but which also includes all possible intermediate varieties
(DeCamp1971:28),rangingfromthespeechofthemostbackwardpeasant
or labourer to that of the well-educated urban professional (DeCamp 1961:
82).
1Chaudenson(2001)describesasimilarprocessofbasilectalizationforFrench-lexiconCreoles.
1IdeologiesoftheacrolectandEnglishinJamaica
It is to this sociolinguistic discussion that W. A. Stewart (1965: 15–16) added
thetermsacrolect andbasilect,(thelabelmesolect camelater).Inhisdescription
of“WashingtonNegrospeech”hewrote,
I will refer to this topmost dialect in the local sociolinguistic hierarchy as
acrolect (from acro- “apex” plus -lect as in dialect). In most cases what is
meantby“StandardEnglish”iseitheracrolectorsomethingclosetoit.At
the other extreme is a kind of speech which I refer to hereafter as basilect
(frombasi-“bottom”).(…)Inbetweenbasilectandacrolect,thereareanum-
berofotherdialectstrata,anditisinthismiddlerangethatthemajorityof
adultWashingtonNegroesprobablybelongs.
Acrolect, the focus of this dissertation, is the name for the upper end of the
continuumand,whileinmanycasesthetermisnotexplicitlyused,ithasbeen
definedintheliteratureinanumberofclearlyrelatedways.Generaldescriptions
ofacrolectspeakof,
• the“topmostdialectinthelocalsociolinguistichierarchy”(W.A.Stewart
1965:15);
• thestereotypeoftheeducatedstandard,focussedbyinstitutionsofeduca-
tion,themedia,andwhitecollaremployment(LePage1988:34–35);
• a“high,prestigiouslanguageorvarietyofalanguage”inany speechcom-
munity(McArthur1998:xvii).
Acrolect here is essentially a community of speakers’ idea of the speech pat-
terns of those positioned at the top and centre of their social space. It is in par-
ticular speakers, in those perceived to be of relatively high social status, that
weinitiallylocatetheacrolectinacommunityandidealisetheirwaysofspeak-
ingas“good”ornecessary.Thisthenmakestheacrolectcoterminouswith“the
standard”formembersofcommunitieswiththattypeofmetalinguisticlabelling.
This view of the acrolect is also reflected in many of the definitions applied to
theCaribbeangenerallyandJamaicaspecifically:
• the educated counterpart of the lexifier in the Creole speech community
(Chaudenson2001:xi(n1));
• the English of educated nationals of the Caribbean used in formal social
contexts,boundtoacommoncoreofmorphologyandsyntaxsharedwith
“InternationallyAcceptedEnglish”(Allsopp1996:lvi);
2
