Introduction

The comedy sketch “Jive In”, written by Patrick Brown, starring Oliver Samuel as ‘Oliver”,
tells the story of Oliver taking Faye to the movies on a date. During the date, Oliver aims to
spends as little money as possible while hoping to develop a more intimate relationships. On
the other hand, Faye was trying to get dinner and enjoy the movie uninterrupted.

Language.
The main language variety used in this sketch was Jamaican English Creole. Standard English
was also used, however it had short usage compared to English Creole. Due to the strong
influences of standard English on Jamaican Creole, a lot of words are similar to both language
varieties. Even the title of the sketch “Jive In”, is a Jamaican Creole adaption of the standard
English word Drive In.

Speech Continuum
The language used was informal and casual. The creole used was high deviated from the
standard form and hence, the speech continuum used during this show is Basilect. This is
highly suitable of the context of the sketch. All characters (major and minor) used this style of
language and it can be concluded the setting was an inner city or rural town.
Though Basilect is the lowest quality of the variation, some code switching was used during the
sketch for example, when Faye said “I’m not reading it for you….mi reading it fi miself!”.
The language register
The language register used was very informal. At times, the language register used by Oliver
was intimate before and during the movie as he made several advances but it was met with a
defensive register from Faye as she rejected him. However at the end of the movie, if was Faye
using an intimate register.
The pronunciation
The pronunciation of words are naive not only to the country but the place within the country
the word is pronunciation. Some words with pronunciation native to the dialect are:
heedat- idiot case- haste
figet- forget
nutting- nothng
soo- soon
hoil- oil
lakka- like
tek-take
Use of repetition
The use of repetition is a feature of english creole and was by the characters for example “stop
crowd crowd me up” , “full u a full u belly” , “straighten up back the seat back” and “to show
the show”.
The phonology and Lexion
The phonology is the sound system of a language. In this sketch, the constant ‘h’ was added to
word beginning with a vowel hence words pronounced as “heedat” and “hiol”. The lexion
represents are words that has two different meanings. For examples in this piece were “rope
in”. the word ‘touch’ (which means spoils in Jamaican creole) and “hole heap”.
Syntax
An example of synthax represent was shown when Faye asked “ Where it is?” and “Is me you
calling craving”. The order of these words are scrambled and would not make sense in another
language