Language Attitude, Discreteness, and Code-Shifting in Jamaican Creole1

David Lawton

Of all the research done in creolized languages, perhaps none has been so
extensive and so fraught with controversy as that carried out in Jamaica.
It is not the existence of language variation that the controversy is about,
but the best model to describe it 2 . Among the models offered for Jamaican
Creole (JamC) (Bailey 1966; DeCamp 1971: 351–354), Bailey's claims
discreteness for JamC; DeCamp's claims a linguistic continuum. DeCamp's
assertion is that Jamaica is a post-creole community with a linguistic conti-
nuum in which it is possible to find an intermediate variety or 'mesolect'
between two extremes: a basilect and an acrolect.

The evidence cited to support a linguistic continuum is insufficient, so far

as Jamaica is concerned. I wonder whether the present situation is not de-
scribed more accurately in a model of a two-language system, JamC and
Jamaican English (JamE). Such a dichotomy prevails in many parts of the
world in 'dialect' versus 'modified standard' 3 or, as in the case of Norway,
nynorsk versus riksnorsk. If a discrete model for JamC is tenable, then all
utterances falling between the two levels of 'basilect' and 'acrolect' would
have to be shown as the result of code-shifting or mixing. From my own
experience with JamC as a second language, binary contrasts and patterned
code-shifting reflect more adequately individual competences than does a
'linguistic continuum' model. Additionally, two models, one for JamC, and
the other for JamE are crucial for language planning in which the linguistic
systems as well as the attitudes of speakers are revealed in different social
and cultural contexts (Lawton 1980). During the last decade, particularly,
the shift away from a capitalistic society to a 'social democratic' one has
intensified reliance on JamC to express the societal values that are essential-
ly Jamaican. These values are linguistically realized in a flood of poems,
plays, and short stories which emphasize JamC syntax (Lawton 1981).
The exodus of the old middle class in large numbers, the increased respecta-
bility of Rastafarianism in deliberate linguistic modifications of JamC, and
the influence of some segments of the University of the West Indies at Mona
have successfully retarded further development toward a post-creole com-
munity that would have been likely to occur, had the norms of old Jamai-
ca prior to Independence in 1956 remained in effect.

English World-Wide 1:2 (1980), 211-226. DOI 10.1075/eww.l.2.041aw

ISSN 0172-8865 / E-ISSN 1569-9730 © John Benjamins Publishing Company
212 DAVID LAWTON

In order to test my hypothesis of the discreteness of JamC from JamE,

I conducted an experiment in language recognition and use with 35 girls
aged 13 — 14, all students of the Immaculate Conception High School in
Upper St. Andrew, Jamaica, W.I. Once exclusively private and entirely
female in clientele, the school is now public, but still female. The restric­
tion of the experiment to girls of middle-class background was deliberate
since they could be expected to be more language conscious than girls from
a 'working-class' background where JamC would be the exclusive medium of
expression in all normal situations. Using a matched-guise procedure, I play­
ed a tape of seven sentences, each one having the same meaning as the
others. Before playing the tape, I explained that each student was to indi­
cate which sentence or sentences were JamC, which JamE, and which fell
into neither category. On completion of the test, I asked the group which
of the sentences each one would use (a) on the playing field, (b) in the class­
room, and (c) with parents. I give the seven sentences below with JamC
features in normal typeface, and JamE features in italics. I have not included
any marking for tone (Lawton 1963).

1. A mi faada kyaar.
2. A mi faadaz kyaar.
3. It is my father's kyaar.
4. It is my faadaz kyaar.
5. It is mi faadaz kyaar.
6. It is my father's car.
7. Di kyaar a fi mi faada.

Each sentence has phonological, morphological, and syntactic character­

istics which pertain to JamC or JamE. These characteristics may be sum­
marized, respectively, for JamC, as:

1. Cleft a 'it is'.

2. Unmarked possessive noun, faada.
3. Palatalization of initial /k/ in kyaar.
4. Substitution of /d/ for /ð/.
5. High-falling pitch on —aa— of faada
followed by low-rising pitch on final —a of faada.
6. copula a + possessive fi 'is for/belongs to'.
7. variable word order.
 CODE-SHIFTING IN JAMAICAN CREOLE 213

The sentences of great significance for differentiation between JamC

and JamE are 1, 2, 5, 6, and 7. The attitudinal response was that only 6
is unequivocally English. Sentence 3 illustrates code-shifting where the
responses indicated ambiguity of classification as either JamC or JamE.
Subtle nuances of voice as well as phonological cues are responsible for
assigning sentence 5 to JamC: the last three lexemes, mi faadaz kyaar
carry JamC prosodics. Faadaz has intervocalic /d/ rather than /ð/; /k/ of
kyaar is palatalized. Mi occurs in place of 'my'. 'It is' are the only consti­
tuents unambiguously English. Differences of segmental and supraseg-
mental phonology play a critical role in the identification of syntactic
patterns as JamE or JamC.

Failure to recognize sentences 3 and 4 as either JamC or JamE is not

surprising since both sentences are instances of code-shifting, exemplify­
ing the realities of actual usage in the social activities of a creole com­
munity. Shifting from JamC to JamE depends on several variables: the
participants, the situation, status of participants, age, time, and place. In
sentences 3 and 4, for example, the interweaving of two linguistic codes
has social and functional implications. If each sentence were weighted
with features that characterize either JamC or JamE, one would find
that (a) pitch function, (b) constituent structure, (c) constituent order,
and (d) lexicon are paramount in the recognition of JamC and JamE.

'Pitch function' refers to intonation as well as tonal contrast. In JamC,

tone has a grammatical function. Stress is not lexically significant;
sentence stress is level. In sentence i, for example, pitch starts relative­
ly low on the first two lexemes, rising and falling on faada; rising, falling,
rising on kyaar. Additionally, the overall pitch range of JamC is much
higher than that of either JamE or AmE.

In terms of recognition, the matched-guise survey revealed that the

respondents could clearly discriminate JamC from JamE, but had diffi­
culty with those items in which code-shifting was operant.

In the matter of function, my observation is that all three situations,

the 'playing field', 'the classroom', and 'with parents' revealed that kin­
ship roles establish a different set of constraints from those operating
in a peer group, or in the classroom where other factors obtain. Admission
214 DAVID LAWTON

of JamC use in a creole community such as Jamaica is taken by Jamaicans

to imply social stratum unless other criteria are introduced into a situa­
tion which would clearly show that the speaker's use or understanding of
creole is not concomitant with social class. Although all respondents
agree that a mi faada kyaar belongs to JamC, fewer than 22 per cent ad­
mitted to using JamC. Recognition is one thing, but to admit use is some­
thing else. The actual fact of usage from my own observation is that
JamC is a sine qua non on the playing field. It is an effective system of
communication in a 'play' situation among members of the middle class.
In a classroom situation, JamC has no overt function, and with parents,
no one would admit to JamC use. Yet the actual fact is that JamC is
often used in 'at home' situations where outsiders are not present for the
purpose of telling a story, or giving a verbatim report of an event in
which JamC was the means of communication.

Clearly my survey reveals the ambiguity that holds in one creole com­
munity with respect to recognition and function of two different codes.
These codes pertain largely to the middle- and upper-class individual
who must be bilingual in JamC and JamE to be an accepted and contrib­
uting member of the speech community. That a large number of respon­
dents did not show consistency in regard to recognition as well as func-
tion illustrates the great importance attached to person, role, situation,
social status, and to the conclusions which an outsider may draw from
identifying the respondent by language choice with a social category to
which the respondent does not want to claim allegiance. The fact that
respondents could distinguish between JamC and JamE indicates that
there is systematic discreteness. Discreteness, however, does not rule out
variation within a single system, nor variation across systems. Carol
Myers Scotton and William Ury 1977 show a similar situation with
respect to code-shifting in Kenya. Recently, Velma Pollard (1978: 16 —
31) has taken up the matter of code-shifting in Jamaica from a some­
what different perspective.

Code-shifting is not a new phenomenon, but it has not been considered

until recently as a rational explanation for the Jamaican situation. Yet a
model of language interaction can quite easily show and relate both the
linguistic and social dimensions of JamC and JamE by paying strict
attention to the variability of each linguistic system dependent on social
constraints. The table below is an attempt to show the relevant con­
straints operating in code-shifting.
 CODE-SHIFTING IN JAMAICAN CREOLE 215

situation topic location

a. private conver­ a. greetings a. home
sation b. story telling b. school
b. 'tracing' c. telephone conversa­ c. business
tion
d. social party
e. political elections

ethnic status social role

a. white (expatriate) a. immediate
b. white (Jamaica) family
c. colored (white/ b. distant relative
black) participants c. friend
d. black d. acquaintance
e. other (Chinese,
East Indian,
Syrian, etc.)

social class employment activity

a. expatriates a. tourism (hotel/travel)
b. upper middle b. agriculture
c. middle c. buying/selling
d. lower middle d. Civil Service
e. manual labor e. professional
f. domestics f. teaching
g. rural agricul­ g. service
ture

None of the categories listed pretends to be exhaustive, but they are

all particularly relevant to the Jamaican situation and, I suspect, to
other situations in the Caribbean where creole communities prevail.
Generally, the categories are self-explanatory with one or two exceptions.
'Tracing', for example, relates to a special kind of speech behavior in­
volving one or more participants intended to embarrass or denigrate a
person or group. 'Ethnic status' is made up of categories which baffle
people not conversant with colonial or former colonial societies. The
categories reflect complex relations by color rather than by race. All
216 DAVID LAWTON

categories come into play in a conversational situation. Fishman (1965)

provides a tripartite structure of listener, place, and topic. I would add
speaker. Brennan and Ryan (1973) point out that 'person' is the most
important component in code-shifting. Blom and Gumperz (1972: 432)
point out that "code-selection rules . . . seem to be akin to grammatical
rules". Both sets of rules are independent of the speaker's overt inten­
tions. Certainly, I find this true of shifting between JamC and JamE
where sociolinguistic constraints are of central importance and where
predictability of shift is not always possible. Additional support for the
crucial role of social constraints is affirmed in Bernstein (1972: 494)
where linguistic codes are described as "the basic controls on the trans­
mission of a culture or subculture and are the creators of social identity".
My proposed model of two languages, JamC and JamE, in contact in a
creole language community is confirmed not only by the evidence of
oral records, but also by written records. During the last twenty-five
years, the oral record has been elevated into a pre-eminence not at all
justified by the available data. The pre-eminence of oral data is based on
the assumption that no filtering takes place as it does in the written re­
cord. Hence, evidence from controlled studies such as a matched-guise
investigation of attitudes and function are allowed, but literary sources
are disallowed on the grounds that they are 'third hand' (Pollard 1978:
18). The fact of the matter is that no data are immune from filtering
(see Giles on the participant's view of the researcher, 1973: 88). Since
the creation of models within the context of a general theory of lan­
guage interaction within a speech community must consider all the avail­
able data, the argument for the reliability of written records must be
made.
The written record I have chosen as a prime source to examine the oper­
ation of code-shifting is H. G. DeLisser's Jane's Career (1914). Jane's
Career is the first novel by a Jamaican in which the central character is a
black, rural woman. The novel was written for a Jamaican audience in
'standard' English and JamC. The process of analysis is dependent on the
investigator's knowledge of JamC, the social milieu in which the partici­
pants interact, and an awareness of stylistic variation which operates
primarily at the lexical level. Additionally, the investigator has available
taped discourse, the experience of his own command of the vernacular.
Quite obviously, phonetic data cannot be satisfactorily reconstructed
from literary records since "mixed language has no regular stage of
graphization or development of the written registers of language" (Ure
1972: 8). The investigator's judgment of a written text is as valid as his
 CODE-SHIFTING IN JAMAICAN CREOLE 217

judgment of an oral one since the processes of gathering data must be

buttressed by analysis and evaluation. The use of both oral and written
data may be cross checked for systematic consistency. While the investi­
gator may edit his tapes to give just the picture he wants, or delete por­
tions that are unintelligible, the investigator who uses attested records
must account for everything that is fully visible to all who can read. In
the sense of availability, the written record stands for all to observe. The
same discriminating judgment that one must bring to interpret his oral
data must be even more punctiliously observed with respect to the
written; particularly when the written record includes dialogue. As Dil-
lard rightly points out (1972: 16—19), "there is no approach to language
history which can safely ignore literary texts, and the discovery of even
one readable text in some older languages would be an event of great
scholarly interest".

At the time DeLisser was writing, code-shifting, as a conscious com­

municative activity was largely middle class, as it is today. Code-shifting
and the use of JamC in artistic endeavors became really noticeable in
the 1940s. The intelligentsia disapproved of JamC in all social inter­
course and were, of course, chagrined by their own lapses from time to
time. With the coming of World War II, however, and quite contrary to
what one might have expected, the post-creole linguistic continuum did
not develop. Instead, there developed a new awareness of origins and
needs and a reaffirmation of cultural identity through a much wider use
of JamC than had obtained prior to the 1940s. Historically, Jane's
Career provides the best evidence of the code-shifting process between
JamC and JamE. Three characters in the novel exemplify the social set­
ting: Mrs. Mason represents the middle class, Sarah, a domestic servant
of some experience, and Jane, the novitiate in domestic service. The
situation which motivates the interplay of JamC and JamE is the typical
one of sexual behavior. Sarah is alleged to have been entertaining a male
friend after her working hours on the premises of her employer where
Sarah is a 'sleep in' domestic. Mrs. Mason has reason to suspect Sarah
and fears that Jane, the new servant from the country, is involved.
Mrs. Mason therefore confronts Sarah in what results as a 'tracing match'
since the question of status, ethnicity, and concomitant social behavior
are language related; that is, the use of JamC or JamE among speakers
identifies status, role and, to a large extent, ethnic identification and
class affiliation. The following interchange illustrates my point. I have
used a phonemic transcription to represent JamC pronunciation of the
code-shifted elements in the discourse.
218 DAVID LAWTON

"You are a forward, worthless woman", shrieked Mrs. Mason at

her [Sarah]. "You are not only corrupt yourself, but you are try­
ing to corrupt that little girl [Jane]. You are a liar if you tell me
you didn't 'ave company here laas night."
"Huu yu kaalin laiad? " She [Sarah] insolently asked. "You beta
kaal you two brown niece laiad, or yu mampaala nephew. Yu is a
laiad yuself if yu did se yu see mi laas night. Wot saat a yai yu
mosi hab to si truu board an brick." (57).

Since there is much more than lexical shifting in Sarah's exchange, a

translation is warranted in English. Sarah says, "Who are you calling a
liar? You [had] better call your two brown nieces liars, or your effem­
inate nephew [a liar]. You are a liar yourself if you did say [that] you
saw me last night. What sort of eyes you must have to see through board
and brick."
Now, the prosodic pattern is not represented in the interchange, graph-
emically. The Jamaican reader will put in the prosodics automatically
so that the nuances of code-shifting become fully evident. Except for
the prosodic pattern of Mrs. Mason's speech which would be JamC, there
is only a trivial phonological shift, laas 'last'. The fact that almost all of
Sarah's response is in JamC carries an unspoken social dimension which
would be completely missed by the unilingual reader. That Sarah re­
sponds entirely in JamC reflects the implied claim that the Mason family
are parvenus of mixed ethnic background and therefore have little
claim to moral certitude, and that Mrs. Mason understands the vernacu­
lar even though she does not respond in kind.

The entry of a policeman to resolve the conflict introduces a new social

dimension in the form of official authority. As a member of the lower
middle class, the policeman is now caught in a linguistic contretemps
between JamE on the one hand and JamC on the other. Observe the
exchange:
"See here", said Sarah to the policeman, "I am workin' here, an'
shi tell lie pan mi jos now, an nieli haaf murder ar schoolgyal . . . "
"Well", replied [the policeman] hesitantly, "Yu beta pie ar an let
her go . . . "
"What yu se? " asked Mrs. Mason, astounded at the attitude taken
up by the policeman.
"That's the law", he explained. "Shi aar entitled to be here, for
she is working here." (57, 58).
 CODE-SHIFTING IN JAMAICAN CREOLE 219

Mrs. Mason's "What yu se?" for "What did you say?" is a shift to JamC
under stress since she is caught between official authority and the recal­
citrant domestic. The policeman himself maintains JamE with a single
obvious lapse of subject/verb agreement.
When Mrs. Mason turns to Jane, she shifts back and forth from JamC to
JamE since she is now in a less formal situation than previously, and
Jane would have no command of JamE since she has freshly arrived
from an isolated area of the country where her only contact with JamE
would be in 'set pieces' on formal occasions.
"I think I ought to write to yu parents at once an tell dem about
your behavior. I 'ave taken you under my protection to train an
bring you up as a good servant, an nobody kyan say dat you 'ave
been treated unkindly since you bin here. An I warned you about
Sarah. Yet look wat yu went an do laas night." (59)

Change in situation, topic, and participants produces a change in code.

Such a change can be observed when Cynthia, and her mother, Mrs. Ma­
son, sit down to dinner with Jane attending them. Cynthia reacts to her
mother's account of Sarah's departure:
"Well, wot a set. I don't know wot's coming to di servants dese
days."
"It's di education dey getting' ", said Mrs. Mason . . .
Dat's wot di government doin' now." (60)

Cynthia's code-shifting is largely phonological with Id/ replacing /ð/.

Mrs. Mason's speech shows not only /d/ substitution, but also code-shift­
ing of syntactic items that belong to JamC: no form of be before gettin'
and doin'. Unlike Cynthia and her mother, Jane has no command of
JamE, nor can she shift from JamE to JamC or vice-versa:
"We pupa gaan to? " asked Jane, while her mother was making up
another fire on the earth floor of the kitchen. "Him gaan to Misa
Braun plies to chop some wood; it's [a] ninepence wut a work."
"But Misa Braun did pie him di laas time him wuk fi him?"
"No, him se him will pie [him] di money tidé." (15)

The author's compromise in Jane's speech is to give it's in place of JamC

it a, or simply a with the pronoun implied. We pupa gaan to has mid,
level pitch on each syllable except the final one of gaan, which has rising
220 DAVID LAWTON

falling, rising pitch. The pattern is one of syllabic pitch, foreign to Eng­
lish, which has neither syllabic pitch nor syllabic stress. We pupa gáan to
is marked with the macron for systematic mid pitch (tone), and with the
acute accent symbol for systematic high pitch (tone). Jane's use of lan­
guage shows that she commands the vernacular, JamC, the single means
of verbal communication with her mother. In my opinion, DeLisser has
preserved a true model of functional JamC in contact with JamE. Some
of the linguistic differences which exist between JamC and JamE appear
in Jane's exchange with her mother, and can be isolated for emphasis:

JamC JamE
we where
pupá papa
gáan is going
him ~ im he/she
a is
wot worth
wok work

Low tone is unmarked. Him and im are in variation, generally. One syn­
tactic pattern that emerges to characterize JamC consists of locative we
'where' followed by Noun Phrase, followed by particle: Wh- + NP +
V + particle. There is no "progressive" be form or equivalent. Contrast
the JamC pattern with the JamE one where the chief difference in
syntax is the inclusion of be: Wh- + be + NP + V + particle. Since JamC
is a spoken vernacular, essentially, the reader has to supply crucial phono­
logical differences of segmentation and prosody.
To further illustrate that DeLisser's use of two codes, JamC and JamE,
is neither dated nor idiosyncratic, one may observe a taped interview
between a middle-class interviewer who uses only JamE, and another
member of the middle class, a recent convert to the Rastafarian move­
ment, a quasi-religious cult. Since the situation is extremely formal,
class lines must be preserved. There is no shift in code:

Interviewer: "Warren, do Rastafarians really believe that Haile

Selassie is God?"
Respondent: "I accepted it as, for example, undisputable facts
that he should be King of Kings . . ."
(Peenie Wallie 1973)
 CODE-SHIFTING IN JAMAICAN CREOLE 221

In another interview with a working-class member of the same move­

ment, no record of the interviewer's speech is given. My own experience
suggests that code-shifting takes place with the interviewer shifting to
JamC. Since the interviewer would not want to indicate in print that he
commands the vernacular for class reasons, only the response of the
interviewee is given:
Brother I-I: "But still, I no waan nuo se a iibn wen dat dat di
man rieli de faawod baut yu nuo."
Translated into English, Brother I-I says that "But still, I do not want
to know what the man was coming to talk about." Brother I-I sees the
tape recorder, but makes no attempt to code-shift from JamC. In the
case of the second respondent, a form of recent vintage in JamC emerges,
'I-I', an emphatic variant of T and replacive of mi. 'I' may occur as
I-man, I-ceive 'receive', or I-potatoes (Peenie Wallie 1973: 21). The mean­
ing of these combination forms varies from emphasis and identity to
more subtle meanings not fully understood outside the cult.
The business of code-shifting in Jamaica at the present time extends
beyond the native Jamaican middle class to long-term expatriates who
have integrated themselves into the community. For example, I observed
the following interchange at a party between a middle-class Jamaican
and an Englishman who was long a resident in the island:
Jamaican: "What would you like to drink? "
Englishman: "Gimme a rum an waata no man."
Jamaican: "Right, man."
Of particular interest is the fact that the Englishman used JamC at a
social gathering, a usage that would not have been made nor accepted
prior to World War II. The verbal exchange was accepted, to judge from
the response and my further observation of the conversation. Here the
function of JamC was to indicate to the participants that they were
both a part of the same social and cultural scene. The Englishman was
identifying himself as accepting the creole culture as a member rather
than an observer and expatriate.
A comparison with code-shifting in another Caribbean community such
as Puerto Rico shows significant differences between speech communi­
ties where different languages rather than related languages are in con­
tact. In Puerto Rico, the contact languages are English and Spanish. Two
participants could converse by having one member initiate the conversa­
tion in either Spanish or English without giving offense. In Jamaica,
222 DAVID LAWTON

however, the conditions for initiating a conversation in JamC would

very clearly depend on the social class of the participants, the situation,
place, and nature of the topic. The point of bringing in Puerto Rico is
to show that the phenomenon of code-shifting can be overgeneralized;
code-shifting is partly dependent on the total language context, and
partly on the sociocultural relation of one language to another. JamC
emerged from a slave/master situation, whereas the Spanish/English con­
tact in Puerto Rico emerged from military conquest which put two
fully developed languages in contact. But there are differences of defi­
nition between the social motivation for code-shifting in a creole society
where language contact takes place between a vernacular and a 'stan­
dard' language, and the Puerto Rican situation where two standard lan­
guages are in contact. In a 'pure' bilingual situation informational com­
munication is the essential criterion for social interaction. Not so in a
bicultural or multicultural community like Jamaica where information
is only one parameter of communication.

Since code-shifting and language attitude are so deeply bound up with

social status as revealed in language use, consider the following examples
taken from a Jamaican radio program called "In the Public Eye", a pro­
gram still current in Jamaica:

Speaker 1: [a woman from the Parish of St. Catherine]

"But my faada did [complain] but I don't know
what results he get. If tings go wrong some people
screw dem feis."
Interviewer [male]: "You are assuming that it was a gun . . .
Everybody know is a gun."

Speaker 1, the caller, switches in her own speech between JamC and
JamE: /faðər/ 'father' becomes /fáada/; /θin z/ becomes /tinz/. Rather
than "people make a face", the caller says, "People screw dem feis."
The interviewer's underlined reply code-shifts by deleting the subject
noun phrase in the embedded sentence. And, of course, there are phono­
logical shifts that are only partly represented above which tell the listen­
er explicitly that there has been a shift in code.

The implicit recognition of two codes is further evinced in Jamaican

commercials. For example, the Commercial for Appleton Rum, and for
Dragon Stout:
 CODE-SHIFTING IN JAMAICAN CREOLE 223

Speaker 1: "A go stop by supermarket an pick up a few bottles

Appleton an wen I put in a puoka giem an a domino
giem an a get togeda . . . "
Speaker 2: "I endorse dat — weekend time — it a silly time;
it a get togeda time, Appleton."
Speaker 3 [unctuous voice]: "Appleton, the gift to give her, sir,
from J. Wray and Nephew."
Speaker 1 [female]: "I am uova seventy-one and I have it every
night."
Speaker 2 [male]: "Isn't that remarkable!"
Speaker 1: "One is never too old to have a Dragon Stout.
Dragon is di ongli stout dat put it back in."
All speakers except speaker 3, shift phonologically, lexically, morpho­
logically, and syntactically. When Speaker 2 comes on the second time,
he uses JamE, which emphasizes the salaciously ambiguous claim in the
commercial. Actually, the effectiveness of the advertisement depends on
two codes, JamC, and JamE. That one researcher dismissed the existence
of two language codes (DeCamp 1971: 29) is incomprehensible to me
since so much of Jamaican life relies on inherent ambiguity in two codes
for humor and, sometimes, for special information. But the study of
creolized languages poses some problems which have been perceptively
seen by Kay and Sankoff (1974: 61):
Partly because of the stigma attached to most contact vernaculars,
partly because linguists who have looked at them have had particu­
lar theoretical axes to grind, partly because of the often ephemeral
and transitory character of these vernaculars . . . partly because they
may be spoken with more variability than is common for most
other languages — for all these reasons grammatical data on contact
vernaculars tend to be poor and unreliable.
I cannot agree on the unequivocal "poor and unreliable" grammatical
data. The data are reliable, but the linguist must be linguistically and
culturally attuned to the full range of attitude and function in Jamaica,
or in any other creole community, for systematic differences to become
apparent. As I have tried to show, the language models that are most
productive in describing the system of communication in a creolized
community such as Jamaica must consider the attitude of native speak­
ers toward their systems of communication and the function of these
224 DAVID LAWTON

systems. In the case of Jamaica, one must begin from the basic linguistic
forms that characterize JamC and JamE. Once each ideal has been
established, language variation in the context of social function can be
examined within the constraints I have diagrammatically indicated earlier.
Beryl Bailey 1966 is correct in assuming an ideal, because without the
assumption of an 'ideal', one would have to disregard many of the
formal claims made about well established languages such as English
since it is impossible to incorporate and account for all the data in all
'dialects' of English in a meaningful, systematic way. Once basic models
for JamC and JamE are established, and once the fact and function of
code-shifting are recognized, it will be possible to conduct sensible lan­
guage planning for the society as a whole and to establish an acceptable
way of representing JamC in writing. The present representation of
JamC by English forms confuses the unwary reader and leads one to
false conclusions about the semantics of JamC and the nature of the ver­
nacular as an oral form, primarily.
 CODE-SHIFTING IN JAMAICAN CREOLE 225

FOOTNOTES

1
The present article is based on two of my former papers (Lawton 1976a, 1976b). I am grate­
ful to Manfred Gorlach for his comments and constructive suggestions as well as to Ian Han­
cock for his comments. The final result, however, is my full responsibility.
2
See the 177 titles of publications listed in Reinecke et al. 1975: 383 — 95, and subsequent
titles and references to research in The Carrier Pidgin edited by Reinecke and Tsuzaki, 1973
— 80. The important research is connected with such names as M. C. Alleyne, B. L. Bailey,
F. G. Cassidy, D. R. Craig, D. DeCamp, D. L. Lawton, and R. B. Le Page.
3
A distinction must be made between cases where two related languages are involved, as in
Jamaica, and between two 'unrelated' languages such as Spanish and English in Puerto Rico.
The fact is that a distinction is crucial to language planning where a vernacular (JamC)and
a related standard language (JamE) are in close contact. If a distinction cannot be made be­
tween JamC and JamE, then the schools will be severely inhibited in the preparation of teach­
ing materials for a literate public. Wood (1978: 241 — 247) points out a similar problem with
language dichotomy in Scotland. The linguistic differences rooted in West African languages
and inherent in JamC with its predominantly English-derived lexicon reveal semantic and
grammatical variations distinct from JamE (Lawton 1978, 1981).
4
The matter of a consistent orthography for JamC has not yet been decided. Writers of JamC
are not linguists and therefore have little knowledge of the niceties of a phonemic script.
I have followed DeLisser's actual phrasing except where it is necessary to show the nuances
of phonological variation from JamE by use of a phonemic script.

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226 DAVID LAWTON

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David Lawton
Dept. of English
Central Michigan University
Mt. Pleasant