Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: sociolinguistics and English around the world
- 1 The UK and the USA
- 2 Ireland
- 3 Urban and rural varieties of Hiberno-English
- 4 Sociolinguistic variation and methodology: after as a Dublin variable
- 5 The interpretation of social constraints on variation in Belfast English
- 6 Canada
- 7 Phonological variation and recent language change in St John's English
- 8 Sociophonetic variation in Vancouver
- 9 Social differentiation in Ottawa English
- 10 New Zealand
- 11 Social constraints on the phonology of New Zealand English
- 12 Maori English: a New Zealand myth?
- 13 Sporting formulae in New Zealand English: two models of male solidarity
- 14 Australia
- 15 /æ/ and /a:/ in Australian English
- 16 Variation in subject–verb agreement in Inner Sydney English
- 17 Australian Creole English: the effect of cultural knowledge on language and memory
- 18 South Asia
- 19 Final consonant cluster simplification in a variety of Indian English
- 20 Patterns of language use in a bilingual setting in India
- 21 Speech acts in an indigenised variety: sociocultural values and language variation
- 22 Southeast Asia and Hongkong
- 23 Stylistic shifts in the English of the Philippine print media
- 24 Variation in Malaysian English: the pragmatics of languages in contact
- 25 Social and linguistic constraints on variation in the use of two grammatical variables in Singapore English
- 26 East Africa (Tanzania and Kenya)
- 27 The politics of the English language in Kenya and Tanzania
- 28 National and subnational features in Kenyan English
- 29 Southern Africa
- 30 Sources and consequences of miscommunication in Afrikaans English – South African English encounters
- 31 Syntactic variation in South African Indian English: the relative clause
- 32 The social significance of language use and language choice in a Zambian urban setting: an empirical study of three neighbourhoods in Lusaka
- 33 West Africa
- 34 The pronoun system in Nigerian Pidgin: a preliminary study
- 35 The sociolinguistics of prepositional usage in Nigerian English
- 36 Social and linguistic constraints on plural marking in Liberian English
- 37 The Caribbean
- 38 Standardisation in a creole continuum situation: the Guyana case
- 39 Gender roles and linguistic variation in the Belizean Creole community
- 40 Sociolinguistic variation in Cane Walk: a quantitative case study
- 41 The Pacific
- 42 Watching girls pass by in Tok Pisin
- 43 Sociolinguistic variation and language attitudes in Hawaii
- 44 Variation in Fiji English
- Index of topics
- Index of place names
38 - Standardisation in a creole continuum situation: the Guyana case
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: sociolinguistics and English around the world
- 1 The UK and the USA
- 2 Ireland
- 3 Urban and rural varieties of Hiberno-English
- 4 Sociolinguistic variation and methodology: after as a Dublin variable
- 5 The interpretation of social constraints on variation in Belfast English
- 6 Canada
- 7 Phonological variation and recent language change in St John's English
- 8 Sociophonetic variation in Vancouver
- 9 Social differentiation in Ottawa English
- 10 New Zealand
- 11 Social constraints on the phonology of New Zealand English
- 12 Maori English: a New Zealand myth?
- 13 Sporting formulae in New Zealand English: two models of male solidarity
- 14 Australia
- 15 /æ/ and /a:/ in Australian English
- 16 Variation in subject–verb agreement in Inner Sydney English
- 17 Australian Creole English: the effect of cultural knowledge on language and memory
- 18 South Asia
- 19 Final consonant cluster simplification in a variety of Indian English
- 20 Patterns of language use in a bilingual setting in India
- 21 Speech acts in an indigenised variety: sociocultural values and language variation
- 22 Southeast Asia and Hongkong
- 23 Stylistic shifts in the English of the Philippine print media
- 24 Variation in Malaysian English: the pragmatics of languages in contact
- 25 Social and linguistic constraints on variation in the use of two grammatical variables in Singapore English
- 26 East Africa (Tanzania and Kenya)
- 27 The politics of the English language in Kenya and Tanzania
- 28 National and subnational features in Kenyan English
- 29 Southern Africa
- 30 Sources and consequences of miscommunication in Afrikaans English – South African English encounters
- 31 Syntactic variation in South African Indian English: the relative clause
- 32 The social significance of language use and language choice in a Zambian urban setting: an empirical study of three neighbourhoods in Lusaka
- 33 West Africa
- 34 The pronoun system in Nigerian Pidgin: a preliminary study
- 35 The sociolinguistics of prepositional usage in Nigerian English
- 36 Social and linguistic constraints on plural marking in Liberian English
- 37 The Caribbean
- 38 Standardisation in a creole continuum situation: the Guyana case
- 39 Gender roles and linguistic variation in the Belizean Creole community
- 40 Sociolinguistic variation in Cane Walk: a quantitative case study
- 41 The Pacific
- 42 Watching girls pass by in Tok Pisin
- 43 Sociolinguistic variation and language attitudes in Hawaii
- 44 Variation in Fiji English
- Index of topics
- Index of place names
Summary
Introduction
Descriptions of the language situation in Guyana have tended to treat it as being made up of two maximally distinct language varieties, standard Guyanese English, on one hand, and Guyanese Creole, on the other, linked by a series of intermediate varieties (Allsopp 1958; Bickerton 1975). This kind of description, while capturing a particular aspect of the language situation, misses others. One such is the diglossic nature of the Guyana language situation. Varieties approximating to standard Guyanese English tend to be employed in the more public and formal situations of interaction. This contrasts with the more private and informal situations in which varieties approximating to Guyanese Creole tend to be employed. Another aspect not captured by an analysis which treats the Guyana situation as one involving a Creole-to-English continuum, is that speakers normally control more than one language variety. Such persons code-switch between the language varieties within their linguistic repertoires, depending on the social factors present within the speech event and the social functions associated with each of these varieties.
Standard Guyanese English operates as the sole official language of the country. What this means is that those speakers who do not have this variety within their repertoires or whose competence in the variety is limited, are effectively excluded from all forms of official communication. In these circumstances, it is clear that an alternative official language policy is necessary if one is to avoid the continued exclusion of non-English speakers from official communication.
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- English around the WorldSociolinguistic Perspectives, pp. 585 - 594Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1991
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