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Exploring the unique Jamaican creole - MdmeX, good read!
Tame-Durrleman - exploring the unique Jamaican creole
published: Sunday | December 16, 2007
Contributed
Stephanie Tame-Durrleman
Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter
The Jamaican dialect has not only taken on international recognition, but continues to be academically explored.
One recent study was conducted by a child of the soil who defended her Ph.D. thesis on the subject before an international jury of linguists.
Stephanie Tame-Durrleman, a Jamaican national, and senior lecturer in the Department of Linguistics, University of Geneva, Switzerland, received highest honours for her thesis, 'The Syntax of Jamaican Creole: A Cartographic Perspective which Explores Jamaican Patois In Depth'.
Exposed to new ideas
In an interview recently with The Sunday Gleaner, Tame-Durrleman says she was forced to look at the world from different perspectives to those she had acquired growing up in Jamaica.
"One thing that became evident to me in time was that we often unconsciously perpetuate inherited and useless prejudices if not forced to abandon them," she says.
"My studies at the University of Geneva confirmed this in many areas, and one of them was language. I was exposed to refreshing ideas about linguistic systems and it soon became clear to me that Jamaican creole is not a 'corruption' of a language, but a 'language' in itself."
Tame-Durrleman says most people who are acquainted with Jamaican history agree that Jamaican society has suffered enough at the hands of inherited prejudices.
She believes that a different approach to Jamaican patois can have a positive influence on how the language is viewed.
"We need to recognise that Jamaican creole is a full-fledged language for various reasons. First of all, it is simply not accurate to define it as anything else," she says. "Scientific approaches to any natural human language have consistently upheld the complexity of each linguistic system, and Jamaican creole is no exception to this rule."
She also argues that there are pedagogical advantages to the language and advises that a student ought not be scolded and made to feel inferior because his mother tongue is other than English, as this has been shown to have a negative impact on the learning experience.
"The respect of the child's mother tongue in the classroom may ultimately take us a step further," she says. "That is, it may even prove beneficial for certain students who are, for example, very strong in maths or art, but struggling with English, to ultimately have the opportunity of having the subject explained in their mother tongue, without having to face the obstacle of learning it in a foreign language," she explains.
She says various studies have illustrated that a child learns best in his/her native tongue, particularly during the early stages.
"Why, then, deprive our children of a potentially more efficient methods of teaching?" she asks. "I know this will shock many, who will argue that there are not enough of us speaking Jamaican creole in the world to justify such an approach. However, do the Icelandic people teach in English just because their language is only spoken in Iceland?"
Tame-Durrleman, however, noted that mastering standard English is very important in an era of globalisation.
Positive image
"Keeping English is important in our society, (but it) does not necessarily imply that we must trample on the image of our national language and complicate the learning task in the process," she adds. "Indeed, a positive image of one's native language contributes to overall self-confidence, successful learning in general, and the ability to acquire a second language as well."
Tame-Durrleman, who moved to Paris at the age of 16 and eventually married a Frenchman, lectures at the University of Geneva, where she has been teaching for the past six years. She has two sons and is expecting her third child.
"Needless to say, I hope my children will not only speak French and English, but also Jamaican patois," she chuckles. dionne.rose@gleanerjm.com
published: Sunday | December 16, 2007
Contributed
Stephanie Tame-Durrleman
Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter
The Jamaican dialect has not only taken on international recognition, but continues to be academically explored.
One recent study was conducted by a child of the soil who defended her Ph.D. thesis on the subject before an international jury of linguists.
Stephanie Tame-Durrleman, a Jamaican national, and senior lecturer in the Department of Linguistics, University of Geneva, Switzerland, received highest honours for her thesis, 'The Syntax of Jamaican Creole: A Cartographic Perspective which Explores Jamaican Patois In Depth'.
Exposed to new ideas
In an interview recently with The Sunday Gleaner, Tame-Durrleman says she was forced to look at the world from different perspectives to those she had acquired growing up in Jamaica.
"One thing that became evident to me in time was that we often unconsciously perpetuate inherited and useless prejudices if not forced to abandon them," she says.
"My studies at the University of Geneva confirmed this in many areas, and one of them was language. I was exposed to refreshing ideas about linguistic systems and it soon became clear to me that Jamaican creole is not a 'corruption' of a language, but a 'language' in itself."
Tame-Durrleman says most people who are acquainted with Jamaican history agree that Jamaican society has suffered enough at the hands of inherited prejudices.
She believes that a different approach to Jamaican patois can have a positive influence on how the language is viewed.
"We need to recognise that Jamaican creole is a full-fledged language for various reasons. First of all, it is simply not accurate to define it as anything else," she says. "Scientific approaches to any natural human language have consistently upheld the complexity of each linguistic system, and Jamaican creole is no exception to this rule."
She also argues that there are pedagogical advantages to the language and advises that a student ought not be scolded and made to feel inferior because his mother tongue is other than English, as this has been shown to have a negative impact on the learning experience.
"The respect of the child's mother tongue in the classroom may ultimately take us a step further," she says. "That is, it may even prove beneficial for certain students who are, for example, very strong in maths or art, but struggling with English, to ultimately have the opportunity of having the subject explained in their mother tongue, without having to face the obstacle of learning it in a foreign language," she explains.
She says various studies have illustrated that a child learns best in his/her native tongue, particularly during the early stages.
"Why, then, deprive our children of a potentially more efficient methods of teaching?" she asks. "I know this will shock many, who will argue that there are not enough of us speaking Jamaican creole in the world to justify such an approach. However, do the Icelandic people teach in English just because their language is only spoken in Iceland?"
Tame-Durrleman, however, noted that mastering standard English is very important in an era of globalisation.
Positive image
"Keeping English is important in our society, (but it) does not necessarily imply that we must trample on the image of our national language and complicate the learning task in the process," she adds. "Indeed, a positive image of one's native language contributes to overall self-confidence, successful learning in general, and the ability to acquire a second language as well."
Tame-Durrleman, who moved to Paris at the age of 16 and eventually married a Frenchman, lectures at the University of Geneva, where she has been teaching for the past six years. She has two sons and is expecting her third child.
"Needless to say, I hope my children will not only speak French and English, but also Jamaican patois," she chuckles. dionne.rose@gleanerjm.com
one more phd for JA.
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