Abstract
While several studies have studied the unique features of Bahamian Creole, there have been to date no academic studies analysing Standard Bahamian English, the language of formal communication in the Bahamas. This study fills this gap in the literature. Using the methods of corpus linguistics, the study presents some of the unique features of Standard Bahamian English in comparison to other international variants of English, specifically British, American, and Jamaican English. For methodological purposes the texts analysed are limited to the genre of newspaper reportage. Features analysed include keywords and word counts.
Highlights
Studies of Bahamian English have, up to now, focused almost exclusively on the spoken creole rather than the written or prestige/acrolectal forms of usage
Studies have largely attempted either to tease out the distinct features of spoken Bahamian Creole (BC) (Hackert, 2004; Donnelly, 1997) or to present the unique issues faced by speakers of BC as they learn to compose in Standard English (Bain, 2005)
What’s more, if The Bahamas ever becomes keen on standardizing its own national variety of English, it appears likely that more creolized usages could never become the core of a codified national variant, as basilectal forms remain stigmatized among many educated speakers
Summary
Studies of Bahamian English have, up to now, focused almost exclusively on the spoken creole rather than the written or prestige/acrolectal forms of usage. Studies have largely attempted either to tease out the distinct features of spoken Bahamian Creole (BC) (Hackert, 2004; Donnelly, 1997) or to present the unique issues faced by speakers of BC as they learn to compose in Standard English (Bain, 2005). In several of these studies, the goal has been to understand the place of BC in the Caribbean creoles and/or to support pan-linguistic theories of creole development (this is especially the case in the work of Holm, 1989). What’s more, if The Bahamas ever becomes keen on standardizing its own national variety of English, it appears likely that more creolized usages could never become the core of a codified national variant, as basilectal forms remain stigmatized among many educated speakers
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