Parallel Space but Disparate Usage: Negotiating Language Use in a Bilingual Society

Abstract

Jamaica now is decisively a product of the clash of two powerful cultures, English culture at the height of its imperialist thrust and the West African Ashanti kingdom at the pinnacle of its might and power. Under three hundred years of British colonial rule, the English language became part of a cluster of symbols of British cultural superiority and might. Jamaican Creole remained among the symbols of lower status, cultural inferiority, powerlessness.The ability to use English establishes identity in the public domain and has profound implications for the capacity of people to develop themselves personally, to function in professional environments. Yet in the CXC English Language examinations, launched in June 1979, up to 2002, fewer than half of Jamaican candidates have received a passing grade, even accounting for the fact that Grade Three is now considered a passing grade. Standard Jamaican English is on the wane, not only in the prestige accorded to it, but also in the success with which it is used.In many pockets of the culture, the status of Jamaican Creole has subverted and upended the status of English. There are now many spaces of public recognition, acceptance and validation for Creole speech and Creole speakers.In Jamaica we are still trying to brush away the debris of status and hierarchy attached to our two languages. The individuals in this nation do not yet have the luxury of seizing language as a neutral psycho cultural tool, as a mechanism to create through words, feelings, statements, attitudes and values that produce confidence, self-esteem.I describe in this paper an attempt to incorporate drama strategies into my language arts classroom in an attempt to generate practice in creating form, content, and internal validation in the use of English and Jamaican linguistic structures.