A Sociolinguistic Investigation of an Ethnolinguistic Boundary: Tense-Aspect on the Island of Bequia, St. Vincent

Northwestern University, Evanston IL

Investigators

Abstract

With National Science Foundation support, Drs. Jack Sidnell and James Walker will conduct three years of sociolinguistic research on an ethnolinguistic boundary on Bequia, a Caribbean island in the territory of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Over 90% of Bequia's approximately 5000 residents are descended from Africans brought to the Caribbean during the 17th and 18th centuries. The rest of its population consists primarily of the descendants of Scottish, Irish, and English indentured laborers also brought to the Caribbean during that period and relocated to Bequia in the mid-19th century. Most Afro-Bequarians speak a variety of English-influenced creole similar in many respects to the creole varieties spoken elsewhere in the Eastern Caribbean (St. Kitts, Nevis, St. Vincent) and in Guyana. Anglo-Bequarians speak a variety of English that is structurally similar to varieties of English spoken in Ireland, Scotland, and the Southwest of England. This research emphasizes the tense-aspect system in these varieties of English and English-based creole. This area of grammar is prominent in descriptions of creoles and in theories of their origin and transmission. Researchers will also examine social factors that constrain variation in the creole- and English-speaking communities, especially the nature of contact between these communities and the extent to which ethnic boundaries maintain distinct varieties of speech. The analysis of social factors and linguistic variation will be used to address central issues of sociolinguistic theory. This research will shed light on problems of language contact and change, especially on the way that such linguistic processes are shaped by their social and cultural context. It will also document two language varieties that remain almost completely undescribed. Researchers will produce a booklet for local circulation that will explain the project and its findings. This will include a description of the language varieties, an account of their social history, and a discussion of their place in the daily lives of Bequia's residents. These materials will be made available for use in schools in Bequia and in the English-speaking Caribbean more generally. This research and the publications derived from it will help to dispel groundless but widely held stereotypes about the inadequacy of creole languages. The research will thus contribute to the legitmization of these varieties and promote a better appreciation of their importance in the communities in which they are spoken.