CARIMAC Times 2016: The JREAM Edition Journalists Reviving Awareness of what Matters | Page 118

The Faculty of Humanities and Education at
the University of the West Indies, Mona
Photo by Tori Haber

English, the other is Jamaican Creole, popularly
known as patois. The thing about having these
two languages in the society is that they don’t
do the same thing. They perform different
functions … When we look at the functions
performed by the two languages, it depends a
bit on the individual’s background, but for the
majority of Jamaicans we can say that Jamaican
Creole is a language spoken at home, a language
spoken with friends, a language spoken in
informal contexts …”
She said, English, on the other hand, is what
most Jamaicans consider a formal language. It

would be associated with education, government
and business contexts, for instance. Jamaica is
experiencing a rebellion against the English
Language.
According to Melva P. Davids, teacher and
researcher in linguistics at the Edna Manley
College of the Visual and Performing Arts in
her work, ‘Languages as Socio-cultural Capital
in the Context of Contemporary Linguistic
Reality of Jamaica’, despite statistics that show
97 per cent of Jamaicans as speakers of Jamaican
Creole, there are prevailing notions of the British
colonial-derived English as ‘high’ language.

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