CARIMAC Times 2016: The JREAM Edition Journalists Reviving Awareness of what Matters | Page 121

Professor Carolyn Cooper
Photo by Tori Haber

of learning, that makes Jamaican patois more
appealing to men.
She said it is her intuition that because there has
been a systemic stigmatisation of the Jamaican
Language [creole], it has been turned it into a
space of rebellion, which many Jamaican men
find attractive.
“I think part of what is attractive to young men
about Jamaican patois is that it is seen as an
outlaw language. It’s a sign of ‘badness’… It’s
part of the hype of masculinity not bowing to
the standards of respectability …”

Twenty-four-year-old Ricardo Russell, a firstyear university student, told CARIMAC Times
that, in his view, the use of English Language
is not the best suited in the context of what he
calls the inner city.
“In my experience, English would mean that
people from inner cities, when they hear someone
speaking English, they would think that ‘oh,
that person is pampered,’ so they’re easy target
or when males use the English Language, they
think that “ ‘im nuh ruff; ‘im a talk like a girl
[he’s not rough; he talks like a girl] … ’ ”

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