CARIMAC Times 2016: The JREAM Edition Journalists Reviving Awareness of what Matters | Page 127

The British Council’s survey further noted
that Jamaican males do not like to read, and
it is a precursor to the use of patois as refuge
against standard Jamaican English.
Jordon Grant said, in high school, there were
times when certain words he used made it
easier to get along with some of the other
male students. He had to use patois-oriented
slangs because it was what they [class and
schoolmates] responded to.
“It was the best way to communicate what you
want to say to them or get your point across
… So you use it [a slang] even though saying
the word ‘dawg’ for instance, is kind of weird
because who wants to call somebody a dog?
But it’s what they are used to and it’s what gets
their attention.”
Professor Cooper admitted to using both English
and Jamaican Creole when she teaches university
students. She recalled one male student who
never used English when he spoke.
“I find that the male students in my class don’t
use English any differently from the female
[students]. But I had one student a few years
ago … was a DJ and he would speak completely
in Jamaican (Patois) in class, and I wouldn’t
stop him. I felt that it was important to hear
what he had to say.”
She said, while English is as much an oral
language as patois, Jamaican Creole is ‘the
heart language’ of the majority of people.
“Patois is the language that people feel comfortable
in, and English is the second language that many
people learn and they learn it in school … It is

associated with hard work whereas Jamaican
[Patois] is a language in which you can be
yourself.”
Junior Williams, 20, also a university student,
spoke frankly about his preference for Patois.
“ … There is never a time in my mind when I
feel like Patois makes me feel more masculine.”
He told CARIMAC Times that he wants to
set the record straight by making it clear that.
“My resentment of English language is more of
cultural retention. It has nothing to do with
being a sissy or making me more masculine.”
Williams expanded on the relationship between
culture and his language of preference.
“Mi feel like seh [I think] patois should be
considered a language. I’m not of the notion,
of the belief, of the ideology that English should
be considered our native tongue — Not because
we were colonised by the English. I feel like
we have the right as a people to exercise our
culture, our right, our language, because it is
not right to force your culture, your language
onto someone else. Me feel like seh a language
weh [what] we develop … we should hold close
to such legacy.”
Professor Kouwenberg noted that it is not
unheard of for people, including children, to
reject the English Language on the basis of
cultural identity.
“For many… English is a language that they hear
on TV … English seems foreign. They don’t
really see English as being Jamaican and as
belonging to Jamaica. That is how you can get

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