Analysis & Discussion

Through my primary research, I have arrived at some meaningful conclusions about West Indian communication. Most striking is the frequency with which speakers of Caribbean languages change the way they speak and the circumstances under which they do so. The surveyees note that academia often promotes the use of standardized English over other English forms, something that Young extensively discusses in "Nah, We Straight." Speaking their native varieties in primary or secondary school is not an option; in these settings, they are encouraged—in ways that are unspoken but verbally conveyed—to adopt standard American English (Young, 2009, p. 50). And all surveyees affirm that this is conducive to academic success, be it in grades, peer connections, or student-teacher relationships. Even within an educational institution, there appear to be different levels of standardized language pressure. One surveyee distinguished their experiences in regular and honors courses in high school:

 

"The environment in regular classes is less demanding but not just academically. You could go up and talk to the teacher without worrying so much about your word choice or tone of voice, not enough to speak creole but not the end of the world if you did. And the other students were very comparable in that sense. But in honors classes there was this tensity that has to be experienced to understand. Things were stuffy, kind of like a competition of who can sound the most formal and perfect. God forbid I ever spoke creole there."

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Teachers, by the way, was the first answer all surveyees gave to the fourth question. This comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with language awareness, or lack thereof, in academia. To combat this, in 1974, the Conference on College Composition and Communication adopted Students’ Right to Their Own Language (SRTOL), an initiative to protect the diversity of student dialects. Instructors are at the center of this effort, but because many are reluctant to rethink their language ideologies and pedagogies, marginalized varieties continue to be suppressed (Lovejoy, Fox, & Wills, 2009). Is non-acceptance the problem? In some cases, yes. But the larger, more common challenge is the teacher who embraces the idea of language diversity but is unwilling to do the same for nonstandard varieties in the classroom (Lovejoy, Fox, & Wills, 2009). The solution to this is another conversation in itself, but even a cursory look at the issue calls for reforming teachers' underlying belief systems. Weaver (2019) suggests an emphasis on critical language awareness, with interventions like linguistic diversity workshops for teachers, to successfully implement the tenets of SRTOL in schools. In any case, teachers must practice, rather than conceptualize, linguistic diversity for their students, lest they wish to perpetuate the linguistic conformity with which all of the respondents identify.

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While the four survey respondents acknowledged that standard American English is dominant in academic settings, their theories as to why this is the case are contradictory. Three of the four believe that a single variety allows for universal communication, which is consistent with the pro-monolingualism arguments presented in the film Speaking in Tongues. But unlike those proponents, who claim that those who do not speak "proper" English cannot get a good job or attend college (Jarmel & Schneider, 2009, 14:42), these participants simply see standardized English as a bridge between people of different backgrounds. The other surveyee, however, was more perceptive about the aforementioned ideologies among teachers. They commented, "We're taught by people that have preconceived notions about the way we talk and act as minorities. They push their language beliefs onto us without literally saying 'Your way of speaking is incorrect.' And what qualifies that? A degree and title of professor?" Both perspectives are well founded, but as with language diversity, there is no easy way to understand the reasoning behind them.

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These ways of talking—what are they, anyway? It may help to contextualize Caribbean speeches using the definition of a standard. David Crystal (2004) delineates it as a "variety of a language which has acquired special prestige within a community" (p. 1). For all participants, this prestige is primarily associated with standard American English, the kind spoken in schools and offices. It is replete with formalities, stuffiness, and occasionally a condescending tone under the guise of seniority or helpfulness. The latter is more applicable to the professional landscapes discussed by the interviewees, all of whom express dissatisfaction with linguistically uppity-upper management, if you will. According to one interviewee, standardized English is "... like milk: bland, boring, but you can't avoid it there [at work]. So you just use it when you have to." A rather humorous analogy, but their point stands.

 

But no standard, especially English, has universal rights and wrongs, so this definition proves rigid against these creoles. And since these creoles are portrayed as rival norms that threaten the existence of standard varieties (Walsh, 2021), it is difficult for them to coexist with standardized language. We can credit Edward Brathwaite with the term "nation language" to describe the native language varieties of the Caribbean. He passionately distinguishes written from spoken Caribbean English, saying, "... the noise that it makes is a part of the meaning ... When it is written, you lose part of the meaning ..." (Brathwaite, 1984, p. 17). Many participants agree with this. To them, lects are better said than typed, although certain jargon and slang can still be used via text. One example is "yuh," which simply means "you" for both singular and plural nouns. It was great fun when an interviewee exclaimed, "What yuh mean by dat?" as a request to rephrase a question.

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In addition, "double consciousness" is a concept mentioned by several participants, though not by name. I prematurely explored this topic in my Checkpoint 1, and it turned out to be one of the most prevalent in my data pool. It is a sense of inner duality that alienates the individual from his or her society. Said society takes multiple forms for my participants, such as the aforementioned educational and professional settings and, interestingly, sometimes at home. For an interviewee who never fully grasped their mother tongue, their tendency toward American English was not appropriate around family. They feel a disconnect between the "Caribbean" version of themselves that they project to relatives and their normal self, someone who sees little need to adjust their speech in most other situations. Having an outlier like this individual was necessary because it forced me to confront my notions about how even our community's varieties can promote linguistic conformity.

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The most important thing I have observed from my primary data collection is how common code-switching is among Caribbean people. I believe this reflects a number of things: linguistic norms; academic, societal, and even familial pressures; freedom of expression; and more. Language shifting, as I have explored in my research, is a beautiful and telling phenomenon. This observation is consistent with the documentary Talking Black in America and Vershawn Young's "Nah, We Straight." In both of these pieces, we see how academic environments influence speech, although it is more pronounced in "Nah, We Straight." I find that Talking Black in America relates more to how my participants talk in everyday life. Much like the black community, there are different types of speech within the West Indian community, and their linguistic experiences and challenges are quite parallel. One of the interviewees explained how they often use creole with African Americans, whose vernacular is "... in a lot of ways, like ours ... their grammar and structures, how they use their hands, or the sound of their voice. I talk to plenty of black people the same way I talk to my people." This is the only comparable ethnic group referenced by the participants, which is fascinating. In fact, it can be argued that black and Caribbean speech have similar origins but are at different stages of decreolization.

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My research finds significance in its attention to West Indians living in the United States of America. There has not yet been a focus on this particular community in North America; most existing work is concentrated in the Caribbean regions or British America. I was determined to fill this gap by examining the linguistic experiences and perspectives of West Indian Americans. After all, this niche is the most practical and meaningful for me, an Indo-Guyanese college student living in the southeastern United States. Now that I have showcased how Caribbean Americans communicate both within and outside their communities, the path is set for several other areas of research, such as bilingualism, code-switching, and language diversity. I certainly hope that the study of literacy among West Indians continues in even greater depth.