Dialect on air Bahamian Creole in historical radio broadcasts Diana Wengler, University of Regensburg

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wengler, Diana, Author.

Series:

Varieties of English around the world. General series v. 71

Varieties of English around the world (VEAW) volume G71

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Creole dialects, English--Bahamas.

Creole dialects, English.

Radio broadcasting--Bahamas--History.

Radio broadcasting.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam Philadelphia John Benjamins Publishing Company [2025]

Summary:

"Despite the increasing interest in diachronic linguistic studies, such research remains particularly scarce for creole varieties, largely due to the limited availability of historical data on non-standard languages. This book addresses this gap by introducing a soap opera from the early 1970s as a source of historical creole data. It presents the first real-time analysis of selected grammatical and phonological features of Bahamian Creole English. Situated within the framework of comparative sociolinguistics, the study provides quantitative variationist analyses of the zero copula, BE-levelling, verbal negation, low vowels (i.e., the lexical sets of BATH, PALM, START, and TRAP), and the closing diphthongs of MOUTH and PRICE. This book will appeal not only to those interested in the analysis of creole and non-standard varieties but also to those studying language variation and change more broadly"-- Provided by publisher

Contents:

Intro

Acknowledgements

List of tables

List of figures

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 Research background

2.1 A radio soap as source of historical BahCE?

2.2 Decreolization

2.3 The "bad data problem"

2.4 Staged language and the question of authenticity

2.5 Load-bearing and non-load-bearing variables

2.6 Research questions

Chapter 3 Data and method

3.1 The Fergusons of Farm Road

3.2 Comparative sociolinguistics

3.3 Data preparation and coding

3.4 Statistical analysis

Chapter 4 Grammatical variables

4.1 Zero copula

4.1.1 Previous research

4.1.2 Coding and methodology

4.1.3 Inferential results

4.1.4 Summary

4.2 Be levelling

4.2.1 Previous research

4.2.2 Coding and methodology

4.2.3 Inferential results

4.2.4 Summary

4.3 Verbal negation

4.3.1 Previous research

4.3.2 Coding and methodology

4.3.3 Results

4.3.3.1 be and have negation

4.3.3.2 do negation

4.3.4 Summary

Chapter 5 Phonological variables

5.1 Vowel normalization

5.2 Trap, bath, start and palm

5.2.1 Previous research

5.2.2 Coding and methodology

5.2.3 Results

5.2.3.1 Data exploration

5.2.3.2 Linear mixed model

5.2.3.3 Random forest analysis

5.2.4 Summary

5.3 Mouth and price

5.3.1 Previous research

5.3.2 Coding and methodology

5.3.3 Results

5.3.3.1 Data exploration

5.3.3.2 Linear mixed model

5.3.3.3 Random forest analysis

5.3.4 Summary

Chapter 6 Discussion

6.1 Linguistic, individual and social variation

Copula variation

Is-levelling

Was-levelling

Be negation

Do negation

Have negation

Bath

Start

Trap

Mouth

Price

6.2 Load-bearing and non-load-bearing variables

Type II and type III variables

Type I and type IV variables

6.3 Zooming in on the individual speaker

6.4 Decreolization and language change?

Ain't as verbal negator

Trap, bath and start

6.5 Synthesis

Chapter 7 Conclusion

Chapter 8 Appendix

8.1 Pairwise comparisons of group means for mouth

8.2 Pairwise comparisons of group means for price

References

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index

Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on November 11, 2025)

Other Format:

Print version Wengler, Diana Dialect on air

ISBN:

9789027244697

9027244693

OCLC:

1528085683

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license