Islands in Between 2010 – Abstracts 1
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Islands in Between 2010 – Abstracts 13th ISLANDS-IN-BETWEEN CONFERENCE UNIVERSITY OF GUYANA, 4-6 November 2010 ABSTRACTS Ann Albuyeh (UPR –Río Piedras) Tracing African Language & Culture in Trinidad and Puerto Rico The linguistic impact of the Transatlantic Slave Trade was notably different in Puerto Rico and Trinidad. While many question whether Puerto Rico ever had a creole language, Trinidad has been home to two widely-spoken creoles. Moreover, culturally, the famous Trinidadian carnival highlights the presence of African influence, whereas Puerto Rican celebration of African ancestry appears less evident. Nonetheless, both islands‘ histories share parallel developments from the everyday survival of words such as bomba, bamboula, kalinda and music and dances associated with these names to their often symbolic function in ―high‖ cultural venues such as published literature and government-supported performance. Furthermore, the fact that living culture is not static has ensured that both the words and their referents have evolved over the centuries as the islands‘ populations have grown and responded to changing times and shifting influences. This research investigates thematically related lexical items used in Trinidad and Puerto Rico, evaluating claims made for the African provenance of each, while analyzing cultural links to music and dance forms in West and Central Africa. Throughout the discussion, the paper will also examine changing attitudes toward the two islands‘ African heritage and the controversies thus engendered. Ann Albuyeh (Ph.D. University of Wisconsin-Madison) is professor of English Linguistics at the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras. She has taught in Iran and Nigeria, and at Harvard and the UW-Madison. Her research focuses on Africa and the Caribbean and language acquisition. Tyrone Ali (UWI – St. Augustine) White Man Vs. Black Man: Exploring Euro-Centric Sexuality in David Dabydeen's Turner and Its Historical Impact on Lower-Strata Afro-Caribbean Masculinities Imperialism was a racially and sexually gendered reality and the power differential among masculinities emerged in the master/slave relationship that characterized Empire. The clear hegemonic masculinity generated by the white conquistador was the ideal, creating a resultant subordinate masculine identity that came to signify the non-White man – initially slave and, later, the free African labourer—in the New World. But slavery‘s blood-stained gates allowed entrance and subsequent habitat to more than simply the one-dimensional portrait of hegemonic and subordinate masculinities based on race and ethnic relations. Rather, slavery as a psycho-social system was steeped with efforts aimed at the 1 Islands in Between 2010 – Abstracts complete emasculation of the slave‘s entire gamut of identities inclusive of sexual identities that were designed to project and protect the ultra-liberating sexuality of the Conquistador figure while relegating the African slave‘s own sexual identity to whatever the slave master prescribed. The resultant sexual bondage of the male African slave may very well amount to an almost metaphorical castrated sexuality in his quest to affirm his manhood the way he would have wanted to, leading to a social system that nurtured constructions of particular gendered identities, predicated on power relations and control. This appreciation of power dynamics, exhibited by the powerful white plantation owner and slave trader, and the powerless forced African migrant, provides a beneficial structure for an analysis of the relationship between the sexually dominant hegemonic masculinities and the sexually restricted subordinate masculinities as reflected in Turner (1995) written by world- renowned Guyanese literary artist, David Dabydeen. This paper interrogates the narrativization of Empire in representing the emergent sexual violence perpetrated by the Conquistador figure and its impact on the lives of the enslaved Africans in Turner, and also explores Dabydeen‘s perspective of the Imperial impulse as being irrevocably interwoven with pornography and power. Tyrone serves as the Coordinator of the English Language Foundation Programme, UWI, St. Augustine. His research interests include Tertiary Level Writing by Caribbean students, West Indian Literatures in English and Masculinity Studies. The 1993 recipient of The President‘s Medal for Teacher Education in Trinidad & Tobago, Tyrone has served his country in many language capacities and, most recently, co-authored a Language Arts series for use in Anglophone Caribbean schools. Nicole Arsenec (Univ. de Provence) Serial Verbs in Jamaican and in Martinican Creole Languages The topic of this paper is to compare serial verbs of Jamaican Creole and Martinican Creole: how sequences of verbs without any connectors, admitting TMA markers, can be analysed. A contrastive approach between Jamaican and Martinican can be as relevant as no political or trading relationship has been established along the centuries between the two islands thousands of miles apart, under different influences: English in Jamaica, French in Martinique. In a synchronic perspective, the purpose is to point out similarities between JC and MC in terms of class of words, complementation and functions: i.e. JC ―bring it‖ kya im kom ~ kya im go ―take it away― MC ―apporte-le‖ mene j vini mene- j- ale « emporte-le » bring- it- come bring- it – go In this example directional antonyms: JC go ~ kom - MC vini ~ ale , present the same type of oppositions. 2 Islands in Between 2010 – Abstracts After a survey of Serial Verbs in Jamaican and Martinican, it becomes obvious that this particular construction is structurally the same in these two Afro-American languages clearly different from Indo-European languages, English and French. We can wonder about this structural feature which is frequently used in West-African languages. Serial verbs like verbal system, personal markers, syllabic structures, and a specific type of passive make up distinctive features of the Afro-American family of languages Nicole Arsenec, who graduated from the University of Provence (South of France), is pursuing research in Comparative Linguistics about Caribbean Creoles. Working first in Sociolinguistics in Martinica (French West Indies), she was interested by the similarities of the different lexical based Caribbean Creoles during a journey in Jamaica; she decided to start on this field. As participating in Conferences in Capo Verde (West Africa), in 2005, her interest got wider by African Creoles. In Tobago (2005), Saint Vincent (2006), Saint Martin (2007), Curaçao (2008), Dominica (2009), this interest was confirmed in the comparative field of Caribbean and African languages. Vanessa Austin (UPR – Río Piedras) A Field Guide for Caribbean Linguistics Acknowledging the needs of the local people in a setting that is not the researcher's own enables the researcher to progress and deepen the analysis, and perhaps discover new perspectives and phenomenon. The need for a theoretical linguist's field guide, where a native speaking community in the informant's natural surroundings is positioned to contribute to the developing understanding, is an idea whose time has come. To understand why a particular question is posed within or for a given community, the researcher must certainly question motives, both societal and personal as well as accepted truths. This approach is particularly valuable when studying groups which have historically been objectified. Researchers need to question the very nature of epistemology itself. In so doing, perhaps the hypotheses behind the unstated questions might be clarified. I would attempt to study a given population through their eyes to avoid misrepresentations. Within this context, a multidisciplinary approach, one which is ever mindful for example of politics, economics, and, socio-psychological variables would no doubt prove to be of value by providing a more precise picture enabling the researcher to better observe relationships. The aim of this endeavor is to explain the exigency of considering all variables affecting the population under study. Vanessa Austin,a Ph.D. candidate in Linguistics at the University of Puerto Rico – Río Piedras, has served as instructor and coordinator at Universidad Adventista de las Antillas in Puerto Rico, teaching grammar and college writing to second language learners. Research interests include typological linguistics. Her experiences range from teaching at the pre-kindergarten through the college level, providing instruction in both Spanish and English in all content areas, as well as being a SDAIE (Specially Designed Academic English Instruction) teacher and trainer. Teaching across the curriculum and designing courses to meet the needs of SLLs through her focus on the theory and practice of academic English instruction has increased her 3 Islands in Between 2010 – Abstracts participation as a facilitator and instructor in numerous workshops and classes including TESOL. Austin has taught in the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kencil Banwarie (Univ. of Guyana) Latrinalia: A Sociolinguistic Indicator of the Guyanese Psyche Graffiti takes several forms, but its most ―private‖ side, restroom graffiti, commonly known as latrinalia, provides rich sociolinguistic insight into the psyche of society. The term ―latrinalia‖ in this paper exclusively pertains to writing, ranging from one-word and one-line entries to prosaic writings. Psychoanalysts explain that