Jamaican Creole in Reggae Music. An Overview over Linguistic Phenomena

Seminar paper from the year 2020 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,0, University of Koblenz-Landau (Anglistik), course: Linguistics, language: English, abstract: The main objective of this work is to give an overview of linguistic phenomena that characterize Reggae songs in Jamaica. To this end, an analysis of the phonological, grammatical and lexical peculiarities that occur in Reggae music in Jamaica will be performed.

First, the author will commence with the historical background of Jamaican Creole and explain how and why it has developed and what role Standard English and even different African languages have played concerning its formation over centuries. Afterwards, the focus will be on the role of Standard English and Jamaican Creole in Jamaica. Basically, he will explain in what situations Standard English and Jamaican Creole are used, where they might be rather inappropriate and mistimed to use and mention the phenomenon of code-switching. Next up, different linguistic features of Jamaican Creole will be analysed ¿ phonological, grammatical and lexical ones. After having exemplified those features, we will take a closer look at different songs of the Reggae genre by three of the most famous Reggae artists Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Buju Banton where different linguistic features of Jamaican Creole can be found in their songs in great quantities.

Finally, the results of the typical linguistic features that have been mentioned and the occurrences of certain linguistic features in the analysed songs will be compared in order to have an overview over what features are realized in Reggae songs.