Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics

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https://uwispace.sta.uwi.edu/handle/2139/5603

Welcome to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics sub-community. Our academic staff members are actively engaged in a wide range of research interests.

Our Linguistics research focuses on a number of subfields of linguistics including grammar (phonology, morphology, syntax), anthropological linguistics, applied linguistics, forensic linguistics, historical linguistics, language acquisition, sociolinguistics (including sociophonetics), sign linguistics, speech-language pathology, language documentation, and more.

The languages of our research include English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Trinidadian French Creole (Patois), Tobagonian (English Creole), Trinidadian (English Creole), and Trinidad & Tobago Sign Language (TTSL). Our staff and postgraduate students are researching aspects of these languages, as well as Arabic and Bhojpuri.

Our research into Modern Romance Languages and their Literatures include Culturometrics, Latin American Studies, Literary Representations of Indigenous Cultures of Latin America, Social and Political Issues and Literature in Latin America, 19th Century French Literature, Francophone Post-Colonial Studies, French Cinema, Luso-Caribbean Language, History and Culture, Portuguese Language Studies, Brazilian Film and Popular Culture, Afro-Hispanic Literature (Race and Hybridity), Hispanic Drama (Latin American and Spain), the Mexican Novel, Women in Hispanic Literature, and much more.

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 44

Um crioulo francês numa nação não-francófona, Trinidad & Tobago: passado, presente e futuro
(2001) Ferreira, Jo-Anne S.
Apresento o crioulo francês falado na ilha de Trinidad, analisando como essa língua conseguiu sobreviver sendo que a ilha nunca foi de domínio francês e se encontra numa nação não-francófona.
Discovering Resemblances: Language and Identity in Caribbean Poetry
(Delaware Review of Latin American Studies, 2004-08-15) Roberts, Nicole
“Hispanic” is an identification generally accepted in the Caribbean by both black and white residents of the islands. Examination of poems by several black Caribbean poets (the Puerto Ricans Mayra Santos Febres and Magaly Quiñones, the Dominicans Sherezada [Chiqui] Vicioso and Blas Jiménez, and the Cuban Escilia Saldaña) reveals how they use Spanish to communicate the life experience unique to black bearers of the cultural term “Hispanic.”
Madeiran Portuguese Migration to Guyana, St. Vincent, Antigua and Trinidad: A Comparative Overview
(2006) Ferreira, Jo-Anne S.
This paper represents a preliminary exploration of Madeiran migration to the Anglophone Caribbean. It seeks to consider the phenomenon of Madeiran migration in the context of the wider Anglophone Caribbean by comparing and contrasting the waves of Madeiran migration across the region, including the extent and rate of cultural assimilation in each new home of Madeiran migrants. Apart from the primary sources available for the Portuguese community of Trinidad, mainly secondary sources have been used and assessed for the other territories as an initial basis for comparison.
MyeLearning as a tool to enhance the writing process in Spanish as a foreign language
(International Journal of Education and Development using ICT, 2009) Mideros, Diego
This paper describes the experience of a case study in which MyeLearning was implemented as a tool to enhance the writing process in the Spanish as a Foreign Language programme at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus. The main objective was to produce texts in the target language as part of the grammar and composition class. Three different feedback strategies were mainly used. These strategies served to help students reflect on writing as a process whose main aim is to be read by an audience. This project emerged from the need to change the students’ perception on writing as a final product rather than as a systematic process that requires reflection and careful thinking of the other, the reader, in order to produce coherence and cohesion.
Bilingual Education among the Karipúna and Galibi-Marwono: Prospects and Possibilities for Language Preservation
(John Benjamins, 2010) Ferreira, Jo-Anne S.
Amapá French Creole is spoken mainly by the Karipúna and Galibi-Marwono, who are both indigenous Brazilians as well as members of the wider Caribbean French Creole-speaking community. Members of both ethnic groups are bilingual in French Creole and Portuguese to varying degrees, depending on their ethnohistory and geographical location, and language attitudes vary from group to group and village to village. Catholic and Protestant missions have been largely responsible for promoting a 3-year bilingual education primary school programme among these French Creole speakers, and there has also been government support in this area. The bilingual programme aims to preserve the mother tongue of the Karipúna and GalibiMarwono youth, as well as to provide these young Brazilians with a foundation in Portuguese. All education beyond primary school is in Portuguese, the official language, which is the language of prestige, power and offers possibilities for socio-economic advancement. It is in the context of bilingual education that many young Karipúna and Galibi-Marwono are first exposed to Portuguese. In this language contact situation, a growing preference for Portuguese may well militate against longer term language maintenance efforts in these French Creole Amerindian minority communities. This chapter explores bilingual education among both the Karipúna and Galibi-Marwono, government policies for indigenous mother-tongue education, and the models and materials currently in use. The chapter focuses on the prospects for the double-edged sword of bilingual education, representing at once hope for language maintenance as well as the source of possible long-term erosion for the very language that the current programme is trying to preserve.
La historia y el futuro del patuá en Paria: Informe de los esfuerzos iniciales en la revitalización del criollo francés en Venezuela
(Universidad de Puerto Rico, 2010-04) Ferreira, Jo-Anne S.
El patuá venezolano, un criollo antillano de léxico francés, se puede categorizar como una variedad lingüística moribunda, ya que su vitalidad etnolingüística parece ser relativamente pobre. Como los demás criollos franceses de América del Sur, se habla mayormente en una zona fronteriza, en este caso la frontera marítima entre Trinidad y Venezuela en dos áreas-- Güíria en la península Paria (capital del municipio de Valdez, Estado Sucre) y El Callao en Estado Bolívar al sur. Los hablantes nativos incluyen a venezolanos con enlaces ancestrales pero ninguna conexión inmediata al Caribe insular y a hijos venezolanos de migrantes recientes de Haití y de las Antillas Menores. Hay un creciente interés en el idioma y la cultura de los hablantes del criollo francés de Venezuela (VFC, por sus siglas en inglés) de parte de los descendientes de estos grupos, de los otros ciudadanos de los Estados Sucre y Bolívar y de investigadores. Este artículo explora los orígenes del aparente renacimiento y resurgimiento del patuá venezolano y lo ubica en el contexto de la familia de los criollos franceses del Caribe. Venezuelan Patuá, a variety of Lesser Antillean French-lexicon Creole, may be categorized as a dying variety, since its ethnolinguistic vitality appears to be relatively poor. Like other minority varieties of French Creole in Latin America, it is spoken primarily in a border zone, in this case along the maritime frontier between Trinidad and Venezuela in two areas— Güíria in the Paria Peninsula (capital of the municipality of Valdez, Estado Sucre) and El Callao in Estado Bolívar to the south. Native speakers include elderly Venezuelans with ancestral ties but no immediate connection to the insular Caribbean, as well as Venezuelan-born children of recent migrants from Haiti and the Lesser Antilles. There is now growing interest in the language and culture of Venezuelan French Creole (VFC) speakers on the part of descendants of these groups, other citizens of Estados Sucre and Bolívar, and researchers. This paper explores the origins of the apparent renaissance and resurgence of Venezuelan Patuá and places it in the context of the language family of French Creoles of the Caribbean.
Telecollaboration in Spanish as a Foreign Language Learning in Trinidad
(Ikala, 2010-04) Neva, Carolina; Landa Buil, Maria; Carter, Beverly-Anne; Ibrahim-Ali, Amina
Objective: To study how participation in tandem partnership influences the motivation towards the target language and culture and the autonomy of learners of Spanish as a foreign language in Trinidad and Tobago. Method: An action research project was conducted with 33 learners of Spanish in Trinidad and 33 learners of English in Colombia, who engaged in a seven week telecollaboration during which they used email and Web 2.0 technologies to communicate. Data were collected through questionnaires and a weekly journal. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were carried out. Results: The objectives of the project were all met. Conclusions: The project was a rich source of learning for all the participants and stresses the need of a deeper understanding of learners' language learning, an analysis of the sociocultural, psycholinguistic, and linguistic dimensions of intercultural competence in a specific context, and the critical assessment of the role of Web 2.0 technologies in fostering autonomy. Link to article
Comparative perspectives on the origins, development and structure of Amazonian (Karipúna) French Creole
(2010-05-04T17:59:30Z) Ferreira, Jo-Anne S.; ALLEYNE, Mervyn C.
Together known as Kheuól, Karipúna French Creole (KFC) and Galibi-Marwono French Creole (GMFC) are two varieties of Amazonian French Creole (AFC) spoken in the Uaçá area of northern Amapá in Brazil. They are socio-historically and linguistically connected with and considered to be varieties of Guianese French Creole (GFC). This paper focuses on the external history of the Brazilian varieties, and compares a selection of linguistic forms across AFC with those of GFC and Antillean varieties, including nasalised vowels, the personal pronouns and the verbal markers. St. Lucian was chosen as representative of the Antillean French creoles of the South-Eastern Caribbean, including Martinique and Trinidad, whose populations have had a history of contact with those of northern Brazil since the sixteenth century. Data have been collected from both field research and archival research into secondary sources.
Language, Education and Representation: Towards Sustainable Development for Haiti
(2010-05-04T18:00:11Z) Youssef, Valerie
As Haiti labours under the extreme stress of possibly its greatest natural disaster to date and as vast sums of money seek to enter its vacuous system and to bring relief, it behoves us to consider the many aspects of the Haitian situation which have kept it in abject poverty down to the present and to seek means of redressing, not just the immediate crisis, but its long term internal socio-political dilemma. We all recognize the power of education in enabling a people to rise up, to become empowered, to take control of its own destiny, and yet Haiti remains with an education system which effectively excludes 75% of its people, despite ‘on paper’ efforts to address the problem.
The History and Future of Patuá in Paria: Report on Initial Language Revitalization Efforts for French Creole in Venezuela (Short Note)
(2010-05-04T18:00:46Z) Ferreira, Jo-Anne S.
Patuá of the Paria Peninsula of Venezuela, a variety of Lesser Antillean French-lexicon Creole, may be categorised as a dying variety, as its ethnolinguistic vitality appears to be relatively poor. This variety, like other minority varieties of French Creole in Latin America, is spoken primarily in a border area, namely the Trinidad-Venezuela Paria area. Other varieties in similar border situations include Haitian Creole spoken on the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and Karipúna and Galibi-Marwono French-lexicon Creole spoken in Oiapoque, on the Brazilian side of the Oiapoque river border of French Guiana-Brazil. In Venezuela, French Creole is spoken in two areas—Güíria on the Paria peninsula (capital of the Valdéz municipality, Estado Sucre), and El Callao in Estado Bolívar to the south. Native speakers include elderly Venezuelans with ancestral ties but no immediate connection to the insular Caribbean, as well as Venezuelan children of recent migrants from Haiti and the Lesser Antilles. There is now growing interest in the language and culture of Venezuelan French Creole (VFC) speakers, on the part of descendants of these groups, as well as on the part of other citizens of Estados Sucre and Bolívar, and researchers. This preliminary paper seeks to explore the origins of the apparent renaissance and resurgence of this dying language variety, and to place it in the context of the French Creole language family of the Caribbean.
Caribbean Languages and Caribbean Linguistics
(UWI Press, 2012) Ferreira, Jo-Anne S.
Of the 1,000 plus languages of the Americas, 70 are in use across the 29 territories of the Caribbean, including both the archipelago and continental rimlands (Allsopp 1996). Linguistic situations of the Caribbean are complex, with language users managing an interface between and among a variety of heritage languages, each with its own social status, and some with both national and official status. Linguistic groupings include indigenous Amerindian languages, European languages, creole languages, sign languages (indigenous and foreign), and immigrant languages of various origins, including religious languages. With regard to European languages and creole languages, the relationships are varied, intense and often appear to be problematic, especially where they meet in the arena of formal education. In addition to the complexity of the living languages, their varieties and the often overlapping communities of practice to which their users (speakers and signers) belong, there are a number of heritage languages in various stages of obsolescence. Some are almost totally extinct, and some moribund, with few, if any, young native language users. Caribbean(ist) linguists have been engaged in the analysis and documentation of these languages and language situations for several decades, many pioneering work in hitherto neglected areas. These linguistics studies have an immediate application to formal education, language and language education policies, sustainable and ongoing language and culture development, communication, issues of identity, heritage and ethnicity, nation-building, linguistic rights and discrimination and language revitalisation. To understand human language as an integral and inseparable part of human culture is to begin to understand human and issues of social and cultural identity. This is the work of linguists in the Caribbean and beyond. *****ERRATA***** (missing from published version on *Table 9.1 Amerindian Languages of Belize and the Guyanas, under Carib, page 133): *Akurio *Sikiana and *Trió
Research Notes Iss. 1, 2014.
( (The University of the West Indies, Faculty of Humanities and Education, Dept. of Modern Languages and Linguistics, 2014), 2014) Various authors
DMLL Research Notes Issue No. 1 reflects on the innovative research and publications of Professor Béatrice Boufoy-Bastick in the theory and field of Culturometrics, developed by Prof Boufoy-Bastick herself, as the theory applies to language, education, culture and more.
Poemas de Luis Fermín Cuellar en torno a la revolución mexicana como material didáctico para estudiantes del tercer nivel de la licenciatura en Español en The University of the West Indies (UWI) St. Augustine Campus.
(2014-06-05) Guedez Fernandez, Romulo
En este trabajo de investigación se estudia la utilización de poemas de Luis Fermín Cuellar en torno a la revolución mexicana como material didáctico para estudiantes del español como segunda lengua en las clases de comprensión de lectura, composición y de conversación. Se estudia el impacto de la implementación de este material tanto en el aprendizaje de nuevo léxico y en la pronunciación y entonación; así como también en la manera en que puede contribuir a motivar al estudiante en su meta por aprender o perfeccionar la producción y comprensión tanto oral como escrita del español en las amplia variedad presente en la literatura latinoamericana. Se trata de responder a preguntas como las siguientes: ¿Cómo pueden los hechos sucedidos en la revolución mexicana ayudar en el aprendizaje de la lengua y de la literatura española? ¿Cómo puede contribuir este tipo de material literario con la necesidad de mejorar la competencia comunicativa del estudiante de español? ¿Cómo desarrollar el material didáctico para que esta necesidad comunicativa sea fortalecida sin quitar importancia a (o menguar) aquello que constituye el plano lingüístico (diferentes áreas: fonología, sintaxis, etc.)? ¿Cómo se puede despertar y encausar la autonomía en el aprendizaje de la lengua con este tipo de material didáctico? También se reflexiona sobre las mejoras que deberían hacerse en futuras implementaciones de este tipo material literario para beneficiar el aprendizaje de una segunda lengua.
Are They Dying? The Case of Some French-lexifier Creoles
(2014-06-05) Ferreira, Jo-Anne S.; HOLBROOK, David J.
This paper is a compilation of three recent, separate surveys of three French-lexifier Creoles from three English-speaking nations. The main goal of these surveys was to determine the current ethnolinguistic vitality of these language varieties (i.e., are these varieties really endangered?). The three French-lexifier Creoles in question are those spoken in Grenada and Carriacou, in Trinidad, and in Louisiana in the USA. David Holbrook conducted the surveys in Grenada and Carriacou, and Louisiana, and Jo-Anne Ferreira conducted the survey in Trinidad.
Dos cuentos breves de Fredric Brown
(2014-06-05) Sánchez-Galvis, Jairo
Se presentan dos cuentos en los que los personajes se sienten impotentes ante el destino y tienen que actuar de acuerdo con las imposiciones de otros. En el primer cuento, El aficionado, un hombre intenta comprar veneno indetectable. Brown se caracteriza por un humor satírico que hace reflexionar al lector, especialmente en el caso de su cuento El solipsista, en el cual W.B. Jehová se ve enfrentado a una cuestión existencial. Los originales fueron tomados de una antología de QUEEN, D.: Configurations, 1982. English Teaching Division, Educational and Cultural Affairs. Washington, D.C.
How Iguana Got Her Wrinkles - Literary Dialectal Translation Worksheet
(2014-06-05) Sánchez-Galvis, Jairo
The worksheet will guide students through a presentation on different approaches to the translation of literary works containing dialectal markers with special emphasis on Caribbean literature in English and Spanish.
O projeto cultural de PLE como agente da interculturalidade num contexto de não-imersão
(2015) Sampaio Farneda, Eliete; Nédio, Marina
This research aimed to study the intercultural aspects in the teaching-learning process of Portuguese as a Foreign Language in a non-immersive context. By the introduction of communicative tasks and by using the communicative approach, the meaning of culture was examined (MENDES, 2010) and which culture should be taught during the foreign language teaching-learning process (KRAMSCH, 2013). The results showed the intercultural perception taken by the learner during the execution of the cultural project, relating his own culture with others’, minimizing stereotyped ideas about the target language culture.
Research Notes Iss. 2, 2015.
( (The University of the West Indies, Faculty of Humanities and Education, Dept. of Modern Languages and Linguistics, 2015), 2015) Various authors; Roberts, Dr. Nicole
This issue pays tribute to recently retired Professor Valerie Youssef and her diverse and impactful career in Linguistics at the St. Augustine Campus of The UWI, focusing particularly on her theory of varilingualism and many more contributions.
Tarefa Comunicativa em Sala de Aula de Português como Língua Estrangeira
(Boavista Press, 2016) Sampaio Farneda, Eliete; Kurcbaum Futer, Miriam
Português Língua de Herança: Um estudo da tentativa da manutenção de uma língua praticamente extinta, em Trinidad e Tobago
(Pontes, 2016) Sampaio Farneda, Eliete; Ferreira, Jo-Anne S.
Embora haja, atualmente, um considerável número de pesquisas na área de Português Língua de Herança (PLH), poucos são os estudos que visam não somente o ensino, mas as expectativas de estudantes luso-descendentes em contexto de não imersão. Muitos pesquisadores voltam seus estudos de ensino/aprendizagem de PLH para as áreas mais conhecidas do globo, nas quais o número de luso-descendentes ou de brasileiros é mais significativo, trazendo maiores benefícios para a divulgação dos programas interculturais dos países em questão. A política das línguas é um dos temas mais abordados nas aberturas de Simpósios, Congressos e Conferências Internacionais, porém pouco se tem feito para os países em que há uma minoria de luso-descendentes que precisa resgatar a língua de herança antes que esta se torne apenas uma língua que em algum dia existiu. No caso específico de PLH, no país caribenho de Trinidad e Tobago, pode-se citar a contribuição da Ferreira, que publica artigos e livro desde 1989 sobre a língua e cultura dos madeirenses em Trinidad & Tobago, e exemplos de pesquisas feitas por Cunha (2013), em que foi relatada a experiência de uma família brasileira que tentou manter o Português Língua de Herança com suas próprias metodologias. Afora estas abordagens, há o interesse particular na participação em Simpósios e Conferências, para divulgar o ensino de Português Língua Estrangeira (PLE) e Português Língua Adicional (PLA) na Universidade das Índias Ocidentais (UWI), no programa de Português e Estudos Brasileiros do Departamento de Línguas Modermas e Linguística (DMLL) da Faculdade de Humanidades e Educação (FHE). Não há cursos ou pesquisas específicas sobre o ensino/aprendizagem de PLH, em Trinidad e Tobago, até o início desta pesquisa. Assim sendo, estes estudos mostram as observações feitas pelo período de um ano letivo, de um grupo de estudantes luso-descendentes (adultos), de origem madeirense, que buscaram resgatar a sua herança através das aulas de português com diferentes propósitos como, visitas a Portugal, retirada de passaporte europeu entre outras particularidades. As aulas foram ministradas de forma privada para o grupo, com a primeira professora nativa de Portugal da Universidade das Índias Ocidentais (UWI), vinda da Universidade do Porto (UPorto), para que o ambiente se tornasse o mais próximo do de imersão, beneficiando o processo de resgate da língua de herança. O material didático utilizado foi um livro de português europeu, além de outros recursos. Os resultados nos fizeram (re)afirmar a ideia da necessidade de um programa de PLH, ou de pesquisas mais aprofundadas nesta área, para que a língua ancestral, de uma comunidade minoritária, não entre para o rol das língua mortas, em Trinidad e Tobago. Os estudos teóricos têm base nas pesquisas de Ferreira (1994, 1999), Valdés (2005), Flores e Melo-Pfeifer (2014), entre outros.

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