Date: 17-Oct-2006 From: Paul Peranteau <paulbenjamins.com> Subject: Codeswitching on the Web: Hinrichs
Title: Codeswitching on the Web
Subtitle: English and Jamaican Creole in e-mail communication
Series Title: Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 147
Published: 2006
Publisher: John Benjamins
http://www.benjamins.com/
Author: Lars Hinrichs
Hardback: ISBN: 9027253900 Pages: 302 Price: Europe EURO 115.00
Hardback: ISBN: 9027253900 Pages: 302 Price: U.S. $ 138.00
Abstract:
Based on a corpus of private email from Jamaican university students, this study explores the discourse functions of Jamaican Creole in computer-mediated communication. From this participant-centered perspective, it contributes to the longstanding theoretical debates in creole studies about the creole continuum. The book will likewise be useful to students of computer-mediated communication, the use and development of non-standardized languages, language ecology, and codeswitching.
The central methodological issue in this study is codeswitching in written language, a neglected area of study at the moment since most literature in codeswitching research is based on spoken data. The three analytical chapters present the data in a critical discussion of established and more recent theoretical approaches to codeswitching.
Fields that will benefit from this book include interactional sociolinguistics, creole studies, English as a world language, computer-mediated discourse analysis, and linguistic anthropology.
Table of contents
Acknowledgements vii Abbreviations ix 1. Introduction 1-31 2. The creole continuum and CMC 33-41 3. How the situation determines code choice - a "simple, almost one-to-one relationship" 43-59 4. Giving contextualization cues: How writers provide context information through code choice 61-83 5. Codeswitching and identity: How writers describe themselves through code choice 85-132 6. Summary of the analysis and discussion 133-137 7. Conclusions 139-156 References 157-168 Appendix 169-278 Notes 279-298 Index 299-301
"The research reported in the volume is extremely innovative and represents a theoretical and methodological contribution to several areas of current interest: computer-mediated communication (especially in the context of a country where computers are less accessible), the use and development of vernacular language varieties in writing, the study of codeswitching, in particular written codeswitching. This book is of interest to researchers in all of these areas, and coherently brings the topics together with excellent and insightful discussions of the literature. In addition it makes a valuable theoretical contribution to the area of creole studies and the longstanding theoretical debates about the 'creole continuum'." Mark Sebba, Lancaster University
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