fULLING DI SPIES
• the need to recognise Jamaican as a language, not only for ideological issues, but mainly for practical
reasons
• we will analyse the example of Carolyn Cooper, one of the most active promoters of a bilingual language
policy in Jamaica,cooper popularised the use of written Jamaican on the news paper Jamaican Observer
• “Fulling di space” re- fers to the visible space between educated people/scholars and speakers of JamC
and to the new technological ‘space’ of internet which can be filled in a more informal and personal way.
• In his study on Code Switching on the Web (2006) Lars Hinrichs af- firms ( AFFERMA). that what is needed
is:
• “a more realistic description of the reality of language use in society in Jamaica”
Carolyn Cooper’s (W)uman Tong(ue)
• Dr Cooper continues her “experiments with Jamaican as a language of literary analysis”, performing a
written code switching from academic Standard English to JamC through the inclusion of an excerpt from
her inaugural professorial lecture
• Cooper has called for the use of JamC as “a prime medium for reporting national and international news”
• his goal was to popularize the Cassidy system
• Her collaboration with newspapers dates back to the 1990s, when she started writing a popular bilingual
column called “(W)uman Tong(ue)” for the Jamaican Observer
• She currently writes a weekly column for TheGleaner, Jamaica’s oldest newspaper
• has perpetuated a colonial image of Jamaicans and their language
Blog ( of COOPER)
in 2010 she opened a bilingual blog, Jamaica Woman Tongue, where she started translating her weekly
column into Jamaican
• Apparently, JamC has been considered acceptable in oral communica- tion and in academic and literary
contexts, but definitely not in the press.
• recently the Gleaner’s editors allow Cooper a whole column per month in Jamaican as part of a five-
month experiment.
