Classical Outline

Topic: Should Jamaican Creole be afforded the official language status of the country?

1. PARAGRAPH ONE/ INTRODUCTION

Hook/ Attention Grabber: A quotation from the Honourable Louise Bennett - Coverley and

give brief as to how she contributed to Jamaican Creole being recognized.

Background information relevant to the topic:

a) Petition being done to make the language official

b) Discrimination as a result of the use of the language

c) Miscommunication with persons outside of the region

Connecting sentence: Despite the negative stigma that is attached to Jamaican Creole, the

government have to understand that this is as a result of English being the official language of

the country.

Thesis statement: Government should afford Jamaican Creole the official language status of

Jamaica because this would break the stigma that only persons of lower socioeconomic

background speak Creole, break the barrier of communication between the public officers

and civilians and as a result of Creole being the official language students will perform better

in schools.

1. Claim 1: Affording Jamaican Creole the official language status will break the stigma

attached to lower socioeconomic people.

a. When made official it gives the language validation and it shows that the

dominant group respects the language as Miss Louise Bennett would’ve wanted.

b. Reference to Ryan, B. E. & Giles, H. (1982) where the persons in power

promoting the use of the language, this leads to the breaking of the stigma.
2. Claim 2: with Jamaican Creole being the official language of the country this will break

the barrier of communication between public officials and civilians.

a. Define barriers to communication, effects of such.

b. Dr. Celia Blake founded that while many Jamaicans speak English not many of

them understand it and this has been an issue in the courts. Reference to article

by Devonish (2019) speaks to marginalization of the civilians who speak

Jamaican Creole and how it affects them.

3. Claim 3: Making Jamaican Creole an official language would improve the performance

of students in schools.

a. Children perform extremely better in school if they are thought in the native

language this has been seen in Curaçao.

b. Reference to report from UNESCO done by Ball (2014).

2. Paragraph of Refutation

a. Counterargument 1: Arguably, some persons are of the belief that Jamaican creole is

not a language.

i. Reference to article by Lowe (2019) that Jamaican creole it isn’t a language

because it doesn’t have a grammatical system and persons are unable to express

themselves properly using Creole.

b. Refutation/ Rebuttal:

i. Reference to article by Cooper (2019) which states that Jamaican Creole is

indeed a language and has a system it works with.

ii. Reference to an article by Paul (2016) regarding the linguistics identity crisis.

c. Counterargument 2: Some people may argue that there is too much dialects therefore

there is no set standard.

 iii. Robertson & Simmons- McDonald (2014) has a book that states the issues that

are affiliated with the language. One of these include the dialect variation.

Paragraph of Conclusion: Government making Jamaican Creole an official language will

break the stigma attach lower socioeconomic people that they are the only speakers of the

language, it will break the barrier of communication between public officers and civilians and

lastly allow our students to perform better in school. Once the dominant group makes the

language official this shows validation to the language as such all classes would respect the

language.

Recommendation: Government should afford Jamaican creole the official language status of

Jamaica alongside Standard English.

 References

Ball, J. (2014, 02 21). Children learn better in their mother tongue. Global

partnership for education. Retrieved from: https://www.globalpartnership.org/blog/children-

learn-better-their-mother-tongue

Cooper, C. (2019,10 27). Two languages are better than one. The Jamaica Gleaner,

commentary. Retrieved from:

http://jamaicagleaner.com/article/commentary/20191027/carolyn-cooper-two-languages-are-

better-one

Devonish, H. 2017. Jamaica’s nation language. D+C Development and Cooperation.

Retrieved from: https://www.dandc.eu/en/article/how-jamaican-creole-became-main-

language-artistic-expression

Jamaican Language Unit. (2019,11 11). ‘Just dweet’ – Jamaican Language Unit

launches patios petition. The Jamaica Gleaner, news. Retrieved from: http://jamaica-

gleaner.com/article/news/20191111/just-dweet-jamaican-language-unit-launches-patois-

petition

Lowe, E (2019, 12 20). Can God speak Patios? The Jamaica Gleaner, commentary.

Retrieved from: http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/commentary/20191220/ethon-lowe-can-

god-speak-patois

Paul, A. (2016, 06 22). Jamaica’s Linguistics Identity Crisis. The Jamaica Gleaner,

commentary. Retrieved from: http://jamaica-

gleaner.com/article/commentary/20160622/annie-paul-jamaicas-linguistic-identity-crisis

Ryan, B. E. & Giles, H (Eds) (1982) Attitudes towards language variation: Social and

applied contexts. E. Arnold.

 Robertson, I. & Simmons – McDonald, H. (Eds) (2014) Education issues in Creole

and Creole- influenced vernacular contexts. The University of the West Indies Press