Relative markers in spoken Standard Jamaican English

The aim of the study is to test the claim that Jamaican Creole is the dominant shaping influence on the emerging spoken Standard Jamaican English (SJE) and the opposing claim that its structural properties are the result of contact with standard English in schooling and literacy. Focussing on relativization strategies, a total of 4,287 relative clauses with overt relative markers were analysed, drawn from the Jamaican component of the International Corpus of English (Greenbaum 1996). No direct or indirect influence from Creole was found in spoken SJE. Rather, there is ample evidence that the relativization strategies of spoken SJE reflect influences from the written English standard.