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Genre in World Englishes
Case studies from the Caribbean
World Englishes and English in postcolonial contexts have been curiously neglected in an otherwise abundant research literature on text types and genres in English. This volume looks at the adaptation, transformation and emergence of genres in the particular cultural context of the Anglophone Caribbean. A comprehensive framework for the investigation of text production in postcolonial and global English communities is followed by empirically based case studies on specific text formats such as recipes, death notices and obituaries, letters to the editor, newspaper advice columns, radio phone-in programmes, online forums and the music genre calypso. Influences from oral versus literate culture as well as status and function of English versus Creole are considered by highlighting written, spoken and digital genres. All chapters present surveys from a historical and cross-cultural perspective before exploring specific linguistic and cultural features in the Caribbean texts. This volume will be highly relevant for researchers in World Englishes and Caribbean studies, postcolonial pragmatics, genre and media studies as well as linguistic anthropology.
[Varieties of English Around the World, G67] 2022. viii, 229 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Published online on 6 July 2022
Published online on 6 July 2022
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
- Chapter 1. Genre in World Englishes: The global and the postcolonial in oral, written and digital texts | pp. 1–16
- Chapter 2. Callaloo, stewed manicou and doubles: Caribbean culinary transformations in Trinidadian print and online recipes | pp. 17–42
- Chapter 3. Personhood, genealogy and remembrance in death notices and obituaries | pp. 43–76
- Chapter 4. Metathesiophobia, nutty professors and Patois: Language debates in Letters to the Editor (LTEs) in a Jamaican newspaper | pp. 77–104
- Chapter 5. Tell me Pastor: Certainty, directness and the assertion of moral norms in a Jamaican newspaper advice column | pp. 105–132
- Chapter 6. Mornin Caller: Negotiating power and authority in a Trinidadian radio phone-in programme | pp. 133–158
- Chapter 7. “… allyuh know how to parteeeeeeeeeeee. lawd!”: Linguistic choices and membership construction in the Trinidad & Tobago Possee Livin California forum | pp. 159–182
- Chapter 8. Picong and puns, boasting and complaining: Oral performance in the language of calypso | pp. 183–210
- References | pp. 211–225
- Index | pp. 227–229
“This monograph fills an important gap in research on Englishes. [...] Mühleisen’s investigation of selected genres in the Caribbean context undoubtedly provides much-needed new data and new insights into Caribbean sociopragmatic practices. It is a rich and well-argued investigation. It makes a significant contribution to research on the pragmatics of language in outer circle English-speaking countries and demonstrates the importance of combining sociohistorical with quantitative and qualitative sociolinguistic analysis when exploring the intricate nature of linguistic practices in postcolonial contexts. Making a significant contribution to closing the much-lamented gap between current research in sociolinguistics and research on Englishes and Creoles, the framework developed in this book is well suited to launch investigations in other (postcolonial) contexts and into other existing and newly emerging speech practices and the changes that affect them. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the sociolinguistics of postcolonial settings.”
Bettina Migge, University College Dublin, in English World Wide 44:2 (2023).
“The volume overall makes an important contribution not only to linguistic studies of the Anglophone Caribbean but also more generally to the study of World Englishes, which hopefully will inspire further research in this kind of framework. Noteworthy general features include the clear structural progression overall and in each chapter along with the careful introduction of key concepts and the numerous well-explicated examples, the historical and comparative contextualization of the case studies as well as the integration of recent developments in the digital medium, and the successful demonstration of the use and value of smaller, self-compiled data sets. These features also make the book a suitable resource for use in advanced university classes on World Englishes.”
Dagmar Deuber, University of Münster, in English Language and Linguistics (2024).
“This diverse and well-argued volume argues for characterizing “intralingual differences in text types … within a framework of variational and postcolonial genre studies”. [...] Mühleisen’s deep familiarity with Caribbean, especially Trinidadian, languages is evident throughout.”
Peter L. Patrick, University of Essex, in New West Indian Guide 99 (2025).
Cited by (4)
Cited by four other publications
Deuber, Dagmar, Muhammad Shakir & Folajimi Kehinde Oyebola
2025. Conventionalization and variation in computer-mediated communication. English World-Wide. A Journal of Varieties of English 46:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Jackson, Samantha, Philipp Meer & Mirjam Schmalz
Mühleisen, Susanne
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