{"id":1765,"date":"2011-09-19T10:00:18","date_gmt":"2011-09-19T08:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=1765"},"modified":"2011-09-12T08:52:10","modified_gmt":"2011-09-12T06:52:10","slug":"1765","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=1765","title":{"rendered":"The Haitian Creole language"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Haitian Creole language: <\/strong>History, structure, use and education. <\/strong>Ed. by Arthur K. Spears<\/strong> and Carole M. Berotte Joseph<\/strong>. New York: Lexington Books, 2010. Pp. xxii, 297. ISBN 9780739112366<\/a>. $75 (Hb).<\/div>\n

Reviewed by Carolin Patzelt<\/a><\/strong>, University of Bochum<\/em><\/p>\n

This book is the first monograph that discusses Haitian Creole in its linguistic, cultural, historical, and educational context. The book consists of a collection of contributions by various authors, which are grouped into three broad sections: following a general introduction to Haitian Creole by Arthur K. Spears, Part 1 comprises two chapters dealing with the history of Haitian Creole. Georges E. Fouron<\/strong> provides a well-structured, easy-to-follow overview of Haiti\u2019s history, whereas Flore Z\u00e9phir<\/strong> presents the different languages of Haiti. In addition to discussing their origin and describing their use and functions, the author also includes the speakers\u2019 attitudes towards French and Haitian Creole.<\/p>\n

Part 2 consists of four chapters and focuses on the structure and use of Haitian Creole. It begins with an overview of Haitian Creole ortho\u00adgraphy by Nicholas Faraclas, Arthur K. Spears, Elizabeth Barrows<\/strong>, <\/strong>and Mayra Cortes Pi\u00f1eiro<\/strong>. The chapter focuses on two topics: concrete efforts to establish an official orthography for Haitian Creole and general issues regarding writing systems for creole languages. Albert Valdman <\/strong>discusses regional and social varieties of Haitian Creole, followed by a contribution from Hugues St. Fort <\/strong>presenting types of Creole-English code-switching in New York City and reasons for its use. This section concludes with a contribution by Marie-Jos\u00e9 Nzengou-Tayo<\/strong> who focuses on the distribution of Creole and French in Haitian literature, showing that the use of Haitian Creole is rather frequent in poetry but that it is rarely used in novels and short stories.<\/p>\n

Part 3 comprises six chapters that deal with various topics regarding the position of Haitian Creole in education. Uli Locher <\/strong>gives an overview of the most important issues in primary education since the great school reform of 1982. The central points in his chapter are the relation between socioeconomic status and school attendance, gender and school attendance, and the issue of over-aged children. In his chapter \u2018Creole and Education in Haiti\u2019, Yves Dejean <\/strong>discusses reasons for the widespread failure of general education in Haiti and also addresses the question of what Creole should be called (Creole or Haitian). Following these chapters is a case study on the use of Creole in education in Haiti presented by Jocelyne Trouillot-L\u00e9vy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Carole M. Berotte Joseph <\/strong>then deals with Haitians in the United States. After providing an overview of their arrival and settlement, the author focuses mainly on Haitians in New York but also includes other parts of the United States. In the next chapter, Serge Madhere <\/strong>deals with the many challenges faced by educators in Haiti and focuses particularly on ways to improve literacy. The section on education concludes with \u2018Orality, Literacy, and Technology\u2019 by Jean Plaisir <\/strong>. The author\u2019s basic hypothesis is that in the Information Age the study of folklore can arouse scholarly interest while also providing valuable insights on how information has been traditionally shared and stored.<\/p>\n

Overall, this book provides a valuable introduction to Haitian Creole and is strongly recommended to anyone interested in the Caribbean and its creoles, as well as in creoles in general.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Haitian Creole language: History, structure, use and education. Ed. by Arthur K. Spears and Carole M. Berotte Joseph. New York: Lexington Books, 2010. Pp. xxii, 297. ISBN 9780739112366. $75 (Hb). Reviewed by Carolin Patzelt, University of Bochum This book is the first monograph that discusses Haitian Creole in its linguistic, cultural, historical, and educational […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1765"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1765"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1767,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1765\/revisions\/1767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}