Linguistic variation in Jamaican radio

In recent years interest in media texts as sources for sociolinguistic analysis has grown but the media domain remains underresearched for Creole using communities. A study taking into account the comprehensive range of varieties, from Creole to Standard with the often diffuse distribution, and their interaction is missing. For Jamaica and the wider Anglophone Caribbean, radio broadcasting is the mass media genre with the most diverse linguistic variation – various varieties come into conflict on the air but also complement each other. This complex variation proves radio broadcasting in Jamaica very worthwhile for linguistic research. The aim of this PhD project is to detect the varieties used on the air, analyze their interaction, and study how this linguistic variation is constrained. In order to establish a more comprehensive picture of the linguistic variation on the air, the project combines the analysis of different aspects of radio broadcasting: The radio texts themselves are analyzed, the production of radio texts is taken into account and the project also seeks to find out how the listeners perceive the linguistic variation in radio broadcasting in Jamaica.