Date of Award
7-18-2008
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
English
First Advisor
Dr. Mary Zeigler - Chair
Second Advisor
Dr. Marti Singer
Third Advisor
Dr. Lynée Gaillet
Abstract
Opposed to the repressive socio-economic political climate that resulted in the impoverishment of masses of Jamaicans, the Jamaican Rastafarians developed a language to resist societal oppression. This study examines that language--Dread Talk--as resistive language. Having determined that the other variations spoken in their community--Standard Jamaican English and Jamaican Creole--were inadequate to express their dispossessed circumstances, the Rastafarians forged an identity through their language that represents a resistant philosophy, music and religion. This resistance not only articulates their socio-political state, but also commands global attention. This study scrutinizes the lexical, phonological, and syntactical structures of the poetic music discourse of Dread Talk, the conscious deliberate fashioning of a language that purposefully expresses resistance to the political and social ideology of their native land, Jamaica.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.57709/1059500
Recommended Citation
Manget-Johnson, Carol Anne, "Dread Talk: The Rastafarians' Linguistic Response to Societal Oppression." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2008.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/1059500