34 Jamaican Creole Proverbs from the Perspective of Contact Linguistics matrix model of language ecology based on Einar Haugen’s prototype. He realized, however, that the number of criteria which take into account the general approach depends on various cognitive perspectives. Thus, in order to expand and enrich the ecological matrix, Wąsik (1993: 21) postulated employing knowledge about other heteronomies of language: semiology and communicology, history, anthropology, psychology and sociology. His model is an outline proposal of what might be incorporated into the matrix.12 2.3.2. Ethnography of communication of the Jamaican Creole speech community The phenomenon of a “speech community” lies within the aspects of the ethnography of communication, which can be considered a subdiscipline of Linguistic Anthropology (Duranti 1997). The ethnography of communication, sometimes called the ethnography of speaking, is the study of the place of language in a given culture and society (Richards & Schmidt [1985] 2002: 187). This subdiscipline assumes that a language should not be studied in isolation but within a social and cultural setting. Its central aim is to portray how people in a particular group communicate with one another and how the social relationships between these people affect the type of language they use. The interrelationship between language and culture is explained by collecting data on human communication and comprises methods of ethnographic description and analysis. These methods include: direct observation, participant observation and interviewing (Duranti 1997: 89–91, Findlay 1998: 61, Bowern 2008). The holistic nature of the field helps analyze the patterns from the broad perspective and extract the specific features of a culture under question. Muriel Saville-Troike (2003: 6–7) points to the wide perspective on language and culture as a source of multiple data which includes various practices that are inherent to the society under question: For anthropology, the ethnography of communication extends understandings of cultural systems to language, at the same time relating language to social organization, role-relationships, values and beliefs, and other shared patterns of knowledge and behavior which are transmitted from generation to generation in the process of socialization/enculturation. Further, it contributes to the study of cultural maintenance and change, including accultura12 For a detailed discussion, see: Zdzisław Wąsik (1993) “O pojęciu ekologii języka – tytułem wstępu.” [In:] Wąsik (ed.) Z zagadnień ekologii języka [On the ecology of language]. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego; 13–23.
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