Introduction

Cover art by Linda Messier for Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson. Taken from https://tinyurl.com/ybol8csj ²⁴

Individuals use language to construct identities for themselves, including but not limited to ethnic identities.² This project will analyze the uses of Jamaican and Trinidadian Creole language elements in Nalo Hopkinson's dystopian novel Brown Girl in the Ring. It will address the strategies Hopkinson uses in the narrative to position herself as a Caribbean-Canadian author, then will observe four characters in the novel and the ways they construct their identities (in terms of ethnicity and national origin, as well as social, gender, familial, and other roles) through the use of Creole features.

Header photograph by Mary Crandall.²²