More than fifty years after the emergence of sociolinguistics as a discipline, establishing the link between language and identity remains one of the key issues in current research. In keeping with this tradition, Stefanie Krause's macrosociolinguistic study of Patwa als Ausdrucksmittel jamaikanischer Identität [Patois as a means of expression of Jamaican identity] focuses on Jamaica's multicultural roots and explores their actual impact on the nexus of language and ethnic identity. In this context, Krause explicitly aims at drawing a picture of the sociolinguistic reality as perceived by speakers rather than adopting the theoretical perspective of linguistic description. Her results are based on the analysis of sociolinguistic interviews and incorporate native speakers' evaluation of online sources, which serve to update information from older paper-based publications.

The first chapters of the book contextualize the study from a theoretical as well as from a sociohistorical point of view. While Chs. 2 and 3 concentrate on introducing the reader to pidgin and creole studies in general and Jamaican Creole in particular, Chs. 4 and 5 are dedicated to the sociohistorical evolution of Jamaican “Patois” and the current sociolinguistic situation in Jamaica. Concerning the education system, Krause argues that the implementation of Jamaican Creole as an official medium of instruction would have a beneficial effect on adolescents' identity formation (59). Despite its focus on the linguistic description of Jamaican Creole, her concern with social issues is also discernible in Ch. 6, where, in addition to a discussion of the creole continuum and the phenomenon of code-switching, Krause draws attention to the absence of a standardized orthography, which she regards as an explanatory factor for the high rate of illiteracy in Jamaica. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, Ch. 7 on “Language and identity,” the core subject of Krause's study, not only brings up questions of language use as an ethnic in-group marker, but also analyses the connection between language on the one hand, and religion and music on the other. In this context, the author successfully manages to address a variety of both local and global phenomena, ranging from Rastafarian Dread Talk and Jamaican Maroon language to the use of Jamaican Creole in the British diaspora as well as its world-wide presence in popular culture, including Reggae music and the international film industry. Ending on a socio-ideological note, the book's conclusion once again reads as a plea for the official recognition of Jamaican Creole as the ethnic language of a postcolonial Jamaican nation.

Following the current impetus towards making scientific results more accessible to the wider public, the strength of this book lies in its suitable preparation of a linguistic topic for a lay readership. This is mostly due to the author's choice of everyday language and her decision to avoid a focus on linguistic theory and description. To the linguist, Krause's book offers a first introduction to the question of language and identity in Jamaica, which can be explored in depth by following the bibliographical references.