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Navigating the pitfalls of language standardisation: The imperfect binary of authenticity and anonymity in Creole-speaking Martinique

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2023

Chiara Ardoino Open the ORCID record for Chiara Ardoino [Opens in a new window]
Chiara Ardoino*
Affiliation:
Queen Mary University of London, UK
*
Address for correspondence: Chiara Ardoino Queen Mary University of London Mile End Road, London, E14NS, UK [email protected], [email protected]
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Abstract

Standardisation is often touted as the default means to improve attitudes towards minoritised languages and prevent/reverse their obsolescence. However, standardisation can ‘tamper’ with the indexicalities of minoritised languages, potentially alienating their speakers. Two aspects of standardisation stand out as particularly problematic: the shift from ‘ideologies of authenticity’ to ‘ideologies of anonymity’ (Woolard 2016), and the resulting introduction/intensification of prescriptivism (Eckert 1983). Although much literature focuses on the irreconcilable nature of these ideologies, I show that their discursive manifestations are neither clear-cut nor always incompatible. First, I analyse a TV debate on the standardisation of Martinican Creole (MC), in which the fault-line between authenticity and anonymity is blurred and partially overcome. Next, I draw on a Martinican activist's Instagram profile to show how various discursive strategies and a positive take on language variation can help promote MC as an ‘anonymous’ language without forgoing its ‘authenticity’ or openly stigmatising spontaneous practices. (Minoritised languages, Creoles, Martinique, maintenance, standardisation, ideologies of authenticity, anonymity, prescriptivism, purism, Abstand)*

Type
Article
Information
Language in Society , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , April 2024 , pp. 261 - 289
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

*

I wish to thank the editors, the two anonymous reviewers, and Devyani Sharma for their helpful suggestions in editing and revising this article. I am also grateful to Noémie François-Haugrin, Stéphane Térosier, and Minella Duzerol for their insightful remarks on the issue of purism for Martinican Creole, to Kofi Jicho Kopo for his willingness to discuss his work with me, and to Lucian George for his thorough engagement with earlier drafts of this work.

References

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