The contested role of colonial language ideologies in multilingual Belize
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Britta Schneider
Abstract
In this article, I introduce data collected in an ethnographic field study in Belize. Despite very complex multilingual practices and non-nationality- based language ideologies, the idea that language and national/ethnic groups straightforwardly relate to each other is part of language activism in this postcolonial setting. Language activists conceive of Belizean Kriol as a distinct language and as an index for nationhood (consider e.g. the website of the National Kriol Council of Belize). However, because of the locally contested and complex roles of Kriol, Spanish, and English, this enterprise has not been entirely successful. Activists’ appropriation of colonial language ideology, aiming at the construction of a ‘real’ Kriol language with a dictionary and a grammar book, reconstructs colonial language ideologies that assume a one-to-one relationship between ethnicity/nationality and one coherent form of language, and thus disregards multilingual complexities. Despite the problems attached to this, the appropriation of Western language ideologies is an important means to create both a ‘voice’ and a legitimate identity where colonial hierarchies continue to play a strong role. Overall, this shows that colonial language ideologies of fixed normative languages, tied to ethnic/national groups, exist in multiplex networks of interacting language ideologies and can paradoxically link to liberation and suppression at the same time.
Abstract
In this article, I introduce data collected in an ethnographic field study in Belize. Despite very complex multilingual practices and non-nationality- based language ideologies, the idea that language and national/ethnic groups straightforwardly relate to each other is part of language activism in this postcolonial setting. Language activists conceive of Belizean Kriol as a distinct language and as an index for nationhood (consider e.g. the website of the National Kriol Council of Belize). However, because of the locally contested and complex roles of Kriol, Spanish, and English, this enterprise has not been entirely successful. Activists’ appropriation of colonial language ideology, aiming at the construction of a ‘real’ Kriol language with a dictionary and a grammar book, reconstructs colonial language ideologies that assume a one-to-one relationship between ethnicity/nationality and one coherent form of language, and thus disregards multilingual complexities. Despite the problems attached to this, the appropriation of Western language ideologies is an important means to create both a ‘voice’ and a legitimate identity where colonial hierarchies continue to play a strong role. Overall, this shows that colonial language ideologies of fixed normative languages, tied to ethnic/national groups, exist in multiplex networks of interacting language ideologies and can paradoxically link to liberation and suppression at the same time.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Preface VII
- Colonialism and new language varieties in the Americas: An introduction 1
- Pero – Champion of Hispanization? 17
- A Mesoamerican perspective on contactinduced change in numeral classification 55
- Secondary derivation in the Michif verb: Beyond the traditional Algonquian template 81
- Social conditioning for the transmission of adstrate features in contact varieties of Spanish in the Central Andes 181
- The Afro-Brazilian community Kalunga: Linguistic and sociohistorical perspectives 207
- Hispanicization in the Welsh settlement of Chubut Province, Argentina 237
- Complex patterns of variety perception in the Eastern Caribbean 269
- The contested role of colonial language ideologies in multilingual Belize 291
- Index of Authors 317
- Index of Languages 322
- Index of Subjects 324
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Preface VII
- Colonialism and new language varieties in the Americas: An introduction 1
- Pero – Champion of Hispanization? 17
- A Mesoamerican perspective on contactinduced change in numeral classification 55
- Secondary derivation in the Michif verb: Beyond the traditional Algonquian template 81
- Social conditioning for the transmission of adstrate features in contact varieties of Spanish in the Central Andes 181
- The Afro-Brazilian community Kalunga: Linguistic and sociohistorical perspectives 207
- Hispanicization in the Welsh settlement of Chubut Province, Argentina 237
- Complex patterns of variety perception in the Eastern Caribbean 269
- The contested role of colonial language ideologies in multilingual Belize 291
- Index of Authors 317
- Index of Languages 322
- Index of Subjects 324
