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Agency in the Reconstruction of
Language Identity: A Narrative
Case Study from the Island of San
Andrés1
El Rol Agentivo de Fidel en la Reconstrucción de su
Identidad Lingüística: Un Estudio de Caso de la Isla de
San Andrés
Carlos Augusto Arias2*
Institución Universitaria Colombo Americana, ÚNICA, Colombia
Abstract
The adoption of the English language paradigm and the subsequent
implementation of bilingual policies worldwide are generating new linguistic
hierarchies. These have an effect on the linguistic diversity at the sub-national
level and on individuals’ linguistic human rights. This article reports the results
of a case study on an individual’s re-engineering of his in-group language
identity. Through the analysis of a narrative written by the participant (Fidel),
this article intends to show the effects of language ideologies on the discursive
and sociocultural practices of a member of a raizal community from San Andrés
(Colombia). As a multilingual individual surrounded by multiple ideologies
of language, covert and overt language policies, and language hierarchies
of prestige dictated by a scope larger than his immediate social group, Fidel
preserves, challenges, and transforms his in-group linguistic identity.
Keywords: Linguistic identity, language policies, linguistic human rights
Resumen
La adopción del paradigma del inglés y la implementación de políticas bilingües
alrededor del mundo, basadas en los intereses nacionales de cada país, están
generando nuevas jerarquías lingüísticas, y tienen un efecto en la biodiversidad
1 Received: June 26, 2014 / Accepted: September 22, 2014
2 carlos.ariasc@yahoo.com.co
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no. 9, (JuLy- dEcEmbEr) 2014. pp. 103-123.
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lingüística a nivel sub nacional y en los derechos humanos lingüísticos. Este
artículo reporta los resultados de un estudio de caso acerca del rol agentivo que
tiene un individuo ‘raizal’ en la reconstrucción de su identidad lingüística de
grupo. A través del análisis de una narrativa escrita por el participante (Fidel),
este artículo trata de mostrar los efectos que las ideologías del lenguaje tienen
en las prácticas discursivas y socioculturales que él tiene como miembro de
la comunidad ‘raizal’ de San Andrés, Colombia. Como individuo multilingüe
rodeado por múltiples ideologías del lenguaje, políticas lingüísticas encubiertas,
explícitas, y jerarquías lingüísticas de prestigio dictadas por un campo que
excede su grupo social inmediato, Fidel preserva, reta y transforma su identidad
lingüística de grupo.
Palabras clave: Identidad lingüística, políticas del lenguaje, derechos
humanos lingüísticos
Resumo
A adoção do paradigma do inglês e a implementação de políticas bilíngues
ao redor do mundo, baseadas nos interesses nacionais de cada país, estão
gerando novas hierarquias linguísticas, e têm um efeito na biodiversidade
linguística ao nível subnacional e nos direitos humanos linguísticos. Este artigo
reporta os resultados de um estudo de caso sobre o papel agentivo que tem
um indivíduo ‘raizal’ na reconstrução da sua identidade linguística de grupo.
Através da análise de uma narrativa escrita pelo participante (Fidel), este
artigo tenta mostrar os efeitos que as ideologias da linguagem têm nas práticas
discursivas e socioculturais que ele tem como membro da comunidade ‘raizal’
de San Andrés, Colômbia. Como indivíduo multilíngue rodeado por múltiplas
ideologias da linguagem, políticas linguísticas encobertas e explícitas, e
hierarquias linguísticas de prestígio ditadas por um campo que excede seu
grupo social imediato, Fidel preserva, desafia e transforma a sua identidade
linguística de grupo.
Palavras chave: Identidade linguística, políticas da linguagem, direitos
humanos linguísticos
Introduction
The present article reports the results of a study whose main inquiry aimed at analyzing how multiple linguistic ideologies conveyed by overt and covert language policies, and the
discourses generated through them, have an effect on a multilingual
individual’s reconstruction of his linguistic identity. The context for
the study includes the implementation of a National Bilingualism Plan
in Colombia, which overlooks the linguistic diversity of the country
by reducing the bilingualism paradigm to Spanish-English (De Mejía,
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2006). This language policy has adopted the tenets of the English
language paradigm, assuming that English is a lingua franca that paves
the road to democracy, a global economy, and human rights (Phillipson
& Skutnabb- Kangas, 1996). Such a policy approach establishes the
learning of English as the condition for Colombia’s competition in the
international marketplace.
Multiple studies (Sánchez & Obando, 2008) have questioned the
necessity of and the preparedness for the implementation of the National
Bilingualism Plan in Colombia. Others (De Mejía, 2006, Guerrero,
2008) question the effects that this policy may have on the linguistic
diversity of the country. Nevertheless, there are individual multilingual
speakers in Colombia whose linguistic identity has been secluded due
to their attachment to a vernacular language. Their voices presuppose a
counterpart to the globalizing imperialistic English language paradigm
(Phillipson, 1992; Phillipson & Skutnabb- Kangas, 1996), and are
just now starting to be documented (Escobar & Gómez, 2010). The
main goal of this study was to document an individual voice from this
multilingual reality.
The research questions that guided this study were the following:
- What language ideologies does Fidel, produce, reproduce or
challenge (Van Dijk 1998) within the discourse and attitudes
embedded in the construction of his linguistic identity?
- How does Fidel construct, preserve, transform, and/or challenge
the linguistic identity that he has inherited from his raizal social
group?
Concretely, this article focuses on the agentive role played by a
multilingual raizal individual from the island of San Andrés (Fidel) in
the re-engineering of his in-group linguistic identity. The study inquires
explores how Fidel dialogues with in-group discourse about the raizal
linguistic identity, and his own socio-cultural practices in and out of this
community. The main discourse artifact is a narrative in which Fidel
renders his own experiences and perceptions. The term agentive role is
taken from Bourdieu’s (1986) concept of habitus, which is the place for
the interaction of objectivism and subjectivism. Bourdieu asserts that
individuals play a role in understanding what seems to be an objective,
yet discursive and artificially constructed social reality. Playing an
agentive role implies precisely that individuals generate such discursive
and sociological practices that might transform the so-called objective
reality.
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Literature Review
Linguistic Complexity on the Island of San Andrés
The case of San Andrés’ linguistic diversity goes beyond the mere
recognition of Creole as a language. Indeed, the case of multilingualism
in San Andrés includes a three- language equation: Caribbean English,
Creole or Bende, and Spanish (Etxebarria & Trillos, 2002; Moya, 2010).
It is also characterized by a complex linguistic diversity embedded in a
linguistic continuum that includes multiple social dimensions.
Multilingualism in San Andrés has been researched from a socio-
historical perspective (Clemente, 1991), which includes the origins of
the raizal populations as descendants of Puritans, the early economic
ties with the United States and Jamaica, and the 1950s implementation
of cultural assimilation strategies that disregarded the islanders’ cultural
diversity in the process of consolidating the Colombian nationhood
over San Andrés.
San Andrés’ Creole has also been documented from the origin of
the vernacular and its development as a consequence of the historical
interaction between the lexifier superstrate English and the substrate
Creole of African origin. Due to the lack of contact between the current
Creole substrate with its original English lexifier, Spanish has become
its new lexifier (Patiño, 2000).
San Andrés’ linguistic diversity has also been analyzed as sharing
an analogue sociolinguistic situation with some other countries from
the Anglophone Caribbean as a result of the similarity of the colonial
circumstances (Sanmiguel, 2007). Because of the socio-historical
events and ideologies generated, those countries that host Creole
languages held the standard variety of English in high regard in contrast
to the negative values associated with the Creole languages, which
were conceived as corrupted variations that were more barriers than
opportunities for social advance (Winford, 1994).
The raizal identity was also bonded to the larger field of Afro-
Colombianity, social inclusion and the legal acknowledgement of ethnic
and cultural difference. Studies have demonstrated through narrative
excerpts how raizal individuals exhibit a particular pride and family-
rooted protectionism beyond the difficult conditions framed in their
current social subordination (Mosquera, Rodríguez & León, 2009).
The voices of raizals by means of memoirs and narratives have also
been used to reconstruct and substantiate the raizal voice in relation
to the Colombianization processes that shattered the autochthonous
cultural diversity of the island (Guevara, 2007). Guevara sees islanders’
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narratives as fluctuant negotiation processes and political instruments
that empower them to understand the origins of the current social
subordination and to confront it.
Creole plays a symbolic role in the cohesion and identity of
raizals, as the vehicle and an important piece of the cultural heritage,
as well as the phenomenology of group identity (Moya, 2010). Yet, the
dominant discourse, aligned with the prestige of majority languages,
has begun to permeate the language choice of raizal individuals and
has caused them to re-engineer the role of Creole as a component of
identity.
Attitudes towards Multilingualism
Multilingualism is an ethos which argues for respect and co-
existence of multiple languages in daily life in plurilingual societies
(UNESCO 2003). However, if individual languages are supported
institutionally either overtly or covertly, there is a different set of
dynamics by which languages become the vehicle and the path to exert
symbolic domination, and at the same time to collaborate or resist
domination (Heller, 1995).
Planned multilingualism generates subtractive and additive
perspectives on language acquisition. The subtractive perspective,
which promotes the learning of a new language at the risk of the
mother tongue (Skutnabb- Kangas 2000), is based on an ideology that
equates national identity to monolingualism. The one-language-one-
nation equation (Hornberger, 2002) is a proven red herring that is also
challenged by Ruiz’s (1984) acknowledgement of three visions towards
language: “language as a problem, language as a right, and language as
a resource” (p. 17).
The vision of language as a problem conceives of language as
a powerful homogenizing tool to construct shared national identity
(Biseth, 2009). This vision of language was the dominant ideology
that dictated the orientations of major language policies until the 1980s
(Mühlhäusler, 1996). This problematic vision deals with linguistic
diversity in terms of majority or minority national languages (UNESCO,
2003), allowing majority language mother tongue speakers to define the
values that constitute a national culture (Biseth, 2009; Osler & Starkey,
2000). This approach results in the consideration of minority languages
as more a threat to nationhood than a cultural resource as such.
The language as a resource perspective on linguistic diversity
has renewed its strength thanks to two seemingly contradictory
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perspectives. First is the view of multilingualism as capital promoted
by the discourse of human capital flow and global citizenship (Rasool
2004). Unfortunately, this market-based impulse of language as a
resource tends to disregard minority languages that may be perceived as
being of lesser value for international trade (Baker, 2006). The second
vision argues that minority languages play a vital role in the protection
of natural resources and identity from globalization since they function
as the encoders of cultural knowledge and the prerequisite transmission
of that knowledge within oppressed communities (Skutnabb- Kangas,
2001).
In regards to language as a right, UNESCO (2003) acknowledges,
“Language is not only a tool for communication and knowledge but also
a fundamental attribute of cultural identity and empowerment, both for
the individual and the group” (p 16). This recognizes instruction in the
mother tongue as an inalienable principle in the pursuit of conditions of
equality in education. Besides, language and language choice are “an
intimate part of social identity” (McGroarty, 1996, p. 3).
Language Ideologies and Social Anatomy
Language plays an important role in the transmission of ideologies
and in the development of an individual’s social identity and self-
concept. “Language is much more than a system of communication, it
is a symbolical marker that distinguishes who belongs to a group and
who is outside” (Boscoboinik, 2008, p. 7). In fact, language is not just
the vehicle for the transmission of ideology; language and languages
can also become subject of ideologies, hence playing an important role
in the stereotyping of in-group – out-group distinctions.
Kelly (2002) expresses the value of language in the consolidation
and transmission of identity with these words: “Individuals use language
to both index and construct their everyday worlds and, in particular,
their own social roles and cultural identities and those of others within
them” (p. 42). Language is a core feature in enacting social identity and
constituting social life (Miller, 2000), and it should not be seen just as
the means by which group ideologies are expressed. Language in itself,
considered as a resource of group cohesion, is the content of ideology
and plays a meaningful role in the development of identity.
Woolard and Schieffelin (1994) claim that language is not just a
vehicle for ideologies, but also the core of ideology itself. Thus, language
is intrinsically linked to social and individual identity. Language in
itself becomes part of a group’s identity, determined by ownership and
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otherness paradigms that ascribe a high or low value to language as
a group resource (Baker 2006; Ruiz, 1984; Skutnabb- Kangas, 2001;
Winford, 1985). Be they positive or negative, “language attitudes
are often contradictory, combining, in a complex manner, aspects of
positive identification and rejection, nationalistic consciousness, and
self-deprecation” (Francis & Ryan 1998, p. 26). Thus, the value ascribed
in the larger society to language as the resource of a social group can be
an indicator of the value ascribed to the group at large.
Bourdieu (1977) implies that individuals are gauged by means of
both the value ascribed to the language(s) the individuals speak, and
to the group(s) to which the individuals belong. “Just as the level of
relations between groups, a language is worth what those who speak
it are worth, so too, at the level of interactions between individuals,
speech always owes a major part of its value to the value of the person
who utters it” (p. 652).
Thus, ideologies about languages are also a key factor in the
structuring of a society’s anatomy since competition between social
groups for the consolidation of dominant - dominated paradigms
concurs with competition between ideologies about distinct languages.
“Just as competition for limited bio- resources creates conflict in nature,
so also with languages. If a small fish gets in contact with a big fish, it
is the smaller which is more likely to disappear” (Mackay, 1980, p 35).
In the competition for establishing dominant - dominated
paradigms, dominant groups intend to perpetuate unequal social and
economic structures by legitimizing their establishment based on their
own value systems (Bourdieu, 1986). Since “human beings through
their actions have made language a determinant of most social and
economic relationships” (Tollefson, 1991, p. 2), languages are given
a “loading of moral and political interests” (Irvine, 1989, p. 255), and
arbitrary language ideologies can take the form of arbitrary language
policies also used as instruments to perpetuate paradigms of social
domination (Mühlhäusler, 1996; Phillipson 1992).
In multilingual communities with majority/minority language
situations, language choice varies from older to younger generations
based on higher status and the more fashionable image of the majority
language (Baker, 2006). This, combined with a subtle deprivation of
the rights of a minority language, by means of de facto policies like
othering a minority language when establishing the requirements for
job access, confines its use to older generations, and to a domestic role,
thus posing a threat over the linguistic human rights.
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Methodology
Research Design
This study was framed within the qualitative research paradigm
due to its suitability for documenting epistemological problems
concerning human experiences (Moustakas, 1994), and also because
it validates the dialogic construction of knowledge, which intertwines
facts and values (Marshall & Rossman, 2006; Wallace, 1998). The
adoption of this paradigm allowed for the spontaneity and the adaptation
of interaction between the researcher and the participant informant in
the search of apprehending a phenomenon of interest that would unfold
naturally (Patton, 2002).
The discovery of patterns and connections in qualitative data lead
to the description, interpretation, and analysis of subjective meanings
by resorting to the participants’ emic point of view (Burns, 1999) and
by capturing the research subject’s voice (Wolcott, 1990). They also
include the researcher’s acknowledgement of his own biases (Gale,
1990).
This post-positive approach, driven by the philosophical
assumption that social reality is constructed by the individuals who
participate in it, fits within a case study methodology. The case, which
can be a person (Merriam, 1998), is bound to a context, time, and
place (Creswell, 1998). The knowledge generated through case study
research is concrete, context-dependent and based on the principle
of relativism in nature (Flyvbjerg, 2006). It intends to create a rather
holistic description and analysis of “complex functioning thing” (Stake,
1995, p. 2).
Context and Participants
The participant, Fidel, is a trilingual speaker (Creole, English,
Spanish) who, as he acknowledges, is a raizal due to his heritage and
conviction. In the moment of the data collection, he was 27 years old.
He was about to graduate in engineering from the university, and was
clearly trilingual. He happened to be my student, but also my neighbor,
which allowed me to witness some of his interactions in Creole with
other raizal relatives and friends. He was also able to talk about politics
and language policies proficiently, both in English, and Spanish.
Besides possessing strong linguistic capital, Fidel was also very
aware of his agentive role in society, and within the scope of San
Andrés. He was well informed about policies since his relatives worked
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in the cultural and political arenas of San Andrés. He engaged in the
research convinced that he could contribute to the divulgation of his
immediate social identity affiliation as a raizal, and his multilingual
profile. He made himself readily available for interviews or informal
conversations. Besides, he was willing to consign reflections resulting
from our semi-structured interviews, and eventually crafted such
reflections together in a narrative, which served as the main source of
data for this study.
Fidel was not chosen based on principles of random selection
(Huberman & Miles 2002) or under the premise of an objective sampling
as a particular instance to illuminate a general problem, as in microscopic
methodology (Giddens, as cited in Yin, 1994). Conversely, it was the
intrinsicality of Fidel’s case, and its very uniqueness (Abramson, 1992;
Adelman, Jenkins & Kemmins, 1983; Creswell, 1998; Flyvbjerg,
2006), along with the accessibility to the informant and his subjective
factors such as thoughts, feelings and desires (Broomley, 1986), which
constituted the principles for case choice.
Data Collection Instruments
The case study was built through viewpoints of the participant via
multiple sources of data (Tellis, 1997). The data was gathered mainly
from a written narrative written by Fidel, and triggered by a set of
dialogic conversations we held both about his identity as a raizal and
his linguistic identity. The narrative reflects Fidel’s voice, but it also
“reflects other voices that have been experienced previously in life, in
history, in culture.” (Moen, 2006, p. 3). It becomes the scheme by which
Fidel’s human experience is rendered meaningful (Gudmundsdottir,
2001; Polkinghorne, 1988). Fidel’s narrative served the purpose of
gathering data about his case, and also became a useful tool for the
narrator himself by helping him construct sense of the experience
through a multi-vocal dialogic process that involved description and
reflection. This took place at the core of multiple cycles of narrative
construction, selection, and interpretation (Moen, 2006), through the
“the culturally situated voices that ventriloquate through the singular
voice that is claimed by an individual” (Gudmundsdottir, 2001, p. 235).
Data Analysis and Interpretation
In the analysis of the overarching forces of Fidel’s narrative,
the multilingual context (Freeland, 2003) present in his narrative, I
resorted to Fairclough’s approach towards critical discourse analysis
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(1995). Adopting critical discourse in the interpretation of data boosts
the analysis of the interwoven relations between language, discourse,
and social action. Following Fairclough’s triadic model, text, discourse
practice, and sociological practice are analyzed in three stages: a) the
descriptive (linguistic analysis of the text); b) the interpretive (text-
discourse practices); and c) the explanatory (discourse- social practices).
In the descriptive stage, analysis was done from the narrative by
resorting to a checklist of language elements, based on grammatical
resources for ideational, interpersonal, and textual meanings (Halliday,
1985). The list includes lexicalization, patterns of transitivity, the use
of active and passive voice, the use of nominalization, the thematic
structure of the text, the information focus, and the cohesive devices.
The patterns that emerged across the linguistic functions were correlated
to the situational context and the intertextual context involved in the
processes of production of the text. This interpretative stage generated
the identification of the discourses that dialogue with Fidel’s discursive
aims.
Results
Fidel’s narrative, then, should be understood as a discursive
practice nested in the core of a sociocultural reality that is not
synchronic, but is rather the product of historical background. Fidel’s
multilingualism, likewise, is not solely the product of his individual life
circumstances or conscious decisions, but has to do with his identity as
a member of a social group that also has experienced the development
of a multilingual ethos based on their shifting demographic realities.
The Ideational Construction of Raizal Linguistic Identity
Fidel’s first discursive aim is the construction of an ideational
representation of what being a raizal implies in terms of linguistic
identity. In such a task, Fidel discovers three conflictive phenomena
that constitute the raizal in-group identity. First, migration is one of
the main constituents of in-group raizal identity, but at the same time
the demographic shift generated by migration is the main threat to the
raizal culture.
One salient aspect about the migration of the lineages that can be named
as raizals is that their families migrated to the archipelago before or long
before the 1950s. There is no person whose lineage can be considered
raizal if that lineage migrated to the archipelago after 1953. (Fidel’s
narrative, line 20)
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Therefore, the 1950s migration milestone became almost the sole
element of convergence for the raizal culture, along with the adoption of
Creole as a key feature of the raizal population’s the language identity.
Second, despite the pre-eminent historical role played by Creole
in the foregathering of a raizal identity, it is not a fully reliable in-group
identity feature.
Some people think that the only thing that makes an islander raizal is the
language, but I do not agree. There are people on San Andres that know
Creole, but they are not raizal, and raizal people who don’t know Creole.
(Fidel’s narrative, line 19)
Third, there is a trans-generational dissonance in the linguistic
capital of in-group raizals. Fidel offers a diagnosis of the trans-
generational juxtaposition of language codes and the shift of language
choice in the archipelago even in the bosom of the raizal family and its
trans-generational language identity.
My family is very typical. All my aunts, uncles and cousins speak Creole,
and my grandmother can barely speak Spanish. By my mother side, my
family is almost the same, but I have some cousins that grew up in a
paña majority neighborhood, so they usually speak Spanish like me, but
they speak in English or Creole at work or when it is necessary. (Fidel’s
narrative line 50)
When Fidel meets with other raizal generations from his family,
there is a trans-generational mismatch of language choice. The older
the generation, the more fond of Creole language the individual is, and
conversely, the younger the generation, the more Spanish the individual
speaks.
Fidel’s language choice could originally be de-problematized
and regarded just as a younger generation identity issue. Nonetheless,
his attitude has an agentive role in the preservation of Creole, since as
Mufwene (2004) claimed, “Language endangerment is the cumulative
outcome of individual practices of speakers” (p. 218).
Language choice is an instrument by which multilingual speakers
are allowed both to attempt to wield and also to resist the power of
the symbolic domination that is exercised institutionally (Heller
1995). Fidel’s language choice in favor of Spanish, when being with
his relatives, may well be based on the deprivation of status exercised
institutionally on Creole (Baker, 2006), but also on Fidel’s free
competitive adaptation to the new socioeconomic ecologies.
Besides, Fidel has also assigned a negative connotation to the
language interference that occurs from his knowing Creole to his using
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English. This approach is very conclusive in terms of gauging Fidel’s
agency in the preservation of his linguistic identity.
I started studying English in Bogotá to try to correct this mixing of
languages, but it seems impossible. It looks like for every islander it
is difficult to separate Creole and English when we are in San Andres
or even in Colombia. Maybe the only way to get it is going to another
country. (Fidel’s narrative, line 75)
The use of the word “correct” to refer to his intention behind
taking English lessons implies that Fidel gauges his Creole-English
code-switching and code-mixing as a negative trait. This language as a
problem attitude can be understood as a consequence of the discourses
that give a higher value to English over Creole, and even over Spanish.
The Preservation of Fidel’s In-group Linguistic Identity
Fidel’s language choice demonstrates that in the new raizal
generations there is an inversely proportional relation between closeness
to the raizal social structure and their fondness of Creole. That is, when
Fidel has a family get-together, he takes the role of the advocate of
Spanish within the bosom of the core raizal structure; nonetheless,
when he is far from San Andrés, namely in Bogotá, his language choice
favors Creole whenever possible.
When I finished school, I stayed a semester in San Andres and then I
came to Bogotá where I lived with some cousins. My first semester I met
a lot of raizals and I had to talk in Creole with them. They didn’t know
me, but since I am raizal, they deduced that I could talk Creole. Living
with my cousins was cool. We used to play a game in which whoever
said a word in Spanish had to clean the bathroom. It was really difficult
because not every word in Creole is in English. There are also words that
come from Spanish. (Fidel’s narrative, line 60)
Fidel’s agency in the preservation of his in-group linguistic
identity is signaled by seemingly contradictory paths that merge both
the preservation and the transformation of the role of Creole language as
a critical attribute of raizal identity. These contradictory paths could be
reduced to the following events. 1) Fidel avoids the use of Creole when
he is closer to the core of the raizal social group, like his older relatives.
2) When Fidel is with raizal individuals who are his contemporaries,
he resorts to code-switching and code-mixing between Spanish and
Creole. 3) When Fidel is in Bogotá, which implies a physical distance
with his from his raizal identity, he intends to keep his linguistic identity
alive, by speaking Creole. The code-switching, language choice,
and English language learning intention of Fidel does not exhibit an
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exclusively positive agency in the preservation of his in-group language
identity; thus, there is room for the consideration of his agency in the
transformation or destruction of his in-group language identity.
Transforming and Re-constructing the Role of Creole as an In-
group Critical Attribute
As a multilingual individual belonging to the raizal community,
Fidel’s role goes beyond the mere reproduction and perpetuation of
the deterministic cultural capital owned by his social group; in fact, as
Rasool (2004) claims, there is an element of choice in the construction
of his individual and his in-group social identity. Bourdieu and Passeron
(1977) also resort to the concept of habitus to acknowledge individuals’
agency in the formation of in-group identity. Habitus is conceptualized
as the place in which the internalization of objective reality and the
externalization of subjective perception converge.
Fidel’s language choice in favor of Spanish within his in-group
interactions, and his attempts towards correction and standardization
of his English show that he cares about the linguistic capital he owns,
even if it seems to focus mostly on the majority language (English)
rather than on Creole. However, reconstructing and re-inventing the
role of language choice and language use as a binding device of raizals
can lessen his individual responsibility and remorse, thus attributing his
language choice to the circumstantial and deterministic nature of his
language encounters.
From that perspective, Fidel’s transformation of the in-group
linguistic identity can be consistent with what other raizals of his
generation are doing. From that perspective, Fidel would not be
threatening his linguistic identity; on the contrary, he would be
preserving the new shade given to the in-group linguistic identity by
his generation.
Re-defining and Lessening the Role of Creole as a Raizal Identity
Marker
Some people think that the only thing that makes an islander raizal is the
language, but I do not agree. There are people on San Andres that know
Creole, but they are not razial and raizal people who don’t know Creole.
(Fidel’s narrative, line 1)
This excerpt can be contrasted with the one following:
From the colonial times, the raizal culture developed out of the mixture
of ethnicities and cultures, but had Creole and English as is backbone.
(Fidel’s narrative, line 18)
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The apparent contradiction between these two excerpts could be
discarded by addressing the time dimension, by which the first quote
would refer to a rather present or general time of raizal identity whereas
the latter is referring to the origins of the Creole culture and the Creole
language. Besides, it could also be argued that the focus of the first
excerpt is to discard the Creole language as the only constituent of raizal.
However, by releasing some of the load of Creole in the convergence
of raizal identity, Fidel opens space for the justification of the new
raizal generations’ language choice patterns, and his own. Language
choice plays a pivotal role in the endangerment of languages in contact.
Depending on the perspective being adopted, be it deterministic or
agentive, there are two triggers of language choice that play a role in the
endangerment of a language: competition and/or selection (Mufwene,
2004).
The term competition suggests the political, economic, cultural,
and social domination of one population by another that exerts control
over the production and consumption of language values. The generation
of socioeconomic ecologies regulated by the dominant group result in
the mechanics of language ecology that inform an individual’s favoring
the use of one language over another one. Selection implies that the
individuals are the ones who assign values to the languages in their
community. It acknowledges the agency of individuals as speakers who
through their language choice may cause one language to thrive and
another to become endangered.
Fidel legitimates the young raizal generation’s language choice
by acknowledging Spanish as a lexical donor to Creole. Adopting the
premise that transformation is not destruction, Fidel gives a personal
insight on the Creole-Spanish ecology, his ownership of the languages,
and the language contact phenomenon that emerges out of his own
language choice, such as like code-switching and language borrowings.
But when I am in a group of raizals, we usually mix up both languages:
Spanish and Creole. (Fidel’s narrative, line 46)
The language contact phenomenon being referred to in Fidel’s
conversing with his raizal acquaintances is code-switching. The
speakers are proficient in both languages, and they may mix the
languages randomly, or based on the topic and context, nest the
conversations, which would give this code-switching a diglossic value
(Windford, 1985).
The language contact between Creole and Spanish among the
raizal community has also triggered some borrowings that Fidel
acknowledges as a condition of Creole as a living language.
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Creole is hard influenced with Spanish. Whenever we don’t know a word
in English or Creole, we use the Spanish word. It is funny that even Creole
speakers sometimes have not noticed that influence. One day, a San
Andresana paña friend working in a lawyer’s office was visited by a man
wanting to leave his resume. This man was speaking Creole, and instead
of saying “resume,” he said “hoja de vida.” My friend understood that
he meant to leave his resume and told him to leave it aside on a desk. The
guy was surprised that she had understood Creole. Then, my friend had to
explain to the man that she did not speak any Creole, but she understood
him because he had used the word in Spanish. (Fidel’s narrative, line 67)
Concepts such as résumé do not have a term in Creole, so due
to language contact, Creole speakers have borrowed the term hoja de
vida from Spanish and have included it in their linguistic repertoire,
taking for granted its being a Creole concept. Fidel interprets language
borrowings from Spanish to Creole as a fact that shows that Creole is
a living language.
I am not trying to say that it is bad. I believe that this fact shows that
Creole is a living language. (Fidel’s narrative, line 69)
However, allowing and promoting these language borrowings
and language code switching does not necessarily represent the natural
ethos of peaceful language ecology between Spanish, a language with
a high status, and Creole, the minority language code. The fact that
Fidel has accepted these borrowings as natural attests to the powerful
nature of the ideologies that are used as premises in the structuring of
larger social entities and their power relations. The asymmetrical and
ideologically loaded discourses that constitute the main stream of the
river that drags with its power not just Fidel’s linguistic ideology, and
the raizal linguistic ideology, but also convulses the local linguistic
paradigms, thus generating a new and naturalized hierarchy in the
ecology of languages.
Conclusions
This study used critical discourse analysis as a tool to interpret
data from the narratives rendered by an intrinsic case study informant,
Fidel, to determine how the construction of his linguistic identity as
a raizal individual performed two effects. First, he executed and
voiced some the external discourses as well as the de jure and de facto
language ideologies, including acculturation, national homogenizing
language policies, and the internationalizing language policies of global
inclusion. Second, he played an agentive role in the generation of an
in-group social identity of raizals.
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Fidel concludes that Creole is still a constituent of raizal identity,
that Creole is alive, that its contact with Spanish is not pervasive since
Spanish is now a lexical donor. Further, that although Creole and
English are two distinctive languages, he considers his code-switching
as a pathological trend that needs to be corrected by pursuing the
learning of a standard version of English.
This study allows for conclusions about how ideologies and
language policies played a role in the generation of both Fidel’s
individual and in-group identity as a raizal. However, the limitations
and area for further research is grounded in the fact that findings are
rather bounded to a time and a space, and no generalizations can fully
be made from an individual as a case informant.
It is also worth mentioning that the narratives from which the
data was analyzed were gauged within the parameters dictated by
the axial coding that was framed within the area of inquiry, yet such
narrative is much more than a sheer source of data. It provides the
soil for an intersubjective dialogical construction of knowledge, and
becomes an empowering tool that gives voice to the individuals that
have to endure the application of top-down language policies. It offers
a human and individual perspective that is very often left aside in the
logical positivistic approach that informs the planning, execution, and
materialization of language policies worldwide.
A final comment should be made in regards to the fact that this
study is the result of two subjective perspectives; the rather emic one
from Fidel, and the one of an outsider who has gathered the data and
analyzed it, again subjectively following the parameters of the critical
discourse analysis approach to a case study research. Thus, it is worth
acknowledging that the readings of reality and data might well be
biased, which does not necessarily lessen the value of the findings.
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Author
*Carlos Augusto Arias holds an M.A. in Applied Linguistics to
TEFL from the Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas.
He is currently working as a full-time professor and head of
the English department at Institución Universitaria Colombo
Americana, ÚNICA. His research interests include EFL, critical
discourse analysis and CLIL.
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