Linguists' Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Creole Exceptionalism  

Oleh:

DeGraff, Michel

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Language in Society (ada di PROQUEST) vol. 34 no. 4 (Sep. 2005), page 533-591.
Fulltext: 4169447.pdf (6.91MB)

Isi artikel

"Creole Exceptionalism" is defined as a set of beliefs, widespread among both linguists and nonlinguists, that Creole languages form an exceptional class on phylogenetic and/or typological grounds. It also has nonlinguistic (e.g.,sociological) implications, such as the claim that Creole languages are a "handicap" for their speakers, which has undermined the role that Creoles should play in the education and socioeconomic development of monolingual Creolophones. Focusing onCaribbean Creoles, and on Haitia Creole in particular, it is argued that Creole Exceptionalism,as a socio historically rooted "regime of truth" (in Foucault's sense), obstructs scientific and socia lprogress in and about Creole communities. Various types of Creole Exceptionalist beliefs are deconstructed and historicized, and their empirical, theoretical, and sociological flaws surveyed. These flaws have antecedents in early creolists' theories of Creolegenesis, often explicitly couched in Eurocentric and (pre-/quasi-)Darwinian doctrines of human evolution. Despite its historical basis in colonialism and slavery and its scientific and sociological flaws, Creole Exceptionalism is still enshrined in the modern linguistics establishment and its classic literature, a not unexpected state given the social structure of scientific communities and the interaction between ideology and "paradigm-making." The present Foucauldian approach to Creole Exceptionalism is an instantiation of awell-defined area of the linguistics/ideology interface. The conclusion proposes alternatives more consistent with Creole structures and their development, and more likely to help linguists address somepractical problems faced by Creole speakers. (Colonialism,Creole languages, Darwinism,Haitian Creole, history of linguistics, ideology, language evolution)*

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