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- Title
Political, religious, and economic factors affecting language choice in St. Lucia.
- Authors
Frank, David B.
- Abstract
This article examines attitudes toward Saint Lucian French Creole past and present in three distinct but intertwined areas as they relate to its use and acceptability. Those who have assessed the social status of Saint Lucian French Creole at various points in time have always concurred that English was the prestige language and Creole was stigmatized. The policy of the Ministry of Education has been to treat Creole as though it did not exist, to design programs based on the assumption that all school children can speak English. There are certain developments in Saint Lucian French Creole, first, in 1990 a three-year program leading to a Diploma in Creole Studies was inaugurated. This program is sponsored by the Folk Research Centre and the National Research and Development Foundation of Saint Lucia and the Group d'Etudes et de Recherches en Espace Créolophone of Martinique, and it is certified by the French Université des Antilles et de la Guyane. Second, the status of Saint Lucian French Creole has been bolstered by the implementation of regular Creole news broadcasts both on Radio Saint Lucia and on local television. The single most important motivation for anyone to acquire literacy in French Creole would be the existence of a body of literature written in the language that one would want to read and motivation is the most important factor determining the success of a literacy campaign.
- Subjects
SAINT Lucian literature (French Creole); SOCIOLINGUISTICS; SPEECH &; social status; SOCIAL status; FRENCH Creole dialects
- Publication
International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 1993, Vol 1993, Issue 102, p39
- ISSN
0165-2516
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1515/ijsl.1993.102.39