Beyond diglossia? Language attitudes and identity in Reunion

Abstract

The increased status that Creole has enjoyed in Reunion over the last decade, coupled with more positive attitudes towards the language, has led to suggestions that diglossia may be giving way to a more balanced French-Creole bilingualism. Building on recent research indicating that the new-found status may be largely symbolic, the present article makes use of a quantitative and qualitative survey of language attitudes amongst a group of university students in Reunion to demonstrate that the new appreciation resides predominantly in the ability of Creole to act as an overt marker of a distinct Reunionese identity that increasingly seeks to assert itself today. It argues that this function masks a paradoxical unwillingness to see Creole as an extended means of communication, which, together with a decline in transmission rates, may not signal a more favourable future for the language so much as the next stage of a slow but steady process of language shift to French.

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