Cajun French,Sociolinguistic Knowledge,and Language Loss in Louisiana |
| |
Abstract: | This study uses Foucault's work on knowledge and power to show that the politics of language and the politics of researching it are closely related. As a discipline, sociolinguistics has barely begun to investigate the relationship between academia and issues of power and the different ways it ultimately may reinforce the interests of a dominant linguistic group. Language loss studies tend to emphasize demographic and economic factors over other social issues. This study about Cajun French, a fast-eroding French dialect still spoken by around 250,000 people in Louisiana, argues that language loss is a social as well as a discursive process and that academic knowledge and discourse both play a significant role in language politics. The study advocates the use of local knowledge to enhance our understanding of sociolinguistic issues involving unequal power relationships. |
| |
Keywords: | |
|
|