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Article published In: Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages
Vol. 37:2 (2022) ► pp.291–320

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On the influence of Kreyòl swa

Evidence from the nasalization of the Haitian Creole determiner /la/ in non-nasal environments

 | The University of Alabama
Published online: 3 November 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.00096.tez
Abstract
The Haitian Creole (Kreyòl) spoken by bilingual speakers is a prestigious form of speech generally referred to as Kreyòl swa (KS), where Frenchified features (e.g. front rounded vowels) are often used. In contrast, monolingual speakers use Kreyòl rèk (KR), a variety in which Frenchified features do not generally occur (Fattier-Thomas, Dominique. 1984. De la variété rèk à la variété swa: Pratiques vivantes de la langue en Haïti. Conjonction 161.1621: 39–51.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; . 2015. Haitian Creole: Structure, Variation, Status, Origin. Bristol, Connecticut: Equinox Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). In this article, I establish the nasalization of the definite determiner /la/ in non-nasal environments (LÃ), e.g. chat lan for chat la ‘the cat’, as a feature of KS. I show that while bilingual speakers do use both Frenchification and LÃ, monolingual speakers overuse nasalization as compared to bilingual speakers, but use Frenchification less than the bilingual group because it is harder to produce. Based in these findings, I suggest that the sociolinguistic situation of Haiti is more complex, i.e. it is extended beyond the relationship between French and Kreyòl.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Haiti’s sociolinguistic situation
    • 2.1Kreyòl and French
    • 2.2Attitudes and ideologies toward Kreyòl and French
    • 2.3Variation in Kreyòl and attitudes toward its particular varieties
    • 2.4Kreyòl swa: KS
  • 3.The nasalization of /la/ in non-nasal environments, or LÃ
    • 3.1The distribution of the Kreyòl determiner /la/
    • 3.2Previous studies on LÃ in Kreyòl
    • 3.3Variationist sociolinguistic account of LÃ
      • 3.3.1Methodology
      • 3.3.2Data gathering using PIE
    • 3.4Measures
      • 3.4.1Dependent variables: Frenchification and nasalization
      • 3.4.2Independent variables
        • 3.4.2.1Key independent variables
        • 3.4.2.2Speaker’s social factors
        • 3.4.2.3Linguistic factors
    • 3.5Analytical strategy
  • 4.Results and interpretation
    • 4.1Descriptive statistics
      • 4.1.1Part I: Frenchification and nasalization of LA in non-nasal environments
      • 4.1.2Part 2: The nasalization of /la/ or LÃ in PIE
      • 4.1.3Significant differences (Chi2 test) among speakers by task and among task by speakers
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Tézil, David
2024. Sociolinguistic challenges and new perspectives on determining French speakers in Creole communities: the case of Haiti. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2024:288 ► pp. 177 ff. DOI logo

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