Creolization and pidginization in contexts of postcolonial diversity: Language, culture, identity ed. by Jacqueline Knörr and Wilson Trajano Filho (review)

This volume edited by Jacqueline Knörr and Wilson Trajano Filho uses a variety of interdisciplinary approaches in its investigation of creolization and pidginization of language, culture, and identity in postcolonial contexts. Besides the introduction (Part 1), the book has three main thematic foci, consisting of 'Situating Creole languages in society' (Part 2), 'Ideology and meaning in Creole language usages' (Part 3), and 'Creolization and pidginization in popular culture' (Part 4), across nineteen chapters. Part 2 consists of seven chapters that explore four main themes: they situate Creoles in the societal context in which they are used, and they investigate how Creoles are used by different populations, how they gradually expand to broader communicative fields, and how they undergo processes of legitimation and delegitimation. Part 3 consists of five chapters that examine language ideologies relating to language use, dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, political conflict, social differentiation, and linguistic appropriation. Part 4 is composed of five chapters that focus on creolization and pidginization in popular culture, examining processes relating to music and representation of race, culture, and social status.

The volume draws a nuanced picture of collective identities that keep evolving as the products of new mixtures, combinations, and adaptations specific to different temporal and spatial contexts. The notion of local context is crucial to this work, as it explores diversity in language, culture, and ethnic identifications in a wide range of postcolonial contexts, which include Mauritius (Thomas Hylland Eriksen), Solomon Islands (Christine Jourdan), Suriname and Guyane (Richard Price and Sally Price), East Africa (Francis Nesbitt), South Africa (Mariana Kriel; Kees van der Waal), Guinea Bissau (Christoph Kohl), Casamance (Friederike Lüpke), Sierra Leone (Anaïs Ménard; William P. Murphy), Liberia (Maarten Bedert), Cabo Verde (Andréa de Souza Lobo; Wilson Trajano Filho; Juliana Braz Dias), Cameroon (Eric A. Anchimbe), and Belgium (Jan Blommaert). Kristian Van Haesendonck's chapter is not circumscribed to a particular geographic context and is more focused on extending Knörr's creolization versus pidginization model to literature.

As a whole, the volume explores processes of linguistic and cultural creolization and pidginization, with a particular focus on the linguistic and cultural representations that emerge from such processes and how the resulting representations are perceived and classified. An original take on this issue is the examination of the dynamics of social inclusion and exclusion and the various ways Creole languages are used to express the social status of their speakers.

For readers interested in the development of Creole languages and how some rise from the status of stigmatized languages to that of prestigious and valued languages, this book is full of insights. I single out in this review chapters from the volume that are representative of the dynamics of social inclusion and exclusion among Creole speakers, and of the cycles of legitimation and delegitimation that Creoles go through; and I report on how some of the studies engage with the notions of hybridity, purism, and Creole identity.

For instance, Thomas Hylland Eriksen's chapter on Mauritian is an insightful study showing how the spheres of usage and communicative domains of Mauritian Creole have dramatically expanded in recent times, making Mauritian a majority language. Eriksen shows how social media have propelled the use and visibility of Mauritian to new heights, enhancing its prestige and shaking up formerly well-entrenched ethnic and linguistic hierarchies. This chapter draws a paradoxical picture where the persisting stigma associated with Kreol is paired with the openness of Creole identity, where, for instance, children of mixed Indian-Indian marriages would rather claim a Creole identity than...