Diglossia Reconsidered: Language Choice and Code-Switching in Guadeloupean Voluntary Organizations

A central concern of the literature on Caribbean creoles has been the development of models to explain the distribution of linguistic codes. Most linguists have argued that it is most accurate to describe cases where French-lexified creoles are spoken along with their lexifier as stable diglossic situations, in contrast to those where English-lexified creoles are spoken along with their lexifier, which are described as creole continua marked by decreolization. Still, these categorizations remain a topic of discussion (e.g., Lefebvre, 1974; Meyjes, 1995; Prudent, 1981). In this paper I consider the applicability of the diglossia model (Ferguson, 1959) for describing patterns of language use in Guadeloupe, French West Indies. Guadeloupeans, all French citizens, are generally bilingual in French, the official language, and Kréyòl, a French-lexicon creole. For the present paper, I draw on 100 hours of audio- and videotaped data to explore how people in Guadeloupe use French and Kréyòl in their daily interactions and which model best describes their language use. As a further point, I consider whether or not Guadeloupe’s linguistic situation is best described as a stable one. In doing so, I will counter the argument of Meyjes (1995) that language shift is occurring in favor of French monolingualism