Identifying language ideologies in Creole contexts

This chapter aims to identify the various connections between language ideology and research on Creoles. It explores the various ways in which conceptualisations of Creole languages and communities are entangled with ideology, both as an academic concept and an underlying process in general meaning-making. The chapter explores three major themes. First, we show that while language ideologies are pertinent, they remain an under-researched phenomenon in Creole communities. Second, although popular ideologies of language have played an important role in the way that academics have come to conceive of, describe, and categorise Creoles and languages in Creole communities, this has received little attention in research. However, in order for the field to move forward, these ideologies and the resulting academic ideologies, as well as their impact on broader discourses need to be examined in more detail. Third, we thus advocate for approaches to studying Creoles that encourage a critical awareness of the positionalities of researchers and the potential impact of those positionalities on the communities being studied and the knowledge generated.