Revisiting forcefields

The main focus of this final chapter is to revisit the concept of forcefields and to contemplate its potential to enhance current approaches to, and understandings of language practices and speech communities in Creole contexts and elsewhere. We suggest that the notion of forcefields is very useful particularly in their capacity to move beyond binary categorisations and analyses, and thus to deal with the shortcomings of traditional (European) models of language and language use. The discussion of forcefields deals with three broad analytical levels of relevance or perspectives. On the micro-level, we identify languages and language practices as linguistic forcefields that, as language models and poles of identification, exert pulls or pushes on speakers who orient themselves towards or away from these varieties. The meso-level is concerned with language ideologies and metalinguistic forcefields, effectively linking the level of language practices with larger social processes through metapragmatic comments. Finally, on the macro-level, we discuss sociocultural forcefields, i.e., the social, (geo)political, and material contexts, developments, and phenomena that ultimately shape language ideologies and linguistic practices.