Perceptual Insights Into the Martinican Creole Continuum: Standardization, Ideologies of (Linguistic) Differentiation and New Indexicalities

In Martinique (French Antilles), the complexity of French-Creole bilingualism has eluded full explanation by either the ‘diglossia’ or ‘continuum’ models (Prudent, 1981). A long-standing assumption remains unchallenged: the closer a variety is to standard French, the higher its prestige and formality. Historically, French symbolized social mobility, while Creole was seen as a liability. However, societal shifts have altered this dynamic. The switch to French as Martinicans’ L1 (Beck, 2017) reduced its symbolic value, while Creole gained access to prestigious domains, developing a formal register modeled on the Creole of uneducated classes to assert its autonomy from French. Yet, it is unclear whether this promotion of Creole has reached beyond activist circles. Does ‘more French’ still imply ‘more formal’, or has less French-influenced Creole become a marker of formality? To explore this, we designed a 2×2 questionnaire contrasting structural (+/− °Creole) and stylistic (+/− °formal) conditions. Responses from 123 participants reveal that, contrary to prior research (Bernabé, 1983), less French-sounding Creole is often viewed as more formal. This study highlights how diglossia can coexist with new intra-language hierarchies and demonstrates the value of perceptual methods for uncovering emerging linguistic attitudes.