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"Mi no whiteman, I mean" : language ideologies and attitudes toward English and Pijin among Solomon students, between social mobility and national consciousness

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"Mi no whiteman, I mean" : language ideologies and attitudes toward English and Pijin among Solomon students, between social mobility and national consciousness

Angeli, Johanne (2008) "Mi no whiteman, I mean" : language ideologies and attitudes toward English and Pijin among Solomon students, between social mobility and national consciousness. Masters thesis, Concordia University.

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Abstract

This thesis explores the attitudes of university students toward Pijin, a Melanesian Creole that is the de facto national language, and English, the official language of the country, in Honiara, the capital city of Solomon Islands. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the summer of 2007 on the Solomon Island Campus of the University of the South Pacific (USP), it draws on the concepts of language ideologies and creolization to show that students' linguistic attitudes and behaviours are informed by different ideological influences, which coexist, compete and combine in complex ways. The research argues that, in a post-colonial context where national consciousness is growing, the residual but pervasive effect of the colonial ideology which disparages Pijin as "broken English" is in fact detrimental to the practice of English, a language of high instrumental value for social mobility in Solomon Islands. The tensions that students experience in classrooms with regard to their language practices reveal larger contradictions, related to current processes of nation building and class differentiation, in which Solomon students, as the future elite of a young nation-state, are enmeshed.

Divisions:Concordia University > Faculty of Arts and Science > Sociology and Anthropology
Item Type:Thesis (Masters)
Authors:Angeli, Johanne
Pagination:ix, 248 leaves : ill., maps ; 29 cm.
Institution:Concordia University
Degree Name:M.A.
Program:Sociology and Anthropology
Date:2008
Thesis Supervisor(s):Jourdan, Christine
Identification Number:LE 3 C66S63M 2008 A54
ID Code:975811
Deposited By: Concordia University Library
Deposited On:22 Jan 2013 16:15
Last Modified:13 Jul 2020 20:08
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