Sociolinguistics and Language Education.pdf

68 Part 1: Language and Ideology
own, with each other, or with French, but never with English. The use of
vernacular languages signals a clear identity with the Gabonese community
while keeping a distance from France which ‘is perceived as economically
exploitative, culturally assimilating, and a former colonizer’ (2002:
114). The rap movement in Gabon, therefore, which puts Gabonese languages
and cultures on a public stage both within and beyond the country,
has become part of a process of revalorization of vernacular languages:
‘Formerly associated with out-of-date and archaic values (and thus with
“backwardness”), these languages are now becoming languages of
“authenticity” and “roots” and thus claim for themselves an identiary role
both in rap and in the city’ (2002: 114). A modern cultural formation such
as hip hop may not necessarily therefore be tied indelibly to those languages
and cultures perceived to be inherently modern. Once it becomes
localized, rap can become a vehicle for the mobilization of vernacular
languages, cultures and values.
The French that is used in Gabon, meanwhile, is pulled in several different
directions: ‘departures from standard French’ serve as ‘factors of
social differentiation and thus identifi cation’ (Auzanneau, 2002: 108).
Libreville rap uses a mix of standard and non-standard French, including
various created forms, neologisms and verlan, borrowings from Gabonese
languages, languages of migration, and standard and non-standard
English. Not only is verlan a form of French slang that reverses standard
French (hence the term ‘beur’, used to refer to people of Arabic descent,
is derived from ‘Arabe’ and the term ‘verlan’ itself derives from the
French term ‘l’envers’ meaning the other way round) but also, as Doran
(2004: 94) explains, it is ‘a kind of linguistic bricolage’ formed from the
multilingual and multicultural mixes of immigrants from North Africa,
West Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. When such codes are imported (or
to some extent reimported) to the Libreville rap scene, there is a vast array
of language and cultural infl uences at work. The choices local performers
make between languages is crucial: ‘the place given to English or to
French verlan can diminish in favor of terms taken from Libreville French
or local languages’ depending on the different ways in which the songwriter
wishes to negotiate his or her Gabonese identity in the song
(Auzanneau, 2002: 117). By using a local, Gabonese form of French, for
example, performers ‘mark their attachment to Gabonese culture at the
same time as they make their break with the values of both their own
traditional society and the dominant Western society’ (2002: 118).
Gabonese hip hop artists can thus perform ‘their métissée (mixed) identity
as young urbanites’ (2002: 118).
Another node on this global circuit is Montreal, where the languages of
popular culture refl ect the city’s location in North America (rendering
African–American English both easily available and signifi cantly rejectable),
the locality within Quebec (making Quebec French a badge of