"A Broke-Up Mirror": Representing Bajan in Print

Abstract

It is about ten at night. Mrs. Farley is dozing off on the couch. Mr. Niles (a retired plantation worker and preacher) and I are silently poring over today's issue of the Advocate. Suddenly, Mr. Niles exclaims and pounds the table. I look up, startled. Mr. Niles pushes his portion of the paper in my direction and, pointing at a court report, says, "How do you like that?" I quickly scan the text. It is about a robbery in Bridgetown.But Mr. Niles is not interested in the story. He impatiently taps his finger at the excerpt quoting the defendant and says, "They shouldn't be doing this; it be shaming the person, how he kyaan [cannot] speak proper English. And they give he name, too! Anyways, there is nobody that says * wunna' these days." He turns to Mrs. Farley, his neighbor, and asks, "What you think, Mrs. Farley?" She replies, "Well, Mr. Niles, maybe is just for to show how he uneducated and thing, you know." ' Introduction: Representations, Ideology, and the Reproduction of Language RelationsIn this article, I explore cultural strategies of persuasion that contribute to the maintenance of linguistic hierarchies in Barbados, a former British colony and a contemporary nation-state whose official language is English but whose population speaks both English and Bajan, an English-related Creole. By locating these strategies in newspaper representations of Bajan-in the texts, in the practices and policies of text production, as well as in texts' reception by Barbadian village readers-I attempt to identify mechanisms that contribute to the marginalization of that linguistic variety and its speakers. Linguistic DominationThe consolidation of the modern nation-state as a political and ideological entity has commonly involved an imposition of standardized, codified linguistic varieties as the official language of state institutions and as an emblem of nationhood (e.g., Anderson 1983; Bourdieu 1991). 2 However, if a state-sponsored Cultural Anthropology 14(l):61-87. REPRESENTING BAJAN IN PRINT 63and codifying of linguistic varieties. Because any stretch of discourse instantiates linguistic forms and practices, discourse is replete with rich information about its own linguistic as well as social characteristics, including-though not limited to-its identity as a particular code and as an example of a socially marked way of language use. 3 In its semiotic functioning, discourse not only represents but is itself represented (Bakhtin 1981:336). While any instance of language use is interpretable in such terms, in some kinds of linguistic activities this reflexive function of language becomes foregrounded (Lucy 1993). For example, as Bakhtin (1981:336) suggested, representing language is a central problem in the novel, in which language is formally and ideologically reprocessed, reformulated, and transformed in order to construct an image of social personae through the image of their language. Although Bakhtin views these processes as specific to the novel, they can also be located in journalistic forms of writing. Representing L...

Quoting Mario Juruna: Linguistic imagery and the transformation of indigenous voice in the Brazilian print press

“…In print news media, one of several linguistically hegemonic institutions that regiment publicly circulating language and the language of public discourse (Bourdieu 1991; Cameron 1995; Williams 1983; see also van Dijk 1993, 1996), editors routinely manipulate speech they quote—omitting “infelicities” such as “ums,” stuttering, and misspoken words or phrases—and also regularly make decisions regarding how to print ungrammatical utterances. Indirect quotation and reported speech are conventions that editors can adopt when quoting to keep nonstandard language out of news reporting (see Fenigsen 1999).…”

“…Adhering to Western linguistic ideologies that privilege language's denotive function, journalistic standards promote an illusion of linguistic objectivity. Ideologies of linguistic objectivity obfuscate ways that editors can legitimize or stigmatize social actors whose statements they quote in print (see Fenigsen 1999; see also Hill 2008). Before turning to the Brazilian media and an examination of its representations of Mario Juruna's language and speech, I consider who Juruna was and the national context in which he rose to prominence.…”

“…The appearance of forms associated with the educated speech of elites validated Juruna and his cause and facilitated the transfer of positive social meanings onto his persona and his message (see Fenigsen 1999; Silverstein 1996, 1998). Moreover, the appearance of eloquent and articulate quotations signaled to elite readers that Juruna—who many readers likely would have dismissed because he was an Indian—and his message were worthy of attention and respect.…”

“…Satirical depictions of Juruna's quoted speech first appeared in political cartoons, a form of public roasting and ridicule that no politician escapes. Cartoons are a journalistic form in which otherwise socially unacceptable parody is sanctioned (see Fenigsen 1999). In Brazilian print journalism, satiric depictions of nonstandard varieties of Portuguese can acceptably occur in cartoons; regional varieties, for example, are especially subject to parody in Brazilian cartoons 19 .…”

“…For discussions of ideological debates involved in developing orthographies, see, for example, Jaffe 1996, Rhydwen 1993, and Schieffelin and Doucet 1994. Gal and Irvine 1995, Cameron 1995, Clark and Ivanič 1997, Irvine and Gal 2000, and Salomon and Niño‐Murcia in press discuss ideological entailments of writing grammars and standardizing languages, and Bourdieu 1991; Fairclough 1989, 1995a, 1995b; Foucault 1984; Fenigsen 1999; and Hill 2008 illuminate ideological dimensions of language institutions such as publishing and news media. For discussions of ways that ideology affects transcription, see, for example, Urban 1996, Haviland 1996, Ochs 1979, and Bucholtz 2000.…”