Minority languages and ‘joking around’

Both teachers and students, in their discussions about language, constructed Spanish and Galician as two separate linguistic codes. Although the language practices of the community were more in line with fluid ‘translanguaging’ as discussed in chapter 5, during interviews, people’s views indicated an understanding of languages as bounded entities, each with its own attributes and suitability for certain contexts.

The example below is taken from an interview with Carlos, a Cape Verdean teenager who has been living in As Rocas for nearly ten years. Unlike many of the teachers who took part in this study, who were in their 40s and 50s and had first hand experience of the post-dictatorship revitalisation of Galician, Carlos has only known a context where Galician and Spanish are co-official languages (and everything that goes along with that such as the status of Galician in education, government etc.). Carlos has undertaken most of his schooling in As Rocas, and has not been in Cape Verde since he left almost

ten years ago. However, although his exposure to Galician in the school system has been almost on par with local children who have attended school in As Rocas since the age of four or five, Carlos says he feels more competent speaking in Spanish and reports that he does not usually speak Galician in day-to-day life. In the comment below, Carlos talks about how he doesn’t ‘really’ speak Galician, but rather uses it with his friends ‘de broma’ (as a joke). According to Carlos, within his social group, which includes Cape Verdean students and Galician students, Galician is only used when joking around.

Carlos tells me that, from what he perceives, everyone in the community speaks Spanish, apart from ‘los ancianos’ (old people) who speak Galician ‘siempre’ (always).

Example 8.2 - Joking around

E: y: con los amigos de aquí de [...] hay alguno con el que hablas en gallego?

C: mmm gallego: / no: / muchas veces hablamos gallego pero de broma sabes?

a: hacemos tonterías en gallego y estas cosas pero: hablar así no E: y ellos entre ellos hablan en gallego o también hablan en español?

C: hablan en español también

E: sí? sí vale entonces tú la mayoría de la gente aquí en [...] qué idioma notas que hablan?

C: español menos los ancianos que hablan: gallego siempre

I: And with your friends who are from As Rocas, are there any with whom you speak Galician?

C: Em, Galician, no. A lot of the time we speak Galician but we’re joking, you know? We joke around in Galician but we don’t really speak it

I: And amongst themselves do they speak Galician or do they also speak in Spanish?

C: They speak in Spanish too

I: Yes? Ok so then most of the people here in As Rocas, what language to you hear them speak?

C: Spanish, except for old people who always speak Galician

The idea of a language being used only for ‘joking around’ is something that has been found in other linguistic contexts also (Chun, 2004; Hill, 1999, 1995; Ronkin and Karn, 1999; Rampton, 1995). Hill has used the terms ‘junk Spanish’ (Hill, 1995) and ‘mock Spanish’ (Hill, 1999) to refer to the process whereby monolingual English speakers in

the United States appropriate linguistic features of Spanish in daily interactions. These appropriations are used in a jocular way but can also be used as a form of ethnic stigmatisation. Hill (1999) argues that using ‘mock Spanish’ indirectly indexes

‘whiteness’ as ‘an unmarked normative order’. Hill’s work draws on the context of the United States and therefore differs from this study. However, in As Rocas, where students such as Carlos use ‘mock Galician’, or Galician ‘as a joke’, it could be posited that they perceive standard Spanish to be the, in Hill’s words, “unmarked normative order” or likewise, the ‘anonymous’ unmarked speech variety of the ‘everyman’

discussed by Woolard (2008).

Rampton’s (1995) ethnographic work, explores the linguistic practices of teenagers in England, using the term ‘crossing’ to describe “the use of Panjabi by youngsters of Anglo and Afro-Caribbean descent, the use of Creole by Anglos and Panjabis, and the use of stylized Indian English by all three” (Rampton, 1995, p.19). One of the findings of the study in South London was that “joking uses of Creole” by white and Asian teenagers “were much more common than serious ones, as well as being less likely to elicit black disapproval” (Rampton, 1995, p.53). In comparison with Rampton’s study, where creole is the minority language that is used to joke around, in As Rocas, for a student like Carlos, Galician is the corresponding minority language. Rather than claiming ownership of Galician, which is indexed by authenticity and perceived as a

‘local’ language belonging to the community, Carlos says he only uses Galician as a

‘joke’ but doesn’t ‘really’ speak it. The reasons why Carlos might report this are many.

As discussed above, it could be due to the fact that he is rejecting the possibility of becoming a legitimate speaker of Galician, and limits his use of the local, authentic language to ‘just joking’. On the other hand, in addition to this, Carlos’s belief that Galician isn’t a language that he would speak in a serious context is reflective of his views of the value of Galician and its suitability for contexts other than informal, joking ones. The fact that in Galicia, Spanish has traditionally been the dominant language of prestige could be an influencing factor in determining Carlos’s language ideologies and therefore impact on his decision on how to employ his linguistic resources.

A further point to note in Carlos’s comment is his mention of ‘old people’, who

‘always’ use Galician. Previous studies on language use in Galicia have noted that the use of Galician among younger people is declining (O’Rourke, 2011a, 2014). This trend is reflected in Carlos’s comments, as he associates use of Galician with older

generations. Although Carlos’s perception that ‘everyone’ other than ‘old people’ in As Rocas speaks Spanish may not be factually true, his perception of the situation is telling regarding the linguistic ideologies of younger people in the community, who see Spanish as the dominant language in the young community.

Despite the co-official status of Galician, and the support it received in the school environment in As Rocas as well as its relatively high level of use in daily life by the community, it was not a naturalised form of communication for Cape Verdean students like Carlos. In other words, deciding to speak Galician was a marked language choice, one that Carlos justified by stating that when he spoke Galician he was ‘just joking around’. Another key issue at play is the inextricable link between Galician and the school ethos in As Rocas. As both schools were dedicated to championing the Galician language and were significantly involved in language promotion initiatives, the Galician language and the school were closely linked. Although Carlos was not a ‘problematic’

student, his rejection of Galician or his demoting of Galician to a language used only for joking, could be a reflection of his ambivalence towards school. As discussed in chapter 6, most Cape Verdean students do not achieve good academic results in As Rocas. This lack of academic success could provoke a rejection of the school environment on the part of immigrant students, and thus a rejection of the Galician language, which is integral to the school ethos. This rejection of a minority language, which is championed by the school, has been found in other language contexts also. In Nance’s (2013) PhD study, teenage students in a Gaelic immersion school in Glasgow who were found to express ambivalent attitudes towards the school system as a whole were more likely to reject the Gaelic language due to its associations with the school as an institution.