Volume: 4  Number: 1&2  Page: 100–108

Oraliteracy and Textual Opacity: Resisting Metropolitan Consumption of Caribbean Creole

Mimi Sheller Department of Sociology, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YL, UK

The incorporation of 'creole' vernacular languages into texts written in 'standard' languages is an especially fraught crossroads of intercultural communication. This article considers the difference between a kind of literary tourism in which non-Caribbean readers 'taste' the flavour of creole language within Caribbean literature versus an 'oraliteracy' that would recognise the full autonomy and complexity of creole languages. Rather than reading textual linguistic hybridity as an unproblematic form of intercultural communication, it is suggested that metropolitan consumption of literary representations of creole vernaculars can serve to naturalise cultural boundaries and reinforce racist stereotypes -- especially in postcolonial situations.

Zafè mete lang kreyòl yo nan mitan liv ki ekri nan lang ki fin tabli tèt yo tankou nòm lengwistik, se yon kalfou danjere nan kesyon kominikasyon intèkiltirèl. Atik sila la vle reflechi sou diferans ki genyen ant yon kalite touris literè kote yon lektè ki pa natif-natal rejyon karayib la vin 'fè yon ti goute' sòs lang kreyòl la nan plat manje Literati karayib la. Bagay sa a se yon bagay ki pa gen okenn rapò ak sa yo rele 'literatioral' ki, pou tèt pa l, ta vle rekonèt tout endepandans ak konpleksite lang kreyòl yo. Olye ke li intèprete kesyon melanj lengwistik la tankou yon fòm kominikasyon intèkiltirèl ki san pwoblèm, atik sa a vle fè moun konprann ke mòd konsomasyon lang kreyòl yo anndan literati gwo peyi metwopòl kapab sèvi pou fè moun vin abitye ak zòn fwontyè kiltirèl epi tou li ka ranfose estereotip rasis (espesyalman nan sitiyasyon poskolonyal yo).

Keywords: Creole, translation, rewriting, Caribbean literature, literacy, postcoloniality

© 2004 M. Sheller

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