" Speaking French without an accent ": ideologies about phonetic accommodation among Cameroonian immigrants in Paris

Suzie Telep (1)

1 CERLIS - UMR 8070 - Centre de recherche sur les liens sociaux

This article describes some of the social issues of phonetic accommodation among Cameroonian immigrants in Paris, through the analysis of their ideologies about the practice of ​ whitisage, a neologism which refers, according to the subjects, to the act of ''speaking like a White person'' or in other words, ''speaking French without an accent''. This practice is a form of accommodation which consists in adapting one's way of speaking toward a non-Cameroonian interlocutor by imitating his or her accent. By describing both the social functions and the ambivalent meanings of this language practice, I show that if it can be valued as a form of adaptation and a sign of open-mindedness to others in a new socio-cultural environment, it can also be perceived, in some contexts, as a form of assimilation and rejection of one's identity. I argue that the negative values associated with ​ whitisage must be related to the socio-historical circumstances in which this social practice appeared as a psychological and cultural consequence of the power relationship between the Black colonized and the White colonizer.

Keywords: ​ language ideologies; language and migration; accent and identity; style-shifting; language and colonization; race and ethnicity; African studies; linguistic anthropology; sociolinguistics; linguistic ideologies; communication accommodation theory; social psychology; French language studies

Domains: Humanities and Social Sciences; Linguistics; Humanities and Social Sciences; Sociology; Humanities and Social Sciences; Psychology; Humanities and Social Sciences; Social Anthropology and ethnology

Suzie Telep. " Speaking French without an accent ": ideologies about phonetic accommodation among Cameroonian immigrants in Paris. 6th Sociolinguistics Summer School, Aug 2015, Dublin, Ireland. pp.115-124. ⟨hal-01440360⟩