The younger generation

The late 1960s mark the beginning of the so-called Cajun Renaissance; in 1968 a series of laws were passed which were meant to encourage the use of French. The state was declared officially bilingual, French instruction in high schools was mandatory, there was to be television in French, and the state was to foster international relations with other francophone nations. By the 1990s Cajun culture had acquired a definite cachet. However, French was no longer considered necessary either for economic reasons or for symbolizing Cajunness (Dubois and Melançon 1997: 86).

 

Our youngest generation (born at the beginning of the 1970s) are most influenced by the Cajun Renaissance, are proud to be Cajuns and are able to profit most from the increasing status accorded to Cajun ancestry as well as the important economic benefits from the rapidly expanding tourist industry. However, if identify is to be signaled by language, then it is left to English to accomplish that because the majority of the young generation interact most of the time with outsiders as well as with their friends and immediate family members only in English. They use French only with some of their older extended family members. The public display of Cajun culture to outsiders – part of the tourist industry - reinforces the use of English as a carrier of Cajun identity. The Cajun Renaissance changed the meaning of sounding Cajun. In a rather sharp turnaround, things Cajun became interesting to insiders and outsiders alike, especially the food and music, and tourists wanted to visit, participate in Cajun life, and bring home souvenirs. Now it is good to sound Cajun.

 

There is an important gender differentiation in the usage of several CajVE features in the younger generation. Young men return to the CajVE forms used by their grandparents’ generation, while young women generally use the standard variants introduced by the middle-aged speakers. We have called this change led by young men in the direction of the former stigmatized and stereotyped CajVE variants “recycling”.

 

The gendered pattern can be attributed to the fact that the Cajun Renaissance largely affects the sphere of traditional male activities such as boating, fishing and hunting, and the display of Cajun culture associated with tourism (e.g. few women participate in the traditional “courir du Mardi Gras” or take tourists on trips up the bayou). Music is traditionally an essential part of the Cajun male culture, although it is now in the hands of only the young men. Traditional Cajun music is coming back in favor, replacing the country-western style that the middle-aged generation preferred. Even Cajun cuisine is publicly displayed as part of the male domain. A higher percentage of Cajun men than women are involved in Cajun advocacy organizations or report listening to Cajun radio programs.

 

The symbols of traditional Cajun identity that are left to women are those associated with the family domain, including the raising of children and the pursuit of homecrafts. The shift from French to English which largely took place within the middle-aged generation means that young women no longer have any responsibility for passing on French to the children; their roles as Cajun torchbearers have been taken over by young men. Young women have not moved to recycle the CajVE features because they have fewer reasons than young men to associate themselves linguistically to the current understanding of a Cajun identity which is largely masculine.

الاكثر قراءة في Phonology

Minimal pairs and sets

Aspiration

Assimilations

Phones and allophones

Feature geometry

The Sonority Sequencing Generalization

Finding the underlying form

Bukusu: nasal+consonant combinations

The Northern Cities Shift

Major class features

Standard lexical sets

Allophony in other languages

Place of articulation

Natural classes

Dissimilation

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

المجمع العلمي للقرآن الكريم يصدر الكتاب الثاني من سلسلة يخشى

قسم الشعائر يكرّم أصحاب المواكب المشاركة في إحياء ذكرى شهادة السيدة الزهراء (عليها السلام)

جامعة العميد تستقبل طلبة المراحل الأولى المقبولين ضمن كلياتها للعام الدراسي الجديد

سماحة السيد الصافي يكرّم طلبة حفظ القرآن الكريم المتفوّقين ويؤكّد دور التدبّر في الهداية والتكامل

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

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تقرير: النيكوتين خطر على القلب مهما كانت الطريقة

أيهما أفضل لصحتك.. زبدة الفول السوداني أم النوتيلا؟

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

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بعيدا عن البشر.. "قتال جوي في الفضاء" بين أميركا والصين

كشف مذهل في قاع "برمودا" !

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Spelling and Pronunciation SUMMARY

American English vs. British English

Morphological Basis of English Spelling

Phoneme–Grapheme Correspondences in English Vowels

Phoneme–Grapheme Correspondences in English Consonants

Spelling and Pronunciation Irregularity of English Spelling

Structural Factors in Second Language Phonology SUMMARY

Perception

Optimality Theory (OT)

Ontogeny Phylogeny Model (OPM)

Markedness

Hypercontrast