Le créole comme vecteur d’haïtianité au sein de la diaspora : étude des discours de sa valorisation dans les chansons populaires et auprès des membres des communautés haïtiennes de Montréal et Miami

Abstract

Although Creole is now recognized as an official language in Haiti, it was long devalued within a sociolinguistic context dominated by the prestige of French. Within the Haitian diaspora, however, it has gradually emerged as a key resource for identity construction and community cohesion. In recent years, an increasing movement toward the valorization of Creole has become evident, particularly through diasporic discursive practices and popular music — an area that remains underexplored in the scholarly literature. This article examines the role of popular music in contemporary processes of Creole revalorization, its representations within the diaspora, and the symbolic significance attributed to it in transnational spaces. Drawing on a triangulated methodology that combines linguistic analysis of popular songs with semi-structured interviews and focus groups conducted among members of the diaspora, the study shows that Creole is widely perceived as a legitimate and central language in the affirmation of haitianity, thus revealing a process of symbolic requalification of the status of Creole-speaker within Haitian communities.