Schizoglossia

Schizoglossia refers to linguistic insecurity or language complex about one's native language. The term was coined by Einar Haugen in 1962.[1]

Linguistic insecurity is common in societies where there are two language varieties and one is seen as "incorrect" and the other as a prestigious standard idiom. For example: Standard French versus Haitian creole or Standard American English versus Afro-American English. In these cases, one variety is seen as "bad" and its speaker might want to "correct" some usages for some more prestigious alternatives. Those negative attitudes usually make the speakers ashamed of language usage that does not convey prestige, either openly or indirectly by using linguistic characteristics, such as pronunciation, of the other speech variety.[2]

See also

• Linguistic discrimination
• Standard language ideology
• Foreign language anxiety – feeling of unease and insecurity experienced in learning or using a foreign language

References

1. Einar Haugen (1962) Schizoglossia and the Linguistic Norm Monograph Series on Languages and Linguistics Georgetown University. Number 15-1962
2. Wilma Bucci; Milton Baxter (December 1984), Problems of Linguistic Insecurity in Multicultural Speech Contexts, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

Related reading

• Einar Haugen (1972) The Ecology of Language (Stanford University Press)