Michel DeGraff

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Linguistics, Faculty Member

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Please see my recent publications at http://mit.edu/degraff and http://linguistics.mit.edu/linguistics_haiti/ . Also follow me on FB and Twitter: https://www.facebook.com/michel.degraff and https://twitter.com/MichelDeGraff
Address: Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

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Papers by Michel DeGraff

Language Policy in Haitian Education: A History of Conflict over the Use of Kreyòl as Language of Instruction

Journal of Haitian studies, Sep 1, 2022

: Language-in-education policy in Haiti has historically favored French as the language of instru... more : Language-in-education policy in Haiti has historically favored French as the language of instruction from the earliest levels of primary school. This has contributed to preventing most children from the monolingual Kreyòl-speaking majority from receiving a quality education, succeeding in school, and accessing the means for socioeconomic progress. Though this has been recognized as a problem since the nation’s independence from France in 1804, this language-based exclusion has yet to be properly addressed. Through an analysis of publicly available documents produced by the Ministry of Education and relevant stakeholders, this article provides a historical overview of Haitian language-in-education policy followed by a critical evaluation of the documents’ contents. The historical overview is split into two parts. First, we summarize policy from independence through 1979, when Kreyòl was first legalized as both language of instruction (LOI) and as object of instruction (OOI). Second, we consider major education-policy documents starting from the pro-Kreyòl reform of Minister of Education Joseph C. Bernard (1979–1982) through November 3, 2022, when we submitted this article for review toward publication. Our evaluation of these documents reveals that, while Kreyòl has made gains from a longitudinal perspective, Bernard’s famous reform has been repeatedly mischaracterized to justify policies that promote French as LOI. Moreover, the Ministry has tended to adopt early-exit transitional language policies (early transition from Kreyòl to French as LOI) that are known to fail (as opposed to more successful additive approaches, such as mother-tongue-based multilingual education ), and student success is often predicated on quickly achieving the unrealistic second-language-attainment goal of balanced bilingualism . This goal favors children from elite francophone households, whereas the goal of functional bilingualism is more well-adapted and realistic in the context of a student population that is essentially monolingual in Kreyòl. This article aims to inform stakeholders of the history and challenges surrounding Kreyòl as LOI—a task given new importance in view of the efforts currently being put forth by the present minister of education, Nesmy Manigat, to implement key aspects of the Bernard Reform and valorize Haiti’s national language in the school system. Our primary objective here is to help break, at long last, Haiti’s pernicious cycle of exclusion based on language and education. Rezime: Politik lang nan sistèm lekòl ann Ayiti te toujou valorize franse kòm lang ansèyman depi nan ti klas primè yo. Preferans sa a kontribye nan mete baboukèt sou pifò ti moun ki soti nan majorite sa a ki pale kreyòl sèlman : baboukèt sa a anpeche yo resevwa yon bon edikasyon, sa anpeche yo reyisi lekòl epi sa anpeche yo jwenn mwayen pou avansman sosyal ak ekonomik. An 1804, Ayiti te bat Lafrans pou n te rive jwenn endepandans nou. Se depi lè sa a lidèchip peyi a te rekonèt baryè lengwistik la. Malgre sa, nou pa ko janm rive kaba esklizyon sa a. Nan atik sa a, nou analize yon seri dokiman ofisyèl ki soti nan Ministè Edikasyon Nasyonal ak lòt enstitisyon k ap feraye nan sektè edikasyon ann Ayiti. Dokiman sa yo disponib devan piblik la epi yo pèmèt nou trase yon itinerè istorik nan dosye politik lang nan sistèm edikasyon ann Ayiti. Epi, tou, nou evalye kontni dokiman yo pou n byen konprann lojik ki ladan. Nou divize itinerè istorik la an de (2) pati. An lagan, nou rezime politik lengwistik peyi a soti 1804 jiska 1979 lè leta te premye legalize kreyòl kòm lang ansèyman (LA) e kòm objè ansèyman (OA). Ann apre, nou konsidere dokiman sa yo ki pi enpòtan nan politik edikasyon ann Ayiti soti nan refòm Minis Joseph C. Bernard nan peryòd 1979–1982 rive nan dat 3 novanm 2022 lè nou te soumèt atik sa a pou evalyasyon nan kad pwojè piblikasyon. Evalyasyon nou sou dokiman sa yo montre ki jan, malgre mouvman kreyòl te rive fè pwogrè nan istwa peyi a, gen otorite k ap plede defigire reprezantasyon refòm Bernard 1982 a pou yo kore yon politik ki ankouraje lang franse kòm LA ; epi, tou, Ministè a te vin gen tandans adopte yon politik tranzisyon rapid—soti nan kreyòl kòm LA rive nan franse kòm LA—ki souvan kreye echèk, olye pou yo adopte yon apwòch aditif ki gen plis chans pou reyisi, tankou edikasyon miltileng ki baze sou lang matènèl ; epi se kon sa siksè elèv yo souvan vin bloke an ba yon objektif bilengwis ekilibre . Objektif sa a se pou avantaj ti moun ki soti nan elit ki pale franse a. E poutan, objektif bilengwis fonksyonèl la pi byen adapte e li pi reyalis nan kontèks yon popilasyon kote se kreyòl la ki rele pifò aprenan chè mèt chè mètrès. Ki fè n ekri atik sa a gen pou n enfòme moun ki konsène yo sou istwa ak defi ki antoure lang kreyòl la kòm LA. Jounen jodi a, analiz sa a vin pi enpòtan toujou lè n konsidere jefò Minis Edikasyon Nasyonal la, Nesmy Manigat, k ap feraye pou l enplemante kèk aspè fondal natal nan Refòm Bernard 1982 a,…

Black Lives Matter

Language Creation and Language Change: Creolization, Diachrony, and Development

Page 1. Language Creation and Language Change nd Developmeni edited by Michel DeGraff ' Page... more

The Syntax of Predication in Haitian

North East Linguistics Society, 1992

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HA Kreyòl Ayisyen, or Haitian Creole (‘Creole French’)1

Occupying the western third of Hispaniola, the second largest island of the Caribbean, Haiti has ... more

Perspectives on Creole Formation

The Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact

Error correction and social transformation in Creole studies and among Creole speakers: The case of Haiti

Language in Society, 2018

Mark Lewis asks that socially engaged linguists go beyond Labov's (1982) principle of error c... more Mark Lewis asks that socially engaged linguists go beyond Labov's (1982) principle of error correction (PEC) so that we can enlist critical race theory (CRT) to address ‘more difficult and fundamental questions of the sociohistorical conditions of a representation of language, challenging its premises and showing its connections to racial, economic, or other forms of violence’ (Lewis, this issue, p. 341). The ultimate goal is the actual transformation of the socioeconomic structures responsible for structural violence against speakers of stigmatized languages.

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DISCUSSION NOTE Against Creole exceptionalism*

other subject [outside of language] has fostered more absurd notions, more prejudices, more illus... more other subject [outside of language] has fostered more absurd notions, more prejudices, more illusions and more fantasies... [I]t is the primary task of the linguist to denounce them, and to eradicate them as completely as possible’. But, what if ‘prejudices’, ‘illu-sions’, and ‘fantasies ’ underlie some of the foundations of Creole studies? Many creolists throughout the history of Creole languages have relied on a variety of dualist assumptions whereby Creole languages constitute a special class of languages apart from ‘normal’/‘regular ’ languages (see critiques in DeGraff 2001a,b, 2003a). Some of these assumptions were implicitly handed down to us from (neo)colonial history without any ‘break in transmission’, so to speak. In the colonial era, these anti-egalitarian assumptions were part and parcel of the imperialist construction of political, cultural, and racial hegemony and the concomitant discursive elaboration of scientific authority through scholarly(-looking) texts (this tr...

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11. The Ecology of Language Evolution in Latin America: A Haitian Postscript toward a Postcolonial Sequel

Improving STEM Education Through Technology for Active Learning in Haitian Creole

Relexification: A reevaluation

Anthropological Linguistics, 2002

According to one version of the Relexification Hypothesis, creole genesis is an instance of incom... more According to one version of the Relexification Hypothesis, creole genesis is an instance of incomplete second-language acquisition whereby substrate speakers systematically fail to acquire the structural properties of their distant target, the superstrate (lexifier) language. The output of relexification is an early creole with substrate-derived grammar and with superstrate-derived phonetic strings. To date, the most thoroughly argued technical implementation of this version of the Reflexification Hypothesis is the study of Haitian Creole by Claire Lefebvre. In this article, I examine and refute the empirical-comparative, theoretical, and sociohistorical bases of the Reflexification Hypothesis as implemented by Lefebvre and colleagues. Firstly, the basic assumptions and predictions of the Reflexification Hypothesis are inconsistent with well-documented details about the sociohistorical and linguistic profiles of Haitian Creole. Secondly, a systematic comparison of the morphosyntax o...

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24.919 Topics in Linguistics: Creole Languages and Caribbean Identities, Spring 2004

Chapter 7. Creole Exceptionalism and the (Mis)Education of the Creole Speaker

TheLanguages of Africa and the Diaspora, 2009

Kreyòl, pedagogy, and technology for opening up quality education in Haiti: Changes in teachers’ metalinguistic attitudes as first steps in a paradigm shift

Language, 2018

We argue that local languages, coupled with modern pedagogy and technology, are necessary, though... more We argue that local languages, coupled with modern pedagogy and technology, are necessary, though not sufficient, ingredients for universal access to quality education. Our case study is Haiti, where French is the primary language of school instruction, though it is spoken by only a small percentage of the population, while Haitian Creole (aka 'Kreyòl'), the language fluently spoken by all Haitians in Haiti, is mostly excluded from the formal discourse and written documents that create and transmit knowledge (and power) in schools, courts, state offices, and so forth. We first describe the historical, political, linguistic, and sociocultural backgrounds to such impediments to quality education in Haiti. Then we present and analyze data that begin to answer these two questions: (i) What does change look like in complex postcolonial contexts, especially change in educators' attitudes toward the use of stigmatized languages (such as Kreyòl) in formal education? (ii) How can local languages such as Kreyòl serve to enhance the promotion and dissemination of modern pedagogy and technology for STEM education, and vice versa-namely, how can STEM education, in turn, serve to enhance the promotion of stigmatized languages such as Kreyòl?*

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Black Lives Matter

An n bati lekòl tèt an wo: Lang manman, pedagoji ak teknoloji kòm engredyan fondal natal pou yon chanjman radikal

Journal of Haitian Studies, 2018

Abstract:Pifò engredyan nan atik sa a se pou n rezime yon lòt atik ki te pibliye ane pase (an 201... more Abstract:Pifò engredyan nan atik sa a se pou n rezime yon lòt atik ki te pibliye ane pase (an 2018) sou rezilta Inisyativ MIT-Ayiti a nan domenn edikasyon. Lòt atik sa a te parèt nan youn nan pi gwo jounal lengwistik nan lemonn—yon jounal syantifik ki rele Language ("Kreyòl, Pedagogy, and Technology for Opening Up Quality Education in Haiti," Language 94.2 [2018]). Se Sosyete Lengwistik oz Etazini ("Linguistics Society of America"), ki se pi gwo asosyasyon entènasyonal pou lengwistik, ki pibliye jounal sa a.

Linguistics' role in the right to education

Science (New York, N.Y.), May 4, 2018

In primary schools across the world, 40% of students must learn all academic subjects, including ... more In primary schools across the world, 40% of students must learn all academic subjects, including how to read, in a language that they do not speak fluently ([ 1 ][1]). Excluding students' native languages from the classroom leads to academic failure for hundreds of millions of children throughout

Lang matènèl, pedagoji entèraktif, lojisyèl edikatif nan Inisyativ MIT-Ayiti : « Twa wòch dife » pou bon jan edikasyon ak inovasyon alawonnbadè ann Ayiti

Journal of Haitian Studies, 2016

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Mother-tongue books in Haiti: The power of Kreyòl in learning to read and in reading to learn

PROSPECTS, 2017

This article aims at a deeper understanding of the importance of native languages in education an... more This article aims at a deeper understanding of the importance of native languages in education and development, with Haiti as a case study. About half of Haiti's population is illiterate. Among ten children who enter the first grade, at most one (10%) will graduate from high school; a large proportion will drop out of school at an early age. Language is a factor in such academic failure. Education in Haiti is carried out mostly in French, which is spoken fluently by at most 5% of the population, while the language spoken by 100% of the population, namely Haitian Creole (Kreyòl), is by and large excluded from the school system, in spite of legislation, official curricula, and various efforts from civil society to generalize the classroom use of Kreyòl. We hypothesize, based on comparative research on education in the mother tongue, that the systematic classroom use of Kreyòl-at all levels, but especially in early grades-promotes academic success in Haiti, as illustrated in this paper. This article reports on the results of an intervention to improve early-grade reading and writing in Haiti. This intervention is part of a larger project titled "Mother-Tongue Books: Learning to Read in Haiti" (MTB) with Christine 2 of 56 W. Low as principal investigator. The project promotes the collaborative production of books by Haitian school children in their native Kreyòl and the use of these books to enhance literacy gains in early grades. An assessment carried out during academic year 2012-2013 (DeGraff 2013b), using the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) instrument, showed that the first and second graders at Lekòl Kominotè Matènwa (LKM) in La Gonâve, Haiti, performed at a much higher level than their counterparts in five schools nearby. LKM is a pioneering MTB school where Haitian Kreyòl is used as the primary language of instruction. These initial results (referred to below as the "baseline assessment") spearheaded our intervention, whereby the MTB approach was introduced to the five other schools in the study. The final EGRA evaluation data show that the students in the five non-LKM schools, through the MTB intervention, substantially reduced the gap in their reading-and-writing levels vis-à-vis their LKM counterparts. In other words, the literacy skills of the students at the five non-LKM schools rose nearly to the level of those at LKM through the use of an intervention based on child-centered active-learning pedagogy with the systematic use of their native Kreyòl. In this paper, we analyze the data collected in the course of this project and their implications for policies to enhance reading and writing instruction in Haiti.

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Creole grammars and acquisition of syntax: The case of Haitian