Some studies of the St. Lucian language situation have reported that St. Lucians are ambivalent toward French Creole and English, two dominant varieties spoken on the island. Recent sociolinguistic surveys have reported the emergence of an English lexicon vernacular that is now widely spoken, mostly by younger generations in and around the urban centres and in rural areas as well. This paper reports the findings of a study on the attitudes of student teachers toward the three language varieties. The data elicitation methods included a matched guise test which was given to a random sample of teachers in training in the first and second year at the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College in St. Lucia (SALCC), a questionnaire that further explored their perceptions of and attitudes toward the language varieties, and an interview—based on a structured questionnaire—that was used to obtain additional information about language use and choice.
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