Kaleidoscopes of indexicality: multiplex symbolic functions of language and unfocused social categories

Original data from an ethnographic study on the indexical meanings of language in a multilingual and ethnically highly diverse context in Belize, Central America, demonstrate that ascribing language to ethnic belonging does not necessarily work. The Belizean language Kriol, an English-lexified Creole that is Belize's dominant oral lingua franca, is a vehicle for several indexes. On the basis of social discourses on Kriol, which are interrelated with the culturally complex history of Belize – involving transnational ties to the former coloniser, to surrounding countries and to the US – I argue that Kriol has multiple indexical functions – as ‘the language' of Belizeans, as expressing ties to race and place, and as creating a space of resistance towards Western ideologies of standardization. The case shows that, where social categories are not focused and naturalized, we find multiplex orders of indexicality and non-teleological processes of enregisterment.