De jure but not de facto: pluricentric Portuguese in post-colonial Cabo Verde

Abstract In Cabo Verde, Portuguese is the official language, while Kriolu is the first language of virtually all the population. The schooling context clearly reflects this diglossic situation: while the vast majority of children speak Kriolu at home, Portuguese continues to be the exclusive language of instruction. Thus, Portuguese in Cabo Verde represents a post-colonial language that has maintained its de jure status but has not entered de facto domains of use. The research described in this article is based on discourse analysis of legislative and policy documents and extended semi-structured interviews with politicians, educators and language activists. Our results in this former colonial context invite us to reconsider traditional understandings of pluricentricity, as they suggest that Cabo Verdean Portuguese is not (yet) associated with local identity and has not (yet) been accepted by its speakers as a legitimate, standardised variety.