Obligation, Error, and Authenticity: Competing Cultural Principles in the Teaching of Corsican

This article examines cultural tensions revealed both in popular reactions to Corsican language education and in Corsican language pedagogy. Lack of widespread public support for compulsory Corsican education and the cultural risks and ambiguities associated with defining linguistic error in the classroom are interpreted as evidence of conflict between a dominant Western European model of perfect congruence between language and identity and a plural cultural and linguistic reality.