Lüpke / Storch Repertoires and Choices in African Languages

1. Auflage 2013
ISBN: 978-1-61451-194-6
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, Band 5, 433 Seiten

Reihe: Language Contact and Bilingualism [LCB]

Most African languages are spoken by communities as one of several languages present on a daily basis. The persistence of multilingualism and the linguistic creativity manifest in the playful use of different languages are striking, especially against the backdrop of language death and expanding monolingualism elsewhere in the world. The effortless mastery of several languages is disturbing, however, for those who take essentialist perspectives that see it as a problem rather than a resource, and for the dominating, conflictual, sociolinguistic model of multilingualism. This volume investigates African minority languages in the context of changing patterns of multilingualism, and also assesses the status of African languages in terms of existing influential vitality scales. An important aspect of multilingual praxis is the speakers' agency in making choices, their repertoires of registers and the multiplicity of language ideology associated with different ways of speaking. The volume represents a new and original contribution to the ethnography of speaking of multilingual practices and the cultural ideas associated with them.

Zielgruppe

Institutional Libraries, Students and Researchers in African Studies, Cultural Anthropology, Sociolinguistics, Language Planning

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lüpke, Friederike

Storch, Anne

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Mehrsprachigkeit
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Einzelne Sprachen & Sprachfamilien

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1;Preface;7
2;List of Tables, Maps and Figures;15
3;List of Languages;21
4;List of figures with cited and archived web pages;19
5;Copyrights for reproduced photographs;19
6;Abbreviations;27
7;Introduction;29
7.1;1 What this book is about;29
7.2;2 Structure of the book;38
8;1 Multilingualism on the ground;41
8.1;1.1 Societal multilingualism in Senegal;42
8.2;1.2 Individual repertoires: six case studies;50
8.2.1;1.2.1 Localist identities for moving targets;50
8.2.2;1.2.2 Purposeful alienation: the ethnolinguistic chameleon;52
8.2.3;1.2.3 The rhetorical return to lost roots;56
8.2.4;1.2.4 A return to what roots?;57
8.2.5;1.2.5 I am what I speak?;59
8.2.6;1.2.6 Well, I’m not what I speak;60
8.3;1.3 Societal practices nurturing multilingualism;61
8.3.1;1.3.1 Exogynous marriage patterns and movement of daughters;62
8.3.2;1.3.2 Language acquisition in peer groups and age classes;64
8.3.3;1.3.3 Fostering;67
8.3.4;1.3.4 Professional, ritual and crisis mobility and migration;69
8.3.5;1.3.5 Joking relationships;73
8.4;1.4 Written languages and the interaction of written and spoken repertoires;76
8.4.1;1.4.1 The ecology of writing in Senegal;77
8.4.2;1.4.2 The making of guilty illiterates;82
8.4.3;1.4.3 African writing: what scope, which languages and scripts?;89
8.4.3.1;1.4.3.1 Grapho- and eurocentric ideologies and “restricted literacies”;89
8.4.3.2;1.4.3.2 Some literacies are more visible than others;91
8.4.3.3;1.4.3.3 Ajami literacies;93
8.4.3.4;1.4.3.4 The Ge’ez script;98
8.4.3.5;1.4.3.5 The Bamun syllabary;99
8.4.3.6;1.4.3.6 N’ko;100
8.4.3.7;1.4.3.7 The Tifinagh script;101
8.4.3.8;1.4.3.8 The Vai syllabary;103
8.5;1.5 For an integrated view of spoken and written multilingual and multiscriptal practices;103
9;2 Doing things with words;105
9.1;2.1 Some symbolic dimensions of language;107
9.2;2.2 A complete language;114
9.3;2.3 Speech registers;117
9.3.1;2.3.1 Play languages;119
9.3.2;2.3.2 Youth languages;122
9.3.3;2.3.3 Respect languages and other examples of paralexification;125
9.3.4;2.3.4 Special purpose languages;132
9.3.5;2.3.5 Avoidance languages;134
9.3.6;2.3.6 Ritual languages;137
9.3.7;2.3.7 Spirit languages;144
9.4;2.4 What we can learn from users of speech registers;148
10;3 Language and ideology;151
10.1;3.1 Language and power;153
10.1.1;3.1.1 Missionary activities and literacy development efforts;156
10.1.2;3.1.2 Power relationships;161
10.1.3;3.1.3 Conflicting language ideologies;162
10.2;3.2 Reducing diversity and creating standards;164
10.3;3.3 Constructing linguistic deficits and reacting to language obsolescence;169
10.3.1;3.3.1 Lack of words, abundance of sounds;170
10.3.2;3.3.2 The visible and the invisible;179
10.4;3.4 Remaining who we are: local theories and concepts of translation;183
10.4.1;3.4.1 Socio-historical background;184
10.4.2;3.4.2 Foreign text in women’s tales;186
10.4.3;3.4.3 Translating silence;188
10.5;3.5 Ways of making history;190
10.5.1;3.5.1 Eastern origins;192
10.5.2;3.5.2 Hone interpretations of Kisra traditions;195
10.5.3;3.5.3 Spirits of the past;200
10.5.4;3.5.4 Where people think (and don’t think) they come from;202
10.6;3.6 Ideologies, semiotics and multilingualism;203
11;4 Language and knowledge;209
11.1;4.1 Creation of knowledge;209
11.1.1;4.1.1 The invention of tradition;209
11.1.2;4.1.2 The view from within;224
11.1.3;4.1.3 Essentialization vs. inclusion;234
11.2;4.2 Invention of evolution: colonial encounters;236
11.2.1;4.2.1 Why collect, count and classify African languages?;238
11.2.2;4.2.2 Linguistics as science, and language as evolution;239
11.2.3;4.2.3 The origin of data;242
11.2.4;4.2.4 Borders based on typology: noun class ideologies;247
11.3;4.3 Epistemes and the expression of knowledge;251
11.3.1;4.3.1 Terminologies;252
11.3.2;4.3.2 Categories and the power of tradition;257
11.3.3;4.3.3 Emic and etic perspectives: Baïnounk noun classes;261
11.4;4.4 The language of knowledge;272
11.4.1;4.4.1 Evidentials and perception;273
11.4.2;4.4.2 When knowledge systems converge: Atlantic noun classes again;281
11.5;4.5 Endangered knowledge;285
12;5 Language dynamics;295
12.1;5.1 A glance at linguistic diversity;295
12.2;5.2 Africa in the context of global endangerment discourses;296
12.2.1;5.2.1 African languages as the marginalized among the marginalized;296
12.2.2;5.2.2 Inapplicable global endangerment criteria;298
12.2.3;5.2.3 Ignoring multilingualism and real language dynamics;303
12.3;5.3 Linguistic rhetoric surrounding endangered languages;307
12.3.1;5.3.1 The misleading equation of rare with small or endangered;307
12.3.2;5.3.2 Sociohistorical versus biologistic reasoning surrounding endangered languages;311
12.4;5.4 Where and why African languages are vital or “dying”;319
12.4.1;5.4.1 Language death in the literal sense;319
12.4.2;5.4.2 Languages and climate change;321
12.4.3;5.4.3 Languages and civil unrest;326
12.4.4;5.4.4 Urbanization;329
12.5;5.5 Africa-specific vitality and endangerment criteria;335
12.5.1;5.5.1 The existence of communities of practice and social networks for language socialization in a given language ecology;336
12.5.2;5.5.2 A “home base” providing the opportunities for maintaining and creating communities of practice and social networks in a given language ecology;337
12.5.3;5.5.3 Socioeconomic and political stability in the language ecology in question;337
12.5.4;5.5.4 Attitudes by speakers and non-speakers to the language ecology;338
12.5.5;5.5.5 The reification of languages in the ecology as “named languages” and their authentication as fully-fledged languages;339
12.6;5.6 Responses to language endangerment and marginalization in Africa;340
12.6.1;5.6.1 Overcoming colonial language policies?;340
12.6.2;5.6.2 Continuing imbalanced power relationships;341
12.6.3;5.6.3 The mimesis of mimesis: mimetic excess;343
12.6.4;5.6.4 Outsiders as the “owners” of African languages;350
12.6.5;5.6.5 Linguists as failing to inform discourses of endangerment;351
12.7;5.7 Language as a thing versus language as flexible social practice;355
12.8;5.8 Consequences for the relationships of documentation with “maintenance” and “revitalization”;360
12.9;5.9 Revitalization in the future;367
13;6 Not languages: repertoires as lived and living experience;373
13.1;6.1 Lessons from Africa;373
13.2;6.2 Changing our metaphors;375
13.3;6.3 The promise of a different approach;377
13.4;6.4 On the way, obstacles;379
13.4.1;6.4.1 Hegemonic northern discourses;379
13.4.2;6.4.2 The canon of descriptive linguistics: power relations in a small field;379
13.4.3;6.4.3 Researchers and communities as generic pawns on a competitive playing field;380
13.5;6.5 Finally, a vision;381
13.5.1;6.5.1 First of all: more time and freedom;382
13.5.2;6.5.2 Then: the notion of quality;382
13.5.3;6.5.3 The result: open-ended collaborative projects;383
13.6;6.6 Paradigms as they shift and shuffle;384
13.6.1;6.6.1 African languages as agency - awake or sleeping;384
13.6.2;6.6.2 The tangible realm of language;386
14;References;388
15;Language Index;419
16;Subject Index;422
17;Author Index;427

Über Autor(innen)

Storch, Anne
Anne Storch, Institute for African Studies and Egyptology, University of Cologne, Germany.

Lüpke, Friederike
Friederike Lüpke, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK.

Friederike Lüpke, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK; Anne Storch, Institute for African Studies and Egyptology, University of Cologne, Germany.