Black Linguistics

Black Linguistics
Author: Arnetha Ball
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2005-08-19
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 1134507267

This groundbreaking collection re-orders the elitist and colonial elements of language studies by drawing together the multiple perspectives of Black language researchers.

Decolonising the Mind

Decolonising the Mind
Author: Ngugi wa Thiong'o
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 126
Release: 1986
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 0852555016

Ngugi wrote his first novels and plays in English but was determined, even before his detention without trial in 1978, to move to writing in Gikuyu.

Language and Politics in Africa

Language and Politics in Africa
Author: John Obiero Ogone
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 520
Release: 2020-05-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1527551555

Language and Politics in Africa is a fine collection of both empirically and theoretically based articles from across the African continent and beyond, but all focusing on the twin issues of Language and Politics in post colonial African countries. The authors offer critical perspectives on contemporary theoretical, empirical and policy issues related to language and how such issues manifest themselves at the inevitable interface with politics in a number of African countries. Coming at a time when most African countries are still grappling with language policy and planning issues while others are increasingly having to contend with the political outcomes of linguistically and ethnically heterogeneous nation-states, the present volume is a must read for scholars and students who are interested on the twin issues of language and politics since it represents one of the first attempts at documenting how language and politics affect each other in a number of African countries. The volume is divided into two sections dealing with the politics of language and the language of politics in African countries.

African linguistics on the prairie

African linguistics on the prairie
Author: Jason Kandybowicz
Publisher: Language Science Press
Total Pages: 460
Release: 2018-06-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3961100365

African Linguistics on the Prairie features select revised peer-reviewed papers from the 45th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, held at the University of Kansas. The articles in this volume reflect the enormous diversity of African languages, as they focus on languages from all of the major African language phyla. The articles here also reflect the many different research perspectives that frame the work of linguists in the Association for Contemporary African Linguistics. The diversity of views presented in this volume are thus indicative of the vitality of current African linguistics research. The work presented in this volume represents both descriptive and theoretical methodologies and covers fields ranging from phonetics, phonology, morphology, typology, syntax, and semantics to sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, language acquisition, computational linguistics and beyond. This broad scope and the quality of the articles contained within holds out the promise of continued advancement in linguistic research on African languages.

The Ambiguity of English as a Lingua Franca

The Ambiguity of English as a Lingua Franca
Author: Stephanie Rudwick
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2021-08-29
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0429631812

Grounded in ethnography, this monograph explores the ambiguity of English as a lingua franca by focusing on identity politics of language and race in contemporary South Africa. The book adopts a multidisciplinary approach which highlights how ways of speaking English constructs identities in a multilingual context. Focusing primarily on isiZulu and Afrikaans speakers, it raises critical questions around power and ideology. The study draws from literature on English as a lingua franca, raciolinguistics, and the cultural politics of English and dialogues between these fields. It challenges long-held concepts underpinning existing research from the global North by highlighting how they do not transfer and apply to identity politics of language in South Africa. It sketches out how these struggles for belonging are reflected in marginalisation and empowerment and a vast range of local, global and glocal identity trajectories. Ultimately, it offers a first lens through which global scholarship on English as a lingua franca can be decolonised in terms of disciplinary limitations, geopolitical orientations and a focus on the politics of race that characterize the use of English as a lingua franca all over the world. This book will be of interest to students and researchers in linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, World Englishes, ELF and African studies.

Studies in Canadian English

Studies in Canadian English
Author: Adam Bednarek
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 150
Release: 2009-10-02
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1443814555

This publication focuses on vocabulary, which reflects unique Canadian traits; elements that share not only a Canadian origin but also reference to everyday contexts present on both the micro and macro stage. The conducted study aimed to show variation on the lexical level, which may result from a fluid sense of national identity. The Toronto region, due to its extensive multi-cultural and multi-ethnic background bears a sense of diversity both on the social and linguistic ground. The conducted study involved the distribution of questionnaires, which tested speakers’ knowledge of Canadian register, their ability of using them in the context of everyday discourse and the identification of items. Furthermore, the author had obtained two years worth of texts from the Toronto Sun, which enabled the observation of Canadianisms within the written medium of a media context. The resulting data formed a database labeled by the author as the LCTES (Lodz Corpus for Toronto English Study).

Language and Development in Africa

Language and Development in Africa
Author: Ekkehard Wolff
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 375
Release: 2016-05-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1107088550

This volume explores the central role of language across all aspects of public and private life in Africa.

The Rise of the African Novel

The Rise of the African Novel
Author: Mukoma Wa Ngugi
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2018-03-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 047205368X

Engaging questions of language, identity, and reception to restore South African and diaspora writing to the African literary tradition

Africa

Africa
Author: Patrick Chabal
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2013-04-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1848136021

The question usually asked about Africa is: 'why is it going wrong?' Is the continent still suffering from the ravages of colonialism? Or is it the victim of postcolonial economic exploitation, poor governance and lack of aid? Whatever the answer, increasingly the result is poverty and violence. In Africa: The Politics of Suffering and Smiling Patrick Chabal approaches this question differently by reconsidering the role of theory in African politics. Chabal discusses the limitations of existing political theories of Africa and proposes a different starting point; arguing that political thinking ought to be driven by the need to address the immediacy of everyday life and death. How do people define who they are? Where do they belong? What do they believe? How do they struggle to survive and improve their lives? What is the impact of illness and poverty? In doing so, Chabal proposes a radically different way of looking at politics in Africa and illuminates the ways ordinary people 'suffer and smile'. This is a highly original addition to Zed's groundbreaking World Political Theories series.

African Politics in Comparative Perspective

African Politics in Comparative Perspective
Author: Goran Hyden
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2013
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1107030471

This revised and expanded second edition of African Politics in Comparative Perspective reviews fifty years of research on politics in Africa and addresses some issues in a new light, keeping in mind the changes in Africa since the first edition was written in 2004. The book synthesizes insights from different scholarly approaches and offers an original interpretation of the knowledge accumulated in the field. Goran Hyden discusses how research on African politics relates to the study of politics in other regions and mainstream theories in comparative politics. He focuses on such key issues as why politics trumps economics, rule is personal, state is weak and policies are made with a communal rather than an individual lens. The book also discusses why in the light of these conditions agriculture is problematic, gender contested, ethnicity manipulated and relations with Western powers a matter of defiance.