Download or read book Local Languaging Literacy and Multilingualism in a West African Society written by Kasper Juffermans and published by Multilingual Matters. This book was released on 2015 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book aims to enhance and challenge our understanding of language and literacy as social practice against the background of heightened globalisation. Juffermans presents an ethnographic study of the linguistic landscape of The Gambia, arguing that language should be conceptualised as a verb (languaging) rather than a countable noun (a language, languages). He goes on to argue that sociolinguistics should not be defined as the study of ‘who speaks what language to whom, and when and to what end’ (as Fishman defined it), but as the study of who uses which linguistic features under particular circumstances in a particular place and time. The book is therefore in part an exercise to unpluralise language, which Juffermans argues is necessary for a more realistic understanding of what language is, what it does, and what people do with it. The book will be of interest to sociolinguistics researchers, especially those focusing on Africa and the global South.
Download or read book Languages in Africa written by Elizabeth C. Zsiga and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-03 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: People in many African communities live within a series of concentric circles when it comes to language. In a small group, a speaker uses an often unwritten and endangered mother tongue that is rarely used in school. A national indigenous language—written, widespread, sometimes used in school—surrounds it. An international language like French or English, a vestige of colonialism, carries prestige, is used in higher education, and promises mobility—and yet it will not be well known by its users. The essays in Languages in Africa explore the layers of African multilingualism as they affect language policy and education. Through case studies ranging across the continent, the contributors consider multilingualism in the classroom as well as in domains ranging from music and film to politics and figurative language. The contributors report on the widespread devaluing and even death of indigenous languages. They also investigate how poor teacher training leads to language-related failures in education. At the same time, they demonstrate that education in a mother tongue can work, linguists can use their expertise to provoke changes in language policies, and linguistic creativity thrives in these multilingual communities.
Download or read book Literacy and Linguistic Diversity in a Global Perspective written by Neville Alexander and published by Council of Europe. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This publication reflects the outcomes of a project which brought together experts and practitioners in the field of linguistic diversity and literacy from European and African countries with a view to opening a dialogue, to taking a comparative perspective and defining possible areas of mutually enriching co-operation and exchange. The question of promoting low-status and non-dominant languages in education is the core concern of contributions in this volume which also encompasses topics such as language awareness, stimulating and encouraging a reading culture in low-status languages and developing criteria for teaching and learning materials that respect linguistic diversity and promote multilingualism. Examples of good practice in valuing African languages include an awareness raising campaign in Cameroon, NGO activities promoting literary production in Senegalese languages, the Stories Across Africa Project (StAAf) as well as initiatives of North-South cooperation in the fields of teacher training and materials development. This publication was conceptualised as a contribution to the African Union's Year of African Languages 2006/07.
Download or read book Multilingualism written by Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society and published by . This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Some of us have argued that without education through the mother tongue or another equally familiar African language at all levels of education there is no future for African development.The experience of post-colonial Asia and Western Europe point irrefutably to the inherent value in mother tongue education or at least education in popular, widely spoken, local languages. We have frequently argued that the prosperity and economic prowess of modern Asia is, in no small measure, attributable to the use of languages confidently understood, spoken and written by the overwhelming masses of the people"--[P.4] of cover.
Download or read book Multilingualism and Intercultural Communication written by H. Ekkehard Wolff and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2017-05-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An in-depth look at the changing sociolinguistic dynamics that have influenced South African society. To date, there has been no published textbook which takes into account changing sociolinguistic dynamics that have influenced South African society. Multilingualism and Intercultural Communication breaks new ground in this arena. The scope of this book ranges from macro-sociolinguistic questions pertaining to language policies and their implementation (or non-implementation) to micro-sociolinguistic observations of actual language-use in verbal interaction, mainly in multilingual contexts of Higher Education (HE). There is a gradual move for the study of language and culture to be taught in the context of (professional) disciplines in which they would be used, for example, Journalism and African languages, Education and African languages, etc. The book caters for this growing market. Because of its multilingual nature, it caters to English and Afrikaans language speakers, as well as the Sotho and Nguni language groups _ the largest languages in South Africa [and also increasingly used in the context of South African Higher Education]. It brings together various inter-linked disciplines such as Sociolinguistics and Applied Language Studies, Media Studies and Journalism, History and Education, Social and Natural Sciences, Law, Human Language Technology, Music, Intercultural Communication and Literary Studies. The unique cross-cutting disciplinary features of the book will make it a must-have for twenty-first century South African students and scholars and those interested in applied language issues.
Download or read book Decolonising Multilingualism in Africa written by Finex Ndhlovu and published by Multilingual Matters. This book was released on 2021-07-16 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book interrogates and problematises African multilingualism as it is currently understood in language education and research. It challenges the enduring colonial matrices of power hidden within mainstream conceptions of multilingualism that have been propagated in the Global North and then exported to the Global South under the aegis of colonial modernity and pretensions of universal epistemic relevance. The book contributes new points of method, theory and interpretation that will advance scholarly conversations on decolonial epistemology by introducing the notion of coloniality of language – a summary term that describes the ways in which notions of language and multilingualism in post-colonial societies remain colonial. The authors begin the process of mapping out what a socially realistic notion of multilingualism would look like if we took into account the voices of marginalised and ignored African communities of practice – both on the African continent and in the diasporas.
Download or read book Repertoires and Choices in African Languages written by Friederike Lüpke and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-05-28 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book English Teaching and Evangelical Mission written by Bill Johnston and published by Multilingual Matters. This book was released on 2017-01-25 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Debates about the place of mission work in English Language Teaching continue to rage, and yet full-length studies of what really happens at the intersection of ELT and evangelical Christianity are rare. In this book, Johnston conducts a detailed ethnography of an evangelical language school in Poland, looking at its Bible-based curriculum, and analyzing interaction in classes for adults. He also explores the idea of ‘relationship’ in the context of the school and its mission activity, and more broadly the cultural encounter between North American evangelicalism and Polish Catholicism. The book comprises an in-depth examination of a key issue facing TEFL in the 21st century, and will be of interest to all practitioners and scholars in the field, whatever their position on this topic.
Download or read book Language and Exclusion written by Ayọ Bamgboṣe and published by LIT Verlag Münster. This book was released on 2000 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Language is a critical factor in nation-building, and in a continent such as Africa, where language groups do not necessarily correspond with national boundaries, it is potentially contentious as well. Ayo Bamgbose's new book focuses on the problem of language exclusion, whereby certain languages -- and groups -- are omitted from language policies, particularly in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Originally based on a series of lectures given in South Africa, the individual chapters largely preserve the original style of presentation. Consequently, the book is readable, and a valuable introduction to some of the more important issues in African sociolinguistics. The book makes special reference to the language situation in post-apartheid South Africa. The appendices provide access to some of the most important documents on language policies such as the Organization of African Unity's Language Plan of Action For Africa (1986), the language provisions in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of South Africa (1996), and the Barcelona Universal Declaration on Linguistics Rights.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of African Languages written by Rainer Vossen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-19 with total page 1104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a comprehensive overview of current research in African languages, drawing on insights from anthropological linguistics, typology, historical and comparative linguistics, and sociolinguistics. Africa is believed to host at least one third of the world's languages, usually classified into four phyla - Niger-Congo, Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan, and Khoisan - which are then subdivided into further families and subgroupings. This volume explores all aspects of research in the field, beginning with chapters that cover the major domains of grammar and comparative approaches. Later parts provide overviews of the phyla and subfamilies, alongside grammatical sketches of eighteen representative African languages of diverse genetic affiliation. The volume additionally explores multiple other topics relating to African languages and linguistics, with a particular focus on extralinguistic issues: language, cognition, and culture, including colour terminology and conversation analysis; language and society, including language contact and endangerment; language and history; and language and orature. This wide-ranging handbook will be a valuable reference for scholars and students in all areas of African linguistics and anthropology, and for anyone interested in descriptive, documentary, typological, and comparative linguistics.
Download or read book New Directions in Language Literacy Education for Multilingual Classrooms in Africa written by and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Multilingualism in the Chinese Diaspora Worldwide written by Li Wei and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-10-16 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this volume, Li Wei brings together contributions from well-known and emerging scholars in socio- and anthropological linguistics working on different linguistic and communicative aspects of the Chinese diaspora. The project examines the Chinese diasporic experience from a global, comparative perspective, with a particular focus on transnational links, and local social and multilingual realities. Contributors address the emergence of new forms of Chinese in multilingual contexts, family language policy and practice, language socialization and identity development, multilingual creativity, linguistic attitudes and ideologies, and heritage language maintenance, loss, learning and re-learning. The studies are based on empirical observations and investigations in Chinese communities across the globe, including well-researched (from a sociolinguistic perspective) areas such as North America, Western Europe and Australia, as well as under-explored and under-represented areas such as Africa, Latin America, Central Asia, and the Middle East; the volume also includes detailed ethnographic accounts representing regions with a high concentration of Chinese migration such as Southeast Asia. This volume not only will allow sociolinguists to investigate the link between linguistic phenomena in specific communities and wider socio-cultural processes, but also invites an open dialogue with researchers from other disciplines who are working on migration, diaspora and identity, and those studying other language-based diasporic communities such as the Russian diaspora, the Spanish diaspora, the Portuguese diaspora, and the Arabic diaspora.
Download or read book Language and Culture on the Margins written by Sjaak Kroon and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-10-03 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of thirteen essays examines sociolinguistic phenomena in a wide variety of marginal environments, providing both an overview of globalizaiton on the margins and a foundation for an expanded understanding of the processes of linguistic and cultural changes at work in these settings. Taking an expansive conceptual view of margins, the volume is organized in three parts, looking at examples of marginal spaces in the nation-state, in online environments, and in the peripheries of urban locations, globally to call attention to new and changing discursive genres, patterns, practices, and identities emerging in these spaces as a result of contemporary mobilities, the evolving global economy, and socio-political changes. With previous research previously confined to the study of globalization in urban areas, this volume opens the door for further research on the complex sociolinguistic processes resulting from globalization on the margins, making this an ideal resource for students and scholars in sociolinguistics, globalization and heritage studies, new media, anthropology, and cultural studies.
Download or read book The Semiotics of New Spaces written by Charlyn Dyers and published by AFRICAN SUN MeDIA. This book was released on 2018-11-28 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In South Africa, the township or sub-economic state housing development has achieved a very significant position as a site for sociolinguistic research. The Semiotics of New Spaces ? Languaging and Literacy Practices in one South African Township looks at the ways in which people are responding, through their semiotic practices, to the intense socio-historical changes taking place in post?apartheid South Africa. The study is set against the backdrop of Wesbank ? one of the first racially mixed housing developments in the Western Cape. The result is a range of related topics, such as how cross-cultural and crosslinguistic families influence the language practices of their younger members; the impact of translingual friendships on language practices and attitudes; the ways in which older people use their existing literacies to negotiate the multilingual realities of the township and aspects such as identity, voice and agency as markers of a developing participatory citizenship.
Download or read book Expanding the Linguistic Landscape written by Martin Pütz and published by Multilingual Matters. This book was released on 2018-12-20 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a forum for theoretical, methodological and empirical contributions to research on language(s), multimodality and public space, which will advance new ways of understanding the sociocultural, ideological and historical role of communication practices and experienced lives in a globalised world. Linguistic Landscape is viewed as a metaphor and expanded to include a wide variety of discursive modalities: imagery, non-verbal communication, silence, tactile and aural communication, graffiti, smell, etc. The chapters in this book cover a range of geographical locations, and capture the history, motives, uses, causes, ideologies, communication practices and conflicts of diverse forms of languages as they may be observed in public spaces of the physical environment. The book is anchored in a variety of theories, methodologies and frameworks, from economics, politics and sociology to linguistics and applied linguistics, literacy and education, cultural geography and human rights.
Download or read book Africa and Urban Anthropology written by Deborah Pellow and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-03-08 with total page 543 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume offers valuable anthropological insight into urban Africa, covering a range of cities across a continent that has become one of the fastest urbanizing geographic areas of the globe. Consideration is given to the structures, social formations, and rhythms that constitute the definition of an African city, town, or urban space, and to current concepts for thinking about African cities in the twenty-first century. The contributors examine topics including notions of belonging, the effects of globalization, colonialism, and transnationalism on African urban life, the cultural dimensions of infrastructure and public resources, mobility, labor issues, spatial organization, language, and popular culture trends, among other themes. The book reflects on how the ethnography of urban Africa fits within anthropology and urban studies, and on new theoretical concepts and methodologies that can be created through anthropological fieldwork in African cities. It will be of particular interest to scholars and students from anthropology, African studies and urban studies, as well as sociology and geography.
Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Multilingualism written by Carolyn McKinney and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-10-31 with total page 711 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Handbook of Multilingualism provides a comprehensive survey of the field of multilingualism for a global readership and an overview of the research which situates multilingualism in its social, cultural and political context. This fully revised edition not only updates several of the original chapters but introduces many new ones that enrich contemporary debates in the burgeoning field of multilingualism. With a decolonial perspective and including leading new and established contributors from different regions of the globe, the handbook offers a critical overview of the interdisciplinary field of multilingualism, providing a range of central themes, key debates and research sites for a global readership. Chapters address the profound epistemological and ontological challenges and shifts produced since the first edition in 2012. The handbook includes an introduction, five parts with 28 chapters and an afterword. The chapters are structured around sub-themes, such as Coloniality and Multilingualism, Concepts and Theories in Multilingualism, and Multilingualism and Education. This ground-breaking text is a crucial resource for researchers, scholars and postgraduate students interested in multilingualism from areas such as sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, anthropology and education.
