African Multilingualisms

African Multilingualisms PDF Author: Pierpaolo Di Carlo
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498588964
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 311

Get Book Here

Book Description
Although multilingualism is the norm in the day-to-day lives of most sub-Saharan Africans, multilingualism in settings outside of cities has so far been under-explored. This gap is striking when considering that in many parts of Africa, individual multilingualism was widespread long before the colonial period and centuries before the continent experienced large-scale urbanization. The edited collection African Multilingualisms fills this gap by presenting results from recent and ongoing research based on fieldwork in rural African environments as well as environments characterized by contact between urban and rural communities of speakers. The contributors—mostly Africans themselves, including a number of emerging scholars—present findings that both complement and critique current scholarship on African multilingualism. In addition, new methods and tools are introduced for the study of multilingualism in rural settings, alongside illustrations of the kinds of results that they yield. African Multilingualisms reveals an impressive diversity in the features of local language ideologies, multilingual behaviors, and the relationship between language and identity.

African Multilingualisms

African Multilingualisms PDF Author: Pierpaolo Di Carlo
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498588964
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 311

Get Book Here

Book Description
Although multilingualism is the norm in the day-to-day lives of most sub-Saharan Africans, multilingualism in settings outside of cities has so far been under-explored. This gap is striking when considering that in many parts of Africa, individual multilingualism was widespread long before the colonial period and centuries before the continent experienced large-scale urbanization. The edited collection African Multilingualisms fills this gap by presenting results from recent and ongoing research based on fieldwork in rural African environments as well as environments characterized by contact between urban and rural communities of speakers. The contributors—mostly Africans themselves, including a number of emerging scholars—present findings that both complement and critique current scholarship on African multilingualism. In addition, new methods and tools are introduced for the study of multilingualism in rural settings, alongside illustrations of the kinds of results that they yield. African Multilingualisms reveals an impressive diversity in the features of local language ideologies, multilingual behaviors, and the relationship between language and identity.

Decolonising Multilingualism in Africa

Decolonising Multilingualism in Africa PDF Author: Finex Ndhlovu
Publisher: Multilingual Matters Limited
ISBN: 9781788923385
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Multilingualism and Education in Africa

Multilingualism and Education in Africa PDF Author: Ruth W. Ndung’u
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443869600
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 385

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book is a must-read for every language teaching professional and researcher working in a multilingual context. Multilingualism and Education in Africa: The State of the State of the Art is an up-to-date exploration and wide-ranging review of the symbiotic relationship between multilingualism and education in Africa. The African continent is rich in languages. Most of her inhabitants are multilingual and many of the nations have embraced multilingual education. This book examines multilingualism in education from three broad perspectives: multilingualism and language in education policy in Africa; multilingualism as an educational resource in Africa; and attitudes and challenges of multilingualism and education in Africa. The book’s nineteen chapters discuss these three perspectives from East, West, Central and South Africa. All the contributors are leading authorities in multilingualism and education. The chapters combine a wide range of viewpoints based on theoretical, empirical and personal experiences. The reader is left with a deeper understanding of the unique features of multilingualism and education in Africa that have seldom been addressed by those who experience them first-hand. The book demonstrates successful practices in multilingualism and education; showing how African nations have determined what works for them without ignoring challenges such as policies on paper, attitudes towards African languages and limited resources. The benefits of multilingual education override the challenges. The book’s extensive coverage makes it an important resource for scholars and policy makers in the field of multilingualism and education. Overall, this book represents an important contribution to an important subject in education globally. The editors have provided an introductory overview to the book and commentaries on the three sections.

Languages in Africa

Languages in Africa PDF Author: Elizabeth C. Zsiga
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 1626161534
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 220

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Struggles for Multilingualism and Linguistic Citizenship

Struggles for Multilingualism and Linguistic Citizenship PDF Author: Quentin Williams
Publisher: Channel View Publications
ISBN: 1800415338
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 340

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book offers a fresh perspective on the social life of multilingualism through the lens of the important notion of linguistic citizenship. All of the chapters are underpinned by a theoretical and methodological engagement with linguistic citizenship as a useful heuristic through which to understand sociolinguistic processes in late modernity, focusing in particular on linguistic agency and voices on the margins of our societies. The authors take stock of conservative, liberal, progressive and radical social transformations in democracies in the north and south, and consider the implications for multilingualism as a resource, as a way of life and as a feature of identity politics. Each chapter builds on earlier research on linguistic citizenship by illuminating how multilingualism (in both theory and practice) should be, or could be, thought of as inclusive when we recognize what multilingual speakers do with language for voice and agency.

Multilingualism in Mathematics Education in Africa

Multilingualism in Mathematics Education in Africa PDF Author: Anthony A. Essien
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350369217
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book brings together the first book collection of African research in mathematics education in multilingual societies and chronicles current research in different linguistic contexts across the African continent, (including Algeria, Namibia, Malawi, Morocco, Rwanda, South Africa) on issues of multilingualism in mathematics education, but more importantly, it foregrounds pertinent issues for future research. With many of the authors building on earlier path-breaking African research, the book is a unique contribution of careful thinking through how linguistic diversity and multilingualism manifest in ways that differ from one geopolitical context to another. This volume is an important contribution to the growing recognition of multilingualism as the global 'linguistic dispensation' in mathematics education. It is an invitation to how we might (as an international community where more and more multilingualism is the norm rather than an exception) pay more attention to the multilingual agency and capabilities of both students and teachers in order to better harness the epistemic potential of multiple languages in contexts of language diversity in mathematics education.

Multilingualism

Multilingualism PDF Author: Efurosibina E. Adegbija
Publisher: Africa World Press
ISBN: 9781592211739
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 294

Get Book Here

Book Description
Adegbija puts a national and international,searchlight on the Nigerian socio-linguistic,scenario through a description and analysis of the,language landscape in its various,ramifications. He provides a readily accessiblestimulating and fairly comprehensive description,of the language situation, including the functions,of languages, language choice, language attitudesthe plight and destiny of minority languages and,the planning, management and engineering of,multilingualism in the Nigerian context.

Rethinking Language Use in Digital Africa

Rethinking Language Use in Digital Africa PDF Author: Leketi Makalela
Publisher: Multilingual Matters
ISBN: 1800412320
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 186

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book challenges the view that digital communication in Africa is limited and relatively unsophisticated and questions the assumption that digital communication has a damaging effect on indigenous African languages. The book applies the principles of Digital African Multilingualism (DAM) in which there are no rigid boundaries between languages. The book charts a way forward for African languages where greater attention is paid to what speakers do with the languages rather than what the languages look like, and offers several models for language policy and planning based on horizontal and user-based multilingualism. The chapters demonstrate how digital communication is being used to form and sustain communication in many kinds of online groups, including for political activism and creating poetry, and offer a paradigm of language merging online that provides a practical blueprint for the decolonization of African languages through digital platforms.

Decolonising Multilingualism in Africa

Decolonising Multilingualism in Africa PDF Author: Finex Ndhlovu
Publisher: Multilingual Matters
ISBN: 1788923375
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 199

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Multilingualism in Southern Africa

Multilingualism in Southern Africa PDF Author: Wellman Kondowe
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040045812
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 318

Get Book Here

Book Description
This collection showcases perspectives from established and emerging scholars on the contemporary landscape of multilingualism in Southern Africa. The book explores the broader impact of colonialism and neocolonialism on language policies and practices, drawing on case studies from such countries as Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Zambia. The volume is organised thematically around four different sections, looking at issues around linguistic diversity across different sectors including contemporary debates on African languages, language education, youth languages and language documentation. Taken together, the collection seeks to offer readers with a more nuanced understanding of fundamental issues in the development of multilingualism across different countries in Southern Africa today and encourage future research on multilingualism in Africa more broadly. The volume will be of interest to students and scholars in multilingualism, sociolinguistics, language policies, language education and African studies.