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This study is a phonetic description of intonation in Cameroon English, a postcolonial variety of English. Its focus is on the usage of specific tones, paratone and the intonational marking of the information status in discourse. Two main descriptive frameworks are used, namely the Discourse Intonation and the Auto-Segmental Metrical frameworks. Findings of the study are based on the auditory and acoustic analyses of natural conversation as well as read speech and, with relation to the sociolinguistic variables of education and gender, the linguistic variable speaking style. These findings demonstrate for example that, unlike speakers of other postcolonial Englishes (cf. Nigerian English), C...
Descriptions of new varieties of European languages in postcolonial contexts have focused exceedingly on system-based indigenisation and variation. This volume–while further illustrating processes and instantiations of indigenisation at this level–incorporates investigations of sociolinguistic and pragmatic phenomena in daily social interaction–e.g. politeness, respect, compliment response, naming and address forms, and gender–through innovative analytic frameworks that view indigenisation from emic perspectives. Focusing on postcolonial Cameroon and using natural and questionnaire data, the book assesses the salience of linguistic and sociocultural hybridisation triggered by colonialism and, recently, globalisation in interaction in and across languages and cultures. The authors illustrate how the multilingual nature of the society and individuals’ multilingual repertoires shape patterns in the indigenisation and evolution of the ex-colonial languages, English and French, and Pidgin English.
This timely book brings together research on the features and evolution of Cameroon English and Cameroon Pidgin English, approached from a variety of innovative multilingual frameworks that focus on the emergence of mother tongue speakers. The authors illustrate how language and population contact, history (colonialism), multilingualism, translation, and indigenization have contributed to shaping the norms of postcolonial Englishes and Pidgins. Employing naturalistic data, the volume provides a new fascinating perspective that better situates and supplements existing research in the fields of African Englishes and Creolistics. It is particularly of key interest to sociolinguists, contact linguists, Africanists, Anglicists, creolists and historical linguists.
The (dis)empowerment of languages through language policy in multilingual postcolonial communities often shapes speakers identification with these languages, their attitude towards other languages in the community, and their choices in interpersonal and intergroup communication. Focusing on the dynamics of Cameroon s multilingualism, this book contributes to current debates on the impact of politic language policy on daily language use in sociocultural and interpersonal interactions, multiple identity construction, indigenous language teaching and empowerment, the use of Cameroon Pidgin English in certain formal institutional domains initially dominated by the official languages, and linguistic patterns of social interaction for politeness, respect, and in-group bonding. Due to the multiple perspectives adopted, the book will be of interest to sociolinguists, applied linguists, pragmaticians, Afrikanists, and scholars of postcolonial linguistics."
The book is the first of its kind to establish Cognitive Linguistics as a research paradigm within the field of world Englishes. The authors survey the main tenets of both areas of linguistic enquiry and suggest that the theoretical and methodological apparatus developed both within Cognitive Linguistics generally and within its novel sub-discipline Cognitive Sociolinguistics can overcome certain limitations inherent in traditional approaches to cultural variation in language. They present a case study of the linguistic realization of the cultural model of community in African English as an exemplar for the investigation of cultural models in other varieties of English. Corpus-linguistic met...
Pragmatics of society takes a socio-cultural perspective on pragmatics and gives a broad view of how social and cultural factors influence language use. The volume covers a wide range of topics within the field of sociopragmatics. This subfield of pragmatics encompasses sociolinguistic studies that focus on how pragmatic and discourse features vary according to macro-sociological variables such as age, gender, class and region (variational pragmatics), and discourse/conversation analytical studies investigating variation according to the activity engaged in by the participants and the identities displayed as relevant in interaction. The volume also covers studies in linguistic pragmatics with a more general socio-cultural focus, including global and intercultural communication, politeness, critical discourse analysis and linguistic anthropology. Each article presents the state-of-the-art of the topic at hand, as well as new research.
Cameroon is a land of much promise, but a land of unfulfilled promises. It has the potential to be an economically developed and democratic society but the struggle to live up to its potential has not gone well. Since independence there have been only two presidents of Cameroon; the current one has been in office since 1982. Endowed with a variety of climates and agricultural environments, numerous minerals and substantial forests, and a dynamic population, this is a country that should be a leader of Africa. Instead, we find a country almost paralyzed by corruption and poor management, a country with a low life expectancy and serious health problems, and a country from which the most talent...
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Intercultural Pragmatics is a large and diverse field encompassing a wide range of approaches, methods, and theories. This volume draws scholars together from a broad range of cognitive, philosophical, and sociopragmatic perspectives on language use in order to lay the path for a mutually informing and enriching dialogue across subfields and perceived barriers to doing pragmatics interculturally.
The English language as spoken in Namibia has virtually been overlooked in most textbooks, handbooks, and surveys of varieties of English around the world, or else has only been mentioned in passing. However, this variety of English has recently attracted the attention of several researchers and the present volume brings together most scholars actively involved in the research on English in Namibia from various linguistic fields to present their current research. It covers a wide range of linguistic issues, such as empirical analyses on various levels of linguistic description and use, as well as the application of diverse methodologies, from questionnaire surveys, sociolinguistic interviews and focus group discussions, to corpus linguistics, linguistic landscaping, and digital ethnography. This book represents the first comprehensive collection of articles and in-depth discussions of this emerging variety of World Englishes.