Social Differentiation in Cameroon English
Social Differentiation in Cameroon English

Author: Aloysius Ngefac

Publisher: Peter Lang

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 9781433103902

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Social Differentiation in Cameroon English investigates the correlation between some extra-linguistic variables (gender, age, level of education, ethnicity, regionality, occupation, and mood) and phonological variables in a New English setting that is sociolinguistically and culturally different from most Western contexts. The investigation reveals that the type of correlation patterns between linguistic and sociolinguistic variables reported in the Western world are lacking in Cameroon because of contextual factors and the fact that English Language Teaching (ELT) goals in Cameroon continue to be based on Inner Circle English norms. It is therefore predicted that if mainstream Cameroon English is promoted and standardized and Cameroonian speakers of English are evaluated in terms of their knowledge of Cameroon Standard English, some of the correlation patterns reported in the Western world can equally be observable in Cameroon.

Aspects of Cameroon Englishes
Aspects of Cameroon Englishes

Author: Aloysius Ngefac

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2022-02-08

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1527580296

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In spite of the fact that World Englishes theorizing projects a monolithic picture of English in Cameroon by focusing mostly on Cameroon Anglophone English (generally called Cameroon English), this book argues, with empirical evidence, that Cameroon harbours different world Englishes that display different realities and different describable aspects and trends, a complicated sociolinguistic scenario that challenges nation-based World Englishes paradigms. The book will be indispensable for different stakeholders, including scholars of World Englishes, general linguists, sociolinguists, creolists, phonologists, syntacticians, pedagogues, and students. In addition to describing the sociolinguistic and typological hallmarks of the different world Englishes that hold sway in Cameroon and highlighting their variety-specific peculiarities, the book further evaluates the plausibility and applicability of nation-based World Englishes paradigms in Cameroon, a country whose complex sociolinguistic landscape is comparable only to that of South Africa.

Language Contact in a Postcolonial Setting
Language Contact in a Postcolonial Setting

Author: Eric A. Anchimbe

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2012-10-01

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 1614511195

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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.

Sociolinguistic and Structural Aspects of Cameroon Creole English
Sociolinguistic and Structural Aspects of Cameroon Creole English

Author: Aloysius Ngefac

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2016-08-17

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 1443899011

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Based on current data, the book provides a detailed sociolinguistic and structural description of Cameroon Creole English, with a special focus on aspects that are often used in creolistic literature as putative defining features of bona fide prototypical creoles. It is the first comprehensive research monograph on the language that describes and situates its sociolinguistic and structural aspects within the context of current creolistic debate and answers the following unanswered questions: How is the evolutionary trajectory of the language and which theory of pidgins and creoles genesis best accounts for its origin and development? What is its current sociolinguistic status? Is the language a pidgin or a creole? What is the typological distance between the language and its main lexifier? What is its relationship with the other West African contact languages and other creole languages? In spite of the controversy that characterizes the field of creolistics regarding the defining characteristics of pidgins and creoles, the book suggests, for instance, that, if the different routes to creolization are recognized, it will be much easier to come up with putative characteristics that define the developmental status of any contact language, as is the case with Cameroon Creole English.

Language Policy and Identity Construction
Language Policy and Identity Construction

Author: Eric A. Anchimbe

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2013-01-01

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 9027218730

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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."

Structural and Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Indigenisation
Structural and Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Indigenisation

Author: Eric A. Anchimbe

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-12-20

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 9400778813

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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.

Essays on Language, Communication and Literature in Africa
Essays on Language, Communication and Literature in Africa

Author: Joyce T. Mathangwane

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2016-02-08

Total Pages: 555

ISBN-13: 1443888516

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Essays on Language, Communication and Literature in Africa explores language choice questions, together with domain-driven lingua-communicative and literary resources situated within the discourses of law, culture, medicine, visual art, politics, the media, music and literature in Africa. It identifies the distinctive African paraphernalia of these discourses, and foregrounds their real-world and mediated cultural and societal values, and highlights the Western presence through the inclusion of aspects of Shakespearean perspectives which bear universal tidings and speak to the African gender tradition. The chapters’ attention to verbal and visual artistic communicative mechanisms underlines such engagements as multilingualism policies, socio-political declension, social dynamism and cultural interventions that characterise the African setting. These realities are discussed in impressive detail, authoritative scholastic depth and effective stylistic tones that reflect the authors’ familiarity with the facets of African societies deducible from language, communication and literature.

Exoticism in English Tag Questions
Exoticism in English Tag Questions

Author: Blasius Achiri-Taboh

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2020-10-15

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 1527560996

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

For the last 400 years, since the birth of the Stuart Dynasty in England with James VI in the early 17th century, when the contraction of negative forms of the English sentence began in earnest, (canonical) tag questions have been a great fascination to many users of English. Within the last sixty years, beginning with the birth of the generative paradigm, tag questions have equally been of particular interest to many scholars of linguistics from a variety of perspectives, especially those concerned with the syntax-semantics and socio-pragmatics of the English sentence. With the spread of English to other countries and the emergence of new Englishes in the post-colonial context of the non-native varieties spoken in former British colonies, it is particularly interesting to see how and why tag questions have evolved over time in daily usage in both form and function in different English speech communities around the world. The essays gathered here focus on this evolutionary trend of English tag questions, with special attention on the exoticisms that characterize current usage.

Intonational Meaning in Cameroon English Discourse
Intonational Meaning in Cameroon English Discourse

Author: Yves Talla Sando Ouafeu

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2010-02-19

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 1443820407

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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), Cameroon English speakers make new information more prominent (or louder) than given information in the discourse structure. Furthermore, it is shown that Cameroon English speakers make extensive use of the falling pitch movement in speech, which leads the author to conclude that the falling tone does a lot of work in Cameroon English. Lastly, the findings also reveal that sociolinguistic theories postulated in native English communities do not necessarily apply in postcolonial English settings given that native English and postcolonial Englishes have being developing along different lines.

Postcolonial Linguistic Voices
Postcolonial Linguistic Voices

Author: Eric A. Anchimbe

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2011-10-27

Total Pages: 381

ISBN-13: 3110260697

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume investigates sociolinguistic discourses, identity choices and their representations in postcolonial national and social life, and traces them to the impact of colonial contact. The chapters stitch together current voices and identities emerging within both ex-colonized and ex-colonizer communities as each copes with the social, lingual, cultural, and religious mixes triggered by colonialism. These mixes, reflected in the five thematic parts of the book - 'postcolonial identities', 'nationhood discourses', 'translating the postcolonial', 'living the postcolonial', and 'colonizing the colonizer' - call for deeper investigations of postcolonial communities using emic approaches.