Transcript Document 7376210

Multilingualism
• Language as Thing
Multilingualism:Language as Thing
•What are Multilingual Commuinities
–What leads to Multilingual Communities;
– Are multilingual communities stable?
•Question of what is a language?
–What is the difference between a language and a dialect?
•What are standard languages?
•Language Access as a resource:
–The use of Wolof in Senegal Bilingualism
•Lingua Francas and Pidgin-Creole Languages
–What are they? How did they develop?
•National Language Policy
Who Speaks What
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Mandarin
17.3%
English
08.4%
Hindi
07.3%
Spanish
06.9%
Russian
04.9%
Bengali
03.5%
Arabic
03.4%
Portuguese
03.2%
Malay-Indonesian 02.8%
Japanese
02.2%
French
02.2%
German
02.1%
Map of Sierra Leone
Language Use in Sierra Leone
English
Krio
National Lg, Education, Christian Churches, Government, Western
Educated
Trading of goods, National Lingua Franca
Mende
Regional Lingua Franca South, Produce Trading-Market
Limba
Palm wine tappers
Temne
Northern Lingua Franca
Arabic
Koranic Education, Mosques,Imams
Mandingo
Gara Dyers
• With the exception of English all these function as community languages
• Other Community Vai, Kuranko, Krim, Bullom, Susu, Yalunka, Temne,
Fulfulde, Kono, Loko
• Note that most usages can be clearly associated with specific institutions.
What leads to Multilingual Communities;
Are multilingual communities stable?
Question of what is a language?
What is the difference between a language and a dialect?
• The Problem Language v dialect:
• Popular definition.
– Dialects are structurally inferior to languages, lacking formal
grammatical rules and standards of speaking;
– Dialects are communicatively inferior to languages, lacking
the full range of expressibility found in a formal language;
– Dialects are orthographically inferior to languages, lacking
their own system of writing;
– In short, dialects are inferior to languages.
The linguistic view of languages and dialects.
• Dialect: A dialect represents a commonly held way of speaking
for a community, admitting to only minor variations in structure.
(Mutual Intelligibility)
• Language: A language consists of a cluster dialects that are
found to be mutually intelligible.
• two dialects are held to be mutually intelligible when a speaker of
one dialect finds that he can understand, without too much
difficulty the speech of a person speaking another dialect and
vice versa.
– British and American English, are mutually intelligible
– prior to the Norman invasion of 1066, when English and Norwegian were
mutually intelligible, that they were dialects of the same language.
– The Dutch/German interface (Indeterminate results)
The Political definition.
• A language is a dialect with an army and a navy, (i.e., a
government).
• Examples Norway and Sweden, Spain and Italy,
Netherlands and Germany.
• This definition seems to work better than the formal
linguistic one.
• But not perfect
• Other Examples:
Tests of the Political Definition
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Definition could be used to exclude Catalan, a Romance "language" spoken in the
Barcelona area of Spain because it is not backed up by an army and navy.
Chinese. While we may be popularly aware that people in China speak Chinese we
may not be as aware that many of the so called "dialects" of Chinese are not
mutually intelligible.
Igbo. Igbo is spoken by over 3 million people in eastern Nigeria. Yet, here, too, not
all dialects of Igbo are mutually intelligible.
English. The claim has been made, that not all dialects of English are mutually
intelligible. When National Public Television presented a 15 part series on The Story
of English many of the "dialects" represented had to have subtitles because they
were not at least clearly mutually intelligible.
My Mende speaking friend informed me that he could understand the news
broadcasts from Liberia which were in Bandi.
– Neither Mende nor Bandi has an army or a navy.
Definition: literary dialect
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A language is a collection of varieties which all use the same
(set) writing system (orthography)
Complexity of a writing system
Advantage of the linguistic view of the language/dialect
distinction:
Also undercuts the claim that Western languages are largely
superior to Nonwestern ones.
But what do you call a “language” without a literary tradition?
Is this not ethnocentric?
Commentary.
• All definitions faulty
• The popular definition fails empirically and
in its Eurocentricity;
• The linguistic definition fails empirically
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• The army/navy definition, while appealing
fails empirically as well.
The Problem
• Perhaps there is something wrong with the dichotomy between
language and dialect.
• Not all languages draw the distinction between language and dialect.
In Bamanankan: no distinction between language and dialect.
• The suffix -kan which means something like `manner of speaking of'.
– Bamanan-kan means `the manner of speaking of the Bambara
– Hausakan would translate as `the Hausa language.'
– Bamakokan `the manner of speaking in Bamako, the capital of
Mali'.
– In this case we would translate the word as `the dialect of Bambara
spoken in Bamako.'
Conclusion.
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The formal linguistic distinction between language and dialect is unworkable:
There is no way to group the dialects of the world into languages in such a
way that the dialects within are mutually intelligible and such that they are not
mutually unintelligible with dialects without.
The distinction arose in association with the development of writing and in that
context served a useful purpose, namely to distinguish between the written
form and those oral varieties which subscribe to it. This distinction, however,
is not absolute, but relevant only to situations where a writing system has been
instituted. Consequently when it is applied to areas where no written system
has been instituted, problems develop.
Are we to call languages where no written system has been installed dialects?
The problem with this is that such a term will never be purged of the notions of
illegitimacy and deviance which arose with the language/dialect distinction.
What are standard languages?
• Standard languages associated with literacy.
• Accorded a prestige at the expense of other varieties
considered as part of the language system.
• In this sense it is ideological – privilege.
• Often speakers who don’t have access to this variety
feel inferior.
• Refusal to speak the standard variety may be an act of
resistance.
The Redesign of Shona
• Shona area reasonably
linguistically coherent.
• Differences exagurated by
different Christian missions
developing their own writing
systems.
• Doke comission unified the
language but favored the most
powerful missions.
• Kalanga was reassigned to
Ndebele, a related but quite
different variety.
The invention of Tsonga
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Area in western transvaal was a
refugee area
Henri Berthoud was assigned as a
Swiss missionary to the area.
While many “Bantu varieties were
spoken, no lingua franca had
emerged.
Henri Berthoud went about inventing
one called Tsonga.
Later went on to develop a culture
with folklore to go along with it.
Language
Access as a
resource:
The use of
Wolof in
Senegal
Bilingualism
Fulfulde versus Wolof verses Serer
• Wolof – two types
– Ethnic Wolof
– Wolof Popular (80% of senegal
• Fula Communities: Ful’be and Halpularen
• Serer
– Several different languages (not mutually
intelligible – Defined by the French)
• Different Attitudes toward Wolof
Lingua Francas and Pidgin-Creole Languages
What are they? How did they develop?
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Lingua franca versus Pidgin and Creole
Lingua Franca
Pidgin
Creole
Stages of Pidgin/Creole Development (Todd)
• Phase I: Pidgin
– Arise from multilingual
contact situations
– Nobody's first language
– Minimal level of
communication.
– Lexical Base
– Lexical Reduction
– Incipient Pidgins tend to die
out.
– Cocoliche
•Phase II: Creole
–Arises from a pidgin
–Acquires first language
speakers
–Increase in Lexicon
–Grammaticalization
Phase III: Influence from the dominant base
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Phonology: Cameroon Pidgin English
1. tri
trit
story
street
2. sikin
silak
siton
skin
slack
stone
3. studi
skul
study
school
2. Lexical
1. dress
kombi manhan wandaful
move
friend
right
amazing
3. Syntactical influence
1. use of dominate base grammatical devices
2. concordial agreement
3. affixes -ing, -s pl
4. tense markers
Phase IV: Post Creole
continuum
Phase VI: Total Absorption
(Dwyer)
Samples of English-Based Pidgin/Creoles
Pidgin (Cameroun, West Africa)
• Mek a tel wuna ha we masa
Trki bin brok i bak. I gt
wan de wn Masa Trki
and Masa Pik bin bi kombi.
Wan de masa Pik bin de gif
mni f masa Trki,
fseka se masa Trki n
gt mni f bay chp.
Masa Trki bin de tl
masa Pik se wn i gt
mni i go de bakam. I dn
te soteee bt Masa Trki n
 de gif Masa Pik i m ni...
• Mek a tel wuna ha we masa
Tr]ki ben brok i bak. I get
wan de wen Masa Tr]ki and
Masa Pik bin bi kom]bi. Wan
de masa Pik bin de gif m]ni f]
masa Tr]ki, f]seka se masa
Tr]ki n] g,t m]ni f] bay ch]p.
Masa Tr]ki bin de t,l masa Pik
se w,n i g,t m]ni i go de
bakam. I d]n te soteee b]t
Masa Tr]ki n] de gif Masa Pik
i m]ni...
Krio (Sierra Leone, West Africa)
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Wi stil de tk bt rilign an
politiks, w, na di kayn of gd
w motal man de gri tu an w i
gt f du witi di kntri i bizns.
We de tl tenki f de wantm
welh i n st dm mt but
gt smting f se bt di ting
w we de tk. I de sho se wi
n de tk f nting. We bin
dn gri se rilign an politiks
nto wan.
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We are still talking about religon
and politics, about the kind of God
which humans believe in and what
he has to do with the country's
business. We offer thanks for the
one time he didn't shut their
mouths but had something to say
about what we are discussing. We
agreed that religion and politics are
not one.
Sea Islands Krio <Gullah>
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How Bra Hawn Got His Long
Mawth. Bra rabit bin in i rays fiel to
habs i rays an di san gt bri
hat an bra rabit lef i fil an gn p
on di flat bank w som bush de an
i sedn anda de bush in de shed
an bigin f wisel. Dem dez bra
rabit an bra hawn bin gud frenz.
Bra hawn kam long an hiri bra de
wisel. I se bra rabit, a wish a kuda
wisel laka yu na. Bra rabit tl-am
se i mawt i stan for wistel. Rawn
mawt ain for wistl. If yu had lg
mawt laka mayn yu kuda whisel....
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How brother dog got his muzzle.
Brother rabit was in his rice field to
harvest his rice and the sun was very
hot so brother rabit left his field and
went up on the flat bank where a tree
was and sat under the tree in the
shade and started to whistle. Those
days brother rabit and brother dog
were good friends. Brother dog came
along and heard his friend whistling..
He said to brother rabit, I wish I could
whistle like you. Brother rabit told him
that his mouth was made for whistling.
A round mouth is not for whistling. If
you had a long mouth like mine, you
could whistle.
Sranan (Surinam, South America)
• Wan konde (kingdom) ben
de, an wan foru (bird) ben de
bari (screech). Ef a bar so,
na her kondre e trubu. Konu
pot taki, wan suma kir na
foru, a sa tro wan uman pikin
fo eng.
• There once was a kingdom,
and there was a bird that
screeched. When it
screetched, the whole
kingdom was disturbed. The
king announced that the
person who killed the bird
would marry a daughter of
his.
Belizian Creole
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A wan tak bout sohn a di tapik
dehn weh mi kohn op da nite.
Shore lat a pipl shif bak an foat fran
Inglish to Krio wen den di taak... if
you de taak bout science, wy you
mos expek fi taak eena Krio, if da
eena Inglish yu laan bout ahn. Afta
aal, lat a di wod dehn yu yuse eena
science da English wod... like wen
you di taak bout kompyuta ting.
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I want to talk about some of the
topicks which I raised last night.
There are a lot of people who shift
back and forth from English to Krio
when they talk…. If you talk about
science then you expect to talk in
Krio…
Neo-Solomonic (Solomon Islands)
• Orayt, mif la i go go l ng
s lwater, lukawtim fish,
naw win i kem, naw
mif la i go lebawt long
kinu, naw bigf la win i
kem naw, mif la go, no
kachim ni ples i
kwaytf la.
• Very well. We kept going
on the sea, hunting fish,
and a wind arose; now
we were going in
canoes, and an immense
wind arose, and we were
thrown around and ran
very fast (before the
wind).
History of Pidgin/Creoles: Working Backwards:
• Camerounian Pidgin
– Example
– Influences clearly tracable to S.L. Krio
– reasons
• Sierra Leone Krio
– present form took shape in 19th century
– pre 18th century S.L. pidgin closer to modern Camerounian
pidgin than 18th century nigerian/cameroun pidgin
– British used as a base to wage an Anti-slavery mission.
– Used Freetowner's to missionize.
• Recaptives (39% of population) largely southern nigerian (Yoruba
and Igbo)
• Jamaican maroons arrived in Freetown in 1800
• Also west Indian regiments 1819 - 1896
Sierra Leone Krio
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Jamaican creole
• Plantation society
• Definition of creole
• Slave revolt - not generally
discussed
• Most slaves came from surinam
1667
Surinam
• Three dialects of pidgin
• Sranan Tongo, Saramakan, and
Jukan
• Occupied by british 1625-1675
• Swap with dutch for new york
• Slaves came from barbados
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Barbados
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staging point from Africa
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also went to N. America
Gullah
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Example
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Evidence of Mende
influence
Post-Creole Continuum
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DeCamp's work in Jamaica
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Bill Stewart's and Dillard's
suggestion that all of N. America
was at first Creole and then
decreolized.
Is there more?
• Connection to French-Based Creoles
– Morris Goodman's comparative work.
• Sabir Hypothesis
– The three major Pidgin-Creoles (English, French and
Portuguese) are related to an earlier lingua-franca
(Sabir) through a process called relexification
National Language Policy
• US – Virtually no language policy
– Work of the National Foreign Language Center
• African Languages
– The work of Ngugi wa Thi’ongo
– The need to have and use African languages.
• National African Language Policy
• The work of Tollefson
Final Paper Question
• Traditional approaches to language and culture
have operated from a structurally oriented
perspective. In class we have examined several
post-structural, discourse oriented approaches.
Select five such authors that you consider poststructural and indicate a) their area of work and
b) how this contributes to the study of language
and culture and discourse.
• You may find the following terms useful in your
discussion: self, praxis, power, frame, face,
illocution, institution, the cooperative principle
• Two double-spaced pages should do it, but take
more if you need to.
The End