1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910452849803321

Autore

Lüpke Friederike

Titolo

Repertoires and choices in African languages [[electronic resource] /] / Friederike Lüpke & Anne Storch

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Boston, : De Gruyter Mouton, 2013

ISBN

1-61451-194-2

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (434 p.)

Collana

Language contact and bilingualism, , 2190-698X ; ; v. 5

Altri autori (Persone)

StorchAnne

Disciplina

496

Soggetti

Multilingualism - Africa

Linguistic change - Africa

Languages in contact - Africa

Language and culture - Africa

Language and languages - Variation - Africa

Electronic books.

Africa Languages

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [360]-390) and indexes.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Preface -- Contents -- List of Tables, Maps and Figures -- List of figures with cited and archived web pages. Copyrights for repoduced photographs -- List of Languages -- Abbreviations -- Introduction / Lüpke, Friederike / Storch, Anne -- 1. Multilingualism on the ground / Lüpke, Friederike -- 2. Doing things with words / Storch, Anne -- 3. Language and ideology / Storch, Anne -- 4. Language and knowledge / Lüpke, Friederike / Storch, Anne -- 5. Language dynamics / Lüpke, Friederike / Storch, Anne -- 6. Not languages: repertoires as lived and living experience / Lüpke, Friederike / Storch, Anne -- References -- Language Index -- Subject Index -- Author Index

Sommario/riassunto

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.