Tyranny of Writing: Ideologies of the Written Word

Book published by Bloomsbury (2018)

Literacy and multilingualism in Africa

in Street, Brian V.; May, Stephen (Eds.) Encyclopedia of Language and Education: Literacies and Language Education (2017)

Literacy and multilingualism in Africa is approached here as a field of practice rather than a unified field of research. This field presents a crucial paradox: African contexts present some of the ... [more ▼]

Literacy and multilingualism in Africa is approached here as a field of practice rather than a unified field of research. This field presents a crucial paradox: African contexts present some of the world’s most diverse and vital multilingual situations but also feature in the world’s poorest literacy rates and are routinely said to lack a literate tradition altogether. By reviewing Africa’s script inventions this chapter offers counter-evidence for this deceptive view. Throughout Africa – from the Maghreb over West and Central Africa to the Horn of Africa – there have been significant indigenous script traditions and inventions, including Tifinagh, N’ko, Vai, Bamum and Ge’ez. In fact, some of the world’s oldest known scripts (e.g. Egyptian hieroglyphs) are African scripts. The chapter further outlines two relatively young fields of practice and research that have begun to make major contributions to literacy and multilingualism in Africa: digital literacy and linguistic landscape. These fields share a common interest in the materiality of real language as opposed to idealized images of language and in local agency and creativity in the site of struggle that is language. Like digital language practices, linguistic landscapes constitute a domain for African written multilingualism that is not generally supported or monitored by African states. Nor does either field present simple continuities from colonially inherited language policies and ideologies, in the way that classrooms do. As spaces for writing par excellence linguistic landscapes and mobile phones promise to contribute in no minor way to the development of African language literacies and multilingualism in Africa. [less ▲]

Harmony as language policy in China: an Internet perspective

in Language Policy (2016), 15(3), 299-321

This paper provides an ethnographic understanding of harmony as language policy in China, grounded in a historical analysis of ‘harmony’ (和 he) as a distinct traditional Chinese (Confucian) ideal that ... [more ▼]

This paper provides an ethnographic understanding of harmony as language policy in China, grounded in a historical analysis of ‘harmony’ (和 he) as a distinct traditional Chinese (Confucian) ideal that gradually finds its new expressions through the policy of Harmonious Society (和谐社会 hexie shehui) in contemporary China. The paper focuses on language practices surrounding ‘harmony’ emerging from the Internet, a discursive space and site that is both highly diverse and heavily contested with respect to policing processes, and notably so in the context of the PRC for its stringent mea- surement of censorship and sensitization of language use. It is shown that although the state is arguably the strongest stakeholder in implementing the policy of harmony, the actual processes of harmonization online develop in detailed, multidirectional and unpredictable rather than abstract, linear or monofocal ways. The paper offers a descriptive analysis of the field of Internet memes that critique and subvert the policies of harmonization. This includes new meanings for words (e.g. ‘harmony’ as euphemism for censorship) and puns around the acoustic image of hexie and other censorable words, resulting in the circulation and bricolage of myths and songs revolving around ‘river crab’ (hexie) and ‘grass mud horse’ (caonima) as placeholders of dissent, which feed back into offline popular (and critical) culture. The paper concludes with a discussion of the politics of harmony, pointing at the increasingly polycentric realities clashing with the modernist monocentric ideal of the state project of harmony, and with arguments for an ethnographically based understanding and inspection of language policy as an instrument for shaping sociolinguistic life. [less ▲]

Local Languaging, Literacy and Multilingualism in a West African Society

Book published by Multilingual Matters (2015)

This book aims to enhance and challenge our understanding of language and literacy as social practice against the background of heightened globalisation. Juffermans presents an ethnographic study of the ... [more ▼]

This book aims to enhance and challenge our understanding of language and literacy as social practice against the background of heightened globalisation. Juffermans presents an ethnographic study of the linguistic landscape of The Gambia, arguing that language should be conceptualised as a verb (languaging) rather than a countable noun (a language, languages). He goes on to argue that sociolinguistics should not be defined as the study of ‘who speaks what language to whom, and when and to what end’ (as Fishman defined it), but as the study of who uses which linguistic features under particular circumstances in a particular place and time. The book is therefore in part an exercise to unpluralise language, which Juffermans argues is necessary for a more realistic understanding of what language is, what it does, and what people do with it. The book will be of interest to sociolinguistics researchers, especially those focusing on Africa and the global South. [less ▲]

Trajectories and repertoires as conceptual tools for a sociolinguistics of globalization

E-print/Working paper (2014)

This is the third in a series of research briefs in the STAR project. STAR stands for “Sociolinguistic trajectories and repertoires: Luso-Luxo-African identifications, interactions and imaginations”, and ... [more ▼]

This is the third in a series of research briefs in the STAR project. STAR stands for “Sociolinguistic trajectories and repertoires: Luso-Luxo-African identifications, interactions and imaginations”, and is a three-year CORE research project funded by FNR, Luxembourg. This multi-sited project contributes to the field of sociolinguistics of globalization by investigating language and migration between the global South (Cape Verde and Guinea Bissau) and North (Luxembourg) from the perspective of both accomplished and aspiring migrants. In this third research brief we outline the key conceptual concepts guiding the project, sociolinguistic trajectories and repertoires. [less ▲]

Language and migration into Luxembourg

E-print/Working paper (2014)

This is the second in a series of research briefs in the STAR project. STAR stands for “Sociolinguistic trajectories and repertoires: Luso-Luxo-African identifications, interactions and imaginations”, and ... [more ▼]

This is the second in a series of research briefs in the STAR project. STAR stands for “Sociolinguistic trajectories and repertoires: Luso-Luxo-African identifications, interactions and imaginations”, and is a three-year CORE research project funded by FNR, Luxembourg. This multi-sited project contributes to the field of sociolinguistics of globalization by investigating language and migration between the global South (Cape Verde and Guinea Bissau) and the global North (Luxembourg) from the perspective of both accomplished and aspiring migrants. In this second research brief we outline sociolinguistic aspects of migration into Luxembourg, with a focus on its Lusophone population. [less ▲]

Dutch–Chinese repertoires and language ausbau in superdiversity: A view from digital media

in Discourse, Context and Media (2014), 3(4-5), 48-61

The Chinese diaspora in the Netherlands is undergoing a dramatic diversification since the 1990s. This is manifested sociolinguistically in a shift from Cantonese and traditional character script to ... [more ▼]

The Chinese diaspora in the Netherlands is undergoing a dramatic diversification since the 1990s. This is manifested sociolinguistically in a shift from Cantonese and traditional character script to Mandarin and simplified characters as default registers of Chinese. Young people of Chinese heritage critically respond to and (re-) position themselves against these changes. This paper explores their identity work and language identifications and adopts a view from digital media to this end. Such a view provides insight into the unstable and shifting conditions and contexts of being, speaking and learning Chinese in the diaspora. Theoretically the paper builds on a view of language as practice, translanguaging, repertoires and linguistic citizenship, and revisits Heinz Kloss' notion of “ausbau” as a concept in language policy and planning. Applied to both language and identity, the revisited notion of ausbau is meant to capture the tension between language/identity as an individual, biographic project involving personal investment and planning, and language/identity as a social, historical project sponsored by nations and states (such as the PRC). In the discussion threads that are presented and analysed, both of these poles provoke critical reflection and stancetaking: critique and resistance to the hegemonic power of the PRC's language ausbau, and self-critique in the form of self-depreciating evaluation of personally accomplished language ausbau. This contribution draws on a recently completed two-year ethnographic study in and around a Chinese complementary school in the Netherlands as part of a larger funded project investigating discourses of inheritance and identities in four multilingual European settings. [less ▲]

African Literacies: Ideologies, Scripts, Education

Book published by Cambridge Scholars (2014)

Africa is often depicted as the continent with the lowest literacy rates in the world. Moving beyond this essentialising representation, this volume explores African literacies within their complex and ... [more ▼]

Africa is often depicted as the continent with the lowest literacy rates in the world. Moving beyond this essentialising representation, this volume explores African literacies within their complex and diverse multilingual and multiscriptal histories and contexts of use. The chapters choose contexts from the Maghreb to Mozambique and from Senegambia to the Horn of Africa, and critically analyse multiple literacy genres and practices - from ancient manuscripts to instant messaging - in relation to questions of language-in-education and policy, livelihoods, Islamic scholarship, colonialism, translocal migration and writing systems. As a whole, the book may be read as an advanced introduction to language and society in Africa seen through the lens of literacy or as a contribution to scholarship in literacy studies offering a convenient collection of perspectives on/from Africa. [less ▲]

Englishing, imaging and local languaging in the Gambian linguistic landscape

in Juffermans, Kasper; Asfaha, Yonas Mesfun; Abdelhay, Ashraf (Eds.) African Literacies: Ideologies, Scripts, Education (2014)

Migration from West Africa, with special reference to Cape Verde and Guinea Bissau

E-print/Working paper (2014)

This is the first in a series of research briefs in the STAR project. STAR stands for “Sociolinguistic trajectories and repertoires: Luso-Luxo-African identifications, interactions and imaginations”, and ... [more ▼]

This is the first in a series of research briefs in the STAR project. STAR stands for “Sociolinguistic trajectories and repertoires: Luso-Luxo-African identifications, interactions and imaginations”, and is a 3-year CORE research project funded by FNR, Luxembourg. The multi-sited project, meant as contribution to the field of sociolinguistics of globalization, investigates language and migration between the global South (Cape Verde and Guinea Bissau) and North (Luxembourg) from the perspective of both accomplished and desired migrants. In this first research brief we review literature on flows of migration from West Africa. [less ▲]