Informed by insights from ‘third wave’ sociolinguistic theory, Sociolinguistics in African contexts examines linguistic ideology and practice with specific reference to African case studies. African languages rather than ‘colonial’ European languages are foregrounded based on the assumption that emphasizing African languages and speakers extends the theoretical substance of current sociolinguistics research. By centralizing indigenous African languages, this volume makes a crucial epistemic shift not only because of the field's rootedness in the Global North but also because of the marginalization of indigenous African languages within this subfield. The collection, however, is not situated within an ‘area studies’ framework. By combining sociolinguistics ‘in Africa’ and sociolinguistics ‘of Africa’, the collection creates an inside-outside dialectic that engages mainstream sociolinguistic theory while opening space for new theoretical insights.
With chapters in English and French, the volume covers contexts from Anglophone, Lusophone, Francophone, and Arabophone Africa and examines diverse topics including multilingualism (ch. 3), urban and youth languages (chs. 12–16), translation (ch. 11), mother tongue transmission (ch. 6), linguistic attitudes and practice (chs. 18, 19), and language policies, politics, and education (chs. 3, 7, 8, 11). The chapters are separated into two sections: ideologies and practices. All chapters, however, highlight the intersection between language, identity, and power as well as the complex entanglements of sociopolitical factors like colonialism, globalization, ethnicity, multilingualism, and postcoloniality in African sociolinguistic contexts. Depending on context, these factors manifest differently. For instance, the marginalization of indigenous African languages is a central theme in several chapters (e.g. chs. 6, 7); however, the different forms of colonial rule have varied impacts. While Portuguese colonialism in Mozambique censored African languages in officialdom (ch. 3), British indirect rule in Uganda made some indigenous languages visible in government and religion while sidelining others (ch. 7).
Discussions in several chapters have theoretical implications. Christopher Stroud & Manuel Guissemo (ch. 3) complicate notions of multilingualism by highlighting its imbrication in colonial logics of power, ultimately arguing for a ‘linguistic decolonial analysis’ of multilingualism. Augustin Emmanuel Ebongue (ch. 4) reinterrogates the vehicularity of some Cameroonian languages, suggesting that, unlike conclusions in previous research, only Fulfulde, among four languages, was vehicular. Ellen Hurst (ch. 12) troubles the rural/urban dichotomy, suggesting that modernity is not limited to African cities and that modernity is being reinterpreted in Africa in ways that interrogate normative notions about an imagined civilization. Here, analyses of urban youth languages (like Sheng, Luyaaaye, Camfranglais, Kirundi Slang), which take up almost the whole of Part 2, are significant. Saudah Namyalo (ch. 13) underscores the difference that African contexts make in reinterpreting social variables, arguing that class in Luyaaye, for example, is not determined by economic status, prestige, or occupation, but by toughness and callousness on the one hand and urbanity on the other.
This collection's highlight of Africa's complex contexts indicates that sociolinguists, in and outside of Africa, should look to it for models for understanding today's linguistic superdiversity. This volume will be indispensable not only to Africanist linguists, but anyone interested in postcolonial linguistics, transnationalism, or modern sociolinguistic theory.
