Eric A. Anchimbe

Language policy and identity construction : the dynamics of Cameroon's multilingualism

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.

Postcolonial linguistic voices : identity choices and representations

This book studies discourses and linguistic choices in both ex-colonized and ex-colonizer communities as each copes with the outcomes of colonialism. The construction of identities, the translation of religious texts, the discursive construction of nations, the use of indigenized varieties of colonial languages, and the emergence of diaspora communities are salient topics in postcolonial linguistics, and are treated here with great expertise by the authors. The book complements and expands upon traditional descriptions of multilingualism.

Attitudes Towards Cameroon English: A Sociolinguistic Survey

The issue of attitudes towards indigenised varieties of English (IVEs), also called New Englishes, Postcolonial Englishes, within their respective contexts gives interesting insights into the acceptability and stability of these Englishes. Speakers usually identify with their varieties of English only if their and their fellow speakers’ social attitudes towards them are positive. This chapter uses statistical data from a survey conducted in 2003 to establish to what extent Cameroonians accept and identify with Cameroon English. Even though most of them accept the variety exists, they are reluctant to overtly agree they speak it. They rather prefer to say they speak British English, hence refurbishing the historical link of colonialism or creating for themselves a sense of modernity or internationality. In spite of this, they are often fast in rejecting or stigmatising, through an attitudinal filtration process (Anchimbe 2006a), those ways of speaking that they consider grotesque, foreign, and idiosyncratic. This pushes those speakers who may be interested in imitating foreign accents to adhere to local speech forms, i.e. Cameroon English accent. This contradiction in attitudes and linguistic identity is inherent in most postcolonial communities and is not limited to language.

Offers and Offer Refusals: A postcolonial pragmatics perspective on World Englishes

This study offers a pragmatic dimension to World Englishes research. It is particularly timely because pragmatics has generally been understudied in past research on World Englishes, especially postcolonial Englishes. Apart from drawing attention to the paucity of research, the book also contributes to theory formation on the emerging theoretical framework, postcolonial pragmatics, which is then applied to data from two World (postcolonial) Englishes, Ghanaian and Cameroon Englishes. The copious examples used clearly illustrate how postcolonial societies realise various pragmatic phenomena, in this case offers and offer refusals, and how these could be fruitfully explained using an analytical framework designed on the complex internal set ups of these societies. For research on social interaction in these societies to be representative, it has to take into account the complex history of their evolution, contact with other systems during colonialism, and the heritages thereof. This book does just that.

Digital Narratives of Belonging as Anglophone or Francophone in a Cameroon Online News Forum

Abstract Using readers’ comments on an online news forum (The Post newspaper), this paper describes patterns of belonging to the historical (colonial) linguistic in-group anglophone and out-group francophone in Cameroon. These groups emerged from the British-French colonisation of the country after WW1, with anglophones representing the former British colony and francophones the French. My focus is on the use of eight plural pronouns and how they index in-group or out-group belonging. Four of the pronouns, we, our, us and ourselves are used inclusively to create a solid anglophone in-group through the narration of a common (colonial) history, linguistic background (the use of English) and experiences. The other four, they, them, their and themselves refer predominantly to francophones as an out-group that must be differentiated from the close-knit anglophone in-group. I illustrate how, in defending the boundaries of these groups, the commentators autobiographically narrate the life trajectories of their in-group, highlight its values and interrogate the moral stance of the out-group. They benefit from the digital space which provides anonymity and closes the geographical distances between them. Overall, the anglophone in-group narrative emerges as an autobiographical narrative within the bigger (national) autobiographical narrative of the country, into which it often opens and is sometimes integrated.

Introduction—Indigenisation and Multilingualism: Extending the Debate on Language Evolution in Cameroon

This introductory chapter outlines the aims and objectives of this book, i.e. to further illustrate, using authentic, naturally-occurring data, processes of indigenisation in two ex-colonial languages, English and French, and a Pidgin, Cameroon Pidgin English, in Cameroon. Additionally, the volume investigates patterns of indigenisation beyond the level of grammar but at the level of discourse and social interaction from pragmatic and sociolinguistic perspectives. To achieve these aims, and by way of explaining the line of thinking in the chapters, this chapter defines the concept of indigenisation and situates it within current descriptions of postcolonial language varieties. It identifies the linguistic levels of indigenisation expounded on in the volume; explains the varied sources of indigenised features; and discerns the status of each language and their contribution to indigenisation within this multilingual setting.

Gender and the use of Tags in Cameroon English Discourse

The aim of this chapter is to investigate the types of tag questions commonly used by Cameroonian men and women in both formal and informal and single-sex and mixed-sex interactions in Cameroon English. A major question we seek to answer is: do the tags used by Cameroonian women suggest tentativeness, hesitancy, and powerlessness as implied by literature in western contexts? The analysis of the naturally-occurring data carried out here reveals on the contrary that the use of tags, especially by Cameroonian women, is conditioned by the respect of sociocultural norms of society and the desire to be polite, deferent, and acceptable. From a more general point of view, tag usage is highly context-dependent, i.e. in relation to the physical location, the discourse context (formal or informal), the participants involved (age, parent-child, gender), and the relationship between the participants (symmetrical or asymmetrical).

Global Identities or Local Stigma Markers: How Equal Is the ‘E’ in Englishes in Cameroon?

Given the global spread of English and its extensive use in various parts of the world, it is now used by diverse groups of new speakers who now struggle to create new identities and identity icons around it. One outcome of this process is the redefinition of the standards of the language in relation to specific groups of speakers. Taking Cameroon as a case in point, this chapter illustrates how French-speaking Cameroonians now identify with English but not in the same way as their English-speaking counterparts for whom English is the first official language.