ENGLISH IN AFRICA Members Anh Kiệt Phụng Nhi Ngọc Hà Ngọc Mai Hà Trang Phi Yến TABLE OF CONTENTS 01 The countries history 1 1 Language 1 2History English in Africa today 2 1 Native language 2 2 Doma.
ENGLISH IN AFRICA Members Anh Kiệt Phụng Nhi Ngọc Hà Ngọc Mai Hà Trang Phi Yến TABLE OF CONTENTS 01 The countries & history 1.1 Language 1.2History 02 03 African English 3.1 A preliminary sketch 3.2 Phonology 3.3 Syntax 3.4 Lexis 3.5 Pragmatics English in Africa today 2.1 Native language 2.2 Domains 2.3 In education I The countries and the history of the introduction of English • Four countries in East and Central Africa have some connections with English but are not discussed in detail: • Rwanda, where English is currently, quite remarkably, replacing French as the language of government and education • Somalia, where the Somali language coexists with English and Italia • Ethiopia, where secondary and higher education are mainly in English, but most other state functions are in Amharic or a regional language • Southern Sudan, where English is well established, and may shortly be the official language of an independent South Sudan 1.1 Languages • Ghana, is the size of the UK, with less than a third of its population, yet it has 42 different languages • On the other hand, in Kenya and Tanzania (and to some extent Uganda) Swahili is a lingua franca and in at least Botswana, Swaziland, Lesotho and Zimbabwe, one language is spoken by a majority of the population • In South Africa 70% people speak languages which are mutually comprehensible with Zulu • The modern European ‘monolingual’ states are the result of several centuries of aggressive language policy, border adjustment, ethnic cleansing The indigenous languages in sub-Saharan Africa mostly belong to three groups: - Afro-Asiatic - the group which includes Arabic, such as Hausa in Northern Nigeria and adjoining areas - Cushitic/Sudanic and Nilotic in Ethiopia, Somalia and northern Kenya and Uganda - Niger-Congo The Niger-Congo languages in general are often tone languages The examples: -àwò (two low tones) -‘star’ versus áwó (two high tones) English street appears as a loan into Yoruba as títì Within the Niger-Congo family, the Bantu languages of West, East and Southern Africa are agglutinative The correct name for Swahili is KiSwahili 1.2 History • • Bantu languages seem to have started expanding south and east at the beginning of the Iron Age, perhaps with the Nok culture of around 500 BC in central Nigeria or maybe even earlier Some people speaking pre-Bantu languages – the San (‘Bushmen’) – and there used to be another group called Khoi (‘Hottentots’) A useful comparison can be made between Zambia and Malawi -In Zambia, English is the only potential link language and is the medium of education even at primary school Zambian children normally not learn to read their mother tongue -In Malawi Nyanja/Chichewa was made an official language and primary education was carried out in it, with English as a subject But this language is also spoken in Zambia, so it is possible to compare the policies -Williams (1996) showed that while Zambian children could only read English, Malawian ones not only read as well in English as Zambian ones, but also were literate in Nyanja/Chichewa, which was their mother tongue Parents on the other hand remember colonialist policies aimed at excluding blacks and can generally see that knowledge of English is a key to success in their society -Zambia has many mother tongues, and large urban areas where people of different ethnic backgrounds mix -Politically, in a country with 30 mother tongues and limited resources, it would be very expensive to provide even primary textbooks in every mother tongue, or even or -In theory, Foreign aid money might be used, but in practice it has normally been directed to English-language materials, cheaper to produce because of economies of scale, and frequently written by the aidgiver’s own experts and published by their own publishers (Banda 1996) Even in multilingual and supportive South Africa there are practical problems in providing education in all 11 languages, and very many parents prefer Englishmedium schools to those in their own language The result is that middle-class children come to school knowing its medium and poorer ones not, and that the books they read, even if not published in the West, say by their choice of medium that the West is best African English – a descriptive account 3.1 A preliminary sketch _Some common features, partly because they often have a substratum in Bantu languages _A smaller vowel set than inner-circle varieties, compensated for by spelling pronunciations and nonreduction of vowels Spelling pronunciations are normal and predominant +Example: purpose /'pɔpɔs/, perpetrate /pεpε'tret/ compared with GA /'pɜrpəs/, /ɜpərpətreit/ or RP /'pɜ:pəs/, /'pɜ:pətreit/ where every vowel is different both in realization and systemically and yet both varieties have three different vowel phonemes in these two words _Some vowel pronunciations used as identity markers In discussing NURSE, first realized as [nas] [fast], Schmied (1991) quotes Kenyans saying ‘I don’t want to The outer circle 163 strain myself so much to say [fɜ:st] only to sound British This would seem snobbish to my colleagues’ _Word stress sometimes assigned according to local rules (Peng and Ann 2000, Bobda 1994), as in West African indi'cate vs RP/GA 'indicate perhaps because stress is attracted to certain types of strong syllable _Figurative expressions based on the substrate languages Chisanga and Kamwangamallu (1997) cite I have killed many moons in that hut from Zimbabwe _In casual speech, long words which sound formal to innercircle ears but not necessarily have that value, since casual styles have had to be ‘reconstituted’ from language learnt at school 3.2 Phonology • The accents of individual African speakers depend on their mother tongue, the area they grew up in, and how acrolectally they are speaking • However, there are similarities among the varieties of English that have a Bantu, or at least Niger–Congo substratum, and those with Afro-Asiatic or Nilotic (or Krio) substrate seem to have similar phonological characteristics • The exceptions to this overall very rough similarity are varieties in South Africa with Afrikaans (Germanic) and Indian substrata Schmied and Bobda have attempted overall summaries of the vowel systems of speakers with Africanlanguage substrata, and the result, describing a mesolectal accent, is something like this (Table 5.4), with interesting mergers and splits Finally, because African English is less stress-timed than inner-circle varieties, comma and letter have split (Bobda 1994), so that a vowel like that implied by the spelling is produced Most African English is syllable-timed with stress marked mainly by high pitch (Wells 1982) Words are very often stressed differently in African English (partly because stress is a less prominent feature and rarely distinctive) 3.3 Syntax The syntax of written standard African English is close to that of other Standard varieties It reflects a local, or unsystematic, use of articles and a nonpartisan flavour would be expected The word distract is intransitive, where inner-circle varieties might use an object such as attention 3.4 Lexis In Ghana, Nigeria and Zambia any borrowed word must be genuinely 'local English' rather than code mixing In Kenya and Tanzania speakers can assume that the interlocutor knows Swahili But in the monolingual states of Southern Africa one can assume some knowledge of the national language Pragmatics One common stylistic feature of African English is the use of idiomatic expressions in different forms from their inner-circle originals.- The Zimbabwe-born British novelist Doris Lessing highlights similar extensions: ‘What’s wrong, Rebecca?’‘Okay’ said Rebecca, meaning, I shall tell you ‘Okay’ said Sylvia, in her turn using this new or newish idiom which now seemed to begin every sentence She meant that she had absorbed the information and shared Rebecca’s fears THANKS! ... Pragmatics English in Africa today 2.1 Native language 2.2 Domains 2.3 In education I The countries and the history of the introduction of English • Four countries in East and Central Africa have... southern Africa: Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland -English is the predominant written language in most of anglophone Africa and the main language even of conversational writing English seems to retain... Late in the nineteenth century, rivalry among European powers led to a ‘scramble for Africa? ?? and the Congress of Berlin in 1884–5 ratified the division of the continent into zones belonging to