"This book argues for the need to empower African indigenous languages for greater functions in national life. It makes an important and useful contribution to the understanding of the sociolinguistic and sociopolitical dimensions of language attitudes in the sub-Saharan African language context." "Overall, the book will interest all sociolinguists, language in education researchers and scholars, language policy makers in multilingual situations, and even politicians. Also, anyone interested in the complex African language context will find the book very informative, even stirring, while those involved with language issues in multilingual situations all over the world will find Language Attitudes in Sub-Saharan Africa interesting, stimulating, and valuable."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This book offers an informative sociolinguistic and sociopolitical description and analysis of language attitudes in sub-Saharan Africa. It emphasizes the strong ideological and polemical view that multilingualism in sub-Saharan Africa should seen as a resource and an asset.

Language Attitudes and the Pursuit of Social Justice explores the relationship between language attitudes and forms of inequality and oppression, fostering greater awareness of how linguistic choices become political ones and encouraging the search for practices that promote social justice. The volume is organized around different sections that look at language attitudes and their intersections with different dimensions of contemporary social and cultural life, including language policy and planning, language and education, and the role of identity in forming strong communities that promote multilingualism and multiculturalism. Both established and emerging scholars explore the ways in which language attitudes are informed by extralinguistic factors, drawing on case studies involving French, Italian, and Spanish in Canada; interaction of migrant languages in Austria; national languages in West Africa and Senegal; signed languages in Spain; Spanish in Aruba, Uruguay, the US, Catalonia, and Majorca; and Quechua in Peru. The collection urges the development of critical linguistic awareness and a view of languages which recognizes that they shift and change across time and space. This book will be of particular interest to scholars of sociolinguistics, multilingualism, language education, language policy and planning, and bilingual education.

This edited volume provides the follow up to Erling et al.’s (2021) Multilingual Learning and Language Supportive Pedagogies in Sub-Saharan Africa. The strategies put forward in Volume 1 included multilingual pedagogies that allow students to draw on their full linguistic repertoires, translanguaging and other language supportive pedagogies. While there is great traction in the pedagogical strategies proposed in Volume 1, limited progress has been made in terms of multilingual education in SSA. Thus, the main focus of this follow-up volume is to explore the question of why former colonial languages and monolingual approaches continue to be used as the dominant languages of education, even when we have multilingual pedagogies and materials that could and do work and despite substantial evidence that learners have difficulties when taught in a language they do not understand. This book offers perspectives to answer this question through focusing on the internal and external pressures which impact the capacity for implementing multilingual strategies in educational contexts at regional, national, and community levels. Chapters provide insights into how to better understand and work within these contemporary constraints and challenge dominant monoglossic discourses which inhibit the implementation of multilingual education in SSA. The volume focuses on three main areas which have proven to be stumbling blocks to the effective implementation of multilingual education to date, namely: Assessment, Ideology and Policy. An insightful collection that will be of great interest to academics, researchers, and practitioners in the fields of language education, language-in-education policy and educational assessments in the wide range of multilingual contexts in Africa.

Just about everyone seems to have views about language. Language attitudes and language ideologies permeate our daily lives. Our competence, intelligence, friendliness, trustworthiness, social status, group memberships, and so on, are often judged from the way we communicate. Even the speed at which we speak can evoke reactions. And we often try to anticipate such judgements as we communicate. In this lively introduction, Peter Garrett draws upon research carried out over recent decades in order to discuss such attitudes and the implications they have for our use of language, for social advantage or discrimination, and for social identity. Using a range of examples that includes punctuation, words, grammar, pronunciation, accents, dialects and languages, this book explores the intricate and fascinating ways in which language influences our everyday thoughts, feelings and behaviour.

This book is comprehensive study of the geopolitical, geolinguistic, and geostrategic challenges facing France and the French language in post-independence Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa. It shows that, in Francophone sub-Saharan Africa, France’s reputation and image are significantly damaged. France has been accused of neo-colonial behaviour because of its repeated political and military interference in the domestic affairs of sovereign countries, its support of unpopular governments, and its stranglehold over the finances, economies and resources of Francophone sub-Saharan Africa. The book also highlights that the challenges faced by the French language in the region are complex because of the significant use of African languages and the growing attraction of English. Using Senegal as a case study to examine language use, attitudes, and languages education in this region, the book shows that the Senegalese people, like most Francophone sub-Saharan Africans, are strongly attached to their own languages, they are loyal to the French language, and they admire the English language. This text will be of interest to scholars in French and Francophone studies, applied linguists, African studies, and policy studies.

Language is a critical factor in nation-building, and in a continent such as Africa, where language groups do not necessarily correspond with national boundaries, it is potentially contentious as well. Ayo Bamgbose's new book focuses on the problem of language exclusion, whereby certain languages -- and groups -- are omitted from language policies, particularly in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Originally based on a series of lectures given in South Africa, the individual chapters largely preserve the original style of presentation. Consequently, the book is readable, and a valuable introduction to some of the more important issues in African sociolinguistics. The book makes special reference to the language situation in post-apartheid South Africa. The appendices provide access to some of the most important documents on language policies such as the Organization of African Unity's Language Plan of Action For Africa (1986), the language provisions in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of South Africa (1996), and the Barcelona Universal Declaration on Linguistics Rights.