LINGUISTIC LANDSHAPES LINGUISTIC LANDSHAPES A comparison of official and non-official language management in Rwanda and Uganda, focusing on the position of African languages TOVE ROSENDAL Department of Languages and Literatures For Christer, Malin and Patrik Doctoral dissertation in African languages, University of Gothenburg 2010 06 12 Disputationsupplaga © Tove Rosendal, 2010 Printed by Reprocentralen, Faculty of Humanities, University of Gothenburg, Göteborg, 2010 Distribution: Department of Languages and Literatures University of Gothenburg Box 200, SE-405 30 Göteborg ABSTRACT PhD dissertation at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, 2010 Title: LINGUISTIC LANDSHAPES A comparison of official and non-official language management in Rwanda and Uganda, focusing on the position of African languages Author: Tove Rosendal Language: English Department: Department of Languages and Literatures, University of Gothenburg, Box 200, SE-405 30 Göteborg This thesis is a macro-sociolinguistic study and comparison of language status and use in Rwanda and Uganda. The data was collected in fieldwork. The study covers the main formal domains in society, both official and non-official. A model for analysis, inspired by Chaudenson, was created. Termed the Multilingual Management Model (MMM), it uses a quantitative method to investigate specific domains and units of analysis in the two African countries. The analysis provides a percentage measurement of the position of languages or language groups vis-à-vis other languages within the linguistic space of each domain, i.e. the analyses reveal how languages are stipulated to be used as well as the extent to which they actually are used within the specified domains of society. The MMM, which is also influenced by the work of Bourdieu, among others, is based on the assumption that languages compete on a linguistic market. The MMM can be used for similar work in other countries. The investigated domains are dichotomised into official multilingual management and non-official multilingual management. The MMM contrasts official language policy, institutionalised language use within official institutions, languages in education, and language use in state media, on the one hand, with language use in the domain of trade and commerce, language use on private shop signs and billboards, language use in the domain of religion, and language use in private media, on the other. The results of the study largely confirm the proposed working hypotheses. Simultaneously, trends contradictory to the expected results and hypotheses were identified. 5 The national language Rwanda was found to be widely used in formal domains. However, such use was less significant in official settings compared with non-official ones. Rwanda is also not used to its full potential as a medium of communication in all domains, except in typically oral domains. Ugandan languages are stronger than expected in some domains, e.g. on private radio stations, at markets, and in state newspapers. This demonstrates the communicative value of African languages which, sadly, is not reflected in official language policy in either country. The allocation of status to European languages through legal stipulations and the prestige attributed to them have negatively influenced the use of African languages in both countries. KEYWORDS: Rwanda, Uganda, African languages, multilingualism, language competition, linguistic market, macro-sociolinguistic, Multilingual Management Model (MMM), quantitative analysis, official multilingual management, non-official multilingual management, Chaudenson, Bourdieu, country comparison, embedded diglossia 6 Preface and acknowledgements My interest in Africa and, later on, in language-policy-related issues started about a decade ago when I worked as a trainer of trainers in projects with cooperative organisations in southern Africa. Before this I guess I was as ignorant as most other Westerners are about the sociolinguistic situation in Africa. But the more I studied the language situation in Africa, the more I realised that language policy and language planning are crucial in any planning for development and democracy. As Europeans, we take for granted that we can use our mother tongue in every situation in society. This is far from the African reality, where multilingualism is the norm. Most African countries use former colonial languages as official languages and media of instruction in education. The same applies to most formal domains in society, especially official domains. Combined with a lack of resources, this language policy leads to elitist societies where the majority of the population is marginalised without the possibility of participating. In my opinion, the fact that only a small percentage of the population masters these official languages hampers democracy and economic and social development. Naturally, there are other factors which are important for development. However, language policy and language management are widely neglected in political and social science research focusing on Africa. My sincere hope is that this and other sociolinguistic research will contribute to a better awareness of the sociolinguistic situation in African countries. Furthermore, research and publications about African languages will hopefully fuel the slow process towards democracy and sustainable development. My research has been a challenging but positive voyage of discovery, both physically and mentally. Already during my initial fieldwork in Rwanda in May 2005, the idea of language competition struck me. The official languages in Rwanda – Rwanda ( Ikinyarwanda ), French and English – seemed to fight for linguistic space within society. This gave me the idea to study private shop signs and billboards to see how these languages were used. This subsequently led me to becoming familiar with a new field within applied linguistics, namely that of linguistic landscape. I have entitled my thesis Linguistic landshapes, which is not a misspelling of the term landscape, but a heuristic concept I have coined to cover linguistic, man-created environments in a social and political system, as opposed to the term landscape which refers to a physical part of land or in its 7 specific sense (linguistic landscape) limits the reference to messages and signs in urban settings. The relationship between the three official languages in Rwanda seemed to me to be in a constantly changing competitive situation, not only on signs but also in other domains in society. Later developments have confirmed this situation. For instance, in Rwanda, English was promoted at the expense of the other official languages in 2008/2009. In Uganda, Swahili was introduced as a second official language in September 2005. My later discovery of theoretical work by Bourdieu, for example, which conformed to my initial ideas, led to another journey of discovery – in a metaphorical sense. I would never have had the opportunity to fulfil my PhD without the support, feedback and all manner of assistance from colleagues, family and friends. First of all I would like to express my deeply felt gratitude to Professor Karsten Legère, my supervisor, responsible for African Languages at the then Department of Oriental and African Languages, now the Department of Languages and Literatures, at the University of Gothenburg. I would like to thank Prof. Legère for giving me the opportunity to pursue my ideas for the dissertation in a field which is unfortunately often neglected, both in African and in Western research. To be able to work in this field of sociolinguistics I was forced to leave the well-known tracks to seek new paths and to develop new methods to describe and compare language policy and language use. Prof. Legère’s trust in my potential to shoulder research on two countries and his full support of this work have been invaluable. As my supervisor, Prof. Legère’s comments and input have been both stimulating and challenging. Along my exciting journey, Associate Professor Christina Thornell, my second supervisor, gave me much-needed and invaluable feedback. Indeed, she has helped me ever since my first academic steps within language research in Cameroon. I would also like to thank all my other colleagues and the staff at the University of Gothenburg for their stimulating discussions during seminars and, of course, coffee breaks! My research has, as stated above, been a long and interesting expedition, physically as well as mentally – to use a metaphor that reminds one of the African continent’s colonial past. The fieldwork implied considerable walking and talking: walking along new paths in both urban and rural areas, and talking 8 to all kinds of people, from ministers to market salesmen. Additionally, as stated above, it implied treading new paths in developing my own research model and methods. Stumbling along these unknown avenues of research has been both frightening and fantastic. Furthermore, the data collection process in Rwanda and Uganda gave me many friends, whom I hereby also would like to thank. I am especially grateful to Faustin Kabanza, presently in Paris, and Evariste Ntakirutimana of the National University of Rwanda, NUR, in Rwanda. I met them on my first field trip to Rwanda, and both proved to be of valuable assistance to me ever since. I would also like to express my gratitude to all the ministers and employees at state bodies who gave me some of their valuable time. In this regard my special thanks go to Professor Laurent Nkusi, the former Minister