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Black Linguistics: Language, Society, and Politics in Africa and The Black Linguistics “This collection is one more step on the road toward the decolonization of Black languages and Black thought.” ~ ~ Ngug1 wa Thiong’ o, University of California, Irvine, USA Enslavement, forced migration, wars, and colonization have led to the global dispersal of Black communities and to the fragmentation of common experi- ences. These sociohistorical forces have impacted on language research and issues in Black communities throughout the world. This groundbreaking collection reorders the elitist and colonial elements of language studies by drawing together the multiple perspectives of Black language researchers. In so doing, the book recognizes and formalizes the existence of “Black Linguistics” and highlights the contributions of Black language research- ers in Africa and the Americas. Written exclusively by Black scholars on behalf of (and occasionally in collabo- ration with) local communities, the book looks at commonalities and differences among Black speech communities in Africa and the Diaspora. Topics include: • linguistic profiling in the US • language issues in Southern Africa and Francophone West Africa • the language of the Rastafari in Jamaica • language and society in Black America and the Caribbean This is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the linguistic implications of (neo)imperialism and enslavement. Contributors: Hassana Alidou, H. Samy Alim, Arnetha F. Ball, John Baugh, Awad El Karim M. Ibrahim, Sinfree Makoni, Nkhelebeni Phaswana, Velma Pollard, ~ ~ Zaline M. Roy-Campbell, Donald Winford. Foreword by Ngug1 wa Thiong’ o. Editors: Sinfree Makoni is Associate Professor in Linguistics and Applied Language Studies at The Pennsylvania State University. Geneva Smitherman is University Distinguished Professor of English at Michigan State Uni- versity. Arnetha F. Ball is Associate Professor of Education at Stanford University. Arthur K. Spears, a linguist and anthropologist, is Professor and Chair at the City University of New York. BLACK LINGUISTICS Language, society, and politics in Africa and the Americas Edited by Sinfree Makoni, Geneva Smitherman, Arnetha F. Ball, and Arthur K. Spears ~ ~ Foreword by Ngug1 wa Thiong’ o First published 2003 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2003 Sinfree Makoni, Geneva Smitherman, Arnetha F. Ball, and Arthur K. Spears for selection and editorial matter; individual contributors for their contribution All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-98661-X Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0–415–26137–6 (hbk) ISBN 0–415–26138–4 (pbk) To our forebearer, Mark Hanna Watkins, Linguistic Anthropologist, and to Uncle I.J. Makoni Sr, for his moral and material support throughout Sinfree’s academic career. Contents List of figures and table ix Foreword by Ngu~g~i wa Thiong’ o xi Introduction: toward Black Linguistics 1 PART 1 Ideological practices in research on Black languages 19 1 Ideologies of language and socially realistic linguistics 21 DONALD WINFORD 2 “We are the streets”: African American Language and the strategic construction of a street conscious identity 40 H. SAMY ALIM 3 Sound and power: the language of the Rastafari 60 VELMA POLLARD PART 2 Conceptualization and status of Black languages 81 4 Promoting African languages as conveyors of knowledge in educational institutions 83 ZALINE M. ROY-CAMPBELL 5 Language policies and language education in Francophone Africa: a critique and a call to action 103 HASSANA ALIDOU vii CONTENTS 6 Contradiction or affirmation? The South African language policy and the South African national government 117 NKHELEBENI PHASWANA 7 From misinvention to disinvention of language: multilingualism and the South African Constitution 132 SINFREE MAKONI PART 3 Inclusion and exclusion through language 153 8 Linguistic profiling 155 JOHN BAUGH 9 “Whassup, homeboy?” Joining the African Diaspora: Black English as a symbolic site of identification and language learning 169 AWAD EL KARIM M. IBRAHIM 10 US and South African teachers’ developing perspectives on language and literacy: changing domestic and international roles of linguistic gate-keepers 186 ARNETHA F. BALL List of contributors 215 Index 221 viii Figures and table Figures 2.1 Baugh’s speech event subdivisions 43 8.1 Sounds Black 161 8.2 Sounds Mexican 162 10.1 Teachers’ initial definitions of literacy 195 10.2 Teachers’ post definitions of literacy 195 Table 2.1 Summary of data 51 ix Foreword Decolonizing scholarship of Black languages When scholars and writers in African languages met in Asmara, Eritrea in 2000 at the historic conference Against All Odds, they issued the Asmara Declaration in which they called upon African languages to take the duty, the responsibility, and the challenge of speaking for the Continent. This was also a call for Black scholars to take on the duty and the challenge of researching and expanding the possibilities inherent in African languages and the varieties of Black languages they have generated around the globe over the years. Bringing into one volume studies of Black languages by Black speakers, this book is very much in tune with that call, especially in the aim of celebrating and creating space for knowledge about Black languages. Some of these languages bear a variety of names— Ebonics, African American Language, Patwa, Creole, Kreyol, Haitian, Nation Languages—but they clearly have roots in the syntax and rhythm of speech of Continental African languages. Remarkably, these languages have developed despite all the odds set against them by the historical experience of the plantation, the colony, and the neo- colony. This in itself is a great act of resistance and creative survival. Languages meant to die have simply refused to die. Languages pushed to the periphery have refused to stay on the periphery. But their survival has not been without the trauma of the great divide between the majority of Black people who speak and use the languages to express their everyday needs and conception of the universe, and the Black educated elite who distance themselves from these lan- guages, often taking this distance, consciously or unconsciously, as a measure of their advancement in the modern world. Research by illustrious sons and daughters of the speakers of these languages ends up encased in languages fur- thest removed from Black languages. The result has been a weakening of the development of Black languages as adequate vehicles for knowledge in the arts, the sciences, and technology. In my book, Decolonizing the Mind, I have described this phenomenon as one of creating societies and nations of bodiless heads and headless bodies, and this is what all structures of domination hope to generate among the dominated. It is not that Black languages are incapable of expressing the modern universe xi FOREWORD but there have to be workers in ideas who are expanding the possibilities of those languages in that and other directions. The present collection, with its wide-ranging issues from ideology to the practice and politics of language, is an important contribution toward narrowing the divide. Between them, the con- tributors have already published many papers and books on different aspects of Black speech, and they thus bring to this volume knowledge gained from years of research and reflections from a variety of regional, cultural, and individual vantages. They, to use Smitherman’s titles of her other books, are Talkin’ That Talk to evaluate the status and scholarship of Black Talk. The volume should interest both the scholar and the general reader in what Black languages have to offer to the world. A most significant aspect of this book for the future is the very fact that, in editing and contribution, it is collaborative by Continental and Diasporic Africans. All varieties of Black languages face similar problems and challenges, not the least being that of moving them from the margins of power to claim their space among the other languages of the earth. Collaboration between Black scholars on either side of the Atlantic and beyond is important. The edi- tors readily acknowledge that all the contributions are in English for that is the linguistic means the scholars have in common. This position presents another challenge: the use of Black languages by Black scholars to theorize on Black lan- guages. It also challenges all Black scholars to learn and encourage the learning of at least one Continental African language in addition to what they already have. Translation among Black languages and between Black languages as a whole and other languages will itself become a means of enabling dialogue and conversation among languages. In such a situation, English can be put to better and
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