African Sociolinguistics Between Urbanity and Rurality

Sociolinguistic ISSN: 1750-8649 (print) Studies ISSN: 1750-8657 (online)

Article

African sociolinguistics between urbanity and rurality

Susanne Mohr and Helene Steigertahl

Abstract In African sociolinguistic studies a dichotomy between approaches focusing on urban centres with newly developing linguistic codes and languages used by the elite, as opposed to approaches concentrating on language documentation in rural areas has long been prevalent. That dichotomy has often been the point where English and African studies diverge in that the ﬁrst have traditionally concentrated on urban locations, while the latter have focused on rural settings. The special issue at hand brings together sociolinguistic studies in urban and rural Africa as two intertwined spaces, e.g. with regard to high mobility in many African areas. Thus, it directly relates to several of the key issues discussed in Sociolinguistic Studies, such as language planning, language policies as well as sociolinguistic theory development.

KEYWORDS: urban and rural settings, African languages, varieties of English, language policy and planning

Afﬁliation Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway email: [email protected]

Bayreuth University, Germany email: [email protected]

1 Introduction

Sociolinguistic studies in Africa have recently focused on urban areas, where globalization and communication are supposedly taking place, while rural Africa is considered ‘backward’ (Wang, Spotti, Juffermans, Cornips, Kroon and Blommaert, 2013:14). However, a general distinction between studies from the ﬁeld of English linguistics and those in an African studies tradition can be observed: while the former focus on urban centres, the latter concentrate on rural settings. For example, large-scale projects such as the International Corpus of English (Greenbaum, 1996), as well as individual studies (e.g. Skandera, 2003; Arua, 2004; de Kadt, 2004; van Rooy, 2007; Bekker, 2008; Mutonya, 2008; Kadenge, 2009; Hoffmann, 2011; Kasanga, 2012; Fuchs, Gut and Zoneye, 2013; Stell, 2014; Zerbian, 2015; Toefy, 2017), usually obtain their data from capitals, urban centres or universities. Most of the data on African Englishes has been collected in these urban spaces among the educated elite. African languages tend to be neglected by these investigations. Studies such as Michieka (2009) on English in rural Kenya are relatively rare exceptions. On the other hand, African linguistics seems to be fascinated with rural settings, as this special issue shows. Data collected in rural areas rather stems from less widely used or endangered languages (see Sands [2018] for a recent overview of language endangerment [and revitalization], Kilian-Hatz, 2003; Bagamba, 2007; König and Heine, 2008; Robson, 2011; Batibo, 2013, for case studies) and only a small amount of research has been conducted on youth languages or English(es) in these settings (Wang, Spotti, Juffermans, Cornips, Kroon and Blommaert, 2013; Nassenstein, 2017 are rare exceptions). This creates an unrealistically presumed dichotomy of language use in rural and urban Africa – a setting that is in fact highly dynamic. This special issue brings together sociolinguistic studies in rural and urban Africa as two intertwined spaces. Some of the ensuing questions are:

 Are rural and urban Africa two different linguistic settings?  Do language use and attitudes differ in rural and urban Africa?  Why is rural language use mostly neglected in World Englishes research?  Are sociolinguistic methods equally applicable to urban and rural spaces or are new frameworks needed to analyse them adequately?

2 Urbanized studies on African varieties of English

As mentioned above, many studies on African varieties of English were collected in urban settings among the educated elite of different countries. This becomes clear when looking at some of the abovementioned studies in detail.

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Skandera (2003) conducted research on Kenyan English as a component of the ICE corpora (Greenbaum, 1996) and therefore presumably had to restrict his data collection to a certain group of participants, such as those with a university degree. His participants indeed include university students (Skandera, 2003:65) and he was supported by Moi University in Eldoret and Kenyatta University in Nairobi (Skandera, 2003:xiii). Areas other than these very urban settings were not mentioned with regard to data gathering. For a description of what is called Botswana English, Arua (2004:258) collected data during a period of six years, viz. between 1998 and 2003, at the University of Botswana in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana. In his article, he states that he observed Botswana English by assessing 620 students’ assignments. Again, an urban and university setting was chosen for data collection. The reasons for this largely remain unclear; the researcher only states that he chose this setting as he was based there (Arua 2004:258), i.e., as a matter of convenience. Van Rooy (2007) conducted research on Black South African English in different settings, similar to the approach taken by Hoffmann (2011). Although his participants were students, he not only gathered data in large urban settings such as Potchefstroom but also from smaller towns such as Maﬁkeng, though this cannot be considered rural (van Rooy, 2007:28). The reasons behind Van Rooy’s choice of participants are not made clear in the article. Bekker’s (2008) thesis title suggests that he works on South African English in general. Later it becomes clear that he worked on so-called White South African English, which is also considered a standard and reference variety, and therefore his study includes white speakers of English only (Bekker, 2008:105). His participants came from ‘a variety of urban centres in South Africa and from a higher end of the socioeconomic scale’ (Bekker, 2008:105). It is possible that ‘urban’ is connoted as ‘educated’ and ‘economically well off’ in this case. What is more, his solely female participants are linguistics students at a South African University (Bekker, 2008:120), again a hint at choosing a population out of convenience or from ‘what was at hand’. Kadenge (2009:160) also chose an urban setting for his data collection on what has been termed Zimbabwean English: the University of Zimbabwe which is based in the country’s capital of Harare. Students were chosen as participants here; reasons are not given by Kadenge (2009:160). Hoffmann (2011) worked on so-called White Kenyan English as one of the lesser-known varieties of English. His data collection seems extraordinary in contrast to previous studies, as he gathered data in both urban and rural contexts: the interviews conducted with children stem from the rather rural setting of Gilgil near the Nakuru National Park, while the interviews with adults were conducted

250 SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDIES in the urban surroundings of Nairobi, where he was based and supported as a researcher (Hoffmann, 2011:295). It is stated that Gilgil was chosen as the children were based in a school there (Hoffmann, 2011:295). However, the article does not offer an explanation of why adults could not be recorded there. Stell (2014:228) gathered data at the University of Namibia in Windhoek, the capital of the country, using the friend of a friend approach, to analyse ‘uses and functions of English in Namibia’s multiethnic settings’. He calls the English used in this setting ‘Namibian English’ (Stell, 2014:227). Reasons for choosing this urban and educated setting are not given. Finally, Toefy (2017) presents an account of a phonological feature (the KIT- split) in what has been labelled Coloured South African English. While recruiting participants in middle- and working-class environments, which is also remarkable in World Englishes research, Toefy also recruited her participants in the ‘greater Cape Town’ area (Toefy, 2017:346). Since she was specifically interested in the social class of the participants and also rated them on a socioeconomic status index which was based, among other factors, on area of residence, recruiting participants in the urban setting of Cape Town in fact made sense. Calculating the participants’ socioeconomic status for a rural area might have been more difficult or she might have ended up with participants not fulfilling her criteria. Having assessed these works on potential English varieties used in African countries, it seems as if the African varieties of English, as they are documented to date, are often somewhat educated varieties, with labels such as ‘Kenyan English’, e.g. being slightly misleading, in that the varieties are not used by all Kenyans, for instance, but by a small elite class only. It remains unclear in many cases why mainly urban and university settings were selected for data collection. Were ‘educated’ participants perhaps chosen because they were at hand, since the researchers were situated in these settings, as some studies suggest? Were university students selected because the data included in the ICE corpora, for example, requires higher education in L2 English-speaking countries? Were reasons just not put into the publications? Why are only very few participants from less urban and rural areas chosen? In the following, we discuss these methodological questions in light of language distribution in Africa and the practicality of data collection.

3 The intricacies of data collection in African contexts: Focus on World Englishes research

Addressing the geographical distribution of English (and other languages) in Africa ﬁrst, the Ethnologue database (Simons and Fennig, 2018) includes only two maps of English spoken on the African continent, namely from Liberia and

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Lesotho, South Africa and Swaziland. The Liberian map specifically indicates English as a ‘widespread language’ but only shows speakers of English in the area around the capital Monrovia. The South African map shows more and larger areas in which English is spoken, although those in which indigenous languages such as isiXhosa or isiZulu are spoken are more numerous (Simons and Fennig, 2018). This data suggests that it would be possible to collect data in more rural areas in South Africa at least, given the ‘widespread’ use of English. However, South Africa is a rather special case in that it is one of the few African countries with L1 speakers of English. In Eastern Africa, English has been studied in Tanzania (e.g. Schmied, 2012). There, it functions as a language of wider communication and is the de facto working language among the 125 living languages of the country. It is reported to be spoken by 4 million L2 users (Simons and Fennig, 2018). In a country with 53.9 million inhabitants (Simons and Fennig, 2018), this is negligible though, especially given the fact that Dar es Salaam, the capital, alone has approximately 4 million inhabitants. It is likely that those studies on English that exist had to recruit participants in urban areas in or near universities because people there certainly speak English. Their competence in the language was probably also sufficient to enable participation in questionnaire studies or to provide data for an ICE component, all of which, according to Greenbaum and Nelson (1996), exhibit educated English as spoken in the country in question. In Southern Africa, studies have examined English in Botswana (Arua, 2004), for instance. For the country, the Ethnologue reports approximately 53,000 L1 and 630,000 L2 users. English is the national and de facto national working language among the 31 living languages of the country (Simons and Fennig, 2018). Given a population of 2.2 million inhabitants (Simons and Fennig, 2018), this is a considerable number and it should be possible to find English-speaking participants in more remote areas. Considering the small population density of the country, the number of participants in one location might be small though, so for reasons of practicality urban areas might be preferred by researchers. There, they might find a sizeable population of speakers of English competent enough to participate in their study. Traveling large distances over land, sometimes without access to public transport, requires a considerable amount of time and money, both of which are often not readily available to (young) researchers. In Western Africa, Ghana has been intensively studied by World Englishes researchers. It has approximately 10 million L2 users and is the national language of the country among 81 living languages (Simons and Fennig, 2018). Relating this to the 29.2 million inhabitants of Ghana (Simons and Fennig, 2018), roughly one third of the population speak English as L2. While many of them might still

252 SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDIES reside in the capital of Accra, and English is especially gaining ground in urban areas (Dako and Quarcoo, 2017), this city has only 1.5 million inhabitants. Here, it is harder to understand why studies are exclusively conducted in urban centres, as attempting to recruit English-speaking participants in different parts of the country would not seem entirely hopeless. Several points mentioned here relate to the issue of practicality in data collection. For World Englishes research, participants have to be sufficiently competent in English in order to participate in studies, and the locations of data collection have to be accessible without too much time and financial effort. Given that many studies are conducted by PhD students for whom the temporal and financial limits of their research are indeed crucial, both issues should not be neglected. In contrast, we argue that more senior researchers, who are not completing a thesis and with (supposedly) more funds available, should consider conducting studies in more rural contexts. However, the external pressures of a ‘publish or perish’ academic world might play a role in choices of data collection, too, and convenience sampling is hence quite common in linguistics (see Dörnyei, 2007). Finally, all of the abovementioned points very much depend on the reliability of speaker numbers of English for individual countries: often, these stem from censuses, which use rather general questions on language use, neither specifying what ‘speaking’ a language nor using it ‘regularly’ actually means (see Dako and Quarcoo, 2017 for a discussion of census data in Ghana). Relying on the certainly large number of speakers of English in African capitals is hence often the safest bet. Ultimately, the state of the art and the problems outlined above seem to call for a more interdisciplinary exchange between researchers in English and African linguistics who could benefit from the other party’s expertise and, possibly, resources. This could in due course lead to more varied and well-informed studies on speech forms in Africa.

4 Structure of this volume

This special issue is structured as follows. Irina Turner tackles the urban bias in linguistic research on and in South Africa in her article (‘As far as the eye can see: Urban bias in South African linguistic research’), based on a critical review of 135 articles (2010–2017) from the journal Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies. In the wake of the apartheid regime, ‘rural’ was equated with ‘black’ and ‘disadvantaged’, a relation that is still partly visible in South African rural settings today. The article questions the strict rural–urban dichotomy in linguistic research on South Africa and presents possible consequences of such a bias in academia.

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Helma Pasch’s article (‘Sango, a homogenous language with religiolectal and sociolectal varieties’) tackles the development of the Sango language in the Central African Republic. Sango originated as a vehicular language in the rural area of Ubangi-Shari at the beginning of the colonial era. From there, it spread all over the country due to its homogeneity. However, the article illustrates that (in rural and urban settings alike) different varieties of the language emerged, i.e. sociolects and religiolects, owing to the use and development of the language by missionaries. The Ghanaian youth language Student Pidgin (SP), a code spoken by high school and university students and graduates in Ghana, is discussed in Elisabeth Hampel’s article (‘Regional variation in Ghanaian Student Pidgin: Use and attitudes’). Previous studies on SP focused mainly on the capital Accra; her article sheds new light on language use and attitudes in Kumasi, the second largest city of the country. In this setting, the Ashanti culture is a key part of people’s lives, and Twi is the predominant language used. That is why, so far, SP was claimed to play a marginal role in Kumasi. A contrastive analysis of data from both Accra and Kumasi shows that local language ecologies are key with regard to language use and attitudes, besides the rural–urban divide in Ghana. Pierpaolo Di Carlo, Rachel Ojong Diba and Angiachi Demetris Esene Agwara’s article (‘Multilingualism and the heteroglossia of ideologies in Lower Fungom [Cameroon]’) is based on self-reports, ethnographic observations and analyses of language use, and deals with language ideologies in Lower Fungom in the Grassfields region of Cameroon. In this highly multilingual rural area, English, Cameroonian Pidgin English and three local languages fulfil different roles and are associated with different ideologies, of categorical and relational character, among the speakers. In his article (‘Playing with accents: On Ugandan Englishes and indexical signs of urbanity and rurality’) Nico Nassenstein considers the various repertoires of English accents and varieties used in Uganda. Based on his analysis of different kinds of multimodal ethnographic data, he proposes a more fluid understanding of contextual practices of English as negotiations of urbanity and rurality, leaving more fixed labels, such as ‘Ugandan English’, behind. Susanne Mohr, Steffen Lorenz and Dunlop Ochieng’s article (‘English, national and local linguae francae in the language ecologies of Uganda and Tanzania’) discusses the use of and attitudes towards English, national and local linguae francae such as Kiswahili or Acholi, in two semi-urban settings, one in Uganda and one in Tanzania. Questionnaire data from Gulu and Arusha is assessed and shows that English is used regularly and receives positive attitudes

254 SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDIES in comparison to indigenous languages. Other linguae francae play an important role in the respective locations and illustrate that there is no overarching East African language ecology spanning both countries. Overall, these articles help answering the questions put forward in the introduction and illustrate innovative ways of investigating the rural–urban dichotomy in Africa.

Acknowledgements

We are deeply thankful to all the authors who contributed to this special issue, as well as to Xoán Paulo Rodríguez-Yáñez for his editorial assistance.

About the authors

Susanne Mohr is Associate Professor in English Sociolinguistics at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway. She received her PhD from the University of Cologne for her work on Irish Sign Language. She has since been researching visual hunting signals used by hunter-gatherers in Southern Africa, non-standard plural formations and countability in African Englishes and language in tourism in Zanzibar. Her research interests include sociolinguistics, language policies, language documentation, pragmatics, corpus linguistics and morphosyntax.

Helene Steigertahl studied English, German and European Art History at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. Afterwards she started working as a Research Assistant in English Linguistics at Bayreuth University until 2017 – the same year she ﬁnished her PhD on Educational Policy and English(es) spoken in Namibia. She is currently working as a secondary school teacher. Her research interests include African Englishes, educational policies and English Language Teaching.

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(Received 29th October 2018; ﬁnal revision received and accepted 17th April 2019).