Multilingualism in late-modern Africa: Identity,mobility and multivocality

Introduction

This paper summarizes the presentations by the panel on African multilingualism at the 8th International Symposium on Bilingualism (University of Oslo, 15–18 June 2011). The panel took a particularly critical stance towards current paradigms on language use in Africa, which have treated African languages as discontinuous and autonomous entities. Efforts to promote African languages, particularly minority languages, have involved isolating these languages from the multilingual landscape they are a part of, while research on English use has been pre-occupied with the centre–periphery debate, English as a global or an international language or linguistic imperialism. However, the panel presentations drew on Bakhtin’s notion of multivocality and the formulation of multilingualism as social practice to argue that rather than merely mimicking the West or the purely traditional African norms, the urban African draws on both to (re-)create a dynamic transcultural world.

The aim of the panel was to show how intense mobility and technology, particularly mobile technology, are reshaping linguistic practices on the continent in four countries – South Africa, Zambia, Mozambique and Kenya, and how ordinary Africans display remarkable creativity in their everyday languaging practices, as revealed in website chatrooms, mobile messaging and local radio. Radio is a communication medium whose discourses are dictated by social interactions and demands such as age, geographical and residential area, intermarriages, education and consumerism. Since the norms of language produced in practices are not fixed, they change when the practices change (Pennycook, 2010), leading to the reinvention of local discourses and the modification of local languages. The radio discourses in this paper reveal the blending of traditional and late-modern identities among urban Africans.

With the development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), mobile text messaging or texting is now seen as the norm among African youth, while website chatrooms can be accessed even in deep rural areas of Africa. Virtual communication has played a major role in transforming the communicative event. Through the electronic media, people confront new rules and resources for the construction of social identity and cultural belonging. ICTs also offer a significant space for the use of stylization which, according to Coupland (2001) is creative and performed, and therefore requires aptitude and learning. Young people, in particular, have shown great aptitude for using new forms of expression and adapting to virtual spaces for meaning-making. Their texting messages are marked by great creativity and language play, reminiscent of Wittgenstein’s insistence that ‘language games are a form of life’ and at the heart of the social construction of meaning (Wittgenstein, 1988).

The four panel presentations

Felix Banda’s contribution to the panel was an analysis of the linguistic practices of an online chatroom in Zambia. Apart from English, Zambia has seven official and national languages – Bemba, Nyanja, Tonga, Lozi, Luvale, Lunda and Kaodi – and a typical urban Zambian is said to speak at least four languages (Banda, 1996, 1999). Banda argues that multilingualism and multiculturalism have become the norm in discourse practices across domains and modalities. What is needed to capture this reality is a theoretical position that places multilingualism/plurilingualism and multiculturalism at the centre of the African language and sociolinguistic debate, in which the extended (hybrid) linguistic repertoire is seen as linguistic dispensation rather than made up fragments or from different linguistic systems.

In his analysis of four popular Zambian websites – Post Newspaper online edition, Lusakatimes, Zambianwatchdog and Kachepa 360 – Banda concurs with Pennycook (2010) who argues that language is created rather than predetermined, and evolves from the contexts created by particular interactional environments. He therefore examined his samples as integral to the form or language of which they are a part to avoid reducing their meaning-making potential in the contexts from which they evolved. Banda’s websites provide interesting examples of Bakhtin’s notion of multivocality. As extracts 1–3 below reveal, multivocal texts are ‘understood through a finely-tuned cultural and situated sense of its history of production and its anticipated forms of reception’ (Prior and Hengst, 2010). Banda further argues that multivocality and hybrid language use have become a late-modern strategy in which information and multiple perspectives and viewpoints are disseminated with minimal linguistic resources, and are natural consequences rather than special instances of language use.

Extracts 1–3: (Banda)

Resemiotization (Iedema, 2003, p. 48) is a useful concept to explain how texts are recontextualized across different practices, contexts and modalities. Different social orientations demand adoption and reconstitution of everyday language use, thereby reshaping linguistic practices. Banda’s website data, for example, reveals the use of contrasting language styles in news headlines, for example from monolingual headlines such as Tired Sata fails to travel to Namwala, to English headlines that include words in local languages, for example CQ summoned to a police station due to nkongole [tr. debt/owing money to a bank]. In addition, Banda finds that formal, ‘standard’ language is being de-centred in preference for the informal style or blending of formal and non-formal language styles in meaning-making. For example, punctuation and other grammatical features are optional, for example:

Extract 4: (Banda)

In her analysis of the effects of mobile messaging or texting on three local South African languages, Charlyn Dyers contends that the creative use of local languages blended with English affords a new space for localization and language revitalization. Drawing on SMS data from university undergraduate students, she examines the ways in which three of South Africa’s eleven official languages – Afrikaans, isXhosa and Setswana – are used, transformed and modified in cell-phone messaging. The students in her study clearly chose which identities they wanted to signal through their language practices – ranging from a strongly ethnic identity (I am a Xhosa and my language use will clearly show this) to an identity marked by urban sophistication and youth culture. In other words, these young people demonstrated agency/actorhood and voice in responding to different linguistic spaces, and in the space of mobile messaging, context was crucial – who and why they were texting. Their negotiation of their identities therefore involved challenging, neutralizing and reaffirming fixed normative identity positions in new ways (Doran, 2004; Pavlenko & Blackledge, 2004).

The study by Dyers reveals differing patterns of modification to the three languages present, in combination with English, in her data. Setswana at this stage shows no modification when used in texting. Its standard forms are simply embedded into matrix English text messages, especially when the Setswana words or phrases are shorter than their English equivalents, for example:

Extract 5: (Dyers)

Even the presence of one Sesotho word in a message, as in the above example, still signals a Sesotho identity to the receiver of such a message, and some might even argue that just one word makes the code Sesotho rather than English. The isiXhosa data, on the other hand, show a number of modifications. English words and expressions are ‘Xhosalized’, while isiXhosa terms are ‘Anglicized’. Clippings, contractions and abbreviations of isiXhosa are also present in the data, as well as borrowings blended into isiXhosa phrases, for example:

Extract 6: (Dyers)

The data in Extract 6 signal a strong urban Xhosa identity to the receiver, and at times English merely serves as a convenient ‘texting frame’. According to Bhatt (2008, p. 182), members of speech communities in vastly different societies use their linguistic resources sometimes to present a social identity, to set boundaries linguistically or to overcome the strong forces of conquest. In other words, language is the key to understanding how people view themselves and how they use language to construct themselves and their identities.

The predominantly Afrikaans data in Dyers’ study reveals that this language is being modified through texting practices to almost the same degree as its Germanic cousin, English. This reveals a high degree of flexibility and playfulness present in urban varieties of Afrikaans. The influence of Kaaps, also known as Cape Flats Afrikaans (Dyers, 2008), plays an important role in this modification, for example:

Extract 7: (Dyers)

What is happening here is not so much a new phenomenon as an old one – capturing the oral code orthographically, so that the kind of phonetic writing we see here is in fact a resemiotization of existing forms of Afrikaans. According to Afrikaans variationist specialist Frank Hendricks (interview, 20 May 2011), this type of phonetic writing can also be seen in the poetry and dramas of well-known Afrikaans writers such as Adam Small and Peter Snyders.

Dyers concludes that local languages could experience some form of revitalization through their ongoing modification by practices such as texting. Over time, the resemiotized forms in these texting practices may, as a result of constant use, become ‘sedimented through repeated acts of sameness’ (Pennycook, 2010). All varieties in constant use (with strong linguistic vitality) are subject to ongoing modification in the late-modern, globalized world, although urban varieties show the strongest changes as a result of the intense heteroglossia (Bakhtin, 1981) in such spaces. Williams (2010, pp. 92–93) contends that globalization and the rise of the knowledge economy have opened up new spaces ‘for a reconsideration of the relationship between languages’. He also cites Graddol (2000) who argues that while many of the world’s minority languages are in danger of disappearing, there will also be a new process of linguistic hybridization that will generate new varieties of language. Support for this comes from Bhatt (2008, p. 182), who contends that

…the third space – linguistic hybridity – gives rise to possibilities for new meanings and at the same time presents a mechanism to negotiate and navigate between a global identity and local practices. It also allows its consumers (readers) to (re-) position themselves with regard to new community practices of speaking and writing.

Omondi Oketch, in his analysis of the use of the hybrid Kenyan language Sheng on two FM Radio stations, agrees that social variables are key determinants of bilingualism and code switching/mixing on these stations, where language is increasingly taking social meanings within situated contexts in a country with 61 languages (Lewis, 2009). Kenya’s tripartite language policy – English and Kiswahili as official languages, with local vernaculars serving provincial needs (Muthwii & Kioko, 2004; Oketch & Banda, 2009) – has roots in colonial thought and experience as well as political and ideological pressures, which want to ‘keep languages pure and separate’ (Lemke, 2002, p. 85). General observation, however, reveals that most people prefer using hybrid ‘street talk’ forms characterized by the mixing of the linguistic resources available to them (Oketch & Banda, 2009), even in formal domains. There are many languages and codes spoken across the social and geographical divides in Kenya, and these uses relates to the way people talk in plurilingual contexts. The liberalization of the airwaves has opened up democratization of multilingual community spaces in a way that encourages linguistic hybridity, thereby enabling temporal and spatial identities to be exhibited through multiple languages/dialects (Banda, 2010).

Oketch identifies a number of extra-linguistic factors that contribute to the rise of language clines (in individual languages) and linguistic hybridity in multilingual contexts – consumerism, callers’ choice of language, intermarriage leading to multiple language acquisition, mobility, the Kenyan education system, which is designed to foster multilingualism, and the age of the callers. Table 1 provides examples of three of these factors.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 1.

(Oketch) Extra-linguistic factors leading to linguistic hybridity.

Factors	Examples	Explanation
Consumerism	Bonga points	Bonga is a Sheng word meaning ‘talking’. The phrase is used to sell a service in which mobile phone users gain points by talking.
Callers’ choice of language	When the caller speaks in Kiswahili or Sheng you can’t stop them…lazima urespond [tr. you must respond] in the language ameuse [tr. they have used] otherwise people will say you are rude and stop calling your station… and you see who loses? (Presenter on Metro 101 FM, 12 May, 2011, Kisumu).	The presenters have to accept whatever language is used by callers.
Mobility	Ma mboka msee hapa ni kwa everyone … na tuna bonga na jama wa mtaa, so kunavile utachanuke … lugha si moja ni mob  (Presenter, 24 April, 2011, Kisumu). [Tr. This is a town my man and this is a place for everyone and we have to speak to our neighbours, so you must style up because people don’t speak one language here, there are many languages.]	Five codes are blended in this extract – Sheng (bold plus italicized), Dholuo (normal font), Kiswahili (underlined), Lingala (bold), and English (italicized).

Feliciano Chimbutane’s analysis of HIV/AIDS radio programmes in Changana, a local Mozambican language, shows how the speakers on these programmes have been reinventing their discourses in order to respond to new context-specific communicative demands, such as finding socially appropriate ways of talking about sexual issues in public spaces. Mozambique, which only recognizes one official language – Portuguese – is one of the African countries hardest hit by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, with 2010 data showing a prevalence rate among adults of over 11%. Paradoxically, though, Portuguese is only spoken by 50.4% of the population, of which only 10.7% speak it as a first language (INE, 2010). In contrast, 85.3% of the population speak a Bantu language as a first language. The percentage of those who can speak Portuguese is consistent with the illiteracy rate, which mirrors the fact that, until recently, Portuguese was the sole language of formal education in the country. Through specialized programmes, the media have been playing a key role in education initiatives aiming at reducing the prevalence rates in the country.

Chimbutane’s radio data reveal that traditional beliefs and practices can be changed or modified according to specific socio-historical conditions. The emergence of HIV/AIDS and its devastating impact on individual, community and societal levels has been leading some community members to reinvent safer ways of performing certain traditional practices. To him, these new practices demonstrate the dynamic nature of the traditional world. Although tradition is usually presented as static, unchangeable and as opposite to modernity, actual practice indicates that these two worlds ‘are constantly relating and interpenetrating, blending and merging’ (Passador, 2009, p. 689). This is particularly true in this era of glocalization (Robertson, 1995), in which, chiefly for pragmatic reasons, people tend to swing between the two worlds according to contingent circumstances. This can be substantiated by the attested fact that in cases of diseases, for example, many Africans (irrespective of their level of education or socio-economic status) resort to both modern biomedicine and traditional healing and witchcraft (Passador, 2009). In this case, instead of clashing, tradition and modernity are perceived as complementing each other.

Chimbutane’s analysis of HIV/AIDS radio programmes in Changana shows how speakers of this language have been engaged in language engineering processes aimed at responding to the complex challenges posed by communication about sexuality and HIV/AIDS, especially in regards to biomedical and epidemiological aspects of the disease. The strategies used to enable their language to cope with these challenges include semantic extension, borrowing and loan translation. These strategies have also allowed them to find socially appropriate ways of talking about sexual issues in public spaces such as radio broadcasts. The following extracts (Chimbutane, 2012) reveal the different language engineering processes in use:

Extract 8: (Chimbutane) Mr M, a health expert, advising about condom use (21 September 2010)

The original meaning of the term xitlhangu is ‘shield’. However, in the context above it represents the concept of ‘condom’. As can be understood, there is a metaphoric relation between the referents ‘shield’ and ‘condom’, as both serve as protective objects.

Another form of term development, as can be seen in Extract 9, is the borrowing of words and morphemes from mainly Portuguese, but also English.

Extract 9: (Chimbutane) The journalist presenting the topic of the radio program of the day (21 September 2010)

In this extract, the journalist (J) used the English and Portuguese acronyms HIV and SIDA ‘AIDS’, respectively. She also used the borrowed word maantiretrovhirali /‘antiretroviral’, used here in its plural form. The English acronym HIV is also used as such in Mozambican Portuguese, which indicates that Changana speakers did not borrow this term from the source language, but indirectly from Portuguese. Although there are attempts to translate human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and Sindroma de Imunodeficiência Adquirida (SIDA) into Changana, especially in specialized written discourse, the general tendency is to use the corresponding English and Portuguese acronyms instead. These seem to be easily understood by ordinary speakers than the equivalent full Changana translations. Despite the popular use of the term maantiretrovhirali , when there is a need, it is usually defined as mimirhi yomathisa HIV /‘drugs for weakening HIV’.

Term development also includes loan translations – compound words or expressions whose parts are translated directly into the target language, as can be seen in Extract 10.

Extract 10: (Chimbutane) The journalist opening the program of the day (21 September 2010)

As Bamgbose (1999, p. 14) has pointed out, ‘a language cannot be used in a wider range of domains if it is not developed, and it will not be developed unless there is a need to use it in a wider range of domains.’ The use of local African languages, such as Changana, in HIV/AIDS education and prevention campaigns has prompted their development in this domain, which further substantiates the view that all languages have considerable potential for growth and development and can cope with the challenges of modernity.

The concept languaging or translanguaging, which many linguists are increasingly using to replace the concept multilingualism, perhaps best captures what much of the data presented by the panel reveal about late-modern urban communication in Africa. These concepts capture the ways in which ‘sets of linguistic resources…are afforded for language users in different social and cultural circumstances’ (Pietikäinen et al., 2008, p. 81) or how people use their linguistic resources ‘to make meaning, transmit information and perform identities’ (Creese & Blackledge, 2010, p. 554). The texting data collected by Dyers also provides evidence of the ‘integrated competence’ (Canagarajah & Wurr, 2010, p. 6) of the young respondents in her study, as can be seen by the high degree of blending between English and the local vernaculars.

For Oketch, the notion of metrolingualism (Otsuji & Pennycook, 2010), which describes the way in which people from mixed backgrounds use, play with and negotiate identities through language, is also of relevance here. Metrolingual speakers base their communication on the knowledge of the languages they have acquired to re-enact and perform multiple identities. The data provided by the four researchers provide many examples of the blending of languages and the blurring of traditional boundaries between both major and minor indigenous languages and ethnic groups.

Urban identities and local languaging: The need for a paradigm shift

The four panel presentations all provide evidence of the need for a paradigm shift that will effectively capture the realities of communication, especially urban communication, in late-modern Africa. They support the findings of Heller (2007) and Pennycook (2010), who argue that languages are not autonomous and bounded systems, and that therefore bilingualism needs to be understood in terms of a more processual and material approach that presents ‘language as a social practice, speakers as social actors and boundaries as products of social action’ (Heller, 2007, p. 1). Radio discourses, texting and website communication prove that language choices are not restrictive, but that diversity is integrated in such practices, with a concomitant democratization of online spaces, leading to a collaboration and celebration of shared cultural and linguistic knowledge as well as references.

Since multivocality is localized language practice, the forces of centralization are neutralized, especially in the texting and website discourses (where no-one complains about spelling or grammar) in favour of decentralization and localization. The forces of structuring and hierarchization are consequently seen for what they are: social constructs (Appadurai, 1990) that are undermined (if not curtailed) by the forces of localization. Therefore, globalization and internationalization should be seen not as functions of ‘what’s out there’, but what is dictated by the localized practices. Centre–periphery theories in relation to English (Kachru, 1982; Phillipson, 1992) and other binary constructions, for example ‘standard’ versus ‘urban’ varieties, are thus rendered inadequate to account for languaging in urbanized African contexts and interactions. Localized language practices also call into question long-established sociolinguistic concepts, such as domains and speech communities, which are now seen as porous social constructs. There is therefore clearly a need to revisit the notions of language and multilingualism in order to divest them of monolingual/monoglot biases.

Acknowledging the actual language practices of urban Africans in late modernity has serious implications for language planning and policy. Many of the continents’ current language policies may be veiled in multilingualism, yet are in fact inspired by monolingual/monoglot models, designed to foster multiple monolingualisms. Makoni and Mashiri (2007, p. 82) remind us that ‘Mixing is … socially embedded in African historical and contemporary social experiences and uses of language’. The blending and mixing of different codes is not new to Africa, and was the norm before missionaries decided to bring ‘order’ to the ‘myriad’ of African tongues through codification and standardization, leading to the creation of ‘standard’ African languages that are not necessarily anyone’s ‘mother-tongues’. This is why Banda (2010) emphasizes the need to recognize that for most Africans actual learning often takes place outside the official standard language of education. Support for his argument comes from Makoni, Makoni, and Rosenberg (2010), who suggest that educationists in Africa should consider drawing on these urban language practices for the classroom. ‘By placing these urban mixtures as the focal point of language planning, we will be able to address contemporary African realities’ (Makoni & Mashiri, 2007, p. 85).