The English Language In West Africa

Introducing the subject of English in Africa, this book examines the usage of English in education and in African literature. The range of language forms and the attitudes towards English are discussed. The author considers the influence of English on African languages.

A West African Perspective A unique addition to the ongoing world-wide discussion of the status of English as a world language. Contributions from distinguished academics from West Africa and other parts of the world examine the ramifications of the English as a second or foreign language, including its position in various national language policies within the educational system and as a medium of literature.

The papers in this volume fall under two main themes. The first deals broadly with multilingualism and language contact in West Africa in general and Cameroon in particular. Important topics discussed in this section include: the structure and discursive use(s) of the various forms and uses of Pidgin English, the ways the French language and African languages have influenced each other through loaning (both direct and indirect) and a description of local forms of Africanised European languages (especially French). The second part concerns language teaching and learning in contact situations. Important topics discussed under this section include: multilingualism and second language acquisition, interference, a lexical appraisal of the language of second (third) language learners, and the influence of European languages on the learning of other European languages in West Africa. European Languages; Pidgin English in Cameroon: A Veritable Linguistic Menu; L'enrichissement du Francais en Milieu Fulfulde au Cameroun; Emprunts au Pidgin-English dans le Francais du Cameroun: Situation et Apports; Indirect Borrowing: A Source of Lexical Expansion; Le Phonetisme du Francais Oral en Milieu Tupuri au Nord Cameroun; Problematique de la Composition Nominale Toponymique dans les Enseignes Publicitaires Camerounaises; La Siglaison Comme L'Expression de la Cohabitation du Francais et de L'Anglais au Cameroun; Multiligualism and Second Language Acquisition in the Northern Mandara Mountains of Cameroon; L'Allemande et le Francais en Contact: Quelques Erreurs D'Interference des Apprenants Camerounais de L'Allemand; The English of French-Speaking Cameroonians: A Lexical Appraisal; L'Influence du Francais dans L'Apprentissage de L'Espagnol Comme Langue Etrangere au Cameroun; Contacts/Conflits des Langues, Insecurite Linguistique et Implications Didactiques au Cameroun; Epilogue; Index.

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: good+, University of Duisburg-Essen (Institute for Foreign Language Philology - Anglistics/American Studies), course: Hauptseminar "English Varieties", language: English, abstract: English in West Africa is a complex field of investigation in the broader context of the “World Englishes”. For many years, researchers have focused on linguistic characteristics of the numerous varieties of English in this area and mostly subsumed them under the label “English in Africa” or “West African English” (WAE) (e.g., Spencer 1971; Todd 1984b; Kachru 1995, Schmied 1991). Only little attention has been paid to the single national varieties1 including Cameroon English (henceforth CamE), which is in fact a very interesting case for sociolinguistic analysis due to its status as a co-official language beside French in a multilingual environment. This paper aims to show that new approaches to the national West African varieties, in this case CamE, try to fill the gap of comparative research in this linguistic area. The first part of this paper shall introduce the reader to the complexity of the linguistic situation in West Africa in general. The status, function, and use of English in the anglophone West African countries will be determined in chapter 2. Then I will give an overview about the development of the two most important varieties of English spoken there, namely Pidgin English (PE) and WAE. This chapter will therefore serve as a basis of knowledge for the third chapter, which is the main part of this paper and deals with the new approach of Hans-Georg Wolf (2001) to “English in Cameroon”. By showing the results of the author’s study about the extraordinary sociolinguistic situation in Cameroon on the one hand and the lexical peculiarities of CamE on the other hand, I will support his main thesis, which classifies CamE as a distinct national variety within the linguistic region of West Africa. Finally, I will draw a conclusion and give proposals for further studies in this field of investigation.

This first published full-scale study of the Ghanaian variety of West African Pidgin English (GhaPE) makes extensive use of hitherto neglected historical material and provides a synchronic account of GhaPE's structure and sociolinguistics. Special focus is on the differences between GhaPE and other West African Pidgins, in particular the development of, and interrelations between, the different varieties of restructured English in West Africa, from Sierra Leone to Cameroon. This monograph further includes an overview of the history of Afro-European contact languages in Lower Guinea with special emphasis on the Gold Coast; an outline of the settlement of Freetown, Sierra Leone, with a description of how and when the transplantation of Sierra Leonean Krio to other West African countries took place; an analysis of the linguistic evidence for the origin, development, and spread of restructured Englishes on the Lower Guinea Coast; an account of the different varieties of GhaPE and their sociolinguistic status in the contemporary linguistic ecology of Ghana; as well as a comprehensive structural description of the “uneducated” variety of GhaPE. The book is accompanied by a CD-ROM which contains illustrative material such as spoken GhaPE and photographs.