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Context and theoretical objectives In the recent literature, we observe a highly critical, and often negative, view of the socio-cultural role and function of the English language in postcolonial contexts. Within the so-called "linguistic human rights movement", most prominently in the publications by Skutnabb-Kangas and Phillipson, and within the ecolinguistic approach, in particular in Mühlhäusler's writings, English is taken to be a threat to the indigenous cultures and languages. It is considered as alien and detrimental to the region, as most bluntly expressed by labels like "killer language" and "linguistic genocide". One theoretical objective of the research project is to counter such reproaches to the English language. They fail to notice or quarrel with the fact that the respective varieties, English-based pidgins and creoles included, have achieved a stable sociolinguistic, functional and cultural basis. These varieties are part of the linguistic potential of a considerable amount of speakers in the region. And, most importantly, the English language has undergone and constantly undergoes a process of adaptation to the respective setting, a process known in the literature as contextualisation or related notions like indigenisation and Africanisation. The results of that process are manifest in the respective varieties and open to description and analysis, on the levels of grammar, pronunciation and lexis.
The second theoretical objective is to advance the systematic description of the varieties in question. This includes questions of language typology (e.g. systematic differences between the "New Englishes" in the region and the established native varieties, interference of indigenous languages and the pidgins/creoles of the region, peculiarities in the aspectual and modal system of the varieties in question) and of standardisation (a process which is especially advanced in the case of Nigeria). The project focuses on the collection and description of lexical peculiarities and, to some degree, specific phonetic and phonological features of the English spoken in the six anglophone West African countries: Gambia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana, Cameroon, and Nigeria. The immediate objective is the compilation of the first comprehensive and comparative dictionary of the respective varieties. Data collection and means of analysis What is available in the literature is a number of individual studies on the linguistic situation in the above countries, on phonetic and phonological characteristics, and on specific aspects of lexis (in particular problems related to usage). These studies include the following articles:
However, only two of the six countries have received a relatively detailed treatment, Nigeria and Cameroon. Especially in the field of lexis, data and descriptive work on the four other countries are, so far, largely missing. Furthermore, the studies available are not explicitly comparative. Generally, their findings relate to one particular country only and they do not determine whether the lexical items identified in the respective variety may be found elsewhere in the region as well. Our approach is comparative, i.e. the lexical items are systematically checked for occurrences in any of the varieties covered by the project. The dictionary in preparation will thus have an exclusive orientation: it will provide items that are either used exclusively in particular countries of the region or are typical of the respective varieties. Its scope is the stock of lexical material that is not part of the so-called "common core" of English. Furthermore, our orientation is synchronic and descriptive. Our data are taken from various sources, in particular from the internet (from online journals and newspapers, newsgroups), from print media (West African literature, newspapers, reports), and from interviews conducted with speakers of West African English in the course of the project. A major component of the research project is the compilation of computer corpora of the respective varieties, i.e. suitable and reliable material is collected and prepared for electronic data analysis. So far, the only comprehensive corpus of a West African variety of English outside our project is the CEC (Corpus of English in Cameroon) compiled at the University of Yaounde for the ICE (International Corpus of English) project. In the course of our research project, the following additional country-specific corpora have been compiled:
Corpus Calixthe (964 585 tokens) Corpus Liberia (74 794 tokens) Corpus Ghana (135 272 tokens) In addition to these country-specific corpora we draw on a number of thematic text corpora compiled within the frame of the project. The CEC and our own corpora are systematically exploited as sources of lexical data, with the help of WordSmith (click here for a brief description of the program). Data presentation and dictionary design The lexical items are entered in a MultiTerm data base which specifies a set a descriptive parameters. Ideally, the following information are provided by an entry:
- country and regional label - spelling and spelling variants - pronunciation and pronunciation variants - other formal peculiarities (e.g. word formation) - etymology and source language - patterns of usage (e.g. collocations) and stylistic level - related words (semantically, culturally), accessible via hyperlinks Furthermore, the entry provides the source type (e.g. internet, personal communication, fiction) and an authentic text example. The following screenshots from the entry 'Congoes' in Liberian English and related lexical items give an example of the design of the data base. They are also an illustration of the notion of contextualisation, i.e. the process of adaptation to the respective setting. (Note that the entries are not in their final state).
In a further step, the information in the data base is transformed into the final dictionary entry. At the present stage, the data base comprises some 6000 lexical units. Further items are prepared for analysis. Related academic activities Fieldwork: Two-week fieldwork was conducted in Gambia (2000) and Cameroon (2001). International co-operation: There are close contacts to scholars at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and the University of Yaounde, Cameroon. Publications and related academic work: A collection of articles on African Varieties of English edited by members of the research group is published as:
The volume has the following contents:
Accompanying and related research by members of the project are published as:
Further studies drawing on the research project are in preparation, e.g. a Ph.D. thesis (F. Polzenhagen) investigating cognitive-semantic aspects of cultural models in African varieties of English.
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