Pure fiction – the interplay of indexical and essentialist language ideologies and heterogeneous practices. A view from Agnack
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2016
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University of Hawai'i Press
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8
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39
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This paper investigates the complex interplay between different sets of language ideologies and multilingual practice in a village in Lower Casamance (Senegal). In this heterogeneous linguistic environment, which is typical of many African settings, individuals have large and adaptive linguistic repertoires. The local language ideologies focus on different aspects of identity which languages serve to index, but enable individuals to focus on different facets of identity according to context. National language ideologies are essentialist and have as their goal to put constructed homogeneous communities on the polyglossic map of Senegalese languages. In contrast to similarly essential Western ideologies, however, these national ideologies operating in Senegal are not linked to actual standard language practices. Using the example of individuals in two households and by presenting rich ethnographic information on them, the paper explores the relationship between language use and language ideologies before describing a sampling method for documenting language use in these contexts. It is argued that the documentation of these contexts cannot be achieved independently of an understanding of the language ideologies at work, as they influence what is presented as linguistic practice, and that arriving at a holistic description and documentation of the multilingual settings of Africa and beyond is central for advancing linguistic theory in sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics and contact linguistics.
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Friederike Lüpke. 2016. 'Pure fiction – the interplay of indexical and essentialist language ideologies and heterogeneous practices. A view from Agnack.' In African language documentation: new data, methods and approaches, Special Publication No.10 of Language Documentation & Conservation, edited by Mandana Seyfeddinipur, pp. 8–39. http://hdl.handle.net/10125/24650
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Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike License
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