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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 123

Thematic Session (Papers belonging to this Thematic Session)

Non-standard and youth varieties in urban Africa: language dynamics in rapidly modernizing cities

Authors: Hurst, Ellen; Brookes, Heather; Ploog, Katja
Submitted by: Hurst, Ellen (University of Cape Town, South Africa)

Informal spoken varieties are developing in contemporary African urban centres amongst conditions of multilingualism, globalisation and superdiversity (Vertovec, Cohen et al 2010).  A number of these varieties have been described by researchers, inter alia Nouchi from Ivory Coast; Town Bemba from Zambia; Tsotsitaal from South Africa; Camfranglais from Cameroon; and Sheng from Kenya (c.f. Brookes 2004; Ngo Ngok Graux 2005, Githinji 2006, Kouadio 2006, De Feral 2007, Schröder 2007, Mesthrie 2008, Hurst 2009, Newell 2009, Ploog 2009a, 2009b, Kabinga 2010).  Kiessling & Mous (2004) describe these varieties as Urban Youth Languages and show that they are a response to colonialism: attempts at formulating a coherent national identity by youth growing up amongst the complexities of an Africa intersected by global phenomena. Similarly Newell (2009:179) argues that the prestige of Nouchi derives from its indexicalisation of urban modernity. These varieties appear to be accompanied by other aspects of identity performance – subcultural styles which include clothing brands, body language, gesture, music and ideologies which provide evidence that African youth cultures are traversed by global media and performances.

Urban varieties take particular forms in Africa, and these forms are dependent on local contextual factors such as the interplay between local and colonial languages, language policy, and the current socio-economic status of the nation states (c.f. the matrix proposed by Ploog 2007). Beck (2010:14) asks ‘why does a particular urban language exist in a particular city? What precisely are the factors that have given rise to its emergence?’ This may suggest two complementary perspectives that these phenomena can assist us with: ‘what does language say about society’; and ‘what does society imply for language dynamics’? Beck argues that what is required to begin to answer these questions is firstly an ‘adequate conceptual explanation of the interrelationship between language and city beyond empirical-descriptive evidence’, and secondly a broad research base. This thematic session aims to address these needs by bringing together researchers working on these varieties, generating new theoretical approaches and deepening discussion of how the development of these varieties may have implications for the field of sociolinguistics as a whole, and in particular approaches to language variation in modern urban contexts.

Discussion questions

How do we delimit the boundaries (if any) between non-standard/youth and urban varieties? Are there common linguistic strategies or characteristics that can be described for these varieties? What differences between the examples arise as a result of national contextual factors? Are there any factors that distinguish these phenomena in Africa from similar urban linguistic language phenomena in other parts of the world, for example strategies such as 'verlanisation’ in France (François-Geiger & Goudaillier 1991; Doran 2010) or Multicultural London English (Cheshire, Kerswill, Fox & Torgersen 2011)? In what sense is stabilization of these varieties compatible with their dynamics? What factors influence different types of language subversion in urban areas? What is the relationship between language and the geography of the city?