Sociolinguistics Symposium 19
Freie Universität Berlin | August 21-24, 2012
Programme: accepted abstracts
Abstract ID: 705
Part of Session 181: Folk linguistics and society (Other abstracts in this session)
Language Attitudes in Uganda: People’s Perspectives on Languages, Ethnic Groups and Social Identity
Authors: Becker, Julia Maximiliane
Submitted by: Becker, Julia Maximiliane (Goethe Universität Frankfurt, Germany)
Language plays an important part in the construction and perception of people’s identity: First, it is an inescapable “badge of identity” (Blot 2003: 3). By speaking people reveal their origins and their belonging. Secondly, it is a “product of social interaction“ (Riley 2008: 16), which means through interactional practices and the communicative action itself, identities are created.
The reasons for the influence or the importance of the mother tongue – or language in general – in identity constructions can also be put like this:
01 […] I love I love being able to speak my language for
02 example [ja] because it's a beautiful language. In fact
03 I'm sad, when I'm in my village and people don't want to
04 speak their language they want to speak Luganda you know
05 it's like when I'm in Kampala I don't speak my language
06 cause everyone speaks Luganda, so why is it when I'm in
07 my hometown you know, it's, it's an identity, it's a
08 culture as well ahm it's [.] it's everything
This transcript from an interview with a young woman, taped 2008 in Uganda’s capital Kampala, reveals that her arguments are mainly emotionally driven: She ‘simply’ loves speaking her mother tongue because that is (one of ) her identity(ies).
The fieldwork conducted during two extensive field trips in Uganda in 2008 and 2009 was centred on language attitudes with special focus on language policy. The data collected is from focus-group discussions and semi-structured interviews. People’s language attitudes, the government’s and a so-called etic (“academic”) perspective were analysed and their impact on language policies and the national language were discussed. The methodological framework of the analysis consisted of a content analysis and a discourse analysis.
The presentation in the thematic session will focus on the emic perspective of the people’s language attitudes and argue why some of the suggested solutions for the national language in Uganda are perceived as unacceptable.
Therefore, in a first step, the construction of social identity in Uganda – exemplified on the basis of the data and embedded into the academic discourse – will be shortly presented and will contribute to the session’s interest on how people do relate language to social identity.
Secondly, the paper contrasts Ugandan’s language attitudes on Kiswahili and English. It will be shown that non-linguists’ language attitudes may highly differ from the linguist’s expectation. Kiswahili, the government’s proposal as national language and lingua franca in many neighbouring countries, is constructed as the ‘cruel language’, the ‘language of thieves’ or ‘burglars’ but also as the ‘neutral’ alternative to local language solutions. English on the other hand, in fact, is positively connoted. The paper highlights the value and importance of ‘folk linguistics’ for research on language policy and inter-ethnic relations. Further, it aims to present the discursive patterns of language attitudes in everyday communication.
The paper concludes that the attitudes influence the people’s language behaviour and inter-ethnic relations as well as their (potential) impacts on language policies.