Multilingualism and nation building
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Multilingualism and nation building
（Multilingual matters / series editor, Derrick Sharp, 91）
Multilingual Matters, c1993
- :hbk
- :pbk
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 136-141) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
The immediate concern of Multilingualism and Nation Building is to relate the phenomenon of multilingualism in West Africa to its historical, social and physical environment and to trace the development of the sociolinguistic situation from the Middle Ages to the colonial and post-colonial period. At a deeper, theoretical level the author attempts to show how the two types of communication - monolingual and multilingual - were associated with specific social formations in the course of socio-historical evolution. This perspective leads to a new evaluation of current sociolinguistic phenomena in independent African nations and examines their approach to the question of what role their native languages should play in national life. While concrete answers to this question have to be left to policy makers, it is the aim of this book to inquire into the linguistic, social and political issues which result in a variety of possible solutions. So far the decision to maintain a non-native official language and to exclude native languages from the public domain has been the preferred option in many newly independent countries. The author therefore analyses concrete examples of the two basic models of nation building - the assimilationist (or monolingual) and the pluralist model - and the conditions which made each of these solutions successful. What really is at stake is the fundamental question: what type of language policy for what type of nation?
Table of Contents
Introduction
1 Language Diversity in Africa: Myth or Reality?
2 The Spread of the Mantling Language and the Emergence of Vertical Multilingualism
3 Linguistic Fragmentation in the West African Coastal Belt
4 Arrested Development and Regression
5 Multilingualism and Social Transition in Contemporary West Africa
6 The Role of Language in Internal Conflicts
7 Policy Options: Assimilationist or Pluralist?
8 Language and Nation Building in Africa
by "Nielsen BookData"