English in Cameroon

English in Cameroon PDF

Author: Hans-Georg Wolf

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2013-06-10

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 3110849054

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The multilingual situation in Cameroon and the status of English as a co-official language constitute a unique and fascinating case for sociolinguistic investigation. Drawing from first-hand material, the author investigates several aspects of this complex configuration, including the historical development of English in Cameroon, the various languages and lingua franca areas, the linguistic policy, the de facto status of English and the situation in the anglophone provinces. The speech community of the Anglophones is highlighted as a rare example of an ethnicity tied to the second language. Apart from important sociolinguistic findings, the work includes a novel, corpus-based analysis of Cameroon English. Certain lexical phenomena are explained by the cognitive coding of culture - particularly the African cultural model of community, which also underlies the self-perception of the Anglophones - a perspective hitherto neglected in the study of the New Englishes.

Cameroon Pidgin English

Cameroon Pidgin English PDF

Author: Miriam Ayafor

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2017-12-15

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 9027266034

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Cameroon Pidgin English (CPE) is an English-lexified Atlantic expanded pidgin/creole spoken in some form by an estimated 50% of Cameroon’s population, primarily in the anglophone west regions, but also in urban centres throughout the country. Primarily a spoken language, CPE enjoys a vigorous oral presence in Cameroon, and the linguistic examples illustrating this description are drawn from a spoken corpus consisting of a range of text types, including oral narratives, radio broadcasts and spontaneous conversation. The authors’ typologically-framed investigation of the features of the language, from its phonetics, phonology and lexicon to its syntax and discourse structure, allows the reader a clear view of the linguistic character of CPE, offering a comprehensive description of the language that will be of interest to creolists as well as linguists interested in African languages, contact linguistics and comparative linguistics.

The English of Francophone Speakers in Cameroon

The English of Francophone Speakers in Cameroon PDF

Author: Jean-Paul Kouega

Publisher: GRIN Verlag

Published: 2019-11-14

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 3346062651

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Scientific Study from the year 2019 in the subject Didactics - English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, University of Yaoundé 1 (Faculty of Arts), language: English, abstract: This work, which describes the English of these francophone users, comprises an introduction, seven chapters grouped into two parts, and a conclusion. The introduction overviews the historical background of the country and its geographic and linguistic situations. Part One deals with the didactics of English in Cameroon; it comprises three chapters which take up in turn the languages in the education system of the country, the teaching of English in primary and secondary schools as well as tertiary level institutions. Part Two, which tackles the description of the English speech of francophone users, first outlines the research design. Then it takes up the sound system of francophone English, focusing on the realisations of consonants and vowels, and stress placement. Next it examines the vocabulary of this variety of English and finds that it is characterised by an excessive use of direct loan, calque, and false friends. This is followed by a description of the morpho-syntactic features of the variety. The frequent features identified can be grouped under 12 major categories of items, i.e., verb tenses, articles, the plural form in noun phrases, pronouns, word order, subject-verb agreement, adverbs, prepositions, question formation, negation, verbs in embedded clauses, and serial verbs. Lastly, drawing from the findings outlined in these linguistic analyses, the researcher makes an appraisal of Cameroon’s French-English official bilingualism policy. The various measures taken over the years by Government to promote official bilingualism are evaluated first. Then the consequences of the failure of this policy are considered. Finally a way forward is proposed: there is a need to adopt a new syllabus purposely designed to enhance bilingual competence among francophones in the country. Francophone English as Kouega notes, is a dialect of English that is developing in a number of Expanding Circles countries where French has hitherto been the sole or primary medium of instruction. In Cameroon, francophone children learn English as a subject from primary school alongside other subjects like geography, which are taught in French. English is taught as a subject from the primary to the tertiary level of education. It is taught in all schools as part of the implementation of the country’s French-English official bilingualism policy that was adopted in 1961 when French Cameroon and English Cameroon united to form a federal state.

New Views on Cameroon English

New Views on Cameroon English PDF

Author: Martin Liboska

Publisher: GRIN Verlag

Published: 2004-10-03

Total Pages: 31

ISBN-13: 3638311147

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Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: good+, University of Duisburg-Essen (Institute for Foreign Language Philology - Anglistics/American Studies), course: Hauptseminar "English Varieties", language: English, abstract: English in West Africa is a complex field of investigation in the broader context of the “World Englishes”. For many years, researchers have focused on linguistic characteristics of the numerous varieties of English in this area and mostly subsumed them under the label “English in Africa” or “West African English” (WAE) (e.g., Spencer 1971; Todd 1984b; Kachru 1995, Schmied 1991). Only little attention has been paid to the single national varieties1 including Cameroon English (henceforth CamE), which is in fact a very interesting case for sociolinguistic analysis due to its status as a co-official language beside French in a multilingual environment. This paper aims to show that new approaches to the national West African varieties, in this case CamE, try to fill the gap of comparative research in this linguistic area. The first part of this paper shall introduce the reader to the complexity of the linguistic situation in West Africa in general. The status, function, and use of English in the anglophone West African countries will be determined in chapter 2. Then I will give an overview about the development of the two most important varieties of English spoken there, namely Pidgin English (PE) and WAE. This chapter will therefore serve as a basis of knowledge for the third chapter, which is the main part of this paper and deals with the new approach of Hans-Georg Wolf (2001) to “English in Cameroon”. By showing the results of the author’s study about the extraordinary sociolinguistic situation in Cameroon on the one hand and the lexical peculiarities of CamE on the other hand, I will support his main thesis, which classifies CamE as a distinct national variety within the linguistic region of West Africa. Finally, I will draw a conclusion and give proposals for further studies in this field of investigation.

Aspects of Cameroon English Phonology

Aspects of Cameroon English Phonology PDF

Author: Augustin Simo Bobda

Publisher: Peter Lang Group Ag, International Academic Publishers

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13:

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Cameroon English (CamE) phonology has already developed into a quasi-autonomous system. Thousands of segmental and stress deviations from native English reach, or approximate to a frequency of 100%. Analysed from a generative perspective, the deviations are shown to derive from the fact that certain Received Pronunciation (RP) rules do not apply in CamE while others apply differently, partially or more generally, and still many others are typically Cameroonian. One of the major proposals of the book is the concept of Trilateral Process which consists of RP phonological processes symbolized by a side AA', the restructuring of the RP underlying representation (UR) into a CamE UR by AB and CamE phonological rules by BB'. The concept is applicable to other non-native Englishes.

A Dictionary of Cameroon English Usage

A Dictionary of Cameroon English Usage PDF

Author: Jean-Paul Kouega

Publisher: Peter Lang

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 9783039110278

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This book initiates the process of codification of a postcolonial variety of English, namely Cameroon English. It focuses on the present-day lexicon of this non-native variety of English. English has been in use in this territory for a long period of time and over the years, it has developed some characteristic lexical features which have not as yet been described fully. Previous researchers have been regarding linguistic innovations as cases of lexical errors or Cameroonisms; as a result, teachers and language purists have been discouraging their usage. Today, it is obvious that these innovations have come to stay; they are specific to Cameroon and therefore constitute Cameroon's contribution to the development of world language English. The book is divided into two parts. Part One gives background information on Cameroon (physical and human geography, economy and geopolitics), the language situation in Cameroon (ancestral and vehicular languages, major lingua francas and official languages) and the linguistic features of English in Cameroon (phonology, grammar and lexicology). Part Two describes the research design (textual material, method of data collection and informants) and provides a lexicographic description (spelling, word formative process, definition) of characteristic Cameroon English lexemes.

Sociolinguistic and Structural Aspects of Cameroon Creole English

Sociolinguistic and Structural Aspects of Cameroon Creole English PDF

Author: Aloysius Ngefac

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 9781443897228

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Based on current data, the book provides a detailed sociolinguistic and structural description of Cameroon Creole English, with a special focus on aspects that are often used in creolistic literature as putative defining features of bona fide prototypical creoles. It is the first comprehensive research monograph on the language that describes and situates its sociolinguistic and structural aspects within the context of current creolistic debate and answers the following unanswered questions: How is the evolutionary trajectory of the language and which theory of pidgins and creoles genesis best accounts for its origin and development? What is its current sociolinguistic status? Is the language a pidgin or a creole? What is the typological distance between the language and its main lexifier? What is its relationship with the other West African contact languages and other creole languages? In spite of the controversy that characterizes the field of creolistics regarding the defining characteristics of pidgins and creoles, the book suggests, for instance, that, if the different routes to creolization are recognized, it will be much easier to come up with putative characteristics that define the developmental status of any contact language, as is the case with Cameroon Creole English.

State-Building and Multilingual Education in Africa

State-Building and Multilingual Education in Africa PDF

Author: Ericka A. Albaugh

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-04-24

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1139916777

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How do governments in Africa make decisions about language? What does language have to do with state-building, and what impact might it have on democracy? This manuscript provides a longue durée explanation for policies toward language in Africa, taking the reader through colonial, independence, and contemporary periods. It explains the growing trend toward the use of multiple languages in education as a result of new opportunities and incentives. The opportunities incorporate ideational relationships with former colonizers as well as the work of language NGOs on the ground. The incentives relate to the current requirements of democratic institutions, and the strategies leaders devise to win elections within these constraints. By contrasting the environment faced by African leaders with that faced by European state-builders, it explains the weakness of education and limited spread of standard languages on the continent. The work combines constructivist understanding about changing preferences with realist insights about the strategies leaders employ to maintain power.

A Grammar of Cameroonian Pidgin

A Grammar of Cameroonian Pidgin PDF

Author: Nkemngong Nkengasong

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2016-01-14

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 1443887544

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This volume represents a comprehensive description of the structure of Cameroonian Pidgin, including an overview of its socio-cultural context, writing system, sounds, word formation, word classes and sentence structures. It comprises a corpus of 540 Cameroonian Pidgin proverbs and a rich glossary of over 1000 words and expressions typical of Cameroonian Pidgin which are helpful in understanding the characteristic features of the language, as well as the cultural, the social, and the philosophical contexts of the Cameroonian Pidgin speaker. Written with the first-hand experience of a “native speaker”, it will be of interest to ordinary users, as well as students, researchers and professional linguists interested in the way the language functions. Indeed, it represents a useful resource for anyone wishing to learn or know about Pidgin, especially tourists and professionals traveling to West and Central Africa.

Social Differentiation in Cameroon English

Social Differentiation in Cameroon English PDF

Author: Aloysius Ngefac

Publisher: Peter Lang

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 9781433103902

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Social Differentiation in Cameroon English investigates the correlation between some extra-linguistic variables (gender, age, level of education, ethnicity, regionality, occupation, and mood) and phonological variables in a New English setting that is sociolinguistically and culturally different from most Western contexts. The investigation reveals that the type of correlation patterns between linguistic and sociolinguistic variables reported in the Western world are lacking in Cameroon because of contextual factors and the fact that English Language Teaching (ELT) goals in Cameroon continue to be based on Inner Circle English norms. It is therefore predicted that if mainstream Cameroon English is promoted and standardized and Cameroonian speakers of English are evaluated in terms of their knowledge of Cameroon Standard English, some of the correlation patterns reported in the Western world can equally be observable in Cameroon.