Begleitstudie zu Sprachförder-
maßnahmen in Rheinland-Pfalz (PDF)
Carol Myers-Scotton ist Professorin für Linguistik an der University of South Carolina. Sie ist eine international renommierte
Expertin für Mehrsprachigkeit, Sprachkontaktphänomene, Swahili und Bantu-Sprachen. Wir danken ihr herzlich für diesen
Artikel, den sie für diese Website zusammengestellte hat.
Africans who live in multilingual areas (and most do) often know two or more languages and use them for different purposes
in their everyday lives. For example, they make speak their mother tongue (first language) with relatives and ethnic group
friends, but they may speak another African language that is more ethnically-neutral when they talk to people from different
ethnic groups. What language that will be depends on the nation in question. In East Africa (Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania),
that language is often Swahili, but it may be Wolof in much of Senegal or it may be Nigerian Pidgin English in many parts of
Nigeria. Further, if the Africans in question have had a good deal of schooling, they also will know the European language that
is the main official language in their country today. For example, in those African countries that were British colonies, the
language is typically English. In countries that were French colonies, the language that educated persons know (in addition to
local languages) is French. Still, in most informal situations, the speakers rarely use this language exclusively. Instead, what
they might do is insert English or French words into sentences that are framed by a local African language.
This is the case especially in urban areas. In urban areas across Africa, where there are many different ethnic groups
represented, people often engage in what is called codeswitching. This is the use of two (or more) languages in the same
conversation. In fact, for some urban dwellers, this codeswitching is their usual way of talking, at least in informal situations
with persons from different ethnic groups, and even sometimes with their own families. Often, codeswitching consists of (a) the
language more associated with education (b) with the main inter-ethnic African language of the area. Sometimes the switching
is between sentences (with each sentence totally in one language or the other). But often switching occurs in the same sentence
or clause. In this case, the African language usually is the source of the grammatical frame of the sentence or clause..
Here is a portion of a conversation tape-recorded that took place among a group of young men in Nairobi, Kenya. They come from
different ethnic groups, but all speak both Swahili and English in addition to their separate first languages. By speaking both
Swahili and English in the same conversation they can identify themselves with the associations of both languages. Swahili has
positive connotations as the language of ‘those who know the town’, while English is associated with education and the higher
paying jobs, as well as with the wider world. Swahili is the "grammatical frame-building language" in this conversation, as it is for
most such conversations in Nairobi, even though the speakers have similar proficiency in both English and Swahili. Note that this
conversation includes switching within the same bilingual clause as well as full monolingual clauses, such as this clause in
Swahli, ambao wamebaki nyuma "they who remain behind". Within this conversation, there are three types of switches:
Example 1. Two young men in casual conversation (Myers-Scotton 1988 Nairobi corpus):
G: Huyo Dorothy a-li-fall kwangu ile deadly.
‘That Dorothy fell for me so badly.’
A: Ah. . . fall kwako?
‘Fell for you?’
G: Kitu mmoja mbaya kwake ni kuvaa zile miniskirts.
‘The bad thing with her is to wear [that she wears] miniskirts.’
A: Miniskirts huzipendelei?
‘You don’t like miniskirts’
G: Ah hizo ni fashion nyingine ovyo sana
‘Ah, that’s another very lousy fashion.’
A: Wewe unajua, bwana, hii fashion ni ya wale watu, people on the move. Sasa kama watu kama wewe ambao wamebaki nyuma
hamuwezi ku-appreciate hiyo.
‘You know, mister, that is the fashion of those people, people on the move. Now, people like you who remain behind can’t
appreciate it.’ . . .
Many Africans who now live outside Africa, whether temporarily or permanently, also use codeswitching in their daily lives. Again,
what they are doing is asserting "dual identities". It is as if they want to hold on to their African identity (by using an African
language) along with whatever language is the main language where they now live (e.g. German in Germany, French in France,
or English in England or the United States). But they want to indicate that they have a foot in both cultures and they can do this by
the way they talk.
Here is an example of the language use patterns in one family of Africans who are living temporarily in the United States. The
Bandas come from Malaëi in South-Central Africa. The family expects to return to Malaëi and is only in the United States for the
father to pursue his graduate studies at an American university. The mother is holding a clerical job during this period. The family
consists of father and mother (both in their early thirties), and the three sons, Peter (age 10), Thengo (age 7), and a baby boy,
Chimkono, who is too young to speak. (All names are fictitious.) At the time of the recording, the family had been in the United
States for three years. Everyone except the baby boy had previous experience speaking both Chicheëa and English in Malaëi.
English and Chicheëa are both official languages there, and they are media of instruction in schools. The parents want their
children to maintain their knowledge of Chicheëa, but they realize that to fit in while they are in the United States, they must also
speak English fluently.
How the two older boys make use of their two languages at home contrasts sharply with the story for their parents. An analysis of
six conversations in the home shows that the boys prefer English as their unmarked choice for family interactions-even while their
parents are speaking to them in Chicheëa. Of course the boys speak only English for all the hours that they are away from home at
school. However, this pattern is no different for their father, who not only takes classes in English, but also, as a university teaching
assistant, actually teaches English composition at his university.
Still, the boys have a different attitude toward English than their father. One can argue that for them, English is not only the language
of the wider community in which they are living right now, but it is the language of independence from their parents. English is the
means for them to distinguish themselves from their family circle and symbolize their social identities as maturing boys who
interact with English-speaking peers outside the home. Their view of the role of English in their lives is no different from that of
similar children whose families are temporarily (or possibly permanently) in foreign countries. The children of recently arrived
migrants elsewhere show similar preferences for the language of the dominant culture (e.g. the use of English among children of
Cantonese-origin families in Britain or the use of German by Africans living in Germany). For this reason, it is no surprise that the
prediction that the boys will speak more English than their parents, even at home, is supported. In fact, long switches to Chicheëa
are a marked choice for them. The parents sometimes engage in codeswitching, but they tend to speak Chicheëa more of the time
than the boys do.
The following example is an extract from a typical conversation, with both Chicheëa and English. The older son, Peter, is telling his
mother something about school.
Example 2.
1 Peter: A-MUMMY, Justin Lewis a-nalibe kalikonse mu-FOLDER yake.
(CHICHEëA HONORIFIC-MUMMY)
("Mommy, Justin Lewis did not have anything in his folder")
2 Mother: Nanga pepala la WHITE?
("How about [the] white paper?")
3 Peter: Munalibe. NOT EVEN A SINGLE PAPER
("It was not there. [There was] not even a single paper.")
(Chicheëa/English corpus Simango 1995 )
When there is codeswitching within a clause, English forms occur in a morphosyntactic frame supplied by Chicheëa. This means
that Chicheëa supplies the word order and also any required inflections. That is, Chicheëa is the dominant language within any
codeswitched clauses, even though English is the dominant language in the life of all family members when they are outside the
home. This distinction means that the two languages do not participate equally; only the "frame-building language" (Chicheëa in
this case) supplies certain inflections in the clause. This distinction (that only one of the participating language supplies the
grammatical frame) applies to codeswitching between other languages as well-not just Chicheëa and English. In fact, it seems
to apply universally to codewswitching. That is, speakers don't just "mix" their two languages randomly; instead, there is a definite
system to the way they engage in codeswitching-even though they are not consciously aware of this.
Overall, monolingual clauses in either Chicheëa or English are more frequent than codeswitching in this family's everyday home
conversations. Thus, while one can refer to the Banda family's conversations as bilingual, there is more switching between
clauses or sentences than codeswitching within a clause. When there are switches, they typically consist of singly-occurring
English words (generally nouns). If the Chicheëa grammar calls for inflections, these English insertions are inflected with
Chicheëa affixes, the indication that Chicheëa is providing the grammatical frame for the utterance. For example, in this example,
Peter says mu-folder, using the Chicheëa prefix mu- for the locative noun class that indicates 'withinness'.
In summary, the overall point of this article is that codeswitching is a normal activity for Africans who know more than one
language, whether they live in Africa or are immigrants to Europe or other places. If speakers regularly use both languages in a
codeswitching pattern, then they are indicating that they feel part of both cultures signaled by the languages they use. The degree
to which they use codeswitching signals their attachment to the different cultures.