This is the second volume presenting the results of a research project on Continuity and Discontinuity in Communication granted by the Czech Science Foundation (Grantová agentura České republiky) under Reg. No 405-07-0277. While the first volume (published as volume 77 of LINCOM Studies in African Linguistics) was oriented towards intra-disciplinary linguistic horizons of Sprachbund and related areal features, this second volume is more focused on communication as an inter-disciplinary problem.

It is in this light that the autonomy and mutual complementation of oracy and literacy appears as a critical topic related to continuity and discontinuity in communication. The rapidly spreading new communication media bring with them broader, if not global, characteristics of usage, acceptance and consequences. Hence it is not only possible, but desirable, that our case studies on the interrelationship of oracy and literacy of the Vietnamese/Czech language interference in varieties used by the Vietnamese minority speakers and writers/readers in contemporary Czech Republic, are presented here alongside our case studies of selected African languages interfering with English and French in oracy and literacy of contemporary West Africa.

Table of Contents

Editor's Preface

Continuity and Discontinuity of Contacts in Communication - General Remarks Petr Zima et alii

Studying Czech Vietnamese and Vietnamese Czech – The Context Jitka Slezáková & Petr Komers

Vietnamese Czech: Unity and Variation in Second Language Acquisition Jitka Slezáková

Czech Vietnamese: Twenty Years of Czech Context’s Influence on Vietnamese of the ‘Xu’ Petr Komers

Continuity and Discontinuity of Oracy and Literacy in West Africa Petr Zima, Thomas Bearth

Orality, Literacy and Digital Competence – a Package Deal for Demarginalizing Remote African End Users Thomas Bearth

Orality and Literacy in the Kanuri Society Norbert Cyffer

Oracy in Literacy – Encounters of Two Communication Codes in the Written Litterature Petr Komers

Failing Literacy? On the Meaning of Writing Anne Storch

Hausa between Oracy and the Digraphia of Literacy Petr Zima