LINGUIST List 28.4758
Fri Nov 10 2017
Disc: Review of 'Language Documentation and Endangerment in Africa'
Editor for this issue: Kenneth Steimel <kenlinguistlist.org>
Date: 06-Feb-2017
From: Fiona McLaughlin <fmcl
ufl.edu>
Subject: Review of 'Language Documentation and Endangerment in Africa'
E-mail this message to a friend Read Review:
http://linguistlist.org/issues/27/27-4145.html To set the record straight, I want to point out that the reviewer misread what Lüpke wrote about my work. In the evaluation he (the reviewer) writes ''Lüpke, in chapter three, for example, disputes Mc Laughlin's (2008) position that endangerment in Africa involves a wholesale shift of indigenous populations to colonial languages.'' This is not and has never been my position, nor does Lüpke attribute that position to me. Here is what she (Lüpke) wrote in the book (pp.67-68):
''For instance, it is a common misperception that the languages of colonial provenance are targets of language shift in Africa. The master narrative, also criticized by Mous (2003), Chaudenson (2008), Vigorous & Mufwene (2008a), Mc Laughlin (2008), and Djité (2008), among many others, stubbornly insists that African languages are dying because of the spread of the ex-colonial official languages. Mc Laughlin passes the following verdict on the ''master narratives'' at work: 'Much of the master narrative of language endangerment and death has been constructed on a North American and Australian model, where Native populations in recent times have engaged in large scale societal shift to English. This model has fed a widespread popular belief that the spread of colonial languages such as English and French spells the demise of indigenous languages in all corners of the globe. Against these narratives, linguists who study Africa have often pointed out that the languages of the former colonial powers, namely English, French and Portuguese, are not normally the targets of languages shift, although they continue to serve as official languages (e.g. Batibo 2005; Brenzinger 2007; Mufwene 2001). When African languages are endangered or lost, it is usually because their speakers have shifted to another more widely spoken African language such as Swahili, Hausa or Maninka. The master narrative of language endangerment, informed as it is by the Australian and North American situations, has also been implicitly predicated on monolingualism as the norm; as a new language is acquired, the old one is lost. Again, Africa provides an important counterexample to this model, since speakers frequently acquire a new language without losing their ancestral language. But despite compelling evidence to the contrary, the master narrative persists.' (Mc Laughlin 2008:143)''
Lüpke and I hold similar positions with regard to the (minimal) role of colonial languages in endangerment in Africa; the reviewer suggests that I hold the opposite view, which is wrong.
Linguistic Field(s): Language Documentation
Sociolinguistics
Page Updated: 10-Nov-2017