28.4758, Disc: Review of 'Language Documentation and Endangerment in Africa'

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LINGUIST List: Vol-28-4758. Fri Nov 10 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 28.4758, Disc: Review of 'Language Documentation and Endangerment in Africa'

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Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2017 09:59:04
From: Fiona McLaughlin [fmcl at ufl.edu]
Subject: Review of 'Language Documentation and Endangerment in Africa'

 
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



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