The African Palimpsest

Indigenization of Language in the West African Europhone Novel. Second Enlarged Edition
2. Auflage 2007
ISBN: 978-90-420-2224-9
Verlag: Brill | Rodopi

Buch, Englisch, Band 4, 261 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm

Reihe: Cross/Cultures

Uniting a sense of the political dimensions of language appropriation with a serious, yet accessible linguistic terminology, The African Palimpsest examines the strategies of ‘indigenization’ whereby West African writers have made their literary English or French distinctively ‘African’. Through the apt metaphor of the palimpsest – a surface that has been written on, written over, partially erased and written over again – the book examines such well-known West African writers as Achebe, Armah, Ekwensi, Kourouma, Okara, Saro–Wiwa, Soyinka and Tutuola as well as lesser-known writers from francophone and anglophone Africa. Providing a great variety of case-studies in Nigerian Pidgin, Akan, Igbo, Maninka, Yoruba, Wolof and other African languages, the book also clarifies the vital interface between Europhone African writing and the new outlets for African artistic expression in (auto-)translation, broadcast television, radio and film.

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Sprachsoziologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Romanische Literaturen Französische Literatur Postkoloniale Literaturen in Französisch, Französische Literatur außerhalb Europas
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Soziolinguistik
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur Postkoloniale Literaturen in Englisch, Englische Literatur außerhalb Europas
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements
Introduction

1. (M)Other Tongue and the Third Code
2. Glottopolitics and Diglossia in West Africa
3. Pidginization and Multilingual Strategies
4. The West African Palimpsest: Case-Studies in Relexification
5. The Visible Trace and Beyond
6. Towards Othering the Foreign Language

Works Cited
Appendix: Tables and Figures
Index

Über Autor(innen)

CHANTAL ZABUS is Professor of British and Postcolonial Literatures at the University Paris 13. She is the author of Tempests after Shakespeare (2002) and Between Rites and Rights: Excision in Women’s Texts and Human Contexts (2007). She has edited Le Secret: Motif et moteur de la littérature (with Jacques Derrida, 1999); Changements au féminin en Afrique noire (2000), and Fearful Symmetries: Essays and Testimonies Around Excision and Circumcision (2008).