Rethinking Language Use in Digital Africa
Technology and Communication in Sub-Saharan Africa
Goodith White editor Leketi Makalela editor
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Multilingual Matters
Published:23rd Jun '21
Should be back in stock very soon
This hardback is available in another edition too:
- Paperback£29.95(9781800412293)
Challenges idea that Africa lags behind the rest of the world when it comes to technology
This book challenges the view that digital communication in Africa is relatively unsophisticated and questions the assumption that digital communication has a damaging effect on indigenous African languages. It offers a paradigm of language merging that provides a blueprint for the decolonization of African languages through digital platforms.
This book challenges the view that digital communication in Africa is limited and relatively unsophisticated and questions the assumption that digital communication has a damaging effect on indigenous African languages. The book applies the principles of Digital African Multilingualism (DAM) in which there are no rigid boundaries between languages. The book charts a way forward for African languages where greater attention is paid to what speakers do with the languages rather than what the languages look like, and offers several models for language policy and planning based on horizontal and user-based multilingualism. The chapters demonstrate how digital communication is being used to form and sustain communication in many kinds of online groups, including for political activism and creating poetry, and offer a paradigm of language merging online that provides a practical blueprint for the decolonization of African languages through digital platforms.
This book is open access under a CC BY NC ND licence.
This is a timely and welcome addition to the burgeoning body of scholarship on language and communication in times of crises. It draws our attention to the importance of digital literacies and e-learning platforms in the communication of critical health information in marginalised multilingual communities. Measured in its aspirations yet far-reaching in policy implications, this volume deserves a space on the bookshelf of any serious scholar or student of applied and educational linguistics. * Finex Ndhlovu, University of New England, Australia *
Makalela and White have assembled a timely and powerful volume that addresses the global reliance on digital communication. The multimodal studies from Sub-Saharan Africa illustrate the disrupting power of technology to break down linguistic borders around African languages imposed by colonization, and to empower speakers to translanguage and create connections across the diaspora. * Tatyana Kleyn, The City College of New York, CUNY, USA *
This book breaks new ground in addressing how African languages and cultures are influenced and changed in digital communication. It explores multilingual practices in digital spaces and the use of digital technologies for performing arts. This is a must-read for anyone interested in digital communication in Africa and the diaspora. * Felix K. Ameka, Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, The Netherlands *
Theoretically and through its research examples Rethinking Language Use in Digital Africa is of value not just to students of language and society in Africa but to researchers interested in the theory and practice of digital communication and the study of minority languages around the world.
-- Michael Carrier, Highdale Consulting, UK * Training, Language and Culture, Volume 5 Issue 3, 2021 *[This] is a timely book that describes digital communication in Africa by offering examples of digital communication
in Africa during the pandemic. This book discusses the priorities, difficulties, and innovative practices experienced during this period.
ISBN: 9781800412309
Dimensions: 234mm x 156mm x 15mm
Weight: 475g
216 pages