The Languages of Urban Africa

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The Languages of Urban Africa consists of a series of case studies that address four main themes. The first is the history of African urban languages. The second set focus on theoretical issues in the study of African urban languages, exploring the outcomes of intense multilingualism and also the ways in which urban dwellers form their speech communities. The volume then moves on to explore the relationship between language and identity in the urban setting. The final two case studies in the volume address the evolution of urban languages in Africa.

This rich set of chapters examine languages and speech communities in ten geographically diverse African urban centres, covering almost all regions of the continent. Half involve Francophone cities, the other half, Anglophone. This exciting volume shows us what the study of urban African languages can tell us about language and about African societies in general.

Itis essential reading forupper level undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in sociolinguistics, especially those interested in the language of Africa.

Reviews

McLaughlin's edited volume, at long last, provides us an opportunity to comprehend the multilingual complexity of Africa's growing urban communities. -- David Dwyer, Professor Emeritus, Michigan State University, USA
This is a much-needed contribution to the field of urban languages in Africa, combining top-down and empirical, micro-analytic approaches to language use. It is accessible to the novice researcher and an additional advantage of the volume is the emphasis it places on accounting for the historical and sociopolitical context that constitutes and is constituted by the linguistic. -- Anna Charalambidou, University of Surrey * BAAL News *

Author Bio

Fiona Mc Laughlin is an Associate Professor of African Languages and Linguistics at the University of Florida, USA,where she currently heads a research project on the languages of urban Africa.