from Part II - Dependent Relationships
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 November 2024
How does one speak of “African” state traditions, when they have been so deeply marked by outside intervention? Colonial traditions informed virtually all independent African states’ language policies. This chapter expands the STLR framework to postcolonial Africa, suggesting that continent-wide traditions include states oriented outwardly, with minimal accountability to citizens, whose populations are treated as possessing fixed linguistic identities. Beneath these macro traditions are more divergent paths deriving from historical and institutional differences, namely experiences with varying types of colonial rule and construction as either federal or unitary states. This chapter explores the case of Burkina Faso, which displays both the continent-wide traditions as well as a francophone, unitary path, situating it within an analysis of language regimes across Africa. It juxtaposes the constraints of tradition with the critical juncture and policy feedback that produced change across Africa in the last few decades. Finally, it argues that Africa’s language regimes will likely not fit comfortably into existing monolingual or fixed multilingual templates, since they are interacting with precolonial traditions. Rather, the policies that emerge will reflect people’s evolving language use, particularly relating to African lingua francas.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.