As a result of colonisation, English was transplanted to Africa and has spread over the entire African continent. It has become an official language in approximately one third of all African nations. The degree to which English is spoken as a first or second language variety in the various African countries depends mostly on the colonial history, linguistic situation, language policy and language planning programs of these countries.
In this seminar, we will investigate the historical and socio-political developments that have determined the formation of African varieties of English and we will also study the functions English serves in various African countries and speaker's attitudes towards this language.
Moreover, we will survey recent corpus-linguistic research on Africa Englishes that has provided detailed descriptions of the distinctive linguistic characteristics of particular varieties.
Depending on the assessment needed for their study program and module, students can opt for oral presentations based on extensive reading or corpus-based research projects on selected African Englishes.
Basic introductory reading:
Schneider, Edgar W. 2011. English around the World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (chapters 5.2 and 6.1)
