Abstract
This contribution focuses on the study of Linguistic Landscapes in the Central/Western African state of Cameroon, with particular reference to its capital, Yaoundé. Linguistic landscapes is a relatively recent area of research, and can be broadly defined as the visual representation of languages in public space. This paper will show that the field of linguistic landscapes can act as a reflection of linguistic hierarchies, ideologies and acts of resistance in multilingual and multicultural communities. At the same time, the sociolinguistic situation in the country will be investigated, which is paramount to understanding the linguistic and ideological conflicts between the anglophone minority and the francophone government. Cameroon’s linguistic landscape will be explored via the various spaces that English, French, Pidgin English, Camfranglais and, to a minor degree, indigenous African languages occupy in its sociolinguistic composition. The methodological design is quantitative in nature, involving collecting more than 600 linguistic tokens (digital photos) in various public places mainly in and around the Cameroonian capital of Yaoundé. It will be demonstrated that the deployment of languages on signs and linguistic tokens, apart from serving informative and symbolic functions for the audiences or passers-by they target, also has social and political implications in an ethnically heterogeneous and linguistically hybrid society such as Cameroon. Whereas in some other former British colonies there are indications that the public space is being symbolically constructed in order to preserve some of Africa’s indigenous languages (e.g. in Botswana, Rwanda, Tanzania), in Cameroon the linguistic landscape almost exclusively focuses on the dominant status and role of one single language, i.e. French, and to a lesser extent English, whose speakers therefore feel marginalized and oppressed by the French government.
Highlights
This paper presents the results of a piece of research on the multilingual repertoire displayed and exploited in the linguistic landscape (LL) of the Central/Western African state of Cameroon
Linguistic landscapes, multimodality and discourses of place This study explores the manifestations and thematization of multilingual signage in the LL of the state of Cameroon
More recent research attempts to define and understand more aspects of the LL by making reference to language(s), texts and words, and to images/photos, etc., suggesting a multimodal approach to LL analysis (Shohamy & Gorter 2009: 1): It is the attention to language in the environment, words and images displayed and exposed in public spaces, that is the center of attention in this rapidly growing area, referred to as linguistic landscape (LL)
Summary
This paper presents the results of a piece of research on the multilingual repertoire displayed and exploited in the linguistic landscape (LL) of the Central/Western African state of Cameroon. LL tokens in principle can be found in all quarters of the world where people (actors/authors) leave or have created visible and multimodal signs which communicate meanings and intentions in various ways, i.e. signposts; photographs and videos; billboards; public road and safety signs; slogans and commercials; lighting and printed materials; names of buildings, streets, shops and areas of major tourist attractions; instructions and warning notices and prohibitions; graffiti; tattoos; and signs in cyber space, etc.; the list is endless — in essence, such signs are “live” documentations and reflections of the physical environment of the late-modern, urbanized space To put it in a nutshell: this paper is concerned with the simple and straightforward research question as to “where (my emphasis) language is located in the public space” (Mooney and Evans 2019: 86). The LL acts as a “showcase to society” which, according to Schmitt (2018: 16), may reflect “social, political, economic, historical, linguistic, ethnic and religious movements of a society.” through studying the LL of a community or neighborhood, researchers observe and identify the obvious ideologically and politically prevailing language(s), but can locate indigenous or minority language presence in an area, as will be shown later in the paper in the case of Chinese (as well as Camfranglais and Pidgin English) in Cameroon
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