Language contact, language mixing and identity: The Akan spoken by Ghanaian immigrants in northern Italy

Abstract

In this paper, it will be argued that the Akan spoken within the Ghanaian immigrant community in Bergamo is currently going through a transitional process that leads from code-switching to language mixing, as illustrated in Auer ((1999) From codeswitching via language mixing to fused lects: Towards a dynamic typology of bilingual speech. International Journal of Bilingualism, 3, 309–332). Analysis of excerpts drawn from a sample of face-to-face interactions, as well as formal interviews (comprising 27 hours of recordings in total), involving a selected group of Ghanaian immigrants in northern Italy will provide a useful starting point for discussing a distinguishing feature of the variety of Akan spoken by the above-mentioned immigrants – that is, the systematic insertion of English ‘chunks’ (e.g. single words or phrases) which do not appear to fulfil any pragmatic or discursive function. It will be argued that this ‘mixed’ variety of Akan is an expressive device of considerable importance within the community’s repertoire, which is regularly employed in informal spontaneous interactions not only by those community members who speak Akan as a lingua franca, but by Akan native speakers as well.