Language Documentation and Endangerment in Africa
Language Documentation and Endangerment in Africa
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非洲的语言文献和濒危情况
DOI：
10.1075/clu.17.04con
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发表时间：
2015
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Connell B
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Connell B
关于濒危语言的文献中有一些关于殖民语言对非洲语言构成威胁的作用或缺乏作用的讨论。最常提出的观点认为，在非洲，通常是非洲语言，以民族语言和区域通用语的形式，危及较小的地方语言。如果是这样的话，关注语言濒危原因的语言学家的任务就是理解为什么非洲没有像世界其他地区（如美洲或澳大利亚）那样以同样的方式或在同样的程度上感受到殖民语言的威胁。在这篇论文中，我重新审视了殖民语言在非洲语言濒危中的作用。对殖民主义语言意识形态和对非洲语言的态度的文献回顾，以及对语言选择和态度的几次社会语言学调查的结果，使我对主流观点提出质疑。殖民地语言是否继承（即直接继承）非洲语言只是故事的一部分。它们的使用降低了非洲语言的声望和结构，这导致了它们的濒危。最后，从更普遍的角度来看，建立一个西方（殖民地）模式的“现代民族国家”的压力，要求一种统一的语言，必须被视为非洲语言濒危的一个重要因素。
There has been some discussion in the literature on endangered languages about the role–or lack thereof–of colonial languages in presenting a threat to African languages. The view most often offered suggests that in Africa it has typically been African languages, in the form of national languages and regional lingua francas, that endanger smaller, local languages. If this is the case, the task of linguists concerned with the causes of language endangerment is to understand why Africa has not felt the threat of colonial languages in the same way or to the same extent as other regions of the world, such as the Americas or Australia. In this paper I re-examine the question of the role of colonial languages in language endangerment in Africa. A review of literature on colonialist language ideologies and attitudes towards African languages, together with the results of several sociolinguistic surveys into language choice and attitudes, leads me to question the prevailing view. Whether colonial languages are replacing–ie directly replacing–African languages is only part of the story. Their use reduces African languages in terms of both prestige and structure, and this contributes to their endangerment. Finally, and from a more general perspective, the pressure to create a ‘modern nation state’, on a Western (colonial) model, in requiring a single unifying language, must be seen as an important factor in language endangerment in Africa.