This book is intended as a textbook for advanced undergraduate or graduate students in the field of bilingualism and language choice. It reports on a sociolinguistic study of the language choice patterns of the minority Ikwerre ethnic group of Port Harcourt City, Nigeria. Further, it aims primarily to present a systematic and coherent account of the extent and patterning of Ikwerre-NPE bilingualism within the Ikwerre community, focusing on: the means by which people in this community deploy two different codes in their day-to-day communicative interactions and the social and attitudinal motivations for language choice at both the group and individual level. To satisfy these objectives this study has taken into account the pre-existing linguistic, socio-economic and macro-sociological distinctiveness of the Ikwerre community. Thus, it has investigated prevailing local attitudes towards Ikwerre and NPE by incorporating matched guise tests to deepen our understanding of the processes of language choice and shift operating in the community. This was done to demonstrate that contemporary local linguistic attitudes working together with personal network ties would offer fuller and more adequate explanations of why members of the Port Harcourt Ikwerre community select either Ikwerre and/or NPE in their normal every day interactions. From the observations and findings made in this study I propose an account of the language choice patterns attested in my Port Harcourt Ikwerre community data that is based on establishing a broad typology which can be directly related to the bilingualism continuum. This framework should be equally applicable to similar bilingual settings around the world, which, like Port Harcourt, have experienced rapid metropolitan growth as a result of radical socio-economic change in their recent history. Finally, it is my hope that in the course of reading this book the reader can come to a place where their understanding and appreciation of the effects of languages in contact in non-Western communities is enriched with the illustrative material in this book.

Since the inception of modern contact linguistics through the works of Weinreich (1953) and Haugen (1953), numerous investigators have studied the manifestations of language contact across different disciplines, naturally adopting varied perspectives and approaches relevant to their particular field of inquiry. In spite of the many approaches and interests, quite simply, when speakers of different languages interact closely, it is typical for their languages to influence each other. The influence could be as common as the exchange of words or what is termed vocabulary borrowing in the literature. It can also go deeper, extending to the exchange of even basic characteristics of a language, such as morphology and grammar. In some cases, the result of the contact of two languages can be the replacement of one by the other. This is most common in asymmetric relationships between languages, and sometimes leads to language shift and death. The present volume is unique in that it brings together research by distinguished scholars and other highly talented investigators from across the world to offer a multidimensional exploration of the field. The individual chapters present contemporary discussions and analyses of the topics, grouped into three parts.

This volume brings together researchers in conversation analysis who examine the practice of alternating between English and German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish and Vietnamese in the classroom. The collection shows that language alternation is integral to being and learning to become a bilingual, and that being and learning to become a bilingual are accomplished through a remarkably common set of interactional objects and actions, whose sequential organisations are quite similar across languages and educational sectors. This volume therefore shows that having recourse to more than one shared language provides an important resource for getting the work of language learning and teaching done through an orderliness that can be described and evaluated. The findings and the suggested pedagogical applications described in the volume will be of significant interest to researchers and teachers in a range of fields including second and foreign language teaching and learning, conversation analysis, teacher education and bilingualism.

"This book is the first in-depth treatment from a linguistic perspective of the Chinese presence in Africa. It is essentially a detailed study on communication in various domains between Chinese immigrants in Cameroon and the local community with whom they interact. In eight chapters this well-organized book is able to give a relatively detailed sociolinguistic description of the host country, Cameroon, provide a good theoretical background of the study, outline the methodology used for the study which involved mainly a questionnaire survey, semi-structured interviews, and field observations before drawing conclusions to the study. This is a brilliant contribution to a growing literature on the global Chinese diaspora." - Adams Bodomo, Professor of African Studies (Chair of Linguistics and Literatures) at the University of Vienna, Austria

Codeswitching occurs when multilingual speakers embed elements of more than one language into the dominant (or Matrix) language within individual utterances of conversation. Codeswitching in Igbo-English Bilingualism explores the syntax of bilingual codeswitching between the Benue-Congo African language of Igbo and English. Within the framework of Myers-Scotton's highly influential Matrix Language Frame (MLF) model, Kelechukwu Ihemere explores the notion of asymmetry in Igbo-English codeswitching, arguing that the two languages do not contribute equally in the creation of mixed utterances. In the abstract interaction between the two grammars, the Matrix language is more activated than the Embedded language, resulting in either monolingual Igbo discourse or discourse with an Igbo morphosyntactic frame but with English insertions. Using both linguistic and quantitative analyses, this book uniquely investigates the governing principles and restrictions on bilingual clauses and grammatical codeswitching in the context of a West African language and English. Providing a detailed descriptive and theoretical investigation of Igbo-English data and a deeper analysis of the MLF model, this book will be of interest to anyone working in the fields of comparative syntax, bilingualism and contact linguistics.

This volume focuses on current demands, challenges and expectations facing African higher education institutions in general, and those in South Africa in particular. Subsequently, transformative curricula, pedagogies and epistemologies that define diverse practices of access and inclusion within the context of transformation and decolonisation are explored.

Times are changing, and with them, the norms and notions of correct­ness. Despite a wide-spread belief that the Bible, as a “sacred original,” only allows one translation, if any, new translations are constantly produced and published for all kinds of audiences and purposes. The various paradigms marked by the theological, political, and historical correctness of the time, group, and identity and bound to certain ethics and axiomatic norms are reflected in almost every current translation project. Like its predecessor, the current volume brings together scholars working at the intersection of Translation Studies, Bible Studies, and Theology, all of which share a special point of interest concerning the status of the Scriptures as texts fundamentally based on the act of translation and its recurring character. It aims to breathe new life into Bible translation studies, unlock new perspectives and vistas of the field, and present a bigger picture of how Bible [re]translation works in society today.