Urban contact dialects and language change : insights from the global North and South

This volume provides a systematic comparative treatment of urban contact dialects in the Global North and South, examining the emergence and development of these dialects in major cities in sub-Saharan Africa and North-Western Europe. The book’s focus on contemporary urban settings sheds light on the new language practices and mixed ways of speaking resulting from large-scale migration and the intense contact that occurs between new and existing languages and dialects in these contexts. In comparing these new patterns of language variation and change between cities in both Africa and Europe, the volume affords us a unique opportunity to examine commonalities in linguistic phenomena as well as sociolinguistic differences in societally multilingual settings and settings dominated by a strong monolingual habitus. These comparisons are reinforced by a consistent chapter structure, with each chapter presenting the linguistic and social context of the region, information on available data (including corpora), sociolinguistic and structural findings, a discussion of the status of the urban contact dialect, and its stability over time. The discussion in the book is further enriched by short commentaries from researchers contributing different theoretical and geographical perspectives. Taken as a whole, the book offers new insights into migration-based linguistic diversity and patterns of language variation and change, making this ideal reading for students and scholars in general linguistics and language structure, sociolinguistics, creole studies, diachronic linguistics, language acquisition, anthropological linguistics, language education and discourse analysis. Dedication Contents List of figures List of tables List of contributors Acknowledgements Introduction • Paul Kerswill and Heike Wiese Part A: Multilingual societal habitus 1 Cameroon: Camfranglais • Roland Kie.ling 2 Democratic Republic of the Congo: Lingala ya Bayankee/Yanké • Nico Nassenstein 3 Senegal: Urban Wolof then and now • Fiona Mc Laughlin 4 South Africa: Tsotsitaal and urban vernacular forms of South African languages • Ellen Hurst-Harosh 5 Ghana: Ghanaian Student Pidgin English • Dorothy Pokua Agyepong and Nana Aba Appiah Amfo 6 Kenya: Sheng and Engsh • Maarten Mous and Sandra Barasa 7 Finland: Old Helsinki slang • Heini Lehtonen and Heikki Paunonen Commentaries 8 Baby steps in decolonising linguistics: Urban language research • Miriam Meyerhoff 9 Variation, complexity and the richness of urban contact dialects • Joseph Salmons Part B: Monolingual societal habitus 10 Tanzania: Lugha ya Mitaani • Uta Reuster-Jahn and Roland Kießling 11 Denmark: Danish urban contact dialects • Pia Quist 12 Norway: Contemporary urban speech styles • Bente A. Svendsen 13 The Netherlands: Urban contact dialects • Frans Hinskens, Khalid Mourigh and Pieter Muysken 14 Sweden: Suburban Swedish • Johan Gross and Sally Boyd 15 France: Youth vernaculars in Paris and surroundings • Françoise Gadet 16 United Kingdom: Multicultural London English • Paul Kerswill 17 Germany: Kiezdeutsch • Yazgül Şimşek and Heike Wiese Commentaries 18 Ethnolects, multiethnolects and urban contact dialects: Looking forward, looking back, looking around • David Britain 19 Migrants and urban contact sociolinguistics in Africa and Europe • Rajend Mesthrie Index