ASSESSING PATTERNS OF LANGUAGE USE AND IDENTITY AMONG CAMEROONIAN MIGRANTS IN CAPE TOWN A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for a Masters Degree in the Department of Linguistics.

ABSTRACT


ASSESSING PATTERNS OF LANGAUGE USE AND IDENTITY AMONG CAMEROONIAN MIGRANTS IN CAPE TOWN


Full Masters Thesis, Department of Linguistics, University of the Western Cape

In this study, I explore Cameroonian migrants’ language use and the various language forms they use to manifest their identity. I deem this subject very interesting as it deals with a multicultural/multilingual people in an equally multicultural/multilingual society – Cape Town.

The study was carried out in the wider and interdisciplinary field of applied linguistics with focus on the specific domain of sociolinguistics. I have collected data through interviews, focus group discussions and participant observation and used qualitative methods for interpretation of data guided by the concepts of space and territoriality as has been propounded by Vigouroux (2005). Finally, I consider the influence of space and territory on the language choice and above all, I show that the decision to use one language instead of the other in any given territory or space is never a neutral one.

I argue that the Cameroonian immigrants still use language in the same way, as they would do if they were in Cameroon. That is, the Cameroonian migrants would speak Cameroon Pidgin English (CPE) amongst themselves at home, in school, church, at
their jobsites, social gatherings and so on and continue to code switch between English, French, CPE and their vernaculars, although I show that they tend to use more English, and less French in Cape Town. I maintain that the immigrants still treat
CPE with as much disdain, as they would do in Cameroon. Again I argue that the indifferent attitude of Cameroonians towards their vernaculars (African languages) remains the same since they continue to attach importance to the official languages
(French and English) and finally, that Frankanglais is not being used in Cape Town.

I establish that the sluggish Cameroon language policy and the snobbish attitude of the Cameroonian elites towards the promotion of vernaculars have caused the local languages to be less decisive at the national platform. As such, it is around the official languages that two major identities can be noticed in Cape Town – the Anglophone and the Francophone identities. This situation, I further argue, stirs a kind of linguistic conflict in Cape Town just like in Cameroon, although some participants cross this boundaries and continue to live together. Ironically the conflict is based on former
colonial languages and not on the many African languages.

In sum, this study emphasises the standardisation of CPE and the need for a language policy in Cameroon that encourages the former official languages (English and French) plus CPE to be taught in schools alongside the Cameroonian vernaculars.