Language in context seminar
Speaker: Joseph Gafaranga (University of Edinburgh)
Title: Translinguistic apposition as language management in Kinyarwanda news texts
Abstract: This paper investigates the practice of translinguistic apposition as found in Kinyarwanda news texts. The practice consists in constructing appositive structures bilingually, each of the components adopting a different languages. Two main questions are addressed, namely the implicativeness of language choice in the structure for subsequent choices and the functionality of translinguistic apposition. Accordingly, two key theoretical concepts are drawn upon, namely the concept of the preference for same medium discourse and that of discourse-based language management. Observation of the data, collected in two news media blogs in Rwanda, reveals that a basic distinction must be made between translinguistic apposition which involves common noun NPs and translinguistic apposition which involves proper noun NPs. At the structural level, the two are different in that, while, in the first case, language choice in the appositive structure is implicative of choices in subsequent text, it is not in the second case. And, at the functional level, the two are different in that, in the first case, translinguistic apposition is analysable as double interlocked discourse-based language management aimed at language problems which result from lexical gaps in Kinyarwanda, it is not in the second case. Implications and significance of these findings for language management theory and for language management in the context in which the paper is based are drawn.
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Language in context seminar
Room 6, Chrystal Macmillan Building, 15a George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9LD