| Edition |
2nd enl. ed. |
| Description |
1 online resource (xix, 261 pages). |
| Physical Medium |
polychrome |
| Description |
text file |
| Series |
Cross/cultures,
0924-1426 ;
4
|
|
Cross/cultures ; 4.
0924-1426
|
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Contents |
(M)other tongue and the third code -- Indigenization in the text -- Indigenization in the context -- Glottopolitics and diglossia in West Africa -- The first glottophagi -- Official languages and lingua francas -- Media of instruction and curricular subjects -- Media of literary expression -- Decolonization at the crossroads -- Pidginization and multilingual strategies -- Joyce Cary : "crocodile writing" and pidginization -- Beyond the levity of pidgin : Ekwensi's Jagua nana -- Pidgin in stasis : the Nigerian illiterati -- Acts of identity and code-switching : "over the ragged fence" -- (M)other tongue code-switching : scriptural aporia -- Extinct and surviving species : Pitineg and Ẹnpi -- The West African palimpset : case-studies in relexification -- The ancestor of relexification : Calquing in Amos Tutuola's The palm-wine drinkard -- Bound to textual violence : Gabriel Okara and Ahmadou Kourouma -- The logos-eaters : the Igbo ethno-text -- The ethno-text fragmented : Ayi Kwei Armah's Fragments -- The visible trance and beyond -- Two ways of shadowing : cushioning and contextualization -- Naming the gap in the anglophone novel -- Naming the gap in the francophone novel -- Ken Saro-Wiwa's Sozaboy : pidgin in vitro -- Towards othering the foreign language. |
| Summary |
Uniting a sense of the political dimensions of language appropriation with a serious, yet accessible linguistic terminology, The African Palimpsest examines the strategies of 'indigenization? whereby West African writers have made their literary English or French distinctively 'African?. Through the apt metaphor of the palimpsest? a surface that has been written on, written over, partially erased and written over again? the book examines such well-known West African writers as Achebe, Armah, Ekwensi, Kourouma, Okara, Saro?Wiwa, Soyinka and Tutuola as well as lesser-known writers from francophone and anglophone Africa. Providing a great variety of case-studies in Nigerian Pidgin, Akan, Igbo, Maninka, Yoruba, Wolof and other African languages, the book also clarifies the vital interface between Europhone African writing and the new outlets for African artistic expression in (auto- )translation, broadcast television, radio and film. Hailed as a classic in the 1990s, The African Palimpsest is here reprinted in a completely revised edition, with a new Introduction, updated data and bibliography, and with due consideration of more recent theoretical approaches.?A very valuable book? a detailed exploration in its concern with language change as demonstrated in post-colonial African literatures? Bill Ashcroft, University of New South Wales?Apart from its great documentary value, The African Palimpsest provides many theoretical concepts that will be useful to scholars of African literatures, linguists in general? as well as comparatists who want to gain fresh insights into the processes by which Vulgar Latin once gave birth to the Romance languages.? Ahmed Sheikh Bangura, University of California, Santa Barbara?As Zabus? book suggests, it is the area where the various languages of a community meet and cross-over? that is likely to provide the most productive site for the generation of a new literature that is true to the real linguistic situation that pertains in so much of contemporary urban Africa.? Stewart Brown, University of Birmingham. |
| Local Note |
eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America |
| Subject |
Sociolinguistics -- Africa, West.
|
|
Sociolinguistics. |
|
West Africa. |
|
West African fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism.
|
|
West African fiction. |
| Chronological Term |
20th century |
| Subject |
West African literature -- History and criticism.
|
|
West African literature. |
| Chronological Term |
1900 - 1999 |
| Genre/Form |
Electronic books.
|
|
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
|
| Other Form: |
Print version: Zabus, Chantal J. African palimpsest. 2nd enl. ed. Amsterdam ; New York, NY : Rodopi, 2007 9789042022249 9042022248 |
| ISBN |
9781435611818 (electronic book) |
|
1435611810 (electronic book) |
|
9042022248 |
|
9789042022249 |
|
9789042022249 |
|
9042022248 |
|
