Between phatic communion and coping tactic: Casamançais multilingual practices

This paper enquires into the role of multilingual practices in conviviality in shared, socially and culturally mixed localities. I ask how Casamançais use diverse repertoires to get by in everyday life in both Casamance, Senegal and Catalonia, Spain. The concept of conviviality stresses fragile, dynamic processes characteristic of everyday ways of living together with maintained difference. I argue that minimal, but diversified language practices, which compose linguistically diverse repertoires, are central in facilitating conviviality among local residents. Minimal interactions and ‘small talk’, or phatic communion, cushion potentially conflictual socio-cultural differences and inequalities. Firstly, I will evaluate discourses on multilingual practices of Casamançais in both contexts. Second, I will critically explore the reasons for and quality of the widespread use of diverse repertoires. I conclude that multilingual practices facilitate phatic communion sometimes playfully and sometimes as part of coping strategies in situations in which structural forces determine which choices will be more successful than others. The process of conviviality spans both these aspects describing everdynamic and ever-fragile ways of living with difference

TEACHER AS NOMAD, TEACHER AS EMISSARY: PERIPATETICALLY NEGOTIATING TEMPORALITY, LOCALITY, AND CULTURE ACROSS TRANSNATIONAL KNOWLEDGE SPHERES

The international teacher—one who is teaching in a foreign land or teaching foreign students in his own country—is at a nexus of cultures, subject-specific knowledge, geopolitics, and economics. Globalisation of the higher education employment market, increases in overseas study rates, the advent of English as a dominant language of education and research, and the expansion of remote/distance learning have expanded opportunities for the sharing of information and ideas by educators and students. At the same time, these trends pose challenges that cannot be ignored by the physically, pedagogically, or virtually peripatetic teacher. This paper will consider the balancing act undertaken by teachers of Western origin (or educational provenance) who teach primarily or exclusively in English and who provide instruction to non-Western students either in Western or non-Western institutions, in-person or online. It will eschew contemporary neo-colonialist and neoliberal assumptions of knowledge transmission and development, reframing these experiences, obstacles, and opportunities within the historical narrative of the Indo-European knowledge exchange; the ancient tradition of itinerant preachers, mendicants, scholars, and schoolmasters; and the multi-polarisation of world power. Finally, teachers will be presented with a means of developing historically and culturally informed, robust, expedient, and sensitive didactic and discoursive techniques.  Article visualizations

Review of “The Language(s) of Politics. Multilingual policy-making in the European Union“ by Nils Ringe. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press 2022.

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Aspekte van sintaktiese inligting in verklarende Afrikaanse woordeboeke

English Title: Aspects of syntactic information in descriptive Afrikaans dictionaries English AbstractSyntactic information is not presented in a consistent manner in the articles of lexical and multilexical lemmas in descriptive Afrikaans dictionaries. New terminology and information resulting from linguistic research are seldom portrayed. Three slots for syntactic information in the article of a lemma are suggested: a slot for a lexical item classification, a slot for information on the typical syntactic behaviour of a lemma and a third slot for usage examples in which explicit information on non-typical syntactic behaviour is provided. Ways are suggested for the presentation of syntactic information in the articles of multilexical lemmas. Practical proposals are made for the reflection of new terminology and information resulting from linguistic research.Keywords: adjunct, fixed expressions, lexical item classification, loan-word phrases, multilexical lemmas, non-typical syntactic behaviour, prepositional phrases, syntactic information, typical syntactic behaviou

Evropski jeziki: instrumenti in simboli

The authors attempt to give an overview of some general external features of European languages today, defining the language families and languages which qualify for inclusion in this group and specifying the following features as characteristic of the European linguistic situation: relative stability since the early Middle Ages, given that there has been no considerable influx of new languages which would have radically altered the typological language map; a relatively low degree of typological heterogeneity; a relatively high degree of documentation; spread of various »European languages« to other continents. Indeed the term »European languages« is somewhat problematic in that, from both contemporary and historical perspective, these languages are only partially justified to be considered as such. It is proposed that the concept of »European languages« should be kept distinct from the related concept of »languages used/spoken in Europe«. Further, the role of Latin as the single most important European language over the centuries and as a unifying feature of European culture is discussed. Parallels are drawn between Latin as the historical European lingua franca on the one hand and English as the modern language of international communication on the other: the importance of both languages started growing after substantial territorial expansion of their speakers and it was especially the political and economic power associated to these languages that played a significant role in their diffusion and long-term influence. Taking into consideration the instrumental as well as the symbolic function of languages, the question about the relationship between English and other European languages in today’s Europe is dealt with; it is suggested that the European languages are in principle not endangered as a result of the spread of English, with the exception of those instances in which English has been taking over the functions they have traditionally performed as national or community languages. It is emphasized that the future of Europe lies in the promotion of biand multilingualism, which have, in actual fact, been present on this continent throughout its history, and which in the cases of some European languages (e.g. Catalan, Basque, Irish, etc.) have been successfully enhanced over the past decades