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African Youth Languages

New Media, Performing Arts and Sociolinguistic Development

  • Book
  • © 2018

Overview

Editors:
  1. Ellen Hurst-Harosh

    1. Humanities Education Development Unit, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

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  2. Fridah Kanana Erastus

    1. Department of English & Linguistics, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya

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  • Builds on a rapidly growing literature on African Urban Youth Languages to show that performing arts, creative arts and media are sites of sociolinguistic development

  • Considers use of social media including Facebook, YouTube and Whatsapp by young people across the continent from countries as far afield as Kenya, Nigeria and Zimbabwe

  • Explores current research into print media, television, and linguistic landscapes in Africa’s intersected urban centres

  • Examines urban youth languages in the creative arts, particularly popular forms of music and poetry such as performance poetry and hip hop/ rap, as well as film

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Table of contents (11 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xv
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  2. An Overview of African Youth Language Practices and Their Use in Social Media, Advertising and Creative Arts

    • Ellen Hurst-Harosh, Fridah Kanana Erastus
    Pages 1-12

  3. Social and Advertising Media

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 13-13
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    2. Functions of Urban and Youth Language in the New Media: The Case of Sheng in Kenya

      • Fridah Kanana Erastus, Hilda Kebeya
      Pages 15-52

    3. View on the Updating of Nouchi Lexicon and Expressions

      • Akissi Béatrice Boutin, Jean-Claude Dodo
      Pages 53-73

    4. Social Media as an Extension of, and Negotiation Space for, a Community of Practice: A Comparison of Nouchi and Tsotsitaal

      • Roland Raoul Kouassi, Ellen Hurst-Harosh
      Pages 75-101

    5. The Use of Addressing Terms in Social Media: The Case of Cameroonian Youth Practices

      • Augustin Emmanuel Ebongue
      Pages 103-122

    6. The Impact of Youth Language on Linguistic Landscapes in Kenya and Tanzania

      • Leonard Muaka
      Pages 123-145

    7. Creative Use of Urban Youth Language in Advertisements: A Case of Mixing Codes

      • Edinah Gesare Mose, Orpha Bonareri Ombati
      Pages 147-158

  5. Back Matter

    Pages 249-255
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Keywords

About this book

This book showcases current research on language in new media, the performing arts and music in Africa, emphasising the role that youth play in language change and development. The authors demonstrate how the efforts of young people to throw off old colonial languages and create new local ones has become a site of language creativity. Analysing the language of ‘new media’, including social media, print media and new media technologies, and of creative arts such as performance poetry, hip-hop and rap, they use empirical research from such diverse countries as Cameroon, Nigeria, Kenya, the Ivory Coast and South Africa. This original edited collection will appeal to students and scholars of African sociolinguistics, particularly in the light of the rapidly changing globalized context in which we live. 

Editors and Affiliations

  • Humanities Education Development Unit, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    Ellen Hurst-Harosh

  • Department of English & Linguistics, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya

    Fridah Kanana Erastus

About the editors

Ellen Hurst-Harosh is Senior Lecturer in the Humanities Education Development Unit at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. She has been an active researcher in the field of urban youth language since 2005, focusing in particular on the South African phenomenon ‘tsotsitaal’. 

Fridah Kanana Erastus is Senior Lecturer at the Department of English and Linguistics, Kenyatta University, Kenya. Her research interests lie in dialectology, language use and multilingualism, language contact, African urban and youth languages, and English language pedagogy. She has published widely on these topics. From 2013, she has been a Project Leader for the Commonwealth of Learning funded Projects on “Open Resources for English Language Teaching (ORELT) in Kenya and East Africa.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: African Youth Languages

  • Book Subtitle: New Media, Performing Arts and Sociolinguistic Development

  • Editors: Ellen Hurst-Harosh, Fridah Kanana Erastus

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64562-9

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-64561-2Published: 15 March 2018

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-09724-0Published: 19 December 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-64562-9Published: 06 March 2018

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XV, 255

  • Topics: African Languages, Sociolinguistics, Applied Linguistics, Multilingualism, Performing Arts, Slang and Jargon

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