Transnational Languages, Multilinguals and the Challenges for LADO

Abstract

The question of the role that language plays in a person’s national identity is acutely problematized when a person’s claim to a particular identity rests on language alone. However, the simple term language obscures the complexity of the claim. For example, a person’s national identity may be expressed not only by an accent or dialect that others might recognize or note using specific regional, class or ethnic criteria. Listeners might also make particular assumptions about the status of the language claimed by a speaker as a mother tongue; and further, draw particular inferences about that speaker from his or her claim to be monolingual. In other words, the claim to be a member of a particular speech community on the basis of several claims about language competence and use poses a set of expectations on the part of the analyst. I discuss the problem of assessing such claims in the context of an increasingly complex sociolinguistic situation in which concepts such as native speaker or mother tongue are highly unreliable in describing the relationship between speakers and their languages. Present-day Africa is a striking case of this kind of complexity. I consider the complex and diverse linguistic repertoires of Zimbabweans of different ages, ethnic communities and socioeconomic and educational backgrounds as evidence. I examine the impact of language contact and transnational mobility, migration from rural to urban areas and multilingualism on the sociolinguistic individual in Africa and consider the implications for Language Analysis for the Determination of Origin (LADO).