Sociolinguistic Consequences of Language Shift in Anglophone West African Literature

Abstract

Sociolinguistic Consequences of Language Shift in West African Literature Edmund Bamiro The long history and dominance of English in West Africa have compelled a shift towards the language by several West African creative writers, beginning especially in the post-World War II decade. Using data from the novels of two prominent authors, the Ghanaian, Ayi Kwei Armah, and the Nigerian, Chinua Achebe, this paper argues that the massive shift in the direction of English has been accompanied by a reterritorialization of the language in the West African sociolinguistic environment. Consequently, language shift in West African literature is mediated by the strategies of disidentification and counteridentification from, and identification with, native English forms and norms. However, the language shift in terms of a transfer of legitimacy from the writers’ filial bond to their mother tongues to their affiliation with imperial language and aesthetics is a double-edged sword.