Mobility, identity and localization of language in multilingual contexts of urban Lusaka

TLDR: This paper explored mobility, identity and localization of language in Multilingual Contexts of Urban Lusaka by examining data from different sites of language practices of urban dwellers, that include, casual and formal conversations, Zambian popular music, computer mediated discourses and advertisements.

Abstract: This study explores Mobility, Identity and Localization of Language in Multilingual Contexts of Urban Lusaka. By examining data from different sites of language practices of Lusaka urbanites, that include, casual and formal conversations, Zambian popular music, computer mediated discourses and advertisements; the study shows how interlocutors creatively draw on their extended communicative repertoire to make meaning, transform social structures/roles and stylize modern identities. Accordingly, the study consolidates the recent sociolinguistic theoretical position that views language as social practice and privileges speakers as social actors in shaping and recreating language. In this regard, the study foregrounds language as localized social practice and argues against the idea that language is homogenous and a bounded system. In doing so, the study adds to recent sociolinguistic theorizing calling for a paradigm shift to language studies. Therefore, the main research question that the study addresses, relates to how Lusaka urban dwellers achieve their mediated agency, voice and actorhood through linguistic choices during interactions in various social contexts of modern Lusaka. In turn, the question relates to how urbanites use language as localized social practice to maintain, transform and reproduce social structures/roles and identities in modern Lusaka. Owing to the type of data the study collected, a multifaceted methodological and analytical approach was employed for both data collection and analysis. Informed by a descriptive research design, the study used focus group discussions and individual key-informant interviews to collect data from casual and formal conversations. Data from Zambian popular music were purposively sampled from Youtube.com and music CDs. In addition, group/individual interviews with musicians were conducted in order to supplement data collected from music CDs and video sources. Data from online discourses were collected from the Facebook platform and from two Zambian based online news blogs, while data from print advertisements were collected through the capturing of images on billboards around Lusaka city as well as advertisements from newspapers and internet sites. Television and radio advertisements were recorded from the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation TV and radio channels. All the data collected from these sources were generally analyzed using Conversational Analysis, Facework Negotiation Theory, Multimodal Discourse Analysis and its cognate analytical tools such as Resemiotisation, Semiotic Remediation, Intertextuality, Multivocality and Dialogism. The study shows that message consumption is not a function of isolated semiotic resource but a combination of semiotic material drawn from semiotics that people are familiar with. The study thus argues that social meaning is steeped into social and cultural experiences of the speakers and that any study of language practices in such contexts should take into account the multifaceted nature of human communication.…