Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T10:01:10.364Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Recruiting a nonlocal language for performing local identity: Indexical appropriations of Lingala in the Congolese border town Goma

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Karen Büscher ,
Sigurd D'hondt  and
Michael Meeuwis
Karen Büscher
Affiliation:
Conflict Research Group, Ghent University, Universiteitsstraat 8, B-9000 Ghent, [email protected]
Sigurd D'hondt
Affiliation:
Centre for Studies in African Humanities, Ghent University, Rozier 44, B-9000 Ghent, [email protected]
Michael Meeuwis
Affiliation:
Centre for Studies in African Humanities, Ghent University, Rozier 44, B-9000 Ghent, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article describes discursive processes by which inhabitants of the Congolese border town Goma attribute new indexical values to Lingala, a language exogenous to the area of which most Goma inhabitants only possess limited knowledge. This creative reconfiguration of indexicalities results in the emergence of three “indexicalities of the second order”: the indexing of (i) being a true Congolese, (ii) toughness (based on Lingala's association with the military), and (iii) urban sophistication (based on its association with the capital Kinshasa). While the last two second-order reinterpretations are also widespread in other parts of the Congolese territory, the first one, resulting in the emergence of a Lingala as an “indexical icon” of a corresponding “language community,” deeply reflects local circumstances and concerns, in particular the sociopolitical volatility of the Rwandan-Congolese borderland that renders publicly affirming one's status as an “autochthonous” Congolese pivotal for assuring a livelihood and at times even personal security. (Lingala, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Goma, orders of indexicality, language community, autochthony, Kiswahili)*

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 42 , Issue 5 , November 2013 , pp. 527 - 556
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bayart, Jean-François; Geschiere, Peter; & Nyamnjoh, Francis (2001). Autochtonie, démocratie et citoyenneté en Afrique. Critique Internationale 10:177–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blommaert, Jan (2005). Situating language rights: English and Swahili in Tanzania revisited. Journal of Sociolinguistics 9:390–417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boguo, M. (1988). Situation des langues zaïroises au Zaïre. Linguistique et sciences humaines 28:54–58.Google Scholar
Bokamba, Eyamba G. (2008). The lives of local and regional Congolese languages in globalized linguistic markets. In Vigouroux, Cecile & Mufwene, Salikoko (eds.), Globalization and language vitality: Perspectives from Africa, 97–125. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Bokamba, Eyamba G. (2009). The spread of Lingala as a lingua franca in the Congo basin. In McLaughlin, Fiona (ed.), The languages of urban Africa, 50–70. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Bucyalimwe Mararo, Stanislas (2002). Le Nord Kivu au coeur de la crise congolaise. In Reyntjens, Filip & Marysse, Stefaan (eds.), L'Afrique des grands lacs: Annuaire 2001–2002, 153–85. Paris: L'Harmattan.Google Scholar
Bucyalimwe Mararo, Stanislas (2009). Goma (Nord-Kivu, RD Congo): Point de mire et de paradoxe. In Mararo, Stanislas Bucyalimwe (ed.), Cycle du mal et refus: Hommage au prof. dr. Freddy Ruriho Munanira Kibambasi, 64–122. Bruxelles: Association Isoko-Kivu.Google Scholar
Büscher, Karen (2011). Conflict, state failure and urban transformation in the Eastern Congolese periphery: The case of Goma. Ghent: Ghent University dissertation.Google Scholar
Clark, Phil (2008). Ethnicity, leadership and conflict mediation in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo: The case of the Barza Inter-Communautaire. Journal of Eastern African Studies 2:1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D'hondt, Sigurd (2010). The cultural defense as courtroom drama: The enactment of identity, sameness and difference in criminal trial discourse. Law & Social Inquiry 35:67–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geschiere, Peter (2009). Autochthony and the crisis of citizenship: Democratization, decentralization, and the politics of belonging. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Geschiere, Peter, & Jackson, Stephen (eds.) (2006). Autochthony and the crisis of citizenship: Democratization, decentralization, and the politics of belonging. Special issue of African Studies Review 49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goyvaerts, Didier L. (1995). The emergence of Lingala in Bukavu, Zaire. The Journal of Modern African Studies 33:299–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gumperz, John (1971). Language in social groups. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Heddebaut, Odile (2001). The binational cities of Dover and Calais and their region. GeoJournal 54:61–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hymes, Dell (1972). Models of the interaction of language and social life. In Gumperz, John & Hymes, Dell (eds.), Directions in sociolinguistics: The ethnography of communication, 35–71. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Jackson, Stephen (2006). Sons of which soil? The language and politics of autochthony in Eastern D. R. Congo. African Studies Review 49:95–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, Stephen (2007). Of “doubtful nationality”: Political manipulation of citizenship in the D. R. Congo. Citizenship Studies 11:481–500.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnstone, Barbara (2010). Locating language in identity. In Llamas, Carmen & Watt, Dominic (eds.), Language and identity, 3–26. Edinburgh: Edinburg University Press.Google Scholar
Johnstone, Barbara; Andrus, Jennifer; & Danielson, Andrew E. (2006). Mobility, indexicality, and the enregisterment of “Pittsburghese.” Journal of English Linguistics 34:77–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnstone, Barbara, & Kiesling, Scott F. (2008). Indexicality and experience: Exploring the meanings of /aw/-monophthongization in Pittsburgh. Journal of Sociolinguistics 12:5–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lughuna, Hangy (2004). Personnes réelles et identités plaquées. Regards Croisés 12:86–89.Google Scholar
Madumulla, Joshua; Bertoncini, Elena; & Blommaert, Jan (1999). Politics, ideology and poetic form: The literary debate in Tanzania. In Blommaert, Jan (ed.), Language ideological debates, 307–41. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Goma, Mairie (2011). Rapport Annuelle. Goma: Marie de Goma.Google Scholar
Makoni, Sinfree; Brutt-Griffler, Janina; & Mashiri, Pedzisai (2007). The use of ‘indigenous’ and urban vernaculars in Zimbabwe. Language in Society 36:25–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mathys, Gillian (2013). A crippled Bula Matari: A historical account of labor, migration and borders in the Rwandese/Congolese borderland. In van Wolputte, Steven (ed.), Borders and frontiers in Africa, 117–50. Berlin: LIT.Google Scholar
McLaughlin, Fiona (2001). Dakar Wolof and the configuration of an urban identity. Journal of African Cultural Studies 14(2):153–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meeuwis, Michael (1997). Constructing sociolinguistic consensus: A linguistic ethnography of the Zairian community in Antwerp, Belgium. Duisburg: Gerhard-Mercator-Universität.Google Scholar
Meeuwis, Michael (2002). The sociolinguistics of Lingala as a diaspora lingua franca: Historical and language ideological aspects. In Knapp, Karlfried & Meierkord, Christiane (eds.), Lingua franca communication, 29–52. Bern: Lang.Google Scholar
Meeuwis, Michael (2006). The Lingala-Kiswahili border in north-eastern Congo: Its origins in Belgian colonial state formation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Africana Linguistica 12:113–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meeuwis, Michael (2009). Involvement in language: The role of the Congregatio Immaculati Cordis Mariae in the history of Lingala. Catholic Historical Review 95:240–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meeuwis, Michael (2010). A grammatical overview of Lingala. Munich: LINCOM Europa.Google Scholar
Meeuwis, Michael (2013). Lingala: Survey. In Michaelis, Susanne, Maurer, Philippe, Haspelmath, Martin & Huber, Magnus (eds.), Atlas of pidgin and creole language structures, vol. II: The language surveys. Oxford: Oxford University Press, to appear.Google Scholar
Meeuwis, Michael, & Blommaert, Jan (1994). The ‘markedness model’ and the absence of society: Remarks on codeswitching. Multilingua 13:387–423.Google Scholar
Meeuwis, Michael, & Blommaert, Jan (1998). A monolectal view of code-switching: Layered code-switching among Zairians in Belgium. In Auer, Peter (ed.) Code-switching in conversation, 76–100. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mutombo, H.-M. (1991). Les langues au Zaïre à l'horizon de l'an 2000. In Symoens, J.-J. & Vanderlinden, Jacques (eds.), Les langues en Afrique à l'horizon de l'an 2000 – De talen in Afrika in het vooruitzicht van het jaar 2000, 85–107. Brussels: Koninklijke Academie voor Overzeese Wetenschappen – Académie Royale des Sciences d'Outre-Mer.Google Scholar
Newbury, David (1997). Irredentist Rwanda: Ethnic and territorial frontiers in Central Africa. Africa Today 44:211–22.Google Scholar
Ngalasso, M. M. (1986). Etat des langues et langues de l'Etat au Zaïre. Politique Africaine 23:7–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nurse, Derek, & Hinnebusch, Thomas J. (1993). Swahili and Sabaki: A linguistic history. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Pick, James B.; Viswanathan, Nanda; & Hettrick, James (2001). The U.S.-Mexican borderlands region: A binational spatial analysis. Social Science Journal 38:567–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pole Institute (2004). Les identités meutrieres: Faire face aux défis posés par nos murs psychologiques et ideologiques. Special issue of Regards Croisés 12.Google Scholar
Schieffelin, Bambi; Woolard, Kathryn; & Kroskrity, Paul (eds.) (1998). Language ideologies: Practice and theory. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sesep, N. S. (1986). L'expansion du Lingala. Linguistique et sciences humaines 27:19–48.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael (1981). The limits of awareness. Working papers in sociolinguistics 84. Austin, TX: Southwestern Educational Laboratory.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael (1992). The indeterminacy of contextualization: When is enough enough? In Auer, Peter & Di Luzio, Aldo (eds.), The contextualization of language, 55–76. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silverstein, Michael (1998). Contemporary transformations of local linguistic communities. Annual Review of Anthropology 27:401–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silverstein, Michael (2003a). Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life. Language and Communication 23:193–230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silverstein, Michael (2003b). The whens and wheres–as well as hows–of ethnolinguistic recognition. Public Culture 15:531–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spear, Thomas (2000). Early Swahili history reconsidered. The International Journal of African Historical Studies 33:257–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spitulnik, Debra (1996). The social construction of media discourse and the mediation of communities. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 6:161–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spitulnik, Debra (1998). The language of the city: Town Bemba as urban hybridity. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 8(1):30–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stewart, Gary (2004). Rumba on the river: A history of the popular music of the two Congos. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Stroud, Christopher (2002). Framing Bourdieu socioculturally: Alternative forms of linguistic legitimacy in postcolonial Mozambique. Multilingua 21:247–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swigart, Leigh (2001). The limits of legitimacy: Language ideology and shift in urban Senegal. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 10:90–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tegera, Aloys; Sematumba, Onesphore; Kayser, Christiane; Rutinigirwa, Leopold; & Hamuli, Prosper (2007). Les frontières: Lieux de division où passerelles d'échange? Fissures 5:1–74.Google Scholar
Turner, Thomas (2007). The Congo wars: Conflict, myth and reality. London: Zed Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vigouroux, Cécile (2008). “The smuggling of La Francophonie”: Francophone Africans in Anglophone Cape Town (South Africa). Language in Society 37:415–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vlassenroot, Koen, & Büscher, Karen (2009). Urban development and identity processes in Goma (Crisis States Research Papers, Working Paper 61). London: Crisis States Research Centre.Google Scholar