The new urban youth language Yabacrâne in Goma (DR Congo)
Issue: Vol 10 No. 1-2 (2016) The dynamics of youth language in Africa
Journal: Sociolinguistic Studies
Subject Areas: Gender Studies Linguistics
DOI: 10.1558/sols.v10i1-2.27925
Abstract:
Yabacrâne is a Kiswahili-based youth language practice used by youths in Goma, Eastern Democratic Republic (DR) of the Congo, where distinctive language usage marks speakers’ identity and community of practice. Yabacrâne reveals salient features which do not coincide with characteristics typical of other youth language practices in Africa. The gangster image and violent behavior, aggravated by the prevailing conflict zone in Eastern DR Congo, as well as a tough ‘street image’, are the central points of reference for Yabacrâne speakers. Unlike neighboring youth languages in the Great Lakes region, Yabacrâne is no longer limited to urban spaces; furthermore, speakers draw heavily on other (remote) youth languages in DR Congo such as Lingala-based Yanké (spoken in Kinshasa), especially through music and social media. Besides speakers’ phonological and semantic manipulations, the present paper aims to take cross-geographical fluidity into account in order to describe the trajectories that new terms pass through before they are eventually diffused within the community. Moreover, as an innovative approach, the paper also takes some deliberate modifications in pragmatics, namely politeness strategies and linguistic taboos, into consideration.
Author: Nico Nassenstein
References :
Allan, K. & K. Burridge (2006) Forbidden Words. Taboo and the Censoring of Language. Cambridge: CUP.
Andersson, L.-G. & P. Trudgill (1992) Bad Language. London: Penguin.
Androutsopoulos, J. & A. Georgakopoulou (eds.) (2003) Discourse Constructions of Youth Identities. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.
Beyer, K. (2015) Youth languages in Africa: achievements and challenges. In Nassenstein, N. & A. Hollington (eds.) Youth Languages in Africa and Beyond. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Blench, R. (2012) Nigerian rural youth language Tarok. Paper presented at the Youth languages and urban languages in Africa Workshop, University of Cologne, 31 May – 1 June.
Brischke, E. (2009) Mista, wana aza gangi! Soziolinguistik des Jugendsprachenphänomens Indoubil. University of Cologne MA thesis.
Brown, P. & S. C. Levinson (1987) Politeness. Some Universals in Language Use. Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics 4. Cambridge: CUP.
Büscher, K., S. D’hondt & M. Meeuwis (2013) Recruiting a nonlocal language for performing local identity: Indexical appropriations of Lingala in the Congolese border town Goma, Language in Society 42(5): 527–556.
Cornips, L. & V. de Rooij (2013) Selfing and othering through categories of race, place, and language among minority youths in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. In Siemund, P., I. Gogolin, M.E. Schulz & J. Davydova (eds.) Multilingualism and Language Diversity in Urban Areas: Acquisition, Identities, Space, Education 129–164. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.
Crowley, T. (2000) The Language Situation in Vanuatu, Current Issues in Language Planning 1,(1): 47–132.
Cruse, A. (2000) Meaning in Language. An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dumestre, G. (1985) L’argot Bambara: une première approche, Mandenkan 10: 49–61.
Eckert, P. (2000) Linguistic Variation as Social Practice. Oxford: Blackwell.
Eckert, P. (2012) Three waves of variation study: The emergence of meaning in the study of variation, Annual Review of Anthropology 41: 87–100.
Ferrari, A. (2009) Emergence de langues urbaines en Afrique: Le cas du Sheng, langue mixte parlée à Nairobi. Louvain: Peeters.
Goyvaerts, D. L. (1997) Power, ethnicity, and the remarkable rise of Lingala in Bukavu, eastern Zaire, International Journal of the Sociology of Language 128: 25–43.
Gumperz, J. (1972)/(1986) Introduction. In John Gumperz and Dell Hymes (eds.) Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication 1-25. London: Blackwell.
Hollington, A. (2015) Yarada K’wank’wa and urban youth identity in Addis Ababa. In Nassenstein, N. & A. Hollington (eds.) Youth Languages in Africa and Beyond. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Hollington, A. & N. Nassenstein (2015) Youth language practices in Africa as creative manifestations of fluid repertoires and markers of speakers’ social identity. In Nassenstein, N. & A. Hollington (eds.) Youth Languages in Africa and Beyond. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Hurst, E. (2008) Style, structure and function in Cape Town Tsotsitaal. Cape Town: University of Cape Town dissertation.
Hurst, E. (2015) Overview of the Tsotsitaals of South Africa; their different base languages and common core lexical items. In Nassenstein, N. & A. Hollington (eds.) Youth Languages in Africa and Beyond. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Irvine, J. T. & S. Gal (2000) Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In P. Kroskrity (ed.) Regimes of language: Ideologies, Polities and Identities 35–84. Santa Fe, NM/Oxford: School of American Research Press.
Kießling, R. & M. Mous (2004) Urban youth languages in Africa, Anthropological Linguistics 46, 3: 303-341.
Labov, W. (1966) The Social Stratification of English in New York City. Washington, DC: Cent. Appl. Ling.
Landi, G. & H. Pasch (2015) Sango Godobé: the urban youth language of Bangui (CAR). In Nassenstein, N. & A. Hollington (eds.) Youth Languages in Africa and Beyond. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Lave, J. & E. Wenger (1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lüpke, F. & A. Storch (2013) Repertoires and Choices in African Languages. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Matras, Y. (2009) Language Contact. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mazrui, A.M. (1995) Slang and codeswitching: the case of Sheng in Kenya, AAP 42: 168–179.
Mendoza-Denton, N. (2008) Homegirls. Language and Cultural Practice among Latina Youth Gangs. Oxford: Blackwell.
Milroy, L. (1980) Language and Social Networks. Oxford: Blackwell.
Mugaddam, A. H. (2015) Identity construction and linguistic manipulation in Randuk. In Nassenstein, N. & A. Hollington (eds.) Youth Languages in Africa and Beyond. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Mulumbwa, G. (2009) Étude sociolinguistique du Kindubile, argot Swahili des enfants de la Rue de Lubumbashi. Brussels: Faculté de philosophie et lettres, Université Libre de Bruxelles dissertation.
Nassenstein, N. (2011) The Lingala-based Youth Language Yanké. Cologne: Institute for African Studies, University of Cologne MA thesis.
Nassenstein, N. (2014) Pragmatic change and new linguistic taboo strategies in a conflict zone: the case of Kinyabwisha and Rutshuru Swahili (DR Congo). Paper presented at AMPRA2, UCLA (Los Angeles/USA) 17–19 October 2014.
Nassenstein, N. (2015) Imvugo y’Umuhanda – youth language practices in Kigali (Rwanda). In Nassenstein, N. & A. Hollington (eds.) Youth Languages in Africa and Beyond. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Nassenstein, N. (forthcoming (a)) Kirundi Slang – Youth identity and linguistic manipulations. In Ebongue, A. E. & E. Hurst (eds.) African Sociolinguistics/The Study of Linguistic Behaviour as Determined by Socio-Cultural Factors in Africa: Appraisal, Issues at Stake and Perspective.
Nassenstein, N. (forthcoming (b)) A Grammar of Rufumbira.
Nassenstein, N. & A. Hollington (eds.) (2015) Youth Languages in Africa and Beyond. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Nortier, J. & B. A. Svendsen (eds.) (2015) Language, Youth and Identity in the 21st Century. Linguistic Practices across Urban Spaces. Cambridge: CUP.
Prunier, G. (2009) From Genocide to Continental War. Hurst: London.
Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. (1940) On joking relationships, Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 13, 3: 195–210.
Rampton, B. (2001) Language crossing, cross-talk, and cross-disciplinarity in sociolinguistics. In Coupland, N., S. Sarangi & C. Candlin (eds.) Sociolinguistics and Social Theory. London: Longman. 261–296.
Rampton, B. (2010) Language crossing and the problematisation of ethnicity and socialization, Pragmatics 5(4):485–513.
Reuster-Jahn, U. & R. Kießling (2006) Lugha ya Mitaani in Tanzania. The Poetics and Sociology of a Young Urban Style of Speaking with a Dictionary Comprising 1100 Words and Phrases. Swahili Forum 13:1–200.
Ross, M. (1996) Contact induced change and the comparative method: cases from Papua New Guinea. In Durie, M. & M. Ross (eds.) The Comparative Method Reviewed: Regularity and Irregularity in Language Change 180–217. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rudd, P. W. (2008) Sheng: The mixed language of Nairobi. Muncie, In.: Ball State University dissertation.
Sesep, N. B. (1990) Langage, normes et repertoire en milieu urbain africain: L’indoubill. Quebec: Centre International de Recherche en Aménagement Linguistique.
Stenström, A. (1995) Taboos in teenage talk. In Melchers, G. & B. Warren (eds.) Studies in Anglistics 71–80. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International.
Stenström, A. & A. M. Jørgensen (eds.) (2009) Youngspeak in a Multilingual Perspective. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.
Stenström, A. (2014) Teenage Talk: From General Characteristics to the Use of Pragmatic Markers in a Contrastive Perspective. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Sure, K. (1992) The coming of Sheng, English Today 32: 26–28.
Vogel, Christoph (2012) Operational Stalemate or Politically Induced Failure? Münster: Tectum.
Wilson, C. (2012) The Congolese Yankee. Leiden: Leiden University MA Thesis.
Wright, S. (ed.). (1998) Language and Conflict: A Neglected Relationship. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd.
Yahya-Othman, S. (1994) Covering One's Social Back: Politeness Among the Swahili. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter
ELECTRONIC REFERENCES
Blommaert, J. & A. Backus (2011) Repertoires revisited: ‘Knowing language’ in superdiversity, Working Papers in Urban Language & Literacies 67. Retrieved on 15 January 2015 from [http://www.kcl.ac.uk/ldc].
Facebook (2015) Tu sais que t’es Z quand… Retrieved on 15 January 2015 from [https://www.facebook.com/groups/36770984797/].