Abstract:As is the case with the other countries that linguists have discussed under the
name East Africa, i.e. Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda, English came
to the area that makes up Uganda today relatively late. This chapter traces the
history of English in the country. It describes where speakers of English initially
came from and who the users of English have been until today to provide a
basis for a full appreciation of the sociolinguistics of present-day Uganda and
of the differences from its East African nei… Show more
“…Interaction is also a crucial factor in Schneider's (2007) Dynamic Model, which proposes that post‐colonial Englishes result from interaction between a settler strand and an indigenous strand and evolve through contact between the two. As Meierkord (2016) explains, however, Uganda was not home to a settler strand, due to it being a protectorate rather than a colony. Buschfeld and Kautsch (2017) explain that: English was ‘transplanted’ to non‐postcolonial regions in a completely different way than to postcolonial territories, to which it was brought by a group of settlers and was thus truly transplanted.…”
Section: Epicentre Theory and Competing Models Of Cross‐variety Influ...mentioning
This paper presents the overall results of a research project that investigated factors determining how speakers of Ugandan English express futurity, ability and obligation. Findings reveal that forms identified to convey these meanings in American, Indian, Kenyan or Nigerian English, and whose use would reveal influence from these, are seldom used.
Rather, persisting exonormative orientation towards BritishEnglish and first-language influence seem to determine how many forms are tolerated and which ones are preferred. This challenges epicentre theory, according to which an endonormatively stable variety influences varieties in neighbouring countries, as well as models that assume that varieties with a high impact in terms of the demographic and economic weight of their speakers influence those with a lower impact, whilst findings furthermore indicate that regular long-term exposure to another variety results in accommodation, making this a factor that needs to be better accounted for.
INTRODUCTIONSo far, epicentre theory has had a noticeable focus on the varieties spoken in the Pacific/Oceania as well as on the Indian subcontinent. In these two contexts, such centres can be defined on historical grounds, as Australia and what today is India were placed under British dominance earlier than their neighbouring countries. However, discussions assessing the concept for the African continent and for non-postcolonial countries are non-existent to date. This
“…Interaction is also a crucial factor in Schneider's (2007) Dynamic Model, which proposes that post‐colonial Englishes result from interaction between a settler strand and an indigenous strand and evolve through contact between the two. As Meierkord (2016) explains, however, Uganda was not home to a settler strand, due to it being a protectorate rather than a colony. Buschfeld and Kautsch (2017) explain that: English was ‘transplanted’ to non‐postcolonial regions in a completely different way than to postcolonial territories, to which it was brought by a group of settlers and was thus truly transplanted.…”
Section: Epicentre Theory and Competing Models Of Cross‐variety Influ...mentioning
This paper presents the overall results of a research project that investigated factors determining how speakers of Ugandan English express futurity, ability and obligation. Findings reveal that forms identified to convey these meanings in American, Indian, Kenyan or Nigerian English, and whose use would reveal influence from these, are seldom used.
Rather, persisting exonormative orientation towards BritishEnglish and first-language influence seem to determine how many forms are tolerated and which ones are preferred. This challenges epicentre theory, according to which an endonormatively stable variety influences varieties in neighbouring countries, as well as models that assume that varieties with a high impact in terms of the demographic and economic weight of their speakers influence those with a lower impact, whilst findings furthermore indicate that regular long-term exposure to another variety results in accommodation, making this a factor that needs to be better accounted for.
INTRODUCTIONSo far, epicentre theory has had a noticeable focus on the varieties spoken in the Pacific/Oceania as well as on the Indian subcontinent. In these two contexts, such centres can be defined on historical grounds, as Australia and what today is India were placed under British dominance earlier than their neighbouring countries. However, discussions assessing the concept for the African continent and for non-postcolonial countries are non-existent to date. This
“…Also generally, the European population during the times of the protectorate remained low, amounting to only 2,282 at the end of 1938. It was outnumbered by Asian immigrants who arrived initially on indentured labor contracts and later voluntarily, from 1896 onwards (see Meierkord 2016;Rathore-Nigsch and Schreier 2016).…”
“…Schröder and Schneider 2018), which have a comparatively high level of L1 English informal expressions as opposed to Ugandan English, because of the settler population effects. That is, since Uganda was not a settler colony, there were very few L1 English settler communities to facilitate the acquisition of English in informal settings (Meierkord 2016c).…”
Section: Responsementioning
confidence: 99%
“…Ugandan English is an L2 variety of English spoken in a former British protectorate, where there was no British settler community in the sense of Schneider (2003Schneider ( , 2007. This means that, during the protectorate time, Ugandans were not fully exposed to informal British English (Meierkord 2016c). Ugandans have, thus, mainly acquired English in formal settings in schools and universities.…”
This study examines politeness strategies and specific expressions employed by Ugandans when making requests and responding to thanks, against the backdrop that contact phenomena, as one of the key factors that characterize L2 varieties such as Ugandan English, make it virtually inevitable to have peculiarities in this respect. Specifically, in relation to the illocutionary acts of request, Ugandan English relies more on direct strategies (due to substrate influence), with various idiosyncratic mitigating devices such as the use of the past progressive with performative verbs, the use of the lexical mitigator first with imperatives, and the use of verbs with inherent supplicatory semantics in the imperative mood. As regards responses to thanks, while there is a clear preference for exonormative standards, formulae arising from substrate influence are visibly present, while several of the formulae used in L1 English (e.g. Standard British English) are not used in Ugandan English.
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