Language, Names, and War: The Case of Angola

Abstract

Abstract:This article shows the links between naming practices and war. The focus is on MPLA war names used during the Angolan struggle for independence. These names are framed in the wider context of the relations between language and war. In many African contexts, names are not singular and fixed, but may change with every personal transformation. Entering the life of a soldier constitutes just such a drastic change. The article shows that through war names, a kaleidoscope of issues may be addressed, including the relations between language, rank, and power, personal history and popular culture, spirit possession and resurrection, self-description and labeling, writing and legitimacy, and secrecy and identity.

The Influence of Multilingualism, Christianity and Education in the Formation of Bakalanga Identity

“…The study supports Brinkman's (2004) contention that in "many African contexts, names are not singular and fixed but may change with every personal transformation." Brinkman rightly points out that many onomastic studies do not allow for name changes and they have a static and fixed conception of names.…”

“…Though some scholars see English names as a reflection of colonization, Brinkman (2004) argues that "rather than a sign of European imperialism and colonization, these names also reflected people's ability to adapt to a new context and their pride in having an open attitude towards novelty and change." Brinkman agues that this cannot be interpreted as a sign of their colonized consciousness but rather as an indication of a flexibility of linguistic categories.…”

“…Brinkman (2004) states that in many Angolan cultures people would change their name after every significant turn in their life. For example after initiation, boys and girls would change their names to mark their passage to adulthood.…”

Pseudonyms as carriers of contextualised threat in 19th-century Irish English threatening notices

“…However, none of these studies provided an in-depth analysis of the role pseudonyms play in cognitively framing and culturally conceptualising a threat, leaving unexplored the range of semiotic choices that threateners make when constructing a culturally and socially contextualised persona in order to create the greatest possible threat (cf. Brinkman 2004;Newell 2010).…”

“…Since pseudonyms are argued to be constructed within a cultural naming system (e.g. Brinkman 2004;Livia 2004), the present analysis is conducted from a cultural linguistic and cognitive sociolinguistic perspective with a focus on sociocultural contextualisation of language use (e.g. Polzenhagen 2009, 2017;Sharifian 2015;Peters 2017).…”