Attitudes Towards Cameroon English : A Sociolinguistic Survey

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Anchimbe, Eric A.:
Attitudes Towards Cameroon English : A Sociolinguistic Survey.
In: Anchimbe, Eric A. (Hrsg.): Structural and Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Indigenisation : On Multilingualism and Language Evolution. - Dordrecht : Springer , 2014 . - S. 121-143
ISBN 978-94-007-7881-8
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7881-8_7

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Abstract

The issue of attitudes towards indigenised varieties of English (IVEs), also called New Englishes, Postcolonial Englishes, within their respective contexts gives interesting insights into the acceptability and stability of these Englishes. Speakers usually identify with their varieties of English only if their and their fellow speakers’ social attitudes towards them are positive. This chapter uses statistical data from a survey conducted in 2003 to establish to what extent Cameroonians accept and identify with Cameroon English. Even though most of them accept the variety exists, they are reluctant to overtly agree they speak it. They rather prefer to say they speak British English, hence refurbishing the historical link of colonialism or creating for themselves a sense of modernity or internationality. In spite of this, they are often fast in rejecting or stigmatising, through an attitudinal filtration process (Anchimbe 2006a), those ways of speaking that they consider grotesque, foreign, and idiosyncratic. This pushes those speakers who may be interested in imitating foreign accents to adhere to local speech forms, i.e. Cameroon English accent. This contradiction in attitudes and linguistic identity is inherent in most postcolonial communities and is not limited to language.