Speech Acts and Speech Events in African Languages

Edited by: Gabriele Sommer, Clarissa Vierke. With contributions by: Maud Devos, Anne-Maria Fehn, Luanga A. Kasanga, Roland Kießling, Britta Neumann, Doreen Schröter, Gabriele Sommer, Daniël Van Olmen, Clarissa Vierke.

Series: TIAS Topics in Interdisciplinary African Studies Volume 23

2011
170 pp.
1 coloured map, 20 coloured photos, numerous tables and charts
Text language(s): English
Format: 160 x 240 mm
380 g
Paperback
€ 39.80

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Originally, research into speech acts and their theoretical frame­work(s) was mainly developed in the context of the English language, while suggesting universal application of certain parameters across the world’s languages. In the meantime, this universality has been called into doubt by research findings based on empirical work being carried out in speech communities all over the world.

As a consequence, in­tercultural pragmatics has become an important field, showing, among other things, the cultural relativity of concepts such as speech act framing, social distance and balance, directness / indirectness and po­liteness / face. However, African languages and cultures are still an under-researched area in this respect. Therefore, this proceedings volume aims at exploring in more detail how speech acts and speech events are embedded in different socio-cultural contexts in Africa, and how how they are linguistically encoded in various African languages.

 

CONTENTS

Gabriele Sommer / Clarissa Vierke: Speech Acts and Speech Events in African Languages

Luanga A. Kasanga: Face, politeness, and speech acts – Reflecting on inter-cultural interaction in African languages and varieties of English

Daniël Van Olmen / Maud Devos: An Explanation of the Prohibitive in Hunde, Havu and Shi?

Roland Kießling / Britta Neumann / Doreen Schröter: “O owner of the compound, those things you are saying – it is the talk of vagueness!” – Requesting, Complaining and Apologising in two Languages of the Cameroonian Grassfields

Anne-Marie Fehn: Some Notes on Traditional Ts’ixa Gesture Inventories

Under these links you will find further studies of linguistic pragmatics in African languages, as well as publications of the contributors:

Accompanying material:

• African Sociolinguistic and Sociocultural Studies (ISBN 978-3-89645-721-9)
• Bridging the Language Gap (ISBN 978-3-89645-890-2)
• Conversational Strategies in Akan (ISBN 978-3-89645-262-7)
• Gesprächsstrategien im Swahili (ISBN 978-3-927620-41-4)
• Language and Development (ISBN 978-3-89645-720-2)
• Topics in West African Discourse-Pragmatics (ISBN 978-3-89645-856-8)

Cross-reference:

• Ethnographie des Sprachwechsels (ISBN 978-3-927620-25-4)
• Muhamadi Kijuma (ISBN 978-3-89645-174-3)
• Sprachhistorische Rekonstruktionen zu den Ursprüngen von Getreidenutzung und Gartenbau in Nordostafrika (ISBN 978-3-89645-097-5)
• Verbal Serialisation in Isu (West Ring) (ISBN 978-3-89645-555-0)

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