Leketi Makalela & Goodith White (eds.), Rethinking language use in digital Africa: Technology and communication in sub-Saharan Africa. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 2021. Pp. 216. Pb. £30.

Abstract

number of details provided and the size of the region (i.e. national, regional, local). Yet, some meaningful results were still discovered and are summarized below. Nationally, the most prominent distinction observed was the division between the people in the north (e.g. Yankees, talk fast) and those in the south (e.g. country, slow), even if some other regions were also occasionally commented upon (e.g. Californians as ‘surfer dudes’). Then, the focus is set on the American South, a heavily labelled region, even by southerners themselves and repeatedly associated with negative stereotyping (e.g. hicks, hillbillies). However, to dissociate themselves from the stigmatized southern stereotypes often popularized by the media (rural, twang), while at the same time being able to maintain their southern identity, participants often resorted to the conceptualization ‘us vs. them’, designed to establish that ‘we are southern but not THAT type of southern’. An example of this can be seen in how Kentuckians from Louisville placed the negative southern stereotypes in the Appalachian region (e.g. redneck). Finally, it should be mentioned that the application of the status vs. solidarity dichotomy (i.e. ‘friendly but stupid’) was also highly extended, and southerners frequently labelled other southerners as good people but not ones with whom they strongly self-identified. Noteworthy, the authors have themselves experienced the application of this conceptualization in the Southern university setting in which professors were sometimes perceived as less qualified if they make use of expressions such as ‘y’all’, and students from Eastern Kentucky were known to be teased because of their accents. In sum, this book intends to elucidate the different perceptions that people have of other linguistic varieties to provide the knowledge which will then give users the power to make informed decisions when they encounter linguistic diversity in their everyday lives.