{"title":"从社会学角度看洋泾浜语对西非发展的可行性和有用性","authors":"V. Time, Daniel K. Pryce","doi":"10.4314/contjas.v8i2.1","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This essay examines the viability and usefulness of pidgin for development in West Africa. Pidgin in West Africa has endured as a unifying medium of communication among people who do not share a common language. It has been lauded as a neutral language that facilitates trade, commerce, and everyday dealings among people of all walks of life. Some have proposed supplanting English, which is the official language in most of the West African countries where the use of pidgin is prevalent, with either pidgin or some other indigenous language. Contrarians, however, consider pidgin to be a limiting factor, in that, it is a barrier to speaking, reading, and writing standard English, and thus impedes upward mobility. They argue that projecting pidgin or some other indigenous language may create some political backlash, and strife among the people. Using qualitative analysis, we examine this debate from a sociological perspective.","PeriodicalId":51744,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary African Studies","volume":"204 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8000,"publicationDate":"2021-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"A Sociological Perspective on Pidgin's Viability and Usefulness for Development in West Africa\",\"authors\":\"V. Time, Daniel K. Pryce\",\"doi\":\"10.4314/contjas.v8i2.1\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"This essay examines the viability and usefulness of pidgin for development in West Africa. Pidgin in West Africa has endured as a unifying medium of communication among people who do not share a common language. It has been lauded as a neutral language that facilitates trade, commerce, and everyday dealings among people of all walks of life. Some have proposed supplanting English, which is the official language in most of the West African countries where the use of pidgin is prevalent, with either pidgin or some other indigenous language. Contrarians, however, consider pidgin to be a limiting factor, in that, it is a barrier to speaking, reading, and writing standard English, and thus impedes upward mobility. They argue that projecting pidgin or some other indigenous language may create some political backlash, and strife among the people. Using qualitative analysis, we examine this debate from a sociological perspective.\",\"PeriodicalId\":51744,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Journal of Contemporary African Studies\",\"volume\":\"204 1\",\"pages\":\"\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.8000,\"publicationDate\":\"2021-12-31\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"1\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Journal of Contemporary African Studies\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.4314/contjas.v8i2.1\",\"RegionNum\":0,\"RegionCategory\":null,\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q2\",\"JCRName\":\"AREA STUDIES\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Contemporary African Studies","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.4314/contjas.v8i2.1","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"AREA STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
A Sociological Perspective on Pidgin's Viability and Usefulness for Development in West Africa
This essay examines the viability and usefulness of pidgin for development in West Africa. Pidgin in West Africa has endured as a unifying medium of communication among people who do not share a common language. It has been lauded as a neutral language that facilitates trade, commerce, and everyday dealings among people of all walks of life. Some have proposed supplanting English, which is the official language in most of the West African countries where the use of pidgin is prevalent, with either pidgin or some other indigenous language. Contrarians, however, consider pidgin to be a limiting factor, in that, it is a barrier to speaking, reading, and writing standard English, and thus impedes upward mobility. They argue that projecting pidgin or some other indigenous language may create some political backlash, and strife among the people. Using qualitative analysis, we examine this debate from a sociological perspective.
期刊介绍:
Journal of Contemporary African Studies (JCAS) is an interdisciplinary journal seeking to promote an African-centred scholarly understanding of societies on the continent and their location within the global political economy. Its scope extends across a wide range of social science and humanities disciplines with topics covered including, but not limited to, culture, development, education, environmental questions, gender, government, labour, land, leadership, political economy politics, social movements, sociology of knowledge and welfare. JCAS welcomes contributions reviewing general trends in the academic literature with a specific focus on debates and developments in Africa as part of a broader aim of contributing towards the development of viable communities of African scholarship. The journal publishes original research articles, book reviews, notes from the field, debates, research reports and occasional review essays. It also publishes special issues and welcomes proposals for new topics. JCAS is published four times a year, in January, April, July and October.