Speech acts in Ugandan English social letters
Investigating the influence of sociocultural context
This chapter investigates speech acts in Ugandan English social letters to
uncover how English is being adapted to meet the cultural conventions of its
Ugandan users. To this end, directive speech acts, particularly requests, will be
analysed and compared to other second language varieties of English, using a
combination of Postcolonial Pragmatics theory and Contrastive Pragmatics and
corpus linguistic methods to discuss both socio-pragmatic as well as pragmalinguistic
aspects.
References (72)
References
Adegbija, E.E. 1989. A comparative study of politeness phenomena in Nigerian English, Yoruba and Ogori. Multilingua 8(1): 57–80.
Akinnaso, N.F. 1980. The sociolinguistic basis of Yoruba personal names. Anthropological Linguistics 22(7): 275–304.
Anchimbe, E.A. 2008. ‘Come greet Uncle Eric’ – Politeness through kinship terms. In De la Politesse Linguistique au Cameroun / Linguistic Politeness in Cameroon, B. Mulo Farenkia (ed), 109–120. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
Anchimbe, E.A. & Janney, R.W. 2011. Postcolonial pragmatics: An introduction. Journal of Pragmatics 43(6): 1451–1459.
Apter, D.E. 1997. The Political Kingdom in Uganda: A Study of Bureaucratic Nationalism. Abingdon: Routledge.
Atanga, L., Ellecce, S., Litosseliti, L. & Sunderland, J. 2013. Gender and language in sub-Saharan Africa: A valid epistemology? In Gender and Language in sub-Saharan Africa: Tradition, Struggle and Change [Impact: Studies in Language and Society 33], L. Atanga, S. Ellece, L. Litoselliti & J. Sunderland (eds), 1–28. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Bamgbose, A. 1994. Politeness across cultures: Implications for second language teaching. In Educational Linguistics, Crosscultural Communication and Global Interdependence. Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1994, J.E. Alatis (ed.), 117–127. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.
Beattie, J. 1972. The Nyoro of Western Uganda. In Cultural Source Materials for Population Planning in East Africa, 3, A. Molnos (ed.), 192–193. Nairobi: East Africa Publishing House.
Bergs, A. 2005. Social Networks and Historical Sociolinguistics. Studies in Morphosyntactic Variation in the Paston Letters (1421–1503). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Biber, D. 1988. Variation Across Speech and Writing. Cambridge: CUP.
Blum-Kulka, S. 1987. Indirectness and politeness in requests: Same or different. Journal of Pragmatics 11: 145–160.
Blum-Kulka, S., House, J. & Kasper, G. (eds). 1989. Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Norwood NJ: Ablex.
Brown, P. & Levinson, S. 1978. Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena. In Questions and Politeness, E.N. Goody (ed), 56–311. Cambridge: CUP.
Brown, P. & Levinson, S. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: CUP.
Chick, J.K. 1985. The interactional accomplishment of discrimination in South Africa. Language in Society 14(3): 299–326.
Chick, J.K. 1986. Interactional perspectives on communicative needs of Zulu work seekers. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 7(6): 479–491.
Chick, J.K. 1991. Sources and consequences of miscommunication in Afrikaans English – South African English encounters. In English Around the World, J. Cheshire (ed), 446–461. Cambridge: CUP.
Chick, J.K. 1995. Interactional sociolinguistics and intercultural communication in South Africa. In Language and Social History. Studies in South African Sociolinguistics, R. Mesthrie (ed.), 230–241. Cape Town: David Philip.
de Kadt, E. 1992. Requests as speech acts in Zulu. South African Journal of African Languages/Suid Afrikaanse Tydskrif vir Afrikatale 12(3): 101–106.
de Kadt, E. 1994. Towards a model for the study of politeness in Zulu. South African Journal of African Languages/Suid Afrikaanse Tydskrif vir Afrikatale 14(3): 103–112.
de Kadt, E. 1995. The cross-cultural study of directives: Zulu as a non-typical language. South African Journal of Linguistics/Suid-Afrikaanse Tydskrif vir Taalkunde Supplement 27: 45–72.
de Kadt, E. 1998a. Keeping the kitchen clean: Towards an analysis of English medium interactions between black people and white people in post-apartheid South Africa. Multilingua 17(2–3): 249–276.
de Kadt, E. 1998b. The concept of face and its applicability to the Zulu language. Journal of Pragmatics 29: 173–191.
D’Souza, J. 1991. Speech acts in Indian English fiction. World Englishes 10(3): 307–316.
Goffman, E. 1967. On face-work. An analysis of ritual elements in social interaction. In Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior, E. Goffman (ed.), 5–45. Harmondsworth: Penguin. (originally in Psychiatry: Journal for the Study of Interpersonal Processes 18(3): 213–231.)
Gough, D.H. 1995. Some problems for politeness theory: Deference and directness in Xhosa performative requests. South African Journal of African Languages / Suid Afrikaanse Tydskrif vir Afrikatala 15(3): 123–125.
Graitinger, K. 2011. Indirectness in Zimbabwean English: A study of intercultural communication in the UK. In Politeness Across Cultures, F. Bargiela-Chiappini & D.Z. Kádár (eds), 171–193. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
Greenbaum, S. 1988. A proposal for an International Corpus of English. World Englishes 7: 315.
Gu, Y. 1990. Politeness phenomena in modern Chinese. Journal of Pragmatics 14(2): 237–257.
Habwe, J.H. 2010. Politeness phenomena: A case of Kiswahili honorifics. Swahili Forum 17: 126–142.
Hampel, E. 2015. “Mama Zimbi, pls help me!” – Gender differences in (im)politeness in Ghanaian English advice-giving on Facebook. Journal of Politeness Research 11(1): 99–130.
Huddson-Ettle, D.M. & Schmied, J. 1999. Manual to accompany The East African Component of The International Corpus of English (ICE-EA). Background information, coding conventions and lists of source texts. Chemnitz: Chemnitz University of Technology, Department of English. <[URL]> (18 March 2016).
Ide, S. 1989. Formal forms and discernment: Two neglected aspects of universals of linguistic politeness. Multilingua 8 (2/3): 223–248.
Ide, S. 1992. The concept of politeness. In Politeness in Language: Studies in its History, Theory and Practice, R. Watts, S. Ide & K. Ehlich (eds), 281–297. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Kachru, Y. 1991. Speech acts in world Englishes: Toward a framework for research. World Englishes 10(3): 299–306.
Kachru, Y. 1992. Speech acts in the other tongue: An integrated approach to cross-cultural research. World Englishes 11(2/3): 235–242.
Kachru, Y. 2003. Conventions of politeness in plural societies. In Anglophone Cultures in Southeast Asia, R. Ahrens, D. Parker, K. Stierstorfer & K.-K. Tam (eds), 39–53. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter.
Kallen, J.L. & Kirk, J.M. 2012. SPICE-Ireland. A User’s Guide. Documentation to Accompany the SPICE-Ireland Corpus: Systems of Pragmatic Annotation in ICE-Ireland. Belfast: Queen’s University Belfast.
Kasanga, L.A. 2001. Intercultural sociolinguistics and communication research in South Africa: Its relevance to academic settings and the service industry. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 19(3–4): 253–273.
Kasanga, L.A. 2006. Requests in a South African variety of English. World Englishes 25(1): 65–89.
Kasanga, L.A. & Lwanga-Lumu, J.-Ch. 2007. Cross-cultural linguistic realization of politeness: A study of apologies in English in Setswana. Journal of Politeness Research 3: 65–92.
Labov, W. 1972. Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Leech, G. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.
Levinson, S. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: CUP.
Lwanga-Lumu, J.-C. 1999a. Politeness and indirectness revisited. South African Journal of African Languages 19(2): 83–92.
Lwanga-Lumu, J.-C. 1999b. Cross-cultural contrastive analysis of request directness levels. Southern African Journal of Applied Language Studies 7(1): 88–106.
Lwanga-Lumu, J.-C. 2000. Requests and Apologies in Luganda and English. PhD dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
Lwanga-Lumu, J.-C. 2002. Internal request modification by first and second language speakers. Journal for Languge Teaching / Tydskrif vir Taalonderring 36(3–4): 289–204.
Lwanga-Lumu, J.-C. 2005. A cross-cultural investigation of apology realisation patterns in Luganda and English. Journal for Language Teaching / Tydskrif vir Taalonderring 39(2): 227–242.
Makalela, L. 2013. Black South African English on the radio. World Englishes 32(1): 93–107.
Makoni, S. 2015. Introduction: Politeness in Africa. Journal of Politeness Research 11(1): 1–5.
McCarthy, M. 2001. Issues in Applied Linguistics. Oxford: OUP.
Mesthrie, R. & Bhatt, R.M. 2008. World Englishes. The Study of New Linguistic Varieties. Cambridge: CUP.
Nelson, G. 1996. Markup systems. In Comparing English Worldwide. The International Corpus of English, S. Greenbaum (ed.), 36–53. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Nwoye, O.G. 1992. Linguistic politeness and socio-cultural variations of the notion of face. Journal of Pragmatics 18(4): 309–328.
Obeng, S. 1999. Requests in Akan discourse. Anthropological Linguistics 41(2): 230–251.
O’Driscoll, J. 2007. Brown & Levinson’s face: How it can – and can’t – help us to understand interaction across cultures. Intercultural Pragmatics 4(4): 463–492.
Oliver, R. 1957. Sir Harry Johnston. London: Chatto & Windus.
Ruiz de Zarobe, L. & Ruiz de Zarobe, Y. (eds). 2012. Speech Acts and Politeness across Languages and Cultures. Bern: Peter Lang.
Schmied, J. 2004. East African English (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania): Morphology and syntax. In A Handbook of Varieties of English, Vol 2: Morphology and Syntax, B. Kortmann, E.W. Schneider, K. Burridge, R. Mesthrie & C. Upton (eds), 929–947. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Searle, J. 1976. A classification of illocutionary acts. Language in Society 5: 1–23.
Sifianou, M. 2011. On the concept of face and politeness. In Politeness Across Cultures, F. Bargiela-Chiappini & D.Z. Kádár (eds), 42–58. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Spencer-Oatey, H. (ed). 2008. Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, 2nd edn. London: Continuum.
Sridhar, K.K. 1991. Speech acts in an indigenized variety: Sociocultural values and language variation. In English Around the World, J. Cheshire (ed.), 308–318. Cambridge: CUP.
Tannen, D. 1980. Spoken/written language and the oral/literate continuum.
Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society
1980: 207–218.
Tieken-Boon van Ostade, I. 2000. Social networks and the observer’s paradox. In The History of English in its Social Context, D. Kastovsky & A. Mettinger (eds), 441–461. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Tinkham, T. 1993. Sociocultural variation in Indian English speech acts. World Englishes 12(2): 239–247.
Wierzbicka, A. 1985. Different cultures, different languages, different speech acts: Polish vs. English. Journal of Pragmatics 9: 145–178.
Cited by (2)
Cited by two other publications
Isingoma, Bebwa & Christiane Meierkord
2022.
Between exonormative traditions and local acceptance: A corpus-linguistic study of modals of obligation and spatial prepositions in spoken Ugandan English.
Open Linguistics 8:1
► pp. 87 ff.
Meierkord, Christiane & Bebwa Isingoma
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 25 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.