Ugandan English
Its sociolinguistics, structure and uses in a globalising post-protectorate
Editors
Ugandan English is a variety that has scarcely been noticed in past research. This timely volume brings together African and European scholars in a first-ever collection of articles that offer comprehensive discussions of the historical and present-day sociolinguistics of English in Uganda and fine-grained analyses of the structural characteristics of and attitudes to this hitherto largely unknown variety. Using rich archive, corpus, and interview data as well as ethnographic and observational methods, the various contributions paint a comprehensive picture of Ugandan English as distinct from other East African Englishes and as characterized by nativisation despite a still strong exonormative orientation, reflecting the modern nation’s status as a post-protectorate under the influence of globalisation. Apart from advancing our understanding of Ugandan English itself, the individual chapters contribute to theoretical debates on language contact and variation as regards the influence of substrate languages, founder populations, language ideologies and socio-economic factors.
[Varieties of English Around the World, G59] 2016. vi, 280 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
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Ugandan English - challenges to, and food for, current theoriesBebwa Isingoma and Christiane Meierkord | pp. 1–16
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Part I - The context
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Towards assessing the space of English in Uganda’s linguistic ecology: Facts and issuesSaudah Namyalo, Bebwa Isingoma and Christiane Meierkord | pp. 19–50
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A social history of English(es) in UgandaChristiane Meierkord | pp. 51–72
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Part II - Functions of English in multilingual Uganda today
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The sociolinguistic situation of English in Uganda: A case of language attitudes and beliefsJudith Nakayiza | pp. 75–94
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Tensions between English medium and mother tongue education in rural Ugandan primary schools: An ethnographic investigationMedadi Ssentanda | pp. 95–118
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Part III - Features of Ugandan English
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Diphthongs in Ugandan English: Evidence for and against variety status and Interactions across EnglishesChristiane Meierkord | pp. 121–148
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Lexical borrowings and calques in Ugandan EnglishBebwa Isingoma | pp. 149–172
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The use of the progressive in Ugandan EnglishJude Ssempuuma, Bebwa Isingoma and Christiane Meierkord | pp. 173–200
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The use of ditransitive constructions in Ugandan EnglishBebwa Isingoma | pp. 201–226
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Speech acts in Ugandan English social letters: Investigating the influence of sociocultural contextChristiane Meierkord | pp. 227–248
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Part IV - Ugandan English and beyond
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Indian English in Uganda: The historical sociolinguistics of a migrant communityClaudia Rathore-Nigsch and Daniel Schreier | pp. 251–274
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Index | pp. 275–280
“On a completely different note, as a speaker of an indigenised variety of English myself, this volume offers a glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel in relation to their standardisation and acceptance in international academic and scholarly circles. By not editing out (using the almighty native speaker standards) some of the acrolectal UgE stylistic features of some of the contributions in this volume, the editors have given a "voice to UgE not only through describing it, but also by using it" (p. 12). This is highly commendable and moves the World Englishes paradigm miles ahead.”
Eric. A. Anchimbe, University of Bayreuth, in English World-Wide 39:1, pag. 117-121
“The volume by Meierkord, Isingoma and Namyalo is an essential publication and an important step in the sociolinguistic analysis of East African varieties of English. It brings together a number of dedicated researchers who, on the basis of empirical evidence, approach UgE from various quantitative and qualitative perspectives. While not eliding the usual limitations that any first attempt at mapping a variety of English in just a single volume naturally faces, the publication's many accomplishments enable multiple future strands of research on UgE, placing a variety of English on the map of World Englishes that has not seen any representation as comprehensive as this before.”
Arne Peters, University of Potsdam, in Anglistik 29(1), pp. 185-188
“The volume by Meierkord, Isingoma and Namyalo is an essential publication and an important step in the sociolinguistic analysis of East African varieties of English. It brings together a number of dedicated researchers who, on the basis of empirical evidence, approach UgE from various quantitative and qualitative perspectives. While not eliding the usual limitations that any first attempt at mapping a variety of English in just a single volume naturally faces, the publication's many accomplishments enable multiple future strands of research on UgE, placing a variety of English on the map of World Englishes that has not seen any representation as comprehensive as this before.”
Arne Peters, University of Potsdam, in Anglistik: International Journal of English Studies 29(1): 185-168, 2018
Cited by
Cited by 10 other publications
Clément, Richard & Bonny Norton
2021. Ethnolinguistic Vitality, Identity and Power: Investment in SLA. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 40:1 ► pp. 154 ff. 
Isingoma, Bebwa & Christiane Meierkord
2019. Chapter 2.5. Capturing the lexicon of Ugandan English. In Corpus Linguistics and African Englishes [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 88], ► pp. 294 ff.
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.
Mohr, Susanne, Steffen Lorenz & Dunlop Ochieng
2020. English, national and local linguae francae in the language ecologies of Uganda and Tanzania. Sociolinguistic Studies 14:3
Nassenstein, Nico
2020. Playing with accents. Sociolinguistic Studies 14:3
Peters, Pam & Tobias Bernaisch
2022. The current state of research into linguistic epicentres. World Englishes 41:3 ► pp. 320 ff.
Schmied, Josef
2021. Review of Buregeya (2019): Kenyan English. English World-Wide. A Journal of Varieties of English 42:3 ► pp. 350 ff.
Schneider, Edgar W.
2020. English around the World,
Stranger-Johannessen, Espen & Bonny Norton
2019. Promoting Early Literacy and Student Investment in the African Storybook. Journal of Language, Identity & Education 18:6 ► pp. 400 ff.
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Subjects
Main BIC Subject
CF/2AB: Linguistics/English
Main BISAC Subject
LAN009050: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Sociolinguistics