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[T]he intertwined nature of language, politics, and identity permeates the nation, its institutions, and the public and private lives of its citizens.

The aim of this illustrative paper is to show how words and expressions are coined or changed in Cameroonian speech in English and French in order to insult or stereotype other groups of people. Taken along official language lines, ethnic boundaries and social divides, these lexical elements reproduce some aspect of the addressee's history, social stance, academic achievement, professional background, linguistic and political belonging, and even gender. The expressions are from four major sources: French, English, Pidgin English and various indigenous languages. Some of them capture common social phenomena in the society. For example, Pidgin English supplies a descriptive name for a woman who moves in with a man to whom she is not married, i.e. come-we-stay. This appellation focuses more on the woman and the relationship rather than on the man. Such coinages are also common elsewhere in Africa. For instance, Nigerian Pidgin English supplies the appellation face-me-I-face-you for cramped up residential apartments in which rooms face each other on the corridor. Lexical strategies for naming and derogation are common in these two societies where groups compete with each other for their voices to be heard and respected.

This paper discusses name-avoidance by Cameroonians, and some of the socio-pragmatic impacts it creates. Focus is on five items that are often used in place of personal names— manyi (mother of twins), tanyi (father of twins), moyo (in-law, especially male), mbanya (co-wife in a polygamous marriage), and mbombo (namesake). The paper identifies some of the contexts in, and the purposes for, which these terms are used. Cameroon, like many other postcolonial contexts, is acutely different from certain English-based Western cultures in which using someone's personal name may be part of a positive politeness strategy and not disrespect or impoliteness as it is the case in the Cameroonian and some other African cultures. To call certain people by their personal names in these cultures is not only disrespectful but also a sign that they have no honor to merit the respect that goes with not calling their names. The terms studied here are also often used strategically on people who are not, for instance, mothers/fathers of twins or who may just well be strangers or first time acquaintances.

For the past thirty years or so, research on new Englishes has been predominantly based on identifying at what point and to what extent these varieties of English deviate from the native or older varieties (typically British and American). Often considered and treated as outcomes of deficient or inadequate acquisition of the native and/or as heavily influenced by co-existing indigenous languages, these Englishes have been conceptually interpreted as growing or advancing or maturing in a progressive manner towards (rather than away from) the native or older Englishes. This paper refutes this notion of maturation and rather proposes that new Englishes are evolving according to the ecological realities of their present contexts.

The eve of the ongoing Iraq war was a decisive moment for world leaders since they, given American pressure, had to choose between being with US or with the enemies. It meant treading on potentially threatening issues that could harm inter-national alliances and friendships. This paper illustrates using transcripts of Jacques Chiracs (then French president) interviews the linguistic avoidance strategies used to avoid, redefine, recontextualise, reframe, and reassess concepts and topics considered threatening to the position held. The answers Chirac gives to the rather direct questions show his desire to avoid projecting the false idea that France is hindering American foreign policy. It is therefore not only his face that is at stake, but also that of his people, his political party, and the nation. Placing the analysis within the broader concept of multimodal communication, the paper adopts some of the findings made by Caffi & Janney (1994) and Janney (1999) to emphasise that strategies of avoiding implicative and threatening concepts in speech follow similar patterns of escaping from or avoiding harmful objects in the physical world.

Using readers’ comments on an online news forum (The Post newspaper), this paper describes patterns of belonging to the historical (colonial) linguistic in-group anglophone and out-group francophone in Cameroon. These groups emerged from the British-French colonisation of the country after WW1, with anglophones representing the former British colony and francophones the French. My focus is on the use of eight plural pronouns and how they index in-group or out-group belonging. Four of the pronouns, we, our, us and ourselves are used inclusively to create a solid anglophone in-group through the narration of a common (colonial) history, linguistic background (the use of English) and experiences. The other four, they, them, their and themselves refer predominantly to francophones as an out-group that must be differentiated from the close-knit anglophone in-group. I illustrate how, in defending the boundaries of these groups, the commentators autobiographically narrate the life trajectories of their in-group, highlight its values and interrogate the moral stance of the out-group. They benefit from the digital space which provides anonymity and closes the geographical distances between them. Overall, the anglophone in-group narrative emerges as an autobiographical narrative within the bigger (national) autobiographical narrative of the country, into which it often opens and is sometimes integrated.

Are the other varieties of English under threat from the United States? This paper reviews the place of the United States of America (her English and culture) in the contemporary world, especially with regard to the spread and use of the English language. World War II and its aftermath raised America to the height of political, economic, commercial, technological strength which saw the transformation of English from being a reserve of the British Isles and their queen, to a code of international linguistic transaction. English today is no longer just spreading world-wide, but is overwhelmingly adopting a predominant American touch, given the pride and prestige of the American lifestyle and pop culture. This paper therefore observes that in a quite foreseeable future the world Englishes will gradually subsume their heterogeneous identities into the sweeping current of the American variety of English.

THIS ARTICLE addresses differences in meaning that are current in English as it is used along the West African coast. It is not uncommon for an ESL teacher to be confronted with such questions as, ‘Is that what “stranger” means?’ or such responses as, ‘Sir, I do not have a “belly”!’ However, in this context, a sound knowledge (or simply an awareness) of new meanings attached to old words may save some embarrassment. This paper proposes that, for the sound and successful teaching of English as a second language in West Africa, teachers should acquaint themselves with such usages.

Given the global spread of English and its extensive use in various parts of the world, it is now used by diverse groups of new speakers who now struggle to create new identities and identity icons around it. One outcome of this process is the redefinition of the standards of the language in relation to specific groups of speakers. Taking Cameroon as a case in point, this chapter illustrates how French-speaking Cameroonians now identify with English but not in the same way as their English-speaking counterparts for whom English is the first official language.

Introduction.- 1. Indigenisation and multilingualism: Extending the debate on language evolution in Cameroon by Eric A. Anchimbe.- Part I: Structural perspectives on indigenisation - Syntax and phonology. 2. 'That-clauses' in Cameroon English: A study in functional extension by Bonaventure M. Sala. 3. Pronoun-like usage in Cameroon English: The case of copy, resumptive, obligation, and dummy pronouns by Paul N. Mbangwana. 4. Les camerounismes: Essai d'une (nouvelle) typologie by Gratien G. Atindogbe and Charles Belinga B'Eno. 5. Intonation in Cameroon English by Yves Talla Sando Ouafeu. 6. Ethnolinguistic heterogeneity in Cameroon English pronunciation by Kelen Ernesta Fonyuy.- Part II: Sociolinguistic perspectives on indigenisation - Sociolinguistics and pragmatics. 7. Attitudes towards Cameroon English: A sociolinguistic survey by Eric A. Anchimbe. 8. Gender and the use of tags in Cameroon English discourse by Veronica A. Dashaco and Eric A. Anchimbe. 9.Ethnicite, politesse et representations au Cameroun by Bernard Mulo Farenkia. 10. Address strategies in Cameroon Pidgin English: A socio-pragmatic perspective by Joseph Nkwain.- Author/Subject index.

The aim of this chapter is to investigate the types of tag questions commonly used by Cameroonian men and women in both formal and informal and single-sex and mixed-sex interactions in Cameroon English. A major question we seek to answer is: do the tags used by Cameroonian women suggest tentativeness, hesitancy, and powerlessness as implied by literature in western contexts? The analysis of the naturally-occurring data carried out here reveals on the contrary that the use of tags, especially by Cameroonian women, is conditioned by the respect of sociocultural norms of society and the desire to be polite, deferent, and acceptable. From a more general point of view, tag usage is highly context-dependent, i.e. in relation to the physical location, the discourse context (formal or informal), the participants involved (age, parent-child, gender), and the relationship between the participants (symmetrical or asymmetrical).

The issue of attitudes towards indigenised varieties of English (IVEs), also called New Englishes, Postcolonial Englishes, within their respective contexts gives interesting insights into the acceptability and stability of these Englishes. Speakers usually identify with their varieties of English only if their and their fellow speakers’ social attitudes towards them are positive. This chapter uses statistical data from a survey conducted in 2003 to establish to what extent Cameroonians accept and identify with Cameroon English. Even though most of them accept the variety exists, they are reluctant to overtly agree they speak it. They rather prefer to say they speak British English, hence refurbishing the historical link of colonialism or creating for themselves a sense of modernity or internationality. In spite of this, they are often fast in rejecting or stigmatising, through an attitudinal filtration process (Anchimbe 2006a), those ways of speaking that they consider grotesque, foreign, and idiosyncratic. This pushes those speakers who may be interested in imitating foreign accents to adhere to local speech forms, i.e. Cameroon English accent. This contradiction in attitudes and linguistic identity is inherent in most postcolonial communities and is not limited to language.

This introductory chapter outlines the aims and objectives of this book, i.e. to further illustrate, using authentic, naturally-occurring data, processes of indigenisation in two ex-colonial languages, English and French, and a Pidgin, Cameroon Pidgin English, in Cameroon. Additionally, the volume investigates patterns of indigenisation beyond the level of grammar but at the level of discourse and social interaction from pragmatic and sociolinguistic perspectives. To achieve these aims, and by way of explaining the line of thinking in the chapters, this chapter defines the concept of indigenisation and situates it within current descriptions of postcolonial language varieties. It identifies the linguistic levels of indigenisation expounded on in the volume; explains the varied sources of indigenised features; and discerns the status of each language and their contribution to indigenisation within this multilingual setting.

In 1976 when Mbassi-Manga's paper “The State of Contemporary English in Cameroon” was published, there was no—or he made no—distinction between Cameroon English and Cameroon Pidgin English. Keywords: Cameroon English; communal varieties; ethnic and social varieties; ethnic varieties; ethnolects; institutional varieties

This timely book brings together research on the features and evolution of Cameroon English and Cameroon Pidgin English, approached from a variety of innovative multilingual frameworks that focus on the emergence of mother tongue speakers. The authors illustrate how language and population contact, history (colonialism), multilingualism, translation, and indigenization have contributed to shaping the norms of postcolonial Englishes and Pidgins. Employing naturalistic data, the volume provides a new fascinating perspective that better situates and supplements existing research in the fields of African Englishes and Creolistics. It is particularly of key interest to sociolinguists, contact linguists, Africanists, Anglicists, creolists and historical linguists.

The chapter illustrates how Cameroonians living in the diaspora discursively construct their identity as anglophones, i.e., as coming from the anglophone part of the country (the North West and South West Regions) in online interactions. In order to do so, they draw from several sources: the colonial history and heritage of the country, the geographical origins of the anglophones, and the linguistic factor: the use of English. Emphasising certain traits that make them different and superior, the anglophones create an in-group almost on par with ethnicity. This in-group is recreated discursively in the data used here. The data were collected from the interactive feature of The Post Newspaper, online version. The chapter concludes that virtual identity construction follows similar strategies as real identities in non-virtual communities albeit differences imposed by the medium.