Language Planning in Africa ─ The Cameroon, Sudan and Zimbabwe

This volume focuses on language planning in the Cameroon, Sudan and Zimbabwe, explaining the linguistic diversity, historical and political contexts, current language situation (including language-in-education planning), the role of the media, the role of religion and the roles of non-indigenous languages. The authors are indigenous to the situations described, and draw on their experience and extensive fieldwork there.

The extended case studies contained in this volume draw together the literature on each of the polities to present an overview of the existing research available, while also providing new research-based information. The purpose of this volume is to provide an up-to-date overview of the language situation in each polity based on a series of key questions, in the hope that this might facilitate the development of a richer theory to guide language policy and planning in other polities where similar issues may arise.

This book comprises case studies originally published in the journal Current Issues in Language Planning.

Nkonko M. Kamwangamalu is Professor of Linguistics at Howard University, USA. He has published numerous articles in refereed journals, is author of The Language Planning Situation in South Africa (2001), and co-editor of Language and Institution in Africa (2000). His research interests include language policy and planning, codeswitching, World Englishes, language and identity, and African linguistics.

Richard B. Baldauf, Jr. is Professor of TESOL in the School of Education at the University of Queensland, Australia. He has published numerous articles in refereed journals and books, and is co-author of Language Planning from Practice to Theory (1997), Language and Language-in-Education Planning in the Pacific Basin (2003), and Planning Chinese Characters: Evolution, Revolution or Reaction (2008).

Robert B. Kaplan is Emeritus Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Southern California, USA. He has published numerous books and refereed articles, is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, and has been a member of the editorial board of the Oxford International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (2002) and Editor of the Oxford Handbook of Applied Linguistics.