Social Structuring of Language and the Mobility of Semiotic Resources across the Linguistic ...

374 Pages·2016·30.09 MB·English

Social Structuring of Language and the Mobility of Semiotic Resources across the
Linguistic Landscapes of Zambia: A Multimodal Analysis

Hambaba  Jimaima

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of
Philosophiae in the Department of Linguistics, University of the Western Cape

June 2016

Supervisor: Professor Felix Banda
KEYWORDS
Social structuring  
Language

Mobility
Semiotic Resources

Linguistic Landscapes
Multimodality/Multisemioticity  
Resemiotization
Remediation
Recontextualization
Metamorphosis
Globalization
Translocal
Transnational
Regionalization
Lusaka
Livingstone
Zambia

i
ABSTRACT

Social Structuring of Language and the Mobility of Semiotic Resources across the

Linguistic Landscapes of Zambia: A Multimodal Analysis

Hambaba Jimaima

PhD thesis, Department of Linguistics, University of the Western Cape

The current study framed as Social Structuring of Language and the Mobility of
Semiotic Resources across the Linguistic Landscapes of Zambia: A Multimodal
Analysis, is situated in Lusaka and Livingstone and their selected surrounding
peri-urban and rural spaces (of Kabanana, Bauleni and Chipata; Kafue, Chongwe,
Chief Mukuni’s area and stretches between Livingstone and Zimba and Livingstone
and Kazungula). The study aims to explore the linguistic landscapes (LL) of these
urban, peri-urban and rural spaces in order to gain insight into the social structuring of
language and the mobility of semiotic resources across the LL. This entails an
understanding of how languages are distributed and realized across the research sites.

In particular, the study aims at understanding how the regionalization of languages is
(re-)produced, contested and maintained in (and beyond) the territories for which they
are promulgated for use. Thus, the study foregrounds the mobility of the semiotic
resources across the LL. In essence, artefactual material, symbols including languages
are, in a multimodal fashion, investigated to see their pliability and mobility from
context to context. In the light of the mobility of the semiotic resources, the study
privileges both translocal and transnational mobility as the force behind the
movement and the dispersal of the semiotic material across ethnolinguistic, formal,
informal, urban and rural boundaries. This meant understanding the kind of signs in
both urban and rural areas and why they are emplaced in the broader context of
sign/place- and meaning making.

In order to achieve the aim and objectives, the study has been foregrounded in
ii
ethnographic research paradigm in which walk, gaze, talk (interview) and
photography were of irreplaceable importance. The conflation of walk, gaze

(observation), talk and photography in one investigation avails much. Firstly, the walk

brought the researcher within the allowable observation range in order to gain an

insider impression while, at the same time, maintaining the objectivity required for an

unbiased analysis. Participant observation coupled with gaze offered the required
positioning for carrying out a multimodal analysis especially in the rural areas which
turned out to have the paucity of signage. Thus, by being a participant observer, I
keenly observed how sign- and meaning making were accomplished in oral-dominant
communities. This meant positioning oneself as a new comer needing direction. It was
in such moments when practices of sign- and meaning making were observed and
recorded. For example, I would ask: how do I get to the next village/school/headman?
The reference to ecological features such as trees, hills and streams extended the
taxonomy of signs available for use in rural areas. Interviews with business owners
about the emplaced signs brought to the fore the hidden narratives often gushing out
from individualized orientation and personal experiences, as well as the shared
sociocultural knowledge and histories of both the producer and consumers of the
multimodal LL. Photography yielded digital images forming not only the quantitative
data but also the qualitative one upon which a multimodal analysis was done. The aim
was to capture over 1500 of images which were to be processed by the Software
Package of the Social Sciences (SPSS). Over 1500 images were collected but only
1157 were coded based on the languages present, materiality, inscription, and
emplacement. The quantitative data arising from this exercise provided insight into
the social structuring of language and mobility of the semiotic resources across the
urban, peri-urban and rural spaces. These results were later compared with the
national census reports. The analysis of images as qualitative data availed much about
the multimodal nature of the signage in place.

The analysis of the qualitative data was accomplished by multimodality in its evolved
iii
form. Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2006) Grammar of Visual Design, Scollon and
Sollon’s (2003) Geosemiotics, and theoretical concepts such as resemiotization,

remediation, recontextualization, decontextualization, multivocality and

metamorphosis provided a sound theoretical toolkit to analyse the

multimodal/multisemiotic signage emplaced across the public spaces of the research

sites.

As a result of a robust methodology and theoretical base, the study was able to
underpin the social structuring of language and the mobility of semiotic resources
across the linguistic landscapes in a manner too apparent. First, apart from showing
the linguistic heterogeneity of the research sites, the study shows that social
structuring of languages being experienced is one that is predicated on
unpredictability, flexibility, flux and indeterminacy. The results showing the social
structuring of English, for example, demonstrate the uneven spread of English across
the urban, peri-urban and rural spaces. In particular, the results go against the
normative expectation that the urbanized centres of Lusaka and Livingstone would
have more signs in English. Peri-urban (Kabanana) and rural (Chongwe/Kafue)
spaces showed more signs in English. This suggests a disembodiment of language
and locality as well as social actors. Moreover, the results showed the co-occupancy
of English and local languages in one micro-space/time. This entails the blurring of
boundaries between languages of different socio-political statuses. The bilingual signs
on which English and non-regional languages occur demonstrate the persistent
percolation of minor languages onto the LL. The presence of regional languages,
albeit differentially, in and beyond their regions for which they were promulgated
reminds us that there is a counter hegemonic narrative going on in the LL of the
research sites – in defiance of regionalization (zoning). Thus, the results show that
languages in the research sites do not stay put where they are officially put by
legislation. The conflation of multiple semiotic resources has further (re-)produced
linguistic coinages resulting in what I refer to as a sociolinguistics of amalgamation
iv
predicated on hybridity, fusion and translanguaging. This evidence is framed within
the translocal and transnational mobility where both the social actors and the semiotic

resources are constantly in circulation. The study observes that mobility is not only

restricted to local circulation of cultural materialities from urban to rural and rural to

urban, but also a more transnational circulation of semiotic resources. For example,

the ubiquitous spread of Chinese signage across the urban, peri-urban and rural LL
accentuates the permeating effect of translocal and transnational mobility, leading to
the de-territorialization of spaces.

The study further shows the sociocultural narratives in place- and meaning making.
Place and meaning making as an agentive act is premised on shared sociocultural
knowledge and histories (Kress 2010), but is further exploited and extended by
creatively drawing on individualized orientation, experiences and subjective
sensibilities. In this regard, the study agrees with Hult (2009) that in order to glean the
subjective narrations and re-imagining of space embedded in the emplaced signs,
interviews with the owners of the emplaced signs is indispensible. Thus, like
Blommaert (2012) aptly suggests, spaces are semiotized as themed spaces. The study
has shown how spaces are Christianized, moralized, gendered and anonymized, thus,
gaining insight into the forces and meanings behind both the emplacement of and
emplaced signs. Further, the reading of artefacts in Livingstone Museum shows how
the juxtaposition of the material culture of multilingualism and multiculturalism is a
semiotic strategy to double-articulate multiple localities simultaneously: local and
global; familiar and unfamiliar; modern and tradition. The transaction of multivocality
in a single moment of emplacement and gaze transforms space dramatically and
extends the meaning potential of the emplaced signage in micro-space/time.
Further, the observable paucity of signs in rural areas forces us to defer to an
ecological approach in which oral language mediation, recycling and repurposing of
material affordances provide a comprehensive account of the signage and
sign-making/consumption in place.
v
Ultimately, the study contributes to the development and operationalization of
multimodality and especially its extended notion of semiotic remediation (repurposing)

in non-Western contexts and rural Africa in particular. In using the notion of semiotic

remediation, the study shows that irrespective of the limitations of material conditions,

people in rural-scapes (like those in urban areas) repurpose available semiotic

materials to extend their meaning potential and in the process constantly reinvent the
semiotic environment and their relations with it for sign- and place-making.

vi
DECLARATION

I declare the “Social Structuring of Language and the Mobility of Semiotic Resources

across the Linguistic Landscapes of Zambia: A Multimodal Analysis” is my own work,

that it has not been submitted for any degree or examination in any other university,

and that all the sources I have used or quoted have been indicated and acknowledged
by complete references.

Full name: Hambaba Jimaima (3463671)

Signed: Date: June, 2016

vii
DEDICATION

To Odia my wife and my late sister, Mutinta as well as to mum & dad – Ruth Jimaima

& Frank H Jimaima!

viii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It is without difficulty to acknowledg  e all who have contributed to this
accomplishment. Nonetheless, I am particu larly grateful to my supervisor, Professor
Felix Banda for his unflinching and und ivided attention and support during my
undertaking of this study. For he not only provided the academic guidance at every
stage of the research but also the financial support through the NRF as well as from
his personal allocation to the effect that I was able to participate in three international
conferences – the insights of which further reshaped this work. Thus, like Isaac
Newton, ‘if I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants’. Thank
you very much, Prof. Banda for being that giant!

The enabling academic environment in Linguistics Department cannot be
overemphasised. The Departmental Chair, Professor Antia and his entire academic
and support staff made both my academic and social life easy to bear. Prof Stroud,
Prof Kell, Prof Dyers, Dr. Bock, Dr. Ndlayedwa, Dr. Peck, Dr. Williams, Dr.
Mawadza, Dr. Tedros, Mr. Duncan, Ms Groves, Ms Coetze, Ms February, Nathalie
and Ms Maggie individually and collectively made the department memorable and
academically stimulating. The academic stimulation from my fellow PhD candidates,
namely, David, Tedros, Stanley, Evans, Lynn and Fiona was very rewarding. Thank
you guys! Colleagues and staff at the University of Zambia deserve a special mention
as they have influenced my academic pursuits in diverse ways. In mind are Dr.
Wakumelo, late Dr. Siamwiza, Dr. Simwinga, Dr. Munatamba, Prof Chanda, Mr. Hirst,
Mr. Musonda and Mr. Mundia for having taught me at undergraduate and encouraged
me to enrol for my doctoral studies particularly Dr. Wakumelo. I thank friends: Kelvin,
Sande, Naomi and Eunice as well as Limbali for their support. The institutional
support via the Head’s and Dean’s office cannot be overemphasized, as well as my
research assistant, Paul Musambachime.

ix