Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Linguistic Messianism: Multilingualism in Mozambique

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Sociolinguistics in African Contexts

Part of the book series: Multilingual Education ((MULT,volume 20))

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the idea that in Mozambique, multilingualism, commonly understood as the co-existence and juxtaposition of more than one language, is one mechanism whereby essential features of colonial social logics are reconfigured in contemporary ‘postcolonial’ societies. They interrogate how multilingualism, whilst ostensibly promising a trope for linguistic (and cultural) diversity, is best seen, in common with other forms of neoliberal governance, as a response to ‘the effects of anti and postcolonial movements in the liberal world’. They conclude that this constancy is not accidental, but a key dimension of how multilingualism as a particular political regime of language organization has been used historically and in contemporary time as a technology of liberal governance. The paper highlights the meaning, the significance and the indexical values that African languages have vis a vis Portuguese, in a context where African languages are subordinated.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 89.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    We wish to emphasize at the outset that ‘multilingualism is a complex and invested notion in serious need of deconstruction. It is not unusual for a cognitive notion of multilingualism to be used to argue for a political-educational order of languages; or for a political arrangement of languages to motivate a cognitive –learning arrangement of multilingualism (e.g. separation of languages; one person-one language). Although these notions are interlinked, and invite fascinating research to untangle, they are not the same notion.

  2. 2.

    Also as ‘languages of the dogs’, an interesting enlightenment twist relevant to the dehumanizing of the Other.

  3. 3.

    The Portuguese government has established an alliance with the Vatican in the process of administration of the colonies of Mozambique and Angola.

  4. 4.

    There is a consensus opinion that the Concordats are part of international law, so that the concluded agreements among States and a Church, in this case Catholic, are of supranational importance (Gomes 2004: 1).

  5. 5.

    I Seminário sobre a Padronização da Ortografia de Línguas Moçambicanas.

  6. 6.

    Povinelli (2011) has coined the term ‘social tense’ to refer to how difference is managed, as social divisions of time in ways that “help shape how social belonging, abandonment and endurance are enunciated and experienced within late liberalism”.

References

  • Ahluwalia, P. (2001). Politics and postcolonial theory. African inflections. London/New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ba Ka Khosa, U. (2011). Cidadania às línguas africanas: Conversa com Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa. http://www.berlinda.org/BERLINDA.ORG/Pessoas/Eintrage/2011/8/3_Cidadania_as_linguas_africanas__conversa_com_Ungulani_Ba_Ka_Khosa.html

  • Chimbutane, F. (2011). Rethinking bilingual education in postcolonial contexts. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chimbutane, F. (2015). Línguas e educação em Moçambique: uma perspectiva sócio-histórica. In P. Gonçalves, & F. Chimbutane (orgs)., Multilinguismo e Multiculturalismo em Moçambique: em Direcção a uma Coerência entre Discurso e Prática (pp. 35–75). Maputo: Alcance Editores.

    Google Scholar 

  • Comaroff, J. (1998). Reflections on the colonial state in South Africa and elsewhere. Factions, fragments, facts and fictions. Social Identities, 4(3), 321–361.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cruz e Silva, T. (s/d). Moçambique: Um perfil. http://www.ces.uc.pt/emancipa/gen/mozambique.html

  • DeLírio, M. (2010). Uma abordagem sobre a Afrocentricidade do Hip Hop moçambicano. http://magusdelirio.blogspot.se/2010/12/uma-abordagem-sobre-afrocentricidade-no.html

  • de Souza, L. (ftc). Epistemic diversity, lazy reason and ethical translation in post-colonial contexts: The case of indigenous educational policy in Brazil. In C. Kerfoot, & K. Hyltenstam (Eds.), Entangled discourses: South-North orders of visibility. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eisenlohr, P. (2004). Temporalities of community: Ancestral language, pilgrimage and diasporic belonging in Mauritius. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 14(1), 88–98.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fabian, J. (1986). Language and colonial power. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferreira, J. & Viega, V. (1957). Estatuto dos Indígenas Portugueses das Províncias da Guiné, Angola e Moçambique. Lisboa: SL.

    Google Scholar 

  • Firmino, G. (2002). A “Questão Linguística” na África Pós-Colonial: O caso do Português e das Línguas Autóctones em Moçambique. Maputo: Promédia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Firmino, G. (2010). A Situação do Português no Contexto Multilingue de Moçambique. http://www.fflch.usp.br/dlcv/lpot/pdf/mes/06.pdf

  • Foucault, M. (1981). The order of discourse. In R. Young (Ed.), Untying the text: A poststructural anthology (pp. 48–78). Boston: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gomes, P. (2004). O que é uma concordata? http://www.ucp.pt/site/resources/documents/ISDC/O_q_e_co...

  • Gonçalves, P. (2010). A génese do Português de Moçambique. Lisboa: INCM.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grosz, E. (2011). Becoming undone: Darwinian reflections of life, politics and art. Durham/London: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Harries, P. (1995). The historical origin of standard Tsonga in Southern Africa. In R. Mesthrie (Ed.), Language and social history: Studies in South African sociolinguistics (pp. 154–175). David Phillip: Cape Town/Johannesburg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harries, P. (2010). Butterflies and barbarians: Swiss missionaries and systems of knowledge in South-East Africa. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2007.

    Google Scholar 

  • Irvine, J. (2004). Say when: Temporalities in language ideology. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 14(1), 99–109.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kerfoot, C. (ftc). Introduction . In C. Kerfoot, & K. Hyltenstam (Eds.), Entangled discourses: South-North orders of visibility. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Macaringue, I. (2014). Política Linguística e Nacionalização do Português de Moçambique. Foz do Iguaçu: Epígrafe.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mamdani, M. (1996). Citizen and subject: Contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mazula, B. (1995). Educação, cultura e ideologia em Moçambique: 1975–1985. Porto: Edições Afrontamento.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pitcher, M. A. (2004). Transforming Mozambique: The politics of privatization, 1975–2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Povinelli, E. (2011). Economies of abandonment: Social belonging and endurance in late liberalism. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosário, L. (1993). Língua Portuguesa e expressão moçambicana. Discursos: Estudos de língua e literatura Portuguesa, Coimbra 3, 109–120.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosário, L. (2015). A Língua Portuguesa como Factor de Desenvolvimento Nacional e Afirmação Internacional – Que Desafios?. In P. Gonçalves, & F. Chimbutane (orgs)., Multilinguismo e Multiculturalismo em Moçambique: em Direcção a uma Coerência entre Discurso e Prática (pp. 23–34). Maputo: Alcance Editores.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sousa, B. (2014). Epistemologies of the South. Justice against Epistemicide. London/New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stroud, C. (1999). Portuguese as ideology and politics in Mozambique: Semiotic (re)constructions of a postcolony. In J. Blommaert (Ed.), Language ideological debates (pp. 343–380). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stroud, C. (2001). African mother tongue programs and the politics of language: Linguistic citizenship versus linguistic human rights. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 22(4), 339–355.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stroud, C. (2002). Framing Bourdieu socioculturally: Alternative forms of linguistic legitimacy in postcolonial Mozambique. Multilingua, 21(2002), 247–273.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stroud, C. (2007). Bilingualism: Colonialism and postcolonialism. In M. Heller (Ed.), Bilingualism: A social approach (pp. 25–49). Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Stroud, C. (2009). Towards a postliberal theory of citizenship. In J. Petrovic (Ed.), International perspectives on bilingual education: Policy, practice and controversy (pp. 191–218). New York: Information Age Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weedon, C. (1997). Feminist practice and poststructuralist theory. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, Q., & Stroud, C. (2013). Multilingualism in transformative spaces: Contact and conviviality. Language Policy, 12(2013), 289–311.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Williams, Q., & Stroud, C. (2015). Linguistic citizenship: Language and politics in postnational modernities. Journal of Language and Politics, 14(3), 406–430.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Woolard, K. (2004). Is the past a foreign country: Time, language origins and the nation in modern Spain. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 14(1), 57–80.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Multilingualism and Diversities Research, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa

    Christopher Stroud

  2. Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Christopher Stroud & Manuel Guissemo

  3. Departamento de Linguística e Literatura, Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo, Mozambique

    Manuel Guissemo

Authors
  1. Christopher Stroud
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Manuel Guissemo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christopher Stroud .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of French, University of Buea, Buea, Cameroon

    Augustin Emmanuel Ebongue

  2. Humanities Education Development Unit, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, Cape Town, South Africa

    Ellen Hurst

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Stroud, C., Guissemo, M. (2017). Linguistic Messianism: Multilingualism in Mozambique. In: Ebongue, A., Hurst, E. (eds) Sociolinguistics in African Contexts. Multilingual Education, vol 20. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49611-5_3

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49611-5_3

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-49609-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-49611-5

  • eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation