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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Can a local language be used in formal context? The case of broadcasting in Mozambique |
Author: | Matusse, Renato |
Year: | 1998 |
Periodical: | Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere: Schriftenreihe des Kölner Instituts für Afrikanistik |
Issue: | 54 |
Pages: | 69-93 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Mozambique |
Subjects: | radio language usage |
Abstract: | The majority of Mozambicans do not speak Portuguese, the official language of the country. For the government to communicate with the people it must inevitably resort to local languages. As a means of widening the channels available for the dissemination of its message, the government has run and funded broadcasting in local languages, despite its uneasiness about local languages and its suspicion that they foster ethnicity at the expense of national identity. Based on data collected at the Interprovincial Broadcasting Service in Maputo, Mozambique, over a period of four years (1992-1996), the author found that despite the fact that the journalists who worked there were being paid to promote local languages - in this case Changana and Ronga - they themselves used Portuguese in contexts where it could be expected that the local languages might be taking over, such as staff meetings and administrative documentation. Local languages are used merely in broadcasting, and even here Portuguese is beginning to encroach. App., bibliogr., sum. |