Issue

Vol. 12 No. 1 (2023)

Language Contact and the State of Multilingualism in the Linguistic Landscape of Tete Province in Mozambique

https://doi.org/10.56279/jhss.v12i1.305
Crisófia Langa da Câmara
Amani Lusekelo
Dar es Salaam University College of Education University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Corresponding Author(s) : Crisófia Langa da Câmara

languinha.cris@gmail.com

Journal of Humanities & Social Science (JHSS), Vol. 12 No. 1 (2023)

Abstract

Mozambique is a multilingual country that adopted Portuguese as the language of
official communication right from Independence Day in 1975. Later in the 1990s it
adopted 19 Bantu languages as the media of instruction in lower education. This
move opened an avenue for Bantu languages to be used in public domains in the
country. Since the Metropolitan Maputo had been the centre of previous research of
languages of public spaces, this paper looks at the language uses that unfold in the
signposts of Tete Province to determine the manifestations of the Bantu languages
in urban public spaces. Firstly, the findings pointed out that the monolingual and
bilingual signage integrated the Portuguese structure of the noun phrase that puts
modifiers before the head-noun, hence making the Portuguese structure dominant.
Secondly, the findings reveal the use of international languages even in back streets
of the Tete City. These two findings do not rule out the prestige that Bantu languages
enjoy, mainly in the naming of shops. The predominance of Bantu languages in the
names of shops indicate affiliation to ethnic groups. While the theory of
multimodality helped to interpret the signposts, the social identity theory helped to
arrive at the conclusion that Tete, the primary home of the Nyungwe, has remained
the identity home of the people.

Mozambique
Received: 10th March 2023; Accepted: 17th April 2023; Revised: 9th July 2023

Keywords

language policy, language contact, multilingualism, signposts, Tete Province,
Language Contact and the State of Multilingualism in the Linguistic Landscape of Tete Province in Mozambique. (2023). Journal of Humanities & Social Science (JHSS), 12(1). https://doi.org/10.56279/jhss.v12i1.305
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Language Contact and the State of Multilingualism in the Linguistic Landscape of Tete Province in Mozambique. (2023). Journal of Humanities & Social Science (JHSS), 12(1). https://doi.org/10.56279/jhss.v12i1.305
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