Lawrence B. Breitborde, Speaking and social identity: English in the lives of urban Africans. (Studies in anthropological linguistics, 11.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1998. Pp. xii, 227. Hb DM 198.00.

Abstract

In the introduction to this book, the reader follows Wilson Nyanforth, a 35-year-old Kru civil servant, through his morning in New Krutown, Monrovia, Liberia. As Nyanforth travels to work, he uses Kru and English separately and in combination, his language choices varying with the setting and the participants in the encounter. His greeting to his boss is an example: “Good morning Honorable Tarpeh, na kl[backwards c]ba (my chief)!” Breitborde's monograph on language choices of Kru-speaking inhabitants of New Krutown has many such specific case studies of language in use: these illustrate his claims and make the book accessible to readers. But his goal is to do more than provide descriptive case studies. He writes: “I ask how the choices urban Kru persons make to speak English embody certain aspects of contemporary social relations and cultural values, not simply within the community of speakers but also linking them to the Liberian national polity. In this sense, then, I attempt to integrate both the (societal) macrolevel and the (individual) microlevel in the exploration of the social meaning of English”.