The Pragmatics of Namibian English (PraNamE)
2015–2021, funded by University of Bielefeld and University of Bonn
About PraNamE
The PraNamE project introduced variational pragmatics into the wider field of World Englishes. The project was focused on English in Namibia and was aimed at identifying a pragmatic profile of Namibian English, i.e. at establishing variety-specific ways of using English in communication in a range of social contexts. For this purpose, a selection of pragmatic phenomena were analysed, which include discourse markers such as question tags, speech acts such as requests, apologies and responses to thanks, and interactional patterns and discourse genres such as small talk and service encounters. Methods employed were production questionnaires, role play, interviews, focus group discussions, elicited metadiscourse, and media communication.
PraNamE was a collaborative research project by Bonn Applied Linguistics and Professor Anne Schröder's team at the University of Bielefeld.
PROJECT TEAM
Professor Dr. Klaus P. Schneider & BAEL Team
Professor Dr. Anne Schröder & Team, English Linguistics, Bielefeld University
Adjunct researcher
Professor Dr. Friederike Kern, German Linguistics, Bielefeld University
English in Namibia
Multiethnic Namibia is a particularly interesting case. After achieving independence in 1990, English was introduced as the only official language of the country, even though Namibia had never been a British colony and there was no tradition of using English. German or Afrikaans would have been more natural choices, if none of the indigenous languages was to be made an official language to avoid interethnic tensions, as Namibia had been a German colony (1884-1915) and then ruled by South Africa until independence. Since 1990, English is used in secondary and tertiary education, and also in many strands of public life where it competes, however, with Afrikaans and German. It is therefore interesting to see how Namibians use English and to what degrees social groups master the language. The PraNamE project thus also contributes to the ongoing debate about the respective status of second and foreign language varieties in postcolonial societies in Africa and elsewhere.
Schneider, K. P., & Schröder, A. (2023). Small talk across Englishes: A focus on Namibia. Journal of Pragmatics, 213, 96–106.
Schröder, A. & Schneider, K.P. (2021). A variational pragmatic approach to responses to thanks in Namibian English: From quantitative to qualitative analysis. In A. Schröder (ed.), The dynamics of English in Namibia. [Varieties of English around the Word.] (pp. 195–215). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Schröder, A., & Schneider, K. P. (2018). Variational pragmatics, responses to thanks, and the specificity of English in Namibia. English World-Wide, 39(3), 338–363.
Kern, Friederike, Anne Schröder and Klaus P. Schneider: Variational pragmatics meets contrastive pragmatics: English and German responses to thanks in Namibia. 4th International Conference of the American Pragmatics Association (AMPRA). Albany, New York. 1–3 November 2018.
Schröder, Anne and Klaus P. Schneider: New perspectives on the pragmatics of Namibian English: From quantitative to qualitative analysis. International Congress of Linguists (ICL), Cape Town, South Africa, 2–6 July 2018.
Schröder, Anne and Klaus P. Schneider: Local and global perspectives on the pragmatics of Namibian English. 22nd Conference of the International Association for World Englishes (IAWE), Syracuse, N.Y., 30 June – 2 July 2017.
Schneider, Klaus P. and Anne Schröder: The pragmatics of Namibian English: A focus on requests. 3rd International Conference of the American Pragmatics Association (AMPRA), Bloomington, Indiana, 4–6 November 2016.
Schröder, Anne and Klaus P. Schneider: Variational pragmatics and the specificity of English in Namibia. 21st Conference of the International Association for World Englishes (IAWE), Istanbul, Turkey, 8-10 October 2015.