Signs of change – Social Identity and Power Reflected in the Linguistic Landscape of Rwanda
The goal of this project is to understand how languages and images on signs in public space in Rwanda interact in the linguistic landscape (LL), and how power relations and identity is constructed in this space. In Africa, language policy decisions definitely affect the LL. The African state Rwanda has a quadrilingual language policy which favours English, especially after 2008, although English has no colonial background in Rwanda. This Rwandan polity entails power differences and unequal access to European status languages.
The project has two parts. A quantitative analysis comparing unique LL data (shop signs) I collected a decade ago, before the 2008 change, with new data. As a diachronic study it will fill a gap in the field, especially in an African context, and show effects of LP changes. A qualitative, in-depth part (multimodal analysis of signs, interviews and walk-along-interviews) targeting instrumental and symbolic functions of languages, analyses the relationship between text/language(s), image, and the role of both sender and addressees. These vital issues are understudied in an African context. The African perspective is very important, as LL studies today mostly target urban and immigrant communities in the West. The conditions of the African LL pose new and different questions such as the role of literacy. Thus, this study contributes to research in what is often regarded as the periphery, simultaneously broadening the field of LL research.
Final report
The purpose of the project ‘Signs of Change - Social Identity and Power Reflected in the Linguistic Landscape of Rwanda’ was to identify changes in bottom-up signage in urban public space in Rwanda, and to establish how language policy reflects and affects value attribution of languages, power relations and identity construction in the linguistic landscape (LL).
The specific aims of the project were 1) to determine diachronic changes in the linguistic landscape and how they were linked to changes in language policy and power relations; 2) to analyze a selection of shop storefronts and link this analysis of language use both to senders’ ideas about the semiotic construction of signs and readers’ perceptions of the same; and 3) to critically evaluate the effects of the combination of quantitative and qualitative methods from an African perspective. With a mixed methods approach, the project has quantitatively analyzed and compared language use on shop signs over time, before and after a change in language policy that took place in 2008, when English among other was introduced as medium of instruction throughout the educational system. Through interviews, it additionally investigated meaning-making in the LL of urban Rwanda.
Two field trips were conducted. The first project fieldwork in Rwanda took place in June 2018. This field trip mainly focused on quantitative data collection and photographic documentation in order to create a database of language use on private shop signs in five specific streets in Kigali and the main streets of Huye (Butare) and Rubavu (Gisenyi). This documentation formed the basis for the analysis of diachronic changes. I investigated the same towns and streets (which all were renamed) with the same method of classification as a decade earlier. The second field trip was conducted in March 2019. Totally 15 hours of video or audio data were recorded. These comprised 17 Interviews with shop owners, 8 interviews with sign producers, 25 GoPro video interviews with 8 participants and additionally 2 interviews with each GoPro-participant.
A remarkable change regarding language use on private shop signs in the studied streets were attested; the use of English on monolingual signs had for example more than doubled during the 10-year period 2008-2018, from 23 to almost 58 per cent in the capital Kigali. The increase of English was also remarkable on signs combining English with other official languages, which has transformed the linguistic landscape. English, as the new exogenous status language has replaced the former exogenous status language French, but even replaced Kinyarwanda, the national language known and used om a daily basis by 99.4% of the population.
The quantitative empirical data which highlight major changes demonstrate that language policy is imprinted in the socially constructed linguistic landscape of urban Rwanda, where situated norms, the embodied history and circulating beliefs and ideologies together construct a nexus of practice. Ideologies and narratives about languages, voiced in media and produced by politicians and official representatives, were therefore analysed as a way of interpreting the data, in the article “Amid signs of change: Language policy, ideology and power in the linguistic landscape of urban Rwanda” (Rosendal, forthcoming 2022). The discourse in media by the Rwandan government, in power since returning from exile in neighbouring Anglophone countries after the genocide in 1994, clearly illustrates that public space is never neutral. Linguistic public space is always somebody’s space, imbued with power exercised by somebody. While English, only known by the elite and the educated, is attributed economic power and functions, all other languages are totally overlooked, as is the case of the national language Kinyarwanda. Accompanying the official narrative about English as only a pragmatic choice and a neutral tool for trade and prosperous economic development in modern Rwanda, other languages are discursively dismissed as useless for development. This legitimisation of English by the political power as the only and inevitable cultural and economic capital is accompanied by the downgrading of the national language and French, a language associated with both the colonial past and the genocide. Both political conflicts with France and socio-political problems originating from the introduction of English are dissimulated in this narrative. As English is not a language used or heard naturally, thus only learnt through the educational system, it is a language that the elite and mostly some young academics know and to some extent master. Therefore, signs in English exclude the majority of Rwandan citizens. Officially, today Rwanda has a quadrilingual language policy (Kinyarwanda, English, French, Swahili) where all languages are equal. However, the multilingualism officially promoted by the Rwandan state is an elite multilingualism, that is multilingualism as an ideology of and for the elite, where English serves as an access code to a local, national or global perceived elite.
Official language policy does not stipulate or delimit how languages are to be used on private signage in the linguistic landscape. However, language use on signs is discursively connected to the larger policy nexus, and in this way they form de facto policy (Hult, 2018; Shohamy, 2006; Spolsky, 2009). The study demonstrates that we need to investigate more than official language policy to capture how social actions reverberate with the interaction order in the LL, and how they have become sedimented into practices. By combining the large-scale national and the small-scale community contexts the study critically examined the ideological underpinnings of practices, which was one of the aims of the study
We need to go into more depth to investigate the postcolonial past, political forces and prevalent ideologies that have shaped the LL, as a material carrier of hegemonic ideology. Urban space reflects societal changes and new narrations of political regimes. In the case of urban Rwanda, I have used a nexus analysis approach (Scollon & Wong Scollon, 2004) to scrutinise such interconnections and to investigate how people who move in the LL perceive semiotic signage (and not only text and languages) and how they constructed meaning out of semiotic resources on signs.
Some important issues were if values attributed to languages were reproduced or resisted among people, which communicative norms and circulating ideologies mediated their practices and how these practices were floating over different scales. The findings of this part of the project are discussed in the book ‘Time-space (dis-) continuities in the LL: Studies in the symbolic (re-)appropriation of public space’ (Buchstaller et al., forthcoming 2023; Rosendal, forthcoming 2023). This text highlights how ideologically loaded LL spaces both reflect and (re)produce practices. The analysis, with its geosemiotic approach, combines the nexus of the interaction order (the norms of social behaviour), discourses in place (ideas that shape actions), and the historical body (ideas embodied in the practices of the individuals) visible in the LL (Hult, 2015; Scollon & Wong Scollon, 2003). In Rwanda the historicity of the citytext is closely linked to post-colonial conflicts and transition, and how powerful political forces claim and inscribe public space. The analysis shows that the interviewees accept the official symbolic processes of claiming and re-inscribing public space, although a new exogenous language English has been forced upon them and hamper their understanding, thus excluding them from important domains in society. By identifying with official public discourse, the national development narrative is reproduced in the linguistic landscape.
To sum up: The data and the analysis of the project first and foremost demonstrated that; 1) the study has filled a gap by conducting a diachronic study. This space-time aspect is largely lacking within the field of LL studies. We need this background, based on quantitative empiric data, to investigate changes in the LL; 2) These diachronic data clearly show that language policy changes and top-down symbolic processes of claiming the LL today is reflected in the LL. The shop signs reflect and reproduce the political forces’ attempt to obliterate “ the memory [and the legacy] of ... [a] former [world view and/or] regime”, to quote Azaryahu (2012, p. 387), by promoting a new language, English; and 3) The data from the qualitative part demonstrated that most of the interviewees identified with official ideologies, and reproduced them through practices in urban spaces. The study additionally confirmed that integrating quantitative and qualitative perspectives and methods is important, not least from an African perspective.
The project well illustrated that we always need to go beyond the visible surface of the linguistic landscape, and the findings of this RJ project has unveiled new areas of research, among other the recent renaming of streets and towns in Rwanda and their implications. A new VR project (2022-2024) “Reading the Signs: Renaming and transformative processes in urban Rwanda” will further investigate this by combining the research fields linguistic landscape, onomastics and research for development.
References
Azaryahu, M. (2012). Renaming the past in post–Nazi Germany: insights into the politics of street naming in Mannheim and Potsdam. Cultural Geographies, 193, 385–400.
Buchstaller, I., Fabiszak, M., & Ross, M. A. (Eds.). (forthcoming 2023). Time-space (dis-) continuities in the LL: Studies in the symbolic (re-)appropriation of public space. Routledge.
Hult, F. M. (2015). Making Policy Connections across Scales Using Nexus Analysis. In F. M. Hult & D. C. Johnson (Eds.), Research Methods in Language Policy and Planning: A Practical Guide, First Edition (pp. 217-231). John Wiley & Sons.
Hult, F. M. (2018). Language Policy and Planning and Linguistic Landscapes In J. W. Tollefson & M. Pérez-Milans (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Language Policy and Planning https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.013.35
Rosendal, T. (forthcoming 2022). Amid signs of change: Language policy, ideology and power in the linguistic landscape of urban Rwanda. Language Policy.
Rosendal, T. (forthcoming 2023). Multilingualism for whom in Rwanda? The nexus of power and practices. In I. Buchstaller, M. Fabiszak, & M. A. Ross (Eds.), Time-space (dis-)continuities in the LL: Studies in the symbolic (re-)appropriation of public space. Routledge.
Scollon, R., & Wong Scollon, S. (2003). Discourse in place: Language in the material world. Routledge.
Scollon, R., & Wong Scollon, S. (2004). Nexus Analysis: Discourse and the Emerging Internet. Routledge.
Shohamy, E. (2006). Language policy: Hidden agendas and new approaches. Routledge.
Spolsky, B. (2009). Language management. Cambridge University Press.
The specific aims of the project were 1) to determine diachronic changes in the linguistic landscape and how they were linked to changes in language policy and power relations; 2) to analyze a selection of shop storefronts and link this analysis of language use both to senders’ ideas about the semiotic construction of signs and readers’ perceptions of the same; and 3) to critically evaluate the effects of the combination of quantitative and qualitative methods from an African perspective. With a mixed methods approach, the project has quantitatively analyzed and compared language use on shop signs over time, before and after a change in language policy that took place in 2008, when English among other was introduced as medium of instruction throughout the educational system. Through interviews, it additionally investigated meaning-making in the LL of urban Rwanda.
Two field trips were conducted. The first project fieldwork in Rwanda took place in June 2018. This field trip mainly focused on quantitative data collection and photographic documentation in order to create a database of language use on private shop signs in five specific streets in Kigali and the main streets of Huye (Butare) and Rubavu (Gisenyi). This documentation formed the basis for the analysis of diachronic changes. I investigated the same towns and streets (which all were renamed) with the same method of classification as a decade earlier. The second field trip was conducted in March 2019. Totally 15 hours of video or audio data were recorded. These comprised 17 Interviews with shop owners, 8 interviews with sign producers, 25 GoPro video interviews with 8 participants and additionally 2 interviews with each GoPro-participant.
A remarkable change regarding language use on private shop signs in the studied streets were attested; the use of English on monolingual signs had for example more than doubled during the 10-year period 2008-2018, from 23 to almost 58 per cent in the capital Kigali. The increase of English was also remarkable on signs combining English with other official languages, which has transformed the linguistic landscape. English, as the new exogenous status language has replaced the former exogenous status language French, but even replaced Kinyarwanda, the national language known and used om a daily basis by 99.4% of the population.
The quantitative empirical data which highlight major changes demonstrate that language policy is imprinted in the socially constructed linguistic landscape of urban Rwanda, where situated norms, the embodied history and circulating beliefs and ideologies together construct a nexus of practice. Ideologies and narratives about languages, voiced in media and produced by politicians and official representatives, were therefore analysed as a way of interpreting the data, in the article “Amid signs of change: Language policy, ideology and power in the linguistic landscape of urban Rwanda” (Rosendal, forthcoming 2022). The discourse in media by the Rwandan government, in power since returning from exile in neighbouring Anglophone countries after the genocide in 1994, clearly illustrates that public space is never neutral. Linguistic public space is always somebody’s space, imbued with power exercised by somebody. While English, only known by the elite and the educated, is attributed economic power and functions, all other languages are totally overlooked, as is the case of the national language Kinyarwanda. Accompanying the official narrative about English as only a pragmatic choice and a neutral tool for trade and prosperous economic development in modern Rwanda, other languages are discursively dismissed as useless for development. This legitimisation of English by the political power as the only and inevitable cultural and economic capital is accompanied by the downgrading of the national language and French, a language associated with both the colonial past and the genocide. Both political conflicts with France and socio-political problems originating from the introduction of English are dissimulated in this narrative. As English is not a language used or heard naturally, thus only learnt through the educational system, it is a language that the elite and mostly some young academics know and to some extent master. Therefore, signs in English exclude the majority of Rwandan citizens. Officially, today Rwanda has a quadrilingual language policy (Kinyarwanda, English, French, Swahili) where all languages are equal. However, the multilingualism officially promoted by the Rwandan state is an elite multilingualism, that is multilingualism as an ideology of and for the elite, where English serves as an access code to a local, national or global perceived elite.
Official language policy does not stipulate or delimit how languages are to be used on private signage in the linguistic landscape. However, language use on signs is discursively connected to the larger policy nexus, and in this way they form de facto policy (Hult, 2018; Shohamy, 2006; Spolsky, 2009). The study demonstrates that we need to investigate more than official language policy to capture how social actions reverberate with the interaction order in the LL, and how they have become sedimented into practices. By combining the large-scale national and the small-scale community contexts the study critically examined the ideological underpinnings of practices, which was one of the aims of the study
We need to go into more depth to investigate the postcolonial past, political forces and prevalent ideologies that have shaped the LL, as a material carrier of hegemonic ideology. Urban space reflects societal changes and new narrations of political regimes. In the case of urban Rwanda, I have used a nexus analysis approach (Scollon & Wong Scollon, 2004) to scrutinise such interconnections and to investigate how people who move in the LL perceive semiotic signage (and not only text and languages) and how they constructed meaning out of semiotic resources on signs.
Some important issues were if values attributed to languages were reproduced or resisted among people, which communicative norms and circulating ideologies mediated their practices and how these practices were floating over different scales. The findings of this part of the project are discussed in the book ‘Time-space (dis-) continuities in the LL: Studies in the symbolic (re-)appropriation of public space’ (Buchstaller et al., forthcoming 2023; Rosendal, forthcoming 2023). This text highlights how ideologically loaded LL spaces both reflect and (re)produce practices. The analysis, with its geosemiotic approach, combines the nexus of the interaction order (the norms of social behaviour), discourses in place (ideas that shape actions), and the historical body (ideas embodied in the practices of the individuals) visible in the LL (Hult, 2015; Scollon & Wong Scollon, 2003). In Rwanda the historicity of the citytext is closely linked to post-colonial conflicts and transition, and how powerful political forces claim and inscribe public space. The analysis shows that the interviewees accept the official symbolic processes of claiming and re-inscribing public space, although a new exogenous language English has been forced upon them and hamper their understanding, thus excluding them from important domains in society. By identifying with official public discourse, the national development narrative is reproduced in the linguistic landscape.
To sum up: The data and the analysis of the project first and foremost demonstrated that; 1) the study has filled a gap by conducting a diachronic study. This space-time aspect is largely lacking within the field of LL studies. We need this background, based on quantitative empiric data, to investigate changes in the LL; 2) These diachronic data clearly show that language policy changes and top-down symbolic processes of claiming the LL today is reflected in the LL. The shop signs reflect and reproduce the political forces’ attempt to obliterate “ the memory [and the legacy] of ... [a] former [world view and/or] regime”, to quote Azaryahu (2012, p. 387), by promoting a new language, English; and 3) The data from the qualitative part demonstrated that most of the interviewees identified with official ideologies, and reproduced them through practices in urban spaces. The study additionally confirmed that integrating quantitative and qualitative perspectives and methods is important, not least from an African perspective.
The project well illustrated that we always need to go beyond the visible surface of the linguistic landscape, and the findings of this RJ project has unveiled new areas of research, among other the recent renaming of streets and towns in Rwanda and their implications. A new VR project (2022-2024) “Reading the Signs: Renaming and transformative processes in urban Rwanda” will further investigate this by combining the research fields linguistic landscape, onomastics and research for development.
References
Azaryahu, M. (2012). Renaming the past in post–Nazi Germany: insights into the politics of street naming in Mannheim and Potsdam. Cultural Geographies, 193, 385–400.
Buchstaller, I., Fabiszak, M., & Ross, M. A. (Eds.). (forthcoming 2023). Time-space (dis-) continuities in the LL: Studies in the symbolic (re-)appropriation of public space. Routledge.
Hult, F. M. (2015). Making Policy Connections across Scales Using Nexus Analysis. In F. M. Hult & D. C. Johnson (Eds.), Research Methods in Language Policy and Planning: A Practical Guide, First Edition (pp. 217-231). John Wiley & Sons.
Hult, F. M. (2018). Language Policy and Planning and Linguistic Landscapes In J. W. Tollefson & M. Pérez-Milans (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Language Policy and Planning https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.013.35
Rosendal, T. (forthcoming 2022). Amid signs of change: Language policy, ideology and power in the linguistic landscape of urban Rwanda. Language Policy.
Rosendal, T. (forthcoming 2023). Multilingualism for whom in Rwanda? The nexus of power and practices. In I. Buchstaller, M. Fabiszak, & M. A. Ross (Eds.), Time-space (dis-)continuities in the LL: Studies in the symbolic (re-)appropriation of public space. Routledge.
Scollon, R., & Wong Scollon, S. (2003). Discourse in place: Language in the material world. Routledge.
Scollon, R., & Wong Scollon, S. (2004). Nexus Analysis: Discourse and the Emerging Internet. Routledge.
Shohamy, E. (2006). Language policy: Hidden agendas and new approaches. Routledge.
Spolsky, B. (2009). Language management. Cambridge University Press.