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This is the accepted version of an article from Metaphor and the Social World. The published article can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.00021.gol In order to understand the process of learning new languages as adults, we need to take into account learners’ past experiences with all of their language(s), as such experiences shape attitudes and conceptualizations. In this paper, we present an analysis of metaphorical expressions in the narrated linguistic biographies of (former) refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in Norway. The participants speak a multitude of languages, e.g., different local Congolese languages, Congolese national languages (Lingala or Swahili), French (the official language of the DRC), in addition to Norwegian (the language of the host society). Attention is paid to how the participants’ expressions align with conceptual metaphors emerged from work in Cognitive Linguistics, such as LANGUAGE IS AN OBJECT, LANGUAGE IS A PERSON and LANGUAGE IS AN IDENTITY MARKER, as well as specifications LIKE LANGUAGE IS A TOOL and LANGUAGE IS A POSSESSION. We argue that awareness of conceptualizations of ‘language’ can contribute to the development of language training pedagogies that better reflect learners’ past experiences.

This article presents a descriptive and theoretical framework for the analysis of prosodic systems that have emerged from contact between African tone and European intonation-only languages. A comparative study of the prosodic systems of two Romance contact varieties, Central African French and Equatorial Guinean Spanish, shows that they feature two-tone systems, fixed word tone patterns, tonal minimal pairs, the arbitrary assignment of tone in function words, and tonal processes. Evidence from further contact varieties and creole languages shows that similar systems evolved in other Afro-European contact ecologies. We conclude that tone is imposed by default on contact varieties and creoles that take shape in ecologies characterized by source language agentivity in tone languages. In doing so, we argue against claims that tone necessarily cedes to stress during language contact and creolization. Instead, contact varieties and creoles partake just like other languages in the convergence processes that lead to the areal clustering of prosodic systems.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). Aim and objectives/purpose/research questions: The aim of this study is to examine the pragmatic function of utterance-level declination as used in conversations in French and Norwegian by 10 migrants from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) living in Norway whose repertoires are highly multilingual. Design/methodology/approach: To investigate this contour, we draw on insights from different fields, that is, research on multilingualism, Conversation Analysis (CA), and phonetics/phonology. Data and analysis: By an automatic procedure, we examined pitch variations of 400 declarative utterances (200 in Norwegian and 200 in French). The procedure found that 38 of the utterances have declination. These were then analyzed qualitatively with methods from CA in the context of the sequence. The aim of the CA was to assess the pragmatic functions of the contour. Findings/conclusions: We found that utterance-level declination is a marked contour, that is, used to make certain utterances prominent in relation to other utterances of the sequence. The contour has the same functions in French and Norwegian for these speakers. Our conclusion is that the contour is a flexible resource of the speakers’ repertoires. Originality and significance/implications: This study is a contribution to the scarcely explored area of the prosody-pragmatics interface in speakers with varied linguistic repertoires. Moreover, our approach is emic and inspired by recent trends in the field of multilingualism.

“I do not want to destroy the Norwegian society by introducing French.” French in narratives by Congolese migrants in Norway In this article, I explore the experiences with French of migrants from the Democratic Republic of Congo in Norway and relate the object “Frenches in Africa” to the field of sociolinguistics of migrations. My approach is emic and biographical, and through an analysis of narratives, I aim at discussing what French represents for these individuals. The narratives indicate that French indexes social inequalities and at several times, they evoke negative consequences of its presence in the Congo. In Norway, they do not see their competences in French as an advantage. French is rather constructed as a low mobility resource.

In this article, we examine how parents explain their choices of transmitting certain languages to their children, a key element of family language policies (FLP), in light of their dynamic linguistic repertoires and biographic experiences. Contributing to the framework of FLP, we focus in particular on parents’ memories, their narratives of multilingual upbringing in the past, and how these are used to construct present FLP. We analyze conversations where six multilingual parents in Norway talk about their experiences and intentions regarding FLP, and in particular, their reasons for the transmission of (some of their) languages to their children. The parents of three of the families are from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and in three others at least one of the parents migrated from Germany. We find that the parents align their decisions with both prior and new experiences. They relate to their language(s), their past and their current family life, and express the wish for continuity across the lifespan. At the same time, they demonstrate a certain flexibility and willingness to adapt to the constantly changing environments that they and their children experience and in which they navigate. Through their complex accounts, their memories and lived language experiences, we can understand parents’ manifold positions as regards their children’s linguistic repertoires.

Dans cet article, nous nous interessons aux etudes phonologiques des francais africains effectuees dans le cadre du projet Phonologie du francais contemporain (pfc). L’objectif de l’article est double : d’une part, nous discutons de l’application en terrains africains du protocole d’enquete du projet et, d’autre part, nous proposons une synthese de ces etudes et quelques reflexions sur leur interet scientifique notamment pour le domaine des contacts de langues. Nous avancons l’idee que ces donnees doivent avant tout etre considerees comme une source d’information sur la facon dont les locuteurs multilingues s’expriment dans un mode monolingue et qu’elles constituent, pour cette raison, un interessant point de depart pour une discussion sur les phenomenes de multilinguisme individuel et societal.

Dans cet article, nous nous interessons aux contours de finalite d'enonces declaratifs produits par des locuteurs norvegiens dont le francais est la L3 et l'anglais la L2. Le norvegien a la particularite de presenter un contour intonatif montant dans ce contexte. Nous montrons que les apprenants norvegiens tendent a transferer ce contour en francais mais que le fait d'avoir acquis le contour descendant de l'anglais peut, dans certains cas, faciliter son acquisition en francais.

Aim and objectives/purpose/research questions: The aim of this study is to examine the extent to which multilingual second language (L2) speakers of Norwegian manage to produce lexical pitch accents (L*H¯ or H*LH¯) as expected in natural spontaneous speech. Using native speech as a reference, we analyse realizations of multilingual speakers whose respective dominant languages are Lingala, a lexical tone language, and Swahili, a non-tonal language with fixed stress, and hypothesize that this difference might be reflected in the speakers’ competence in the East Norwegian tone system. Design/methodology/approach: We examined a corpus of spontaneous speech produced by eight L2 speakers and two native speakers of East Norwegian. Acoustic analysis was performed to collect fundamental frequency (f0) contours of 60 accentual phrases per speaker. Data and analysis: For LH and HLH tonal patterns, measuring points were defined for quantitative evaluation of f0 values. Relevant aspects investigated were (a) pattern consistency, (b) f0 dynamic range and (c) rate of f0 change. Pattern consistency data were statistically evaluated using chi-square testing. The dynamic range and rate of f0 change data were explored through to linear mixed effects models. Findings/conclusions: We found no really substantial differences between the speaker groups in the parameters we examined, neither between the L2 speakers and the Norwegian natives nor between the Lingala and Swahili speakers. Originality and significance/implications: This study is a contribution to the scarcely explored area of L2 acquisition of tones. It is concerned with languages that have received little or no attention in the field: Norwegian, Lingala and Swahili. Participants are multilinguals who have extensive language learning experience. Further, the study is based on a corpus of spontaneous speech.