The writing’s on the wall: spaces for language-independent and language-based literacies

ABSTRACT

This article investigates what is commonly called multilingual writing. Based on case studies from Mali, and drawing on a number of West African settings, it argues that in fact, not all ‘multilingual’ writing is in effect multilingual. The article proposes a two-tiered classification of types of writing, based on linguistic properties of texts and the differing perspectives of writers and readers. This analysis contrasts writers’ intentions to write (in) a particular language vs. to mobilise linguistic resources in a more holistic manner. The latter type of writing, it is argued, is better characterised as language-independent, since writers do not draw borders between what can be analysed as different languages from a code-based perspective often applied by analysts. The co-existence, spaces, and potentials of language-based and language-independent writing are examined in detail. This type of writing is invisible to language planners and often taken to be unreadable, akin to the mythical writing on the wall inspiring the title of the paper. Yet, in contexts with low educational resources and great linguistic diversity, language-independent writing presents a resilient and underappreciated alternative to language-based literacies.

KEYWORDS:

• Language-independent literacies
• (trans)languaging
• West Africa
• Mali

Acknowledgement

The research informing this paper was funded by an ESRC-DfID Development Frontiers Grant for the project ‘Resilience in West African Frontier societies’ led by Marie Rodet (SOAS), in which I was a co-investigator. I thank the editors and two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and constructive comments and suggestions. All remaining shortcomings are mine.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 I am grateful to Seydou Traoré of the English Department at the Université des Lettres et Sciences Humaines Bamako for the transliteration and translation.

2 I thank Coleman Donaldson from the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures at the University of Hamburg for the translation.

3 LILIEMA stands for language-independent literacies for inclusive education in multilingual areas.

Additional information

Funding

The research informing this paper was funded by an ESRC-DfID Development Frontiers Grant for the project ‘Resilience in West African Frontier societies’ led by Marie Rodet (SOAS), in which I was a co-investigator: [Grant Number ES/R002800/1].