Dr. Don Edward Walicek and Prof. Dr. Susanne Mühleisen on language practices of West African and the English on the Gold Coast during colonial times

Abstract

Abstract: In this episode, Cluster fellow Prof. Dr. Don Edward Walicek (University of Puerto Rico) talks with his host Prof. Dr. Susanne Mühleisen (University of Bayreuth) about Walicek's research project “Language Ideologies and Social Contact Involving West Africans and the English on the Gold Coast.” In this project, Walicek examines dynamics of linguistic contact among Europeans and West Africans who were involved in or otherwise impacted by the Atlantic slave trade. Focusing on language ideologies, it pays special attention to the English presence on the Gold Coast during the 16th and 17th centuries (1553-1700) given that the region was a major source of people sold into slavery as well as a point from which many departed for the Caribbean. The analyzed materials consist of documents that have not been fully examined by linguists, such as local correspondence of the Royal African Company of England.

People & roles

Guest(s): Walicek, Don Edward; Mühleisen, Susanne

Origins & context

Title: Dr. Don Edward Walicek and Prof. Dr. Susanne Mühleisen on language practices of West African and the English on the Gold Coast during colonial times
Language: English
Podcast series: Cluster Conversations
Date: March 15, 2024

Rights & access

Extent: 24 minutes, 23 seconds

Identifiers & sources

has URL: https://www.africamultiple.uni-bayreuth.de/en/1_4-Public-engagement_-engagement1/Podcasts/ClusterConversations/Episode-16/index.html

Further details

Episode number: 16

Full text

[music] Speaker 1: Cluster Conversations, a podcast by Africa Multiple. Speaker 1: Okay, welcome to the latest episode of the podcast Cluster Conversations. My name is Susanne Mühleisen. I'm a professor of English linguistics at the University of Bayreuth, and I'm also a member and a PI at the Cluster of Excellence Africa Multiple. And I'm happy to be here with Dr. Don Walicek. And Don Walicek is a professor of English and linguistics at the University of Puerto Rico's Rio Piedras campus. And he has done a lot of research with regard to historical sociolinguistics, language contact, the African diaspora in the Caribbean. And that is also where we have a joint research interest. So we've already met occasionally at conferences. And I'm very happy that Don Walicek is now here a fellow at the Cluster of Excellence Africa Multiple and has been here for the last five months actually, right? So it's wonderful to also have this opportunity to talk to you in our conversations here, but we have had a lot of interaction in the last five months also over our joint research interests. So yeah, you have published widely on these issues, on language contact, creolization, the African diaspora in the Caribbean, and also social life issues and language ideology. And that is also something that concerns your current research project which is called Language Ideologies and Social Contact Involving West Africans and the English on the Gold Coast. Okay, I think before we come to the concrete project, maybe I could ask you what is interesting to you about language ideologies or how did you get to do research on that? Speaker 2: Sure. I'm happy to talk about that. I come to linguistics from linguistic anthropology and from anthropology. And so I've always been interested in that social sphere and contextualizing language and ideas about language structure and, you know, language change in terms of social history and social life. And so language ideologies encourage us or push us, the… Read the full text about 3,094 words