English and the Audience of an African Popular Culture: The Case of Nigerian Video Film

Abstract

The relationship between "foreign" languages, linguistic intelligibility, and African popular culture has long been the subject of significant misunderstanding. Founded on an extrapolation of principles first enunciated with respect to African literature and the realm of African popular culture, this misunderstanding has in time taken on the form of an unchallenged orthodoxy. According to the prevailing school of thought, cultural products in indigenous languages are often guaranteed acceptance among African popular audiences while activities in "foreign," especially European, languages hold little appeal for African audiences. A willingness to engage with activity in "foreign" languages is presumed to depend on advanced proficiency and thus on access to education, wealth, and so on. Cultural products in "foreign" languages are considered intelligible only to elite audiences, while European languages in particular are believed to operate in African cultural practice mainly as signifiers of the colonial experience. I am going to argue that these assumptions embody the limitations of a framework for situating language in cultural production, largely predicated on the function of linguistic intelligibility. Activities in "foreign" languages do not necessarily on account of language alone qualify as elite culture. But in order to extend our understanding of the multifaceted ways in which Africans apprehend activities in non-native languages, we will need to address ourselves to questions other than those relating only to proficiency and linguistic intelligibility.

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