Komlan E. Essizewa
kee206@nyu.edu
I am interested in Sociolinguistic aspects of language contact and language change phenomena such as Borrowing, Code-switching, Language maintenance and Language shift between non-related Togolese languages, particularly Kabiye (Gur), Ewe (Kwa) and French.
My dissertation which examines the sociolinguistic aspects of contact between Kabiye and Ewe and French, in everyday communication in the Kabiye speech community. Before and in the early days of contact of Kabiye with Ewe and French, Kabiye was highly spoken by almost all members of the Kabiye community. But in recent years, this trend has changed. In the present Kabiye speech community, younger speakers often use Kabiye and Ewe, Kabiye and French, or Kabiye/Ewe and French, employing bilingualism or trilingualism (Weinreich 1974, Romaine 1995) with code-switching (Myers-Scotton 1993). Thus, there is a significant decrease in the daily use of the mother tongue and a significant increase in the daily use of French and especially Ewe by younger speakers of Kabiye. My Dissertation intends to show that a language shift in progress (Romaine 1995) to Ewe (but not French) is taking place in the Kabiye speech community, especially in urban areas, despite efforts made by members of the Comité de Langue Kabiyè (Kabiye Language Committee) to sensitize Kabiye speakers on the 'proper' use of what one member calls "langue en péril".
The full abstract for the dissertation can be found here.
PAPERS and PRESENTATIONS
- Essizewa, E. Komlan and Chris Collins. 2007. Verb Focus in Kabiye. In Selected Proceedings of the 37th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, ed. Doris L. Payne and Jaime Pe–a, Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project, pp. 191-203.
- Essizewa, E. Komlan. 2007. Language Contact Phenomena in Togo: Case Study of Kabiye-Ewe Code-switching. In Selected Proceedings of the 37th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, ed. Doris L. Payne and Jaime Pe–a, Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project, pp. 30-42.
- Essizewa, E. Komlan. 2006. Sociolinguistic survey of language contact in Togo: A case study of Kabiye and Ewe. In Journal of West African Linguistics (JWAL), ed. Keir L. Hansford. Vol 33.1, pp. 35-51
- Essizewa, E. Komlan. 2006. Language Contact Phenomena in Togo: Case Study of Kabiye-Ewe Code-switching. Paper presented at the Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL), April 6-9, 2006. University of Oregon, Eugene.
- Collins, Christopher and Komlan Essizewa. 2006. Verb Focus in Kabiye. Paper presented at the Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL), April 6-9, 2006. University of Oregon, Eugene.
- A Sociolinguistic Survey of Language Contact in Togo: A Case Study of Kabiye and Ewe. Paper presented at the 35th Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL), Harvard University.
- Aspects of Kabiye Tonal Phonology and Implications for the Correspondence Theory of Faithfulness. Proceedings of the Eleventh Student. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics, 2003. Vol. 45, pp. 35-47.
- Sociolinguistic Aspects of Language Contact in Togo: A Case Study of Kabiye, Ewe and French (2002 Dissertation Proposal)
- Forms of Address in Kabiye: A Case Study of Borrowing Kinship Terms of Address (2001 qualifying paper 2)
- Aspects of Kabiye Tonal Phonology (QP 1).
- Forms of Address in Kabiye : A Case Study Borrowing of Kinship Terms of Address. Annual Conference African on Linguistics (ACAL), University of Boston, March 2-5, 2000
- Aspects of Kabiye Tonal Phonology and Implications for the Correspondence Theory of Faithfulness. Student Conference in Linguistics (SCIL 11), University of Texas, at Austin, May 8-9, 1999
Last Modified: April 17, 2006