Browsing by Author "Simungala, Gabriel"

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    Campus repertoires: interrogating semiotic assemblages, economy, and creativity
    (De Gruyter Mouton, 2024) Simungala, Gabriel; Ndalama-Mtawali, Deborah
    Framed within the broader theoretical context of social semiotics, we attempt to show how university students communicate using a variety of unique means, in particular social contexts. We privilege Pennycook and Otsuji’s semiotic assemblages, Jimaima and Simungala’s semiotic creativity, and the notion of semiotic economy as critical ingredients that conspire to give rise to the unique and complex coinages and innovations constituting students’ repertoires. We argue that, born out of creativity, the students’ repertoires are semiotically and economically charged discourses that generate extended narratives such that more is realized with less. We show that this reality undoubtedly constitutes a multi-semiotic meaning-making endeavor that enacts and sustains students’ imagined and lived experiences in real sociocultural, historical, and political spaces in the multilingual landscapes of university campuses.
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    Legitimization and recontextualization of languages: The imbalance of powers in a multilingual landscape
    (John Benjamins Publishing company, 2023) Simungala, Gabriel; Jimaima, Hambaba
    We use the uneven distribution of languages in the public spaces of the University of Zambia and the voices and narratives that emerge to argue for legitimization and recontextualization as critical components in the presence and contestations of languages. Using data from interviews and photographs of signage in place, we show legitimization of foreign languages in which English, Japanese, and Chinese forge a place of linguistic contestation and legitimization through control and superiority. We argue for the apparent hegemony of foreign languages and the striking paucity of monolingual signage of indigenous languages as the imbalance of powers. While the former shows the influence of the global in the local, the prospects for the latter continue to diminish as their chances and opportunities as linguistic capital for wider/global communication do not look so favourable. We conclude with the glaring reality of recontextualization as capital for the display of indigenous inclined discourses
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    Linguistic landscapes and dominant language constellations: the multilingual behaviour of minoritised migrant populations in Lusaka, Zambia
    (2025) Simungala, Gabriel
    Within the broader theoretical and methodological contexts of linguistic landscapes, where language(s) displayed and used in public spaces serve as analytic lenses, this paper draws on the public spaces of Bauleni township, a peri-urban community of Lusaka, Zambia (South-Central Africa) to describe the multilingual behaviour of migrant populations. Focusing on the presence (and visibility) of Mambwe-Namwanga, two minoritised language groups in Zambia’s sociolinguistic mix, the article shows that as people migrate, it is not always the case that they lose their language(s) for they carry with them their linguistic repertoire which they blend with those found in the new space. To this end, the article uses the outlook of the linguistic landscape and connects it to the dominant language constellations of the Mambwe-Namwanga migrant populations. It argues that while adopting the languages found and used in Bauleni, Mambwe-Namwanga actors simultaneously imprint their presence on the linguistic landscape. These imprints serve as cultural expressions, markers of self-assertion, and symbols of identity, reflecting the dynamic interplay of language and migration in the construction of multilingual spaces.