Multilingual Discourses of Water in Postcolonial Senegal

Explores the linguistics of water-related discourses in Senegal.

Exploring multilingual discourses on water in Senegal, this book takes ecolinguistics beyond its Eurocentric confinements and illustrates important contemporary developments in the field.

Senegal is marked by a linguistic discrepancy: Wolof, spoken by roughly 90% of the population, is used in everyday communication, while French, spoken by roughly 20% of the population, is the only official language since colonisation. Inspired by water’s movement, this book proposes an innovative approach to studying two languages coexisting in one environment. Water is a constant in any natural environment and a crucial basis of human life. Its availability shapes socioeconomic and cultural practices, including language and discourse. In multilingual environments, speakers need to navigate contradicting evaluations and metaphors.

The comparative and contrastive study of conceptualisations and discourses in two languages advances the discipline of ecolinguistics by integrating new approaches, methods, and contexts. The double-language approach unravels dimensions of meaning that would otherwise go unnoticed. With selected examples, the book demonstrates the relevance for other world regions and the global nature of water problems and water discourses. It offers researchers in ecolinguistics and (critical) discourse analysis a methodological framework to empirically investigate language practices beyond monolingualism.