From the Africa of Languages to the Africa of Discourse. The Voices of Language

The long discursive formation of language in Africa, meaning the body of disseminated discourse that constitutes the method for understanding language, is part of a scientific system governed by power relationships. Linguistic theories from the North have had a determining influence on international research and resulted in an ethnic-centred and essentialist understanding of language. After placing the linguistic discourses since colonisation into perspective, this paper attempts to take the opposing view by engaging in a linguistic anthropology of Africa aiming to analyse the discursive process rather than pursue the categorisation of language varieties. The example of a discursive element such the "Open days with deported migrant workers" in Mali, organised by the Malian Association of Deported Workers, viewed in the perspective of a multi-local research project into word formulation by Mali migrants, allows us to trace a framework for a study of linguistic heterogeneity that intends to go beyond post-colonial dialectics.