Fallou Ngom (Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts)

Submitted: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 01:37:35 -0400


Fallou Ngom
Associate Professor
Director of the African Language Program
Department of Anthropology and African Studies Center
Boston University
232 Bay State Road
Boston, Massachusetts  02215  USA

e-mail:   fngom@bu.edu


My research interests lie in the areas of sociolinguistics, language and 
identity, language and culture, language and religion, and language 
variation and change in French, English and Portuguese speaking countries 
of West Africa. My work focuses on several West African languages 
(especially Senegambian Wolof, Mandinka, Pulaar and Portuguese Creole 
known as Crioulo) and their interactions with French, English and Arabic. 

My research is primarily data-driven and seeks to shed light on the 
religious, ethnic, socio-cultural, political and historical dimensions of 
language use in these West African societies. 

More recently, I am working on issues at the crossroads of scholarship in 
African Linguistics, African Studies, History and Islamic Studies, and 
Ajami linguistics. I am currently studying various (socio)linguistic, 
cultural and religious aspects of various Wolof, Pulaar, and Mandinka 
Ajami manuscripts from Senegambia. I intend to continue to study (and 
teach about) the writing systems of Ajami manuscripts in the region, the 
religious and secular messages contained in them, the speech communities 
where they serve as primary means of written communication, and the 
historical, cultural and religious heritage that has found expression in 
this manner.


Selected publications:

"Ajami Scripts in the Senegalese Speech Community," forthcoming in Journal 
of Arabic & Islamic Studies.

"Les Implications sociolinguistiques des emprunts du wolof au 
français," SAFARA: Revue Internationale de Langues, 
Littératures et Cultures, 2005, p. 147-164.

"Language and Ethnic Identity in the Senegalese Speech Community," 
International Journal of the Sociology of Language, Issue 170, 2004, 
p. 95-111.

"The Social Status of Arabic, French and English in the Senegalese Speech 
Community," Language Variation and Change, Vol. 15, 2003, p. 351-368.

"Linguistic Resistance in the Murid Community in Senegal," Journal of 
Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2002, 
p. 214-226.

"Linguistic Borrowing as Evidence of the Social History of the Senegalese 
Speech Community," International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 
Vol. 158, 2002. p. 37-51.

"Les variables sociolinguistiques dans le journal satirique 
sénégalais: le Cafard Libéré," The French 
Review, Vol. 75, No. 5, 2002, p. 914-924.

"Sociolinguistic Motivations of Lexical Borrowings in Senegal," Studies 
in The Linguistic Sciences, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2000, p. 159-172.

"Sociolinguistic Profile of the Senegalese Speech Community," Studies 
in The Linguistic Sciences, Vol. 29, No. 1, 1999, p. 131-146.