Tove Rosendal
Researcher
Department of Languages andAbout Tove Rosendal
Researcher, docent
- Office hour: by appointment
Background
I defended my thesis “Linguistic Landshapes. A comparison of official and non-official language management in Rwanda and Uganda, focusing on the position of African languages” in June 2010. This is a macro-sociolinguistic work where I compare and analyze language policy and language use in Rwanda and Uganda within formal domains. The work included model and method development.
Before starting my doctoral studies in 2005 at the then Department of Oriental and African Languages at the University of Gothenburg, I worked as a teacher and with non-formal adult education - in Sweden and also in African countries.
Research
Ongoing project 2022- 2024: Reading the Signs: Renaming and transformative processes in urban Rwanda. This 3-year project is financed by the Swedish Research Council (VR) and is conducted in collaboration with Dr. Jean de Dieu Amini Ngabonziza, University of Kigali, Rwanda.
The project combines the research fields linguistic landscape and onomastics with research for development.
More about the project: Reading the Signs: Renaming and transformative processes in urban Rwanda
Since spring 2018, I have been working on the project “Signs of change – Social Identity and Power Reflected in the Linguistic Landscape of Rwanda”, funded by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. This is a three-year project. The aim of this project is to provide insights into how language, place and people interact in the linguistic landscape (LL) in Rwanda, and to understand how power relationships and identity are constructed and transformed in this public space. In Africa, language policy plays an important role and influences the LL. Rwanda has a quadrilingual language policy which favours English, especially after 2008, despite the fact that English has no colonial historical background in the country. In Rwanda, there are discrepancies in access to European, high-status languages and consequently differences from the perspective of power.
More about the project: Signs of change – Social Identity and Power Reflected in the Linguistic Landscape of Rwanda
I am also involved in the project “The role of language in segregation and gentrification processes: linguistic landscapes in Gothenburg, Sweden” along with colleagues at the Department and beyond. A pilot project financed by stiftelsen Anna Ahrenbergs fond (the Anna Ahrenberg Foundation) paved the way for a three-year Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) project that began in January 2019. In brief, this project deals with social upward mobility and gentrification processes with consequent immigrations and emigrations of different population categories and how these are reflected in and influence how language is used.
More about the project: The role of language in segregation and gentrification processes: linguistic landscapes in Gothenburg, Sweden
Between 2014 and 2018, I worked on the project “Linguistic Marginalization - Understanding the Process and Effects on Development Capacities” which was a 3.5 year project funded by the Swedish Research Council (U-Forsk). The project was a socio-linguistic study linking the use of language with development issues. The project focused on code switching, i.e., switching between Ngoni and Swahili in the Ruvuma region in south-west Tanzania. Swahili, which is used in formal contexts and which, since independence, has been promoted as a language of communication across ethnic and linguistic boundaries, has a growing place in Tanzanian society, even in rural communities and within the family. It is estimated that approximately 95 per cent of the adult population speak Swahili.
More about the project: Linguistic Marginalization - Understanding the Process and Effects on Development Capacities
In 2012–2014, as a post-doc I had a project within the TASENE programme, which was funded by COSTECH, SIDA and NWO (the Netherlands’ Organization for Scientific Research)/WOTRO Science for Global Development. The project entitled Ngoni – Language, culture and sociolinguistic situation was a project in three parts conducted in Tanzania in collaboration with Dr Gastor Mapunda, University of Dar es Salaam. The project studied the minority language Ngoni spoken in the Ruvuma region in southern Tanzania. It included a socio-linguistic survey/interview study of 800 school children in grade 1 and grades 5–7 in which their parents’ linguistic background, the children’s knowledge of Ngoni, their attitudes to Ngoni, and how the language was used in the local community were studied. The other two parts of the project involved documenting and analysing spoken Ngoni using digital equipment. Recordings with informants in different age groups were made. The linguistic analysis focused particularly on the extent to which borrowed words from Swahili and English were used, how these had been integrated into Ngoni and last but not least, if code switching (i.e., switching between Ngoni and another language) was occurring. Extensive code switching may indicate that a language is becoming impoverished and in the longer term may no longer be transferred from one generation to the next, which also indicates that a language may be under threat and even starting to disappearing.
I have also conducted research funded by the Birgit och Gad Rausings Stiftelse för Vetenskaplig Forskning (Birgit and Gad Rausing Foundation for Scientific Research) into the status and usage of the Cushitic language Somali in Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya, i.e., the countries bordering Somalia, where Somali is spoken in some regions.
By studying the relationship between languages that are permitted to be used and which are de facto used in various functions in multilingual societies, power relationships are revealed. The language that is given official recognition and the status of the teaching language for example, and thus is the language spoken by a country’s elite, is important for both democracy and socio-economic development.
Teaching
I have earlier been responsible for the net-based course AF1100, Language and Society in Africa and lectured within the new Internationella språkprogrammet. Earlier, I have even taught the net courses SO1101, Somali Society and Culture and SO1201, Language and Society. Together with Harbi Abdillahi Amir I have developed contract education about Somali culture (courses and lectures). For several years I also taught part of the course Afrikastudier at Global studies, University of Gothenburg.
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Introducing the political economy of language in
place/space
Johan Järlehed, Tommaso M. Milani, Tove Rosendal
Linguistic Landscape - 2023 -
Amid signs of change: language policy, ideology and power in the linguistic landscape of urban
Rwanda
Tove Rosendal, Jean de Dieu Amini Ngabonziza
Language Policy - 2023 -
Language, translocality and urban change: Online and offline signage in four Gothenburg
neighbourhoods
Tove Rosendal, Helle Lykke Nielsen, Johan Järlehed, Tommaso M. Milani, Maria Löfdahl
Linguistic Landscape - 2023 -
Moskéer i Göteborg: Självpositionering i det urbana
rummet
Helle Lykke Nielsen, Maria Löfdahl, Tove Rosendal, Johan Järlehed, Tommaso M. Milani
Nordic Journal of Socio-Onomastics (NoSo) - 2022 -
Språkliga hierarkier i Göteborg – en intersektionell och jämförande analys av finskans och somaliskans (o)synlighet och
status
Maria Löfdahl, Johan Järlehed, Tommaso M. Milani, Helle Lykke Nielsen, Tove Rosendal
Språklig mångfald: Rapport från ASLA-symposiet i Göteborg, 23–24 april, 2020 / Stina Ericsson, Inga-Lill Grahn & Susanna Karlsson (red.) - 2022 -
Imagined Futures and NewTechnology: Youths’ Language Attitudes in Songea,
Tanzania
Gastor Mapunda, Tove Rosendal
Language Matters - 2021 -
Entrepreneurial Naming and Scaling of Urban Places: The case of Nya
Hovås
Johan Järlehed, Maria Löfdahl, Tommaso M. Milani, Helle Lykke Nielsen, Tove Rosendal
The Economy in Names. Values, Branding and Globalization. Proceedings of Names in the Economy 6, International Conference, Uppsala 3–5 June 2019 / edited by Katharina Leibring, Leila Mattfolk, Kristina Neumüller, Staffan Nyström, and Elin Pihl - 2021 -
Investigating Bulletin Boards with Students: What Can Citizen Science Offer Education and Research in the Linguistic
Landscape?
Helle Lykke Nielsen, Tove Rosendal, Johan Järlehed, Christopher Kullenberg
Language Teaching in the Linguistic Landscape / editors: Malinowski, David, Maxim, Hiram H., Dubreil, Sebastien - 2020 -
Linguistic landscapes and the African
perspective(s)
Karsten Legère, Tove Rosendal
Expanding the Linguistic Landscape: Linguistic Diversity, Multimodality and the Use of Space as a Semiotic Resource / edited by Martin Pütz and Neele Mundt. - 2019 -
Speaking of tradition: how the Ngoni talk about value maintenance and
change
Tove Rosendal
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development - 2018 -
What are analog bulletin boards used for today? Analysing media uses, intermediality and technology affordances in Swedish bulletin board messages using a citizen science
approach
Christopher Kullenberg, Frauke Rohden, Anders Björkvall, Fredrik Brounéus, Anders Avellan-Hultman , Johan Järlehed, Sara Van Meerbergen, Andreas Nord, Helle Lykke Nielsen, Tove Rosendal, Lotta Tomasson, Gustav Westberg
PLoS ONE - 2018 -
Language, food and gentrification: signs of socioeconomic mobility in two Gothenburg
neighbourhoods
Johan Järlehed, Helle Lykke Nielsen, Tove Rosendal
Multilingual Margins - 2018 -
Contact-induced language alternation in Tanzanian Ngoni – an empirical study of frequency and
patterns
Tove Rosendal, Gastor Mapunda
International Journal of Multilingualism - 2017 -
Identity Construction and Norms of Practice among Bilingual Ngoni in Rural
Tanzania.
Tove Rosendal
Language Matters - 2017 -
Slutrapport Anslagstavlan - Forskarfredags massexperiment
2016
Ander Björkvall, Johan Järlehed, Christopher Kullenberg, Helle Lykke Nielsen, Andreas Nord, Tove Rosendal, Sara van Meerbergen, Gustav Westberg
2017 -
Language transmission and use in a bilingual setting in rural Tanzania. Findings from an in-depth study of
Ngoni.
Tove Rosendal
Endangered Languages and Languages in Danger. Issues of documentation, policy and language rights / eds. Luna Filipovic, Martin Putz - 2016 -
National languages, English and social cohesion in East
Africa.
Karsten Legère, Tove Rosendal
Hywel Coleman (ed.) Language and Social Cohesion in the Developing World - 2015 -
Borrowing in Tanzanian Ngoni lexicon: Some semantic trends in a language contact
situation.
Gastor Mapunda, Tove Rosendal
Language Matters - 2015 -
Is the Tanzanian Ngoni language threatened? A survey of lexical borrowing from
Swahili
Tove Rosendal, Gastor Mapunda
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development - 2014 -
Linguistic Landshapes. A comparison of official and non-official language management in Rwanda and Uganda, focusing on the position of African languages. Förord: Neville
Alexander
Tove Rosendal
2011 -
Languages in competition in Rwanda: Who is winning on the linguistic
market?
Tove Rosendal
Language Matters - 2010 -
Linguistic Landshapes. A comparison of official and non-official language management in Rwanda and Uganda, focusing on the position of African
languages
Tove Rosendal
2010 -
Linguistic markets in Rwanda: Language use in advertisements and on
signs
Tove Rosendal
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development - 2009 -
Multilingual Cameroon. Policy, Practice, Problems and
Solutions
Tove Rosendal
2008 -
Language policy in selected African countries: Achievements and
constraints
Karsten Legère, Tove Rosendal, Helene Fatima Idris
Language and Development: Africa and Beyond (Proceedings of the 7th International Language and Development Conference. Addis Ababa: British Council - 2007 -
The noun classes of Rwanda - an
overview
Tove Rosendal
MISS (Meddelanden fran Institutionen för svenska språket) - 2006