A Multidisciplinary Analysis of African Oral Legal Traditions

This book examines the African oral legal tradition through the case study of the Banen community of Cameroon, employing a multidisciplinary forensic linguistics framework that synthesises methods from diverse socio-legal, linguistic and ethnographic disciplines. By highlighting the intersection of law and language in indigenous contexts, the author evaluates how well customary law can achieve peaceful outcomes despite the challenges of multilingualism in a courtroom setting. Ultimately, this book advocates for the preservation and recognition of African oral legal traditions, emphasising their significance within contemporary legal discourse. It will be of interest to scholars, practitioners and advanced students of forensic linguistics primarily, but also to the wider population of researchers in applied linguistics, ethnography and legal studies.

Presents a ground-breaking interdisciplinary perspective in language and law, specifically in forensic linguistics Uses first-hand data to analyse the customary court discourse of an African indigenous community Includes interviews with traditional Banen legal authorities and community members in the littoral region of Cameroon

Autorentext

Endurence Midinette Koumassol Dissake is a Lecturer of Applied Linguistics at the Department of Linguistics and African Language of the University of Bamenda, Cameroon. Her research is situated in the field of Applied Linguistics, with a particular focus on Forensic Linguistics, Discourse Analysis and Language Documentation. She has served as the Principal Investigator of a Language Documentation project sponsored by the Endangered Language Documentation Program (ELDP), and has received several important recognitions for her research career, including the Georg Forster Research Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in 2023, the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence Research Grant in 2022, and the Award of Excellence in Science by the African-German Network in 2020. She is the author and co-author of various scientific publications, including the book Language and Legal Proceedings: Analysing Cameroon Courtroom Discourse (2021).

Inhalt

Chapter 1 General Introduction.- Chapter 2 An Ethnographic Survey of the Banen Community.- Chapter 3 A Descriptive Overview of the Grammar of Tunen.- Chapter 4 African Oral Tradition: Analysing the Oral Literature of the Banen Community.- Chapter 5 Cameroon Judicial Institutions: The Evolution of Customary Justice.- Chapter 6 Documenting the Customary Court Proceedings of the Banen Community.- Chapter 7 Thematic Analysis and General Conclusion.