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© American Name Society 2010 DOI 10.1179/002777310X12852321500185
names, Vol. 58 No. 4, December, 2010, 197–208
Language Planning, Language
Ideology and Entextualization:
War Naming Practices
Busi Makoni
Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA. USA
Sinfree Makoni
Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA. USA
Charles Pfukwa
University of Masvingo State, Zimbabwe
This article examines the relationship between language and war by investi-
gating naming practices through three prisms: language planning, language
ideology and entextualization. The article focuses on names assigned to
combatants during the War of Liberation for Zimbabwe’s independence. In
African cultures, names often address a kaleidoscope of issues which may
include the collective history and life experiences of the individual name
bearer and the people surrounding him or her. In most African contexts
changes in an individual’s personal circumstances are marked by a name
change, which suggests that names are variable and are not immutable.
Entering the guerilla movement in Zimbabwe was a significant transforma-
tion which, in accordance with African cultural practices, required a new
name to be assigned to signify the entry into a new phase of life. The names
assigned reflect a “discourse” about the hopes and aspirations of the com-
batants. However, it appears that the underlying principles of naming in war
are not significantly different from those during peacetime. In addition,
war naming practices have implications for language planning from below,
language ideologies and entextualization.
keywords Language ideology, Language planning, Language policy, Libera-
tion War, entextualization
Introduction
This study investigates the dynamics and politics of names assigned to guerilla
fighters during the liberation struggle for Zimbabwe’s independence. There is a very
198 BUSI MAKONI et al.
impressive body of literature on personal naming practices. One of the main topics
of this research is the etymology and social significance and meanings of the names
in their respective communities (Akinasso 1980; Kimenyi 1978; Mathangwane and
Gardner 2002). Our article differs from this tradition in that it uses sociolinguistic
theoretical frameworks for interpretive insight in investigating naming practices
during the Chimurenga War. War names refer to the names given to the fighters
themselves, or the labeling of those against whom the combatants are fighting.
The Chimurenga War took place in the past, and therefore the linguistic analysis
of naming is a form of a “linguistic turn” of historiography in that the analysis is
situated at the intersection of linguistic analysis and history.
Specifically the article addresses the following questions:
(i) What do naming practices look like when viewed through the prisms of
language ideology and language planning, and conversely what do language
planning and language ideology look like when viewed through naming
practices during war?
(ii) What is the sociolinguistic significance of discourse processes such as
entextualization on naming practices during war?
(iii) Are there any significant gender differences in the names assigned to the
guerillas?
Since in most African communities “every level of personal development has a name-
giving ritual, in which the new name symbolizes the achievement of a new state of
social being” (Coplan 1994:47), joining the combatants in a liberation war requires a
rite of passage in which a new name is vital for marking this change. However, unlike
other name changes in rite of passage situations, in the case studied here, the name
change affected both the first name and the surname. In ordinary rites of passage
name changes, it is very seldom that the surname is changed. Yet in wartime, at least
in the case of the Chimurenga War, the change of name represents the construction
of a new identity for the guerilla, in which both first and surname are changed.
In the Chimurenga War, given names were deeply embedded in a politics of
resistance and depict futuristic endeavors in an imagined independent state. As such,
the war names or names assigned by and to individuals during the war of liberation
were pseudonyms (Finnegan 2003) or noms de guerre which discursively constructed
an “us” and “them” dichotomy wherein “the former is imbued with morally good
qualities and the latter constitutes the evil, even inhuman enemy” (Brinkman 2004:2).
The new names initiated, legitimated, and changed the identity of the individual
during the liberation war. In fact, the war names were seldom used again after the
end of the liberation war.
By and large, this article is a continuation of our earlier work (Makoni et al. 2007)
in which we analyzed names in a context where the individuals were not engaged in
the liberation war, during the period 1960–1990. In this article, we analyze the names
of Zimbabwe’s war veterans (then referred to as guerilla fighters or Vakomana
(“boys” in Shona)). These are names they either were given or gave themselves not
only to disguise their identities, but also at the same time to construct a new identity;
possibly in preparation for the new independent state. We chose the Chimurenga War
because it was the most significant nationalist war in the history of Zimbabwe.
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LANGUAGE PLANNING, LANGUAGE IDEOLOGY AND ENTEXTUALIZATION
War is both a physical act of violence and a social process with discourse
practices that have a substantial impact on corpus planning. In wartime, language
undergoes rapid changes as new words are added to the language or old words
acquire new meanings associated with war experiences (Brinkman 2004). New words
are introduced into the language as part of “code-language.” This furtive language is
often used “to prevent the enemy from knowing about war strategies and plans”
(Brinkman 2004:3). Language change also occurs in part because of the deployment
of old words/terms to new contexts and the creation of new linguistic configurations
made up of multiple languages. The process of creating new words or expressions, as
well as modifying old ones, or selecting among alternative forms, is a part of corpus
planning. In most cases, corpus planning aims to develop the resources of a language
so that it becomes an appropriate medium for communicating new concepts which
cannot be communicated using the existing repertoire of words in the language.
Corpus planning, like any other form of language planning, is typically a top-down
activity. Yet war naming practices create opportunities for corpus planning from
below, as the act of naming is an instance of ground-level practices. From an applied
linguistic perspective, naming practices during wartime are indicative of processes
of corpus planning from below. Thus, studying war names not only provides insight
into language planning from below, but also offers significant insight into “an
encompassing social and political history” (Ferme 2001:177).
The article views war names from the quintessential triad of discourse-identity-
ideology. War names discursively construct a particular identity and reflect specific
ideologies through language use. The paper therefore is conceptualized not only as a
contribution to onomastics but also to language planning and ideologies of language
(Blommaert, 2005; Makoni and Pennycook, 2006; Woolard and Schieffelin, 1994).
Ideologies of language are viewed as contextual sets of beliefs about languages, as
cultural and political systems of ideas about social and linguistic relationships
(Pennycook, 2007). The manner in “which languages are constructed is never about
language only, but also about how individuals are thought about in society and
definitions about” (Makoni et al. 2007:6) “languages are always definitions about
human beings in the world” (Woolard and Schieffelin, 1994: 55). Ideologies of
language are examined through the discursive construction of war names.
In African contexts, names, by their very nature, are “discoursed” or “languaged”
(Maturana 1988; Mignolo 2001). Names indicate “the collective history and life
experiences” (Mphande 2006) not only of the individual but also of the people
surrounding the individual. The term “languaged” encapsulates active engagement,
support, appropriation and subversion. To this end, “names of all kinds are social
documents, which fix a person’s position in the social structure and define his rela-
tions to other members of society” (Koopman 1992:1). This phenomenon of using
names as discourse elements is also evident in the naming of dogs (Tatira 2004). Dog
names “are used to comment on human social relationships” (ibid.:85), especially
those things that cannot be expressed on a face-to-face basis. Names are therefore a
vital communicative resource and provide a “languaging” opportunity. In wartime,
“enemy-construction” (Brinkman 2004) is articulated through the use of names. For
instance, the name Bhidliza Mabhunu (Destroy Boers/whites) is in its own right an
internal or in-group discourse about the out-group, as it expresses a wish by the
200 BUSI MAKONI et al.
in-group. The names are therefore situated within putative discourses which provide
an opportunity to analyze processes of entextualization (Blommaert 2005; Bucholtz
2009).
Even though the names analyzed here are from a specific period, the use of names
may transcend a particular historical period. For example, Chimurenga was the name
of the legendary Shona ancestor Murenga Sororenzou (whom mythology describes
as an extremely big man with a head the size of an elephant (nzou). Murenga was
famous for the songs he composed which were sources of inspiration to his war col-
leagues. “Chimurenga” was subsequently used to refer to any battle against tyranny
of any sort, including, ironically, opposition to institutional politics in independent
Zimbabwe articulated through a type of protest music referred to as Chimurenga.
Chimurenga has also been used as a metaphor for nationalistic history. It has been
actively mobilized in the construction of a national memory, history, and common
tradition.
The origins of the name Chimurenga can be traced as far back as the battles
between the Portuguese and the Munhumutapa Empire in the seventeenth century.
It was used again in the 1830s resistance by the Shona against Ndebele raids, and
later in the conflict between the British and the Ndebele and Shona. More recently,
it has been used by the Zimbabwean government to legitimate its land acquisition
from Zimbabwean whites. The semantic and teleological history of a word like
Chimurenga shows the complicated, constantly shifting, and at times conflicting
nature of the concept. It also demonstrates how it has been effectively and astutely
used to create continuity in the “nationalistic historiography” (Ranger 2004) of
Zimbabwe. The meaning of the word Chimurenga shows the complex relationship
between the construction of national imagination, entextualization, naming and
history. Naming in war encapsulates the tension within post-colonial Africa as it tries
to imagine its past by creating what it imagines to be “authentic” preceding epochs
through retrospective naming while framing the rendition of that history along the
linear Western model of history.
Background: Zimbabwean social and political war context
The naming practices and the attendant names analyzed fall within a very specific
political context during Zimbabwe’s War of Liberation in the 1970s. In the late nine-
teenth century, Zimbabwe was colonized by the British South African Company, an
occupation which came to an end when Ian Smith unilaterally declared independence
(UDI) from Britain in 1965. After the UDI, it became apparent to most African
nationalists that the government of Ian Smith would not voluntarily concede power.
As a result, the nationalists became militant and the military conflict reached its
apogee in the 1970s. The two major political parties during the nationalistic period
were the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) led by Robert Mugabe, and the
Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) led by Joshua Nkomo. Robert Mugabe’s
military wing was based in Mozambique, while the main base of Joshua Nkomo’s
party was in Zambia. A political solution was found in 1979 and was mediated by
the British government at Lancaster House in London. The focus of this article is
on the naming practices of Robert Mugabe’s war combatants, members of the
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LANGUAGE PLANNING, LANGUAGE IDEOLOGY AND ENTEXTUALIZATION
Zimbabwe African National Liberation army (ZANLA) forces. Restricting the analy-
sis to one period and one ethnic group, i.e., the Shona controls the contexts as tightl y
as possible.
Robert Mugabe’s war combatants were predominantly but not exclusively Shona,
while Joshua Nkomo’s combatants were drawn mainly from the Ndebele and
Kalanga ethnicities in south- western Zimbabwe. Notably, the adoption of new names
is a characteristic feature of most guerilla movements. Although a new name might
be used for security reasons, there is a sense in which the use of war names is an
act of defiance against the existing government which, from the viewpoint of the
guerillas, is an illegitimate government that has to be deposed. By not using state-
registered names, the guerillas are essentially building “a society outside state control”
(Brinkman 2004:8). Nonetheless, high profile leaders of the guerilla movements con-
tinued to use their registered names. It is possible that the top leadership felt the need
to maintain their actual names for purposes of international recognition (Brinkman
2004). In addition, the Chimurenga War had both male and female fighters, yet there
has not been any study that investigates whether female combatants were named in
the same way as their male counterparts. In this article, an attempt is made at filling
this gap.
Data collection
The names analyzed were drawn from a corpus of about 1875 names of war com-
batants. Analyzing the names of a clearly defined group, such as war combatants
during a specific period (the 1970s), enables us to investigate the nature of prevailing
language ideologies during that epoch and the de-facto language planning policies
therein. More importantly, the corpus was composed of the names of guerillas that
died in the war, from a list published in 1983 by the Zimbabwean Ministry of
Information. In the data corpus, the meaning of each name is given wherever possible.
The meanings of the names were interpreted by one of the co-authors who is not only
a linguist and a native speaker of Shona, but also a former combatant in the Chi-
murenga War. His experiences and involvement in the War rendered it possible
to acquire an insider or emic (Pike 1944) perspective of the war and the meanings of
the names. Even though the interpretation of the entries was made by a linguist-
cum-scholar-cum-war combatant, we cannot claim that his interpretations necessar-
ily and identically correspond to the intended meanings of the name-bearers or
name-givers. An exact match between the meanings of the names is also rendered
difficult because the meaning interpreted by the person named might be different
from the meaning intended by the name-giver. Even in instances when the name-
bearers named themselves, it is difficult to know the intended meaning as the
combatants were deceased.
Data analysis
In analyzing the names, we (a) explored the languages used in the names, and (b)
whether the same language was used for both first and surname, i.e. whether first
names were predominantly in English and surnames in Shona. In the case of the
202 BUSI MAKONI et al.
names whose etymology appeared to be English, we explored whether the name may
be found in localized English usage, if not, we then examined the nature of the lin-
guistic processes on which the name was based (e.g. nominalization, compounding).
Wherever possible we tried to establish the source of the name; i.e., whether it had
been drawn from popular culture or fiction as part of entexualization.
In this sample, we found that the first name came either from English or from
Shona, but the surname was always in Shona. Thus, a name could be a combination
of the two languages in that the first name is in English and the surname in Shona.
This practice in naming is not unique to wartime in Zimbabwe. Evidence presented
in Makoni et al. (2007) shows that while names in Zimbabwe are drawn from English
and African languages, very rarely do Africans have surnames drawn from the English
lexicon. In the corpus, there were only 5% or 95 cases in which both the first name
and surname were in English.
There were also 188 (about 10 %) in which both the first name and surname were
in an African language such as Teurai Ropa (Spill blood), Bvuma Zvipere (Agree
and its over). Ideologically, this suggests that while bilingual practices of Shona and
English are widespread, the exclusive use of African languages is feasible, and the use
of English-only names is limited. These examples show the degree to which English
had spread in African communities as well as the extent to which it had been appro-
priated as one of the local languages even amongst war combatants. This reflects a
paradoxically polemical issue. On the one hand, nationalist freedom fighters associ-
ated English with colonialism and viewed it as a tool of oppression to be denounced
at all costs. Yet, on the other hand, in wartime, they embraced the use of the language
in their camps because in that context the “out-group” was not the colonialists but
rather the African comrades who were from different ethnic groups (Mazrui 1975).
Using a language of any other ethnic group would have been potentially hegemonic.
The use of English by combatants who were all non-native speakers of English
invoked some “imagined” collective identity and thus avoiding any possible form of
ethnic “othering.”
In names such as Admire Chimurenga “liberation war,” Strongman Hondo “war,”
Liberty Makata “uphill,” and Talkmore Tichatonga “We shall rule,” the English
lexical items are not used as first names in English-speaking communities. There are
other names based on English language lexical items which seem to have been formed
through a process of nominalization. Names such as Toasted, Worry and Stubborn
are examples of the process of nominalization. The proper nouns were derived from
verbs (toast), transitive verb (worry) and adjective (stubborn). In some situations, the
process of nominalization produced names which were inconsistent with localized
English spelling but were an attempt at approximating Shona phonological structure.
For example, Wonderous “wondrous,” Winai “win,” and Sayizi “size” show an
approximation of Shona phonology. There is, however, some difference between
Wonderous, Winai, and Sayizi. Wonderous is made up of morphemes which may be
encountered in English (-ous) as a bound morpheme in words such as “riotous” and
“righteous.” English-like names such as Winai, Sayizi, and Seriyasi “serious” have the
CVC Shona syllabic structure. These names are examples of Africanized spellings
of English words. The spellings are based on Shona phonetics reflecting the varying
degrees to which both languages are combined in practice in multilingual contexts.
Names such as Talkmore, Youngman, Saymore, Stepmore, Trymore, Edmore, etc.
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LANGUAGE PLANNING, LANGUAGE IDEOLOGY AND ENTEXTUALIZATION
reflect a novel form of compounding not found in native-speaker varieties of English.
Clearly, some of the names reflect a combination of processes, for example,
nominalization and the conversion of English words into Shona phonology. There are
also names such as David, Peter and Maxwell which are used as first names in both
war and peacetime (see Makoni et al. (2007) for peacetime). Names such as Peter,
David and John are also found in English-speaking contexts as first names or
surnames.1 However, what is worth noting is that in the corpus of Chimurenga War
names these names are used as first names only. The surnames are all in Shona. The
use of English or English-like naming practices in war suggests that English is treated
as a “local” language (Higgins 2009) in a manner analogous to the ways in which
indigenous languages are framed.
Words such as “strongman” or “talkmore” are also commonly used as first names
in peacetime (see Makoni et al. 2007). Names such as Sinfree, Learnmore and
Lovemore are very common in Zimbabwe, reflecting that this form of compounding
in name formation is as much a feature of naming practices in peacetime as it is in
war. Perhaps this convention for forming names is a cultural practice that found its
way into wartime practice. On the whole, the principles underlying naming practices
in war are not substantially different from those in peacetime. Thus, naming
practices in war and peace are instances of comparable principles under dissimilar
circumstances.
Examples such as Youngman Zvichaita “young man it will happen,” Stepmore
Chamboko “increase or step up the beating,” Addmore Mauto “increase the number
of soldiers,” Trymore Magorira “try harder guerillas,” Trymore Shungu “be more
determined,” Newman Hondo “a new person for the war,” Liberty Makatu “liberty
is an uphill struggle,” Talkmore Tichatonga “with more talking we will rule,” Winai
Nyika “win the country,” Wonderous Udzai “wonderful to tell” and Siriyasi
Tichatonga “we are serious we shall rule” are all examples of bilingual naming prac-
tices. This is interesting because, in colonial language policies, it was not the Africans
who were expected to be bilingual. White settlers were to be bilingual in English and
an African language (Makoni et al. 2007). This suggests that language planning may,
in fact, produce unintended outcomes.
The examples cited above are all in non-standard English with the surname drawn
from Shona. Yet the war surnames do not resemble any known surnames used during
peacetime. The surnames are striking in that they reflect war situations or aspirations.
They are, therefore, interesting from an “interpersonal” and “ideational” perspective.
From an interpersonal perspective, the names sound as if the name-bearers were
engaged in a conversation interpersonally directed in some cases at the individual,
but in other cases at the targeted oppressor regime. Hondo “war,” Tichatonga “we
shall rule,” Nyika “the country” are all “discoursing” about war. The discursive
aspect of war names is also evident in instances where both names are in Shona.
Names such as Bvuma Zvipere “give in and it will be over,” Bvuma Titonge “give in
so that we can rule,” Batanai Muhondo “be united in war” and Bvrurai Mabhunu
“kill all whites” reflect the aspirations and hopes of war combatants.
This raises the question of whether war has dissimilar effects on naming practices
than peace. The answer is “probably not,” because at least in the Zimbabwean case,
the two social activities, war and peace, are governed by similar naming principles.
204 BUSI MAKONI et al.
The difference between war names and those used in peacetime is the propositions
of the names and not the underlying principles of name-assignment. In both war
and peace, the names chosen are dialogic and reflect the prevailing context. The
practice of using names which are sensitive to context and individual experiences
is widespread and common in both war and peace. The differences, however, lie in
the nature and type of discourses of the names. For example, war names such as
Mabhunu Muchapera “all whites shall be killed,” Teurai Ropa “blood shall be spilt”
are encountered in the war corpus and not in civilian usage, which suggests differ-
ences in topical issues between war and peace. Similarly, names such as Runyaradzo
“peace,” Tanatswa “we are happy” and Rugare “we are comfortable” are common
in civilian names but are not found in war names. War names are therefore suggestive
of a future-oriented sense of agency characterized by a desire to bring to fruition a
specific and desirable outcome. War names are therefore “a hidden transcript” (Brink-
man 2004:12) through which guerillas express their true feelings about the govern-
ment they were fighting. The surnames appear to be a dialogue wherein the guerilla
fighters are venting their feelings “against the colonial state” (Brinkman 2004:10).
There are also names in the data corpus that are drawn from literature in African
languages. Names such as Chaminuka, from the 1963 novel Feso “the rising white
spear” by Mutsvairo, reflect processes of entextualization as the name is associated
with a legendary hero who led the defense of the Rozwi empire against invaders.
The novel is an allegory of the conflict between Zimbabweans and the British. The
use of such a name in war naming practices reflects an astute understanding of the
past in nationalistic circles (Kahari 1982).
Names of female combatants
Most female names reflect a similar pattern to those of male combatants. All
surnames are in Shona whereas the first names are a mix of Shona and English.
There are “conventional” English first names such as Susan, Violet, Martha, and
Lucia, all of which can be found in civilian naming practices (see Makoni et al. 2007).
However, another set of names are either verbs or nouns that are rarely used as
proper nouns, for example, Resistance and No Rest and Fix. There is a small set of
names about 2% whose origins are from Afrikaans, a language associated with South
Africa and particularly the apartheid regime. For example, in the name Pfutseki
Mabhunu “f_ _ _ off you whites,” the first name is a Shona rendition of the
Afrikaans curse word voetsek. Pfutseki has a more offensive sense than the Afrikaans
“voetsek.” By and large, however, there were no significant differences between male
and female war naming practices.
Discussion
In this article, we set out to establish a connection between language and war by
analyzing names assigned to war combatants during Zimbabwe’s Chimurenga war.
In analyzing the names, the focus was on the potential implications of war naming
practices on language planning, language ideology, and entextualization. Even though
naming is a potential source of language planning, it has only recently been viewed
as a resource for framing language planning, a position which seems to be changing
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LANGUAGE PLANNING, LANGUAGE IDEOLOGY AND ENTEXTUALIZATION
gradually (see the 2007 special issue of the Journal of Current Issues in Language
Planning). The creation of new words, or the acquisition of new meanings for old
words, is all part of the process of corpus planning. The difference, however, in war
naming practices is that this form of language planning is from the bottom up.
Similarly, the use of localized varieties of English in naming raises the question of
the relationship between language ideologies in naming practices and the nature of
language planning involved. Typically, in language planning, the variety of language
being promoted and developed is a standard and not a localized one. War names
challenge this aspect of language planning and at the same time provide concrete
examples of bottom-up language planning.
From the perspective of a normative standard of language ideology, names such as
Addmore and Trymore may be analyzed as a combination of independent morphemes;
while perhaps from an emic view of the war combatants, the names constitute
a chunk, or a fused lect (Auer 1999). The frequency of their occurrence means the
process of this form of compounding is quite common. When a multilingual approach
is adopted which treats the two names as a single proposition, their meanings become
easily apparent: some of the names and surnames seem to be a description of a
prevailing state of affairs. Newman Hondo “the new individual to the war,” and
Trymore Magorira, (Try harder liberation fighters) wherein the guerillas are urged
to try harder. It is relatively easy to conceive of a state of affairs in which a newly-
recruited guerilla may describe himself as a new individual to the war, or in which a
third person calls upon the guerillas to try harder to achieve their goals. The names
describe a prevailing state of affairs or a desired one. The striking aspect is that the
description entails drawing upon linguistic resources. The linguistic resources come
from two different languages, reflecting the type of participants’ bilingualism. The
retention of the mixed forms as names even in writing gives them some degree of
permanence or institutionalization. They can no longer be treated as fleeting and
idiosyncratic even though they might be perceived as such by outsiders. A multilin-
gual interpretation of the names means combining the meanings of the two in order
to make “ideational” sense. For example, the first name Winai makes nationalistic
sense in light of the surname Nyika, because the two combined mean “win the
country,” which was the intended outcome of the struggle. A comparable analysis can
be made of Siriyasi Tichatonga “we are serious we shall rule.”
The fact that most of the names are made up of localized varieties of English
and Shona words implies that English and Shona are strongly integrated into the
Zimbabwean milieu and this influence is also evident during wartime. Given the fact
that one of the main objectives of colonial and Rhodesian language policy was to
reduce the availability of English to African language speakers, their wide prevalence
as names indicates that English, or a variety of English, has permeated this African
society more widely than one might have expected.
The use of non-standard names is suggestive of the localization of English. The
use of Africanized English names blurs the distinctions between English and African
languages. Localization is a powerful ideology which is not restricted to language but
applies to other aspects of Zimbabwean culture such as Christianity. For instance,
Christianity in Africa introduced drums to go with church hymns. The drums
re-enact a template that exists in African societies in praise hymns. English has been
localized to the same extent that Christianity in Africa has.
206 BUSI MAKONI et al.
By and large, the war on independence in Zimbabwe had two main dimensions;
both guns in the field and discourses in contexts emerging from the names given to
the guerillas. War discourses and the languaging of the war were constantly evolving
and dynamic. Some of the war discourses were to become part of everyday Zimba-
bwean discourses after the war. For the discourses to circulate, they had to be reified
and extracted from one context and embedded in another context or (re)entextualized
(Bucholtz 2009; Sarangi 2009). Karigoga is an instance of entextualization (i.e.
extracting discourse from its original context and then re-inserting it into a new
context). An excellent example of entextualization is Bvuma, a popular name during
the war, meaning “concede.” This name was to become the title of a popular song
by one of Zimbabwe’s top musicians, Oliver Mutukudzi. If the target of the critique
in Oliver Mutukudzi’s song Bvuma is now Robert Mugabe, it is indeed ironic that
when the name was introduced before being entextualized, it named the aspirations
of Robert Mugabe who led combatants to dislodge Ian Smith. Some other examples
of entextualization are the use of words originating from other languages with which
the combatants had been in contact. The process of entextualization is also apparent
in the use of names derived from Zimbabwean African literature thus providing the
literature with a certain degree of nationalistic legitimacy. The entextualization of
discourses from African literature is ironic because literature in African languages
was initially produced under the tight auspices of a government controlled institution
which censored most of it.
Conclusion
Even though naming is an instance of everyday linguistic practices, an analysis of
naming practices is invaluable because it provides insight into the interplay between
language ideologies and language planning. Language planning and language ideolo-
gies provide analytical frameworks within which naming may occur. In this regard,
sociology, constrains the type of naming practices which are “authenticable” (Heller
2008) and popular to communities in times of war. Names in wartime are discoursed
as much as those used in peacetime. After all, any name is paradigmatically possible,
but names that violate sociological norms may not be acceptable. For example, a
name praising racist behavior or white supremacy would violate the expected norms
and philosophical convictions of a liberation movement.
In this article we have argued that war naming practices are based on exactly the
same principles as those on which names in peace are generally based. War names,
like other names in peacetime, are texts that provide a dialogue in which the
namers/named are engaged with society at large. In wartime, the discourse that
emerges from the names constructs the enemy as the “evil other” who must be wiped
out. Furthermore, war naming practices give insight into language planning and lan-
guage ideology. Entextualization also plays a significant role in war naming practices.
The use of names drawn from other languages suggests the need to stress the degree
to which heterogeneity, multiplicity, and variability are constitutive of linguistic
practice (Nicolai 2008). These sociolinguistic processes are of course significantly
facilitated in part through the contacts between war combatants and their host
communities.
207
LANGUAGE PLANNING, LANGUAGE IDEOLOGY AND ENTEXTUALIZATION
Note
1 These are in fact highly unusual in this form as
surnames. Surnames of British origin when they
contain a personal name are usually based on a
patronymic, indicated by the suffix “son” or just “s”;
e.g. from the Christian name Peter, the surnames are
Peterson or Peters, but not normally just “Peter.”
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Notes on contributors
Sinfree Makoni and Busi Makoni are scholars in the Department of Applied Linguis-
tics and African and African American Studies, of the College of Liberal Arts
in Pennsylvania State University. Their esteemed colleague, Charles Pfukwa, is a
scholar in the University of Masvingo State, Zimbabwe. Correspondence to Professor
Makoni: (sbm12@psu.edu).
Author contacts: Busi Makoni: Department of Applied Linguistics and African and
African American Studies, The College of Liberal Arts, Pennsylvania State University,
State College, PA 16802, USA. sud17@psu.edu
Sinfree Makoni: Department of Applied Linguistics and African and African
American Studies. The College of Liberal Arts, Pennsylvania State University, State
College, PA 16802,USA. sbm12@psu.edu
Charles Pfukwa: University of Masvingo State, Zimbabwe.
